Updated (2021-12-14): When I installed NetBSD for the first time, I remember I’d to collect bits and pieces of information from different places, some of which were rather old and outdated. So, I’ve decided to write this stuff down and publish it here. Hope that it helps anyone looking to install and configure NetBSD as a laptop/desktop daily driver, if it helps one single soul, I’d be happy! I'll try to keep this updated on a regular basis. I got this 2014 laptop* without a hard drive, but with 8GB of RAM. How large should the hard drive be? Looking on the web and asking a few questions, I concluded that NetBSD wouldn’t require that much for a full install. So I bought a 30GB SSD for $20 and placed it in this laptop. Then, I installed NetBSD-9.2_STABLE from an usb, as described in, the guide . Choose keyboard -> Install to hard disk -> Full installation -> Use the entire disk, then set the sizes of the partitions, / 26GB swap 2GB if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); } When the base install was finished, I let dhcp configure my network connection automatically, set the console keyboard, created a root password, set the root shell to /bin/ksh and configure the system to use the correct pkgin mirror . On this install, I’ve chosen not to set-up pkgsrc . Keep it simple to start with and, to be honest, I think a larger hard drive would be handy to build packages from source using pkgsrc , as the build directory needs some space to grow during the building process. Note: I'm currently building quite a few packages with pkgsrc and so far, so good. No issues with the disk size, just remember to always clean the build ( make clean , make clean-depends and make distclean ) before you start the next one 😉 I always choose to add a system user after installing, so that’s what I’ve done this time as well. After installing and rebooting the system, login as root and… # pkgin install doas dbus spectrwm slock firefox vim scrot xpdf-4 gtar xz montserrat git-base desktop-file-utils feh mozilla-rootcerts-openssl featherpad qt5ct redshift For my needs, I also install hunspell-sv_SE , but your needs may be slightly different 😉 I use spectrwm , but obviously, you can replace it with whatever wm you prefer. Note that, spectrwm needs a screenlock to function, therefore I'm pulling slock . Next copy some start up files to /etc/rc.d # cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/dbus /etc/rc.d/ if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); } Add these to /etc/rc.conf with the following: rpcbind=YES dbus=YES if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); } If, like me, you have an Intel processor and would like to have the intel-microcode updated, remember Meltdown and Spectre?! Install the intel-microcode package, # pkgin install intel-microcode-netbsd copy the start-up script to /etc/rc.d # cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/intel-microcode /etc/rc.d/ add microcode=YES to your rc.conf and reboot. Once again, login as root and add an user # useradd -g wheel -G users -s /bin/ksh -c "your real name" -m user_name # passwd user_name if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); } Make sure your user_name has been added to wheel (check /etc/group ). If not, add it now. Create the /usr/pkg/etc/doas.conf file according to your needs. Here's mine as an example, #doas.conf permit :wheel permit nopass user_name cmd reboot permit nopass user_name cmd shutdown if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); } Reboot, login as the new user and configure your stuff, things like .xinitrc , .shrc , .Xresources , ... Next time you login, you can issue startx to launch the graphical environment on your install. For wireless configuration using dhcpcd and wpa_supplicant see this archived post by @JuvenalUrbino . Also, by the same author there are quite a few very interesting and valuable tutorials, among others on how to set-up a firewall and configuring external media automount . Visit the archive for further information. Enjoy NetBSD! *HP EliteBook 820 G1 $ sysctl hw.machine_arch hw.model hw.ncpu hw.usermem64 hw.machine_arch = x86_64 hw.model = Intel 686-class hw.ncpu = 4 hw.usermem64 = 8448819200 $ pcictl pci0 list 000:00:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) Host Bridge, DRAM (host bridge, revision 0x0b) 000:02:0: Intel HD Graphics (GT2) (VGA display, revision 0x0b) 000:03:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) Mini HD audio (mixed mode multimedia, revision 0x0b) 000:20:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) USB xHCI (USB serial bus, xHCI, revision 0x04) 000:22:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) MEI (miscellaneous communications, revision 0x04) 000:25:0: Intel I218-LM Ethernet Connection (ethernet network, revision 0x04) 000:27:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) HD Audio (mixed mode multimedia, revision 0x04) 000:28:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) PCIe (PCI bridge, revision 0xe4) 000:28:3: Intel Core 4G (mobile) PCIe (PCI bridge, revision 0xe4) 000:28:5: Intel Core 4G (mobile) PCIe (PCI bridge, revision 0xe4) 000:29:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) USB EHCI (USB serial bus, EHCI, revision 0x04) 000:31:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) LPC (ISA bridge, revision 0x04) 000:31:2: Intel Core 4G (mobile) SATA Controller (AHCI) (SATA mass storage, AHCI 1.0, revision 0x04) 000:31:3: Intel Core 4G (mobile) SMBus (SMBus serial bus, revision 0x04) 002:00:0: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 WiFi (miscellaneous network, revision 0x34) 003:00:0: Realtek Semiconductor RTS5227 PCI-E Card Reader (undefined, subclass 0x00, revision 0x01) if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); }

