Hello everyone,
I was wondering if any of you people is using NetBSD from a Virtual Machine.
Do you generally use NetBSD as your home workstation?
Can you suggest some single board computer pretty powerful (with at least 32GB RAM) and good video capabilities that can run NetBSD?
I mean is NetBSD just for old hardware? Is there a way to run it on more powerful stuff?
I would like to have something with working:
netbsdnoob I was wondering if any of you people is using NetBSD from a Virtual Machine.
Yes, i've ran a couple VMs for testing stuff. I am not entirely sure it that qualifies though.
netbsdnoob Do you generally use NetBSD as your home workstation?
As i've already said elsewhere my (pretty exotic) graphics setup not being supported will probably force me to stay with Linux for now (at least until i switch to more recent exotic hardware) but given i recently had the displeasure of learning that the latest Devuan (or basically Debian) release seems to have completely broken my default setup (i run multiply X servers on different virtual consoles, which has worked perfectly for ages with little to no config changes) i probably will try running NetBSD at least on my main laptop sometime in the near future. I am pretty fed up with all this so called "innovation" in Linux-land.
netbsdnoob Can you suggest some single board computer pretty powerful (with at least 32GB RAM) and good video capabilities that can run NetBSD?
This kinda sounds like you want a Single-Board-Workstation. You might be better off looking into some ordinary small form factor systems but if it absolutely has to be an SBC there is quite a list at https://hackerboards.com/. I somewhat doubt you'll find one with an integrated webcam though. As far as video acceleration goes there should be quite a bit of hardware supporting this (at least i think the semi recent Mali chipsets commonly found on ARM boards should do). I am not that sure if there is a ton of driver support in that regard though so you'll have to check.
netbsdnoob I mean is NetBSD just for old hardware?
Why would it be? Sure, as *BSD doesn't have the menpower that Linux has expecting a ton of bleeding edge support would probably be a bit overoptimistic but beyond that i don't see any problems there.
netbsdnoob Is there a way to run it on more powerful stuff?
Of course there is: You install it on powerfull hardware (which is a quite subjective thing by the way) and boot it 
I meant to reply earlier to this, but needed time to formulate a thorough answer. Probably going to split it into sections.
netbsdnoob I was wondering if any of you people is using NetBSD from a Virtual Machine.
The other way round actually; I'm running OmiOS and Solaris 11.4 virtualized on QEMU/NVMM, mainly to test pkgsrc and play with zones.
I've used NetBSD on VirtualBox (no guest additions available), Bhyve and QEMU/KVM; I think VMs are fine as long as you don't need a GUI and input devices integration. In the last scenario they become too much of a trouble for me.
NetBSD makes a good Xen host, if that's your thing.
Can you suggest some single board computer pretty powerful (with at least 32GB RAM) and good video capabilities that can run NetBSD?
As I said, if you're interested in purchasing something, and want to check whether it's going to be supported in 10.0, check out:
man page section 4 - Special Files and Hardware support
BSD Hardware Database - Computers powered by NetBSD
netbsd-users mailing list (search for keywords); subscribe and post if you're uncertain
#netbsd channel on Libera Chat; it's quite active and, you'll likely get a reply in no time.
This very forum (keep commenting on this thread in case of uncertainty)
Keeping all this in mind; the are a couple of general considerations to make regarding current desktop hardware support on NetBSD:
SSDs:
Graphics:
Ethernet : Intel wm(4), Realtek re(4), and Broadcom bge(4) NICs are well supported. I can't recommend enough my PCIe BCM5720 Broadcom NeXtreme Gigabit Ethernet adapter.
Wifi: Intel cards probably have acceptable support. Look up iwm(4) to see which chipset are supported;
alternatives: bwfm(4) athn(4). For USB dongles: urtwn(4)
Suspending . Very unpredictable. Nvidia gpus are known to prevent resuming as do some Intel wireless cards. Get a Thinkpad if you want better ACPI u
support, alongside working multimedia and brightness function keys; see thinkpad(4). Here are some Supported Thinkpads.