Uh oh, this screenshot make me wana go home early and tinkering with my old Dell Vostro Laptop. Thanks man

NetBSD - A little guide for newcomers

panorain

Thank you very much for taking the time to write this out.

panorain you're welcome ?

Guide updated according to my latest changes ?

ouaille_aime_scier

Thanks @pin for this guide.
I will not go through NetBSD yet because my Intel graphics card and my Broadcom wifi card are not yet well recognized.

ouaille_aime_scier Understand that, though its a bit strange...
Intel graphics tend to be well supported, unless you have a very new machine. As for broadcom, it could be hit or miss. Although the latest stable release has support for quite a few of those, see https://www.netbsd.org/releases/formal-8/NetBSD-8.1.html

ouaille_aime_scier

@pin I have an i915 graphics card which is recognized, but there are some windowing issues behind it (window of applications that hang at the top of the screen).
The wifi card is a BCM4313 that is not yet on NetBSD (nor on FreeBSD which I actually use).

ouaille_aime_scier 😭

el-topo

A small useful mod (if you work with NetBSD at night when your family is sleeping) is to turn off console beeps. You can do this in X by adding xset b offto your .xinitrc .

More information here: https://wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/how_to_turn_off_console_beep/

el-topo Done. Added it to .xinitrc now 😉
"It's oh so quiet
It's oh so still..."

el-topo

So I have unicode working in NetBSD in most places but I wonder how I'll get rendering support for ~~japanese~~/mandarin and perhaps some emojis as well? Is it just a font issue or something else that needs to be done?

EDIT: ja-sazanami-ttfgot me Japanese at least, perhaps some mandarin is there as well, it's not that critical. Haven't got much emoji support yet so if you have some suggestions, please let me know 🙂

Also, I only want to see the characters, I don't have to enter them from my keyboard.

el-topo No clue 🙁 ...I'm a simple European 🙂
Would this help?

el-topo

pin I'm from Europe too actually (Sweden). I just want the titles of Japanese video games to display right 🙂 Your article may come in handy some time thanks, it just doesn't say much about unicode which seems to be the preferred encoding on the internet these days.

el-topo Kanske min granne då 😂 😂

el-topo

pin Jag ska kolla om grannen använder NetBSD nästa gång jag går förbi deras fönster 😉

Kolla noga om det ser ut så här 🤣

Guide updated 😉

Have decided to see how it is to be, not only systemd free, but also as far as possible, Poettering free. I'll give it a week or so without avahi and see if I notice any issues. There's no pulseaudio on my systems already. If everything is fine, I'll remove avahi from the installation guide on the first post. Comments and eventual issues I could face are welcome!

JuvenalUrbino

pin there's actually very few packages requiring it, and some others supporting the avahi daemon are not compiled against it by default (but provide it as build option)! 😛

Added the instructions described by @JuvenalUrbino about intel-microcode to the guide.