Audio: supported by hdaudio(4) in most scenarios (starting from embedded Intel sound chips). Some modern discrete Sound Blaster cards (Rx seriers with E-MU schips) may lack a driver (FreeBSD supports them). Sound Blaster Audigy Fx is supported by hadaudio(4), and Sound Blaster PCI 512 is supported by emuxki(4).
Webcams (USB bus); anything I tested was supported by uvideo(4) / uaudio(4)
Bluetooth: NetBSD has good bluetooth support, for USB and UART transport layers. See ubt(4) and btuart(4).
Misc: No problem with XHCI, USB and PS/2 input devices, serial ports. For SSD/MMC card readers better find a Realtek model, most likely supported by rtsx(4).
Suggestions for a workstation:
netbsdnoob Do you generally use NetBSD as your home workstation?
Yes, it dual-boots with Slackware on my workstation and it's my daily-driver on laptop.
I'm not into IT nor have to use PCs at work, so I'm quite free to run exotic operating systems wherever I like.
Also, I don't play AAA games nor use common multimedia streaming platforms (like Netflix) which aren't available on NetBSD and may represent a major showstopper for some people.
Where are you running your NetBSD?
Thinkpad T460 (amd64); everything works hardware probe
Workstation (amd64): mostly working, but a very problematic M.2 Intel Wireless/Bluetooth -AC 9260 chip (Disclaimer: after years it still doens't work well on Linux either); hardware probe. Included components
Raspberry Pi4 Model B (aarch64); hardware probe
IBM Thinkpad R61 (i386); hardware probe
PowerPC G4 Mac Mini (macppc)
Sun Netra X1 (sparc64); hadware probe
netbsdnoob
Thank you Sir/Madame!
That was great, I have a lenovo T450s where I am currently running NetBSD. But still have few issues.
I will write a separate post about that!
JuvenalUrbino I meant to reply earlier to this, but needed time to formulate a thorough answer. Probably going to split it into sections.
Your response is appreciated like always. You're one of the more informative and helpful posters on here
netbsdnoob That was great, I have a lenovo T450s where I am currently running NetBSD. But still have few issues.
A couple of things I can recommend, aside from what I already linked to you in the other thread are:
to enable 2 finger tap on the touchpad, just add:
hw.synaptics.two_fingers_emulation=1
to /etc/sysctl.conf.
There are many other synaptics parameters which you can adjust to optimize your touchpad experience.
on a laptop you'll probably want to enable devpubd, for automatic device node creation:
echo devpud=YES >> /etc/rc.conf
service devpubd start
For user mounting on nodes owned by the standard user, add to sysctl.conf:
vfs.generic.usermount=1
other useful services to have enabled: mdnsd(8) and dbus (not in base, to install from packages)
update CPU microcode: https://www.unitedbsd.com/d/436-update-cpu-microcode-on-netbsd
see how NPF works and turn on your firewall; I think @pin has a nice minimal NPF config to share.
on the latest NetBSD-10.0_BETA, as you probably noticed during your lang/racket experimentation, installing mozilla-rootcerts (something you may often come acreoss on older tutorials) is no more needed, as certificates for common sites are already provided in base, which now comes with certctl(8).
JuvenalUrbino
Thanks again, JuvenalUrbino, could you also explain what is automatic device node creation? Why do I need it on a laptop?
You mean for example when I attach a USB stick? or something like that?
Also what is "user mounting on nodes owned by the standard user" ? Could you explain that point?
JuvenalUrbino I think @pin has a nice minimal NPF config to share.
The one you wrote, I guess. Yes, I still use it, if someone is interested just grab it.
netbsdnoob could you also explain what is automatic device node creation? Why do I need it on a laptop?
You mean for example when I attach a USB stick? or something like that?
NetBSD has no devfs (unlike Linux, FreeBSD). Nodes are generated by the MAKEDEV script during installation. But this approach isn't very flexible, especially on a system where you expect to hotplug different flash storage devices.
devpubd acts like a device state/event change daemon, running the scripts found inside /libexec/devpubd-hooks whenever a new device is attached or detached.
The scripts in turn will create the required devnodes and symlink them to /dev/wdges/<part>, where <part> is the label or the generic identifier of the partition which a dk wedge was generated for.
Needless to say that this approach with shell scripts is designed to allow for customization (much like powerd and envsys). You can choose how your devices are handled and which scripts to enable.
netbsdnoob Also what is "user mounting on nodes owned by the standard user" ? Could you explain that point?
It allows the standard user to mount devices on mount points located inside their /home.
For automounting on NetBSD see automounting with Berkeley am-utils.
For power management, again see the Performance tweaks thread; at the very least you can enable noatime and nodevtime mount options, enable powerd and estd (+ potentially write a powerd script to lower CPU clock rate when battery level falls), lower default backlight level if needed, and enable DPMS on X11; you may also put storage device in sleep mode with atactl as suggested by RVP..
Oh, I was almost forgetting. You can also customize the NetBSD console with wsconsctl / wcons.conf.
For example, to use the terminus font on console, uncomment these inside /etc/wscons.conf:
font Terminus24-ISO8859-1 - - - /usr/share/wscons/fonts/ter-124n.ws
# Use Terminus (see above for available sizes)
setvar ttyE0 font Terminus24-ISO8859-1
setvar ttyE1 font Terminus24-ISO8859-1
setvar ttyE2 font Terminus24-ISO8859-1
setvar ttyE3 font Terminus24-ISO8859-1
JuvenalUrbino I've got an iBook G4 that I'd love to have running NetBSD, it currently runs OpenBSD. I'd tried installing from disk but have never gotten it to work for NetBSD. Is there any tips you have for installing NetBSD or aware of anything unusual that may not be apparent?
tcmart14 I remember following this guide
JuvenalUrbino How do I install this Terminus24 font?
netbsdnoob How do I install this Terminus24 font?
Literally just have those lines uncommented in /etc/wsconf.conf.
My wscons.conf (pruning commented parts):
# Terminus at different sizes (the wsf files carry all the necessary
# information but rc.d/wscons wants the name to be specified).
font Terminus24-ISO8859-1 - - - /usr/share/wscons/fonts/ter-124n.wsf
screen 1 - vt100
screen 2 - vt100
screen 3 - vt100
screen 4 - -
# Select a kernel builtin keyboard map by uncommenting the following line and
# altering the country code to your requirements.
# See wskbd(4) for a full list of supported options.
encoding it
# Use Terminus (see above for available sizes)
setvar ttyE0 font Terminus24-ISO8859-1
setvar ttyE1 font Terminus24-ISO8859-1
setvar ttyE2 font Terminus24-ISO8859-1
setvar ttyE3 font Terminus24-ISO8859-1
# Change keyboard repeat speed to faster settings.
setvar wskbd repeat.del1 250
setvar wskbd repeat.deln 30
I have a 1920x1080 resolution. If you're on 1366x768 you may prefer a smaller font size:
# Terminus at different sizes (the wsf files carry all the necessary
# information but rc.d/wscons wants the name to be specified).
font Terminus20-ISO8859-1 - - - /usr/share/wscons/fonts/ter-120n.wsf
# Use Terminus (see above for available sizes)
setvar ttyE0 font Terminus20-ISO8859-1
setvar ttyE1 font Terminus20-ISO8859-1
setvar ttyE2 font Terminus20-ISO8859-1
setvar ttyE3 font Terminus20-ISO8859-1
Add wscons=YES to your /etc/rc.conf
JuvenalUrbino Talking about fonts, do you know if it is possible to have glyphs and those small icons I would use with lsd in the tty?
netbsdnoob Talking about fonts, do you know if it is possible to have glyphs and those small icons I would use with lsd in the tty?
This is not possible since NetBSD console doesn't support unicode.
JuvenalUrbino I'll give this a shot! Especially since they do it off USB. I've tried USB, but didn't tinker with it too much and the Open Firmware environment didn't recognize it. Perhaps this will show me what I missed. It is a pain to have to format a CD/DVD since I'd have to pull out an older machine that rarely gets booted, haha.