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<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title">
<a name="chap-intro"></a>Chapter. ×hat is NetBSD?</h2></div></div></div>
<div class="toc">
<p><b>Table of Contents</b></p>
<dl class="toc">
<dt><span class="sect1"><a href="chap-intro.html#chap-intro-story">1.1. The story of NetBSD</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="sect1"><a href="chap-intro.html#chap-intro-features">1.2. NetBSD features</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="sect1"><a href="chap-intro.html#chap-intro-platforms">1.3. Supported platforms</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="sect1"><a href="chap-intro.html#chap-intro-target-users">1.4. NetBSD's target users</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="sect1"><a href="chap-intro.html#chap-intro-applications">1.5. Applications for NetBSD</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="sect1"><a href="chap-intro.html#chap-intro-howto-get">1.6. How to get NetBSD</a></span></dt>
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<p>
NetBSD is a free, fast, secure, and highly portable Unix-like Open Source
operating system. It is available for many platforms, from 64-bit x86
servers and PC desktop systems to embedded ARM and MIPS based devices.
Its clean design and advanced features make it excellent in both
production and research environments, and it is user-supported with
complete source. Many applications are easily available through pkgsrc,
the NetBSD Packages Collection.</p>
<div class="sect1">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="chap-intro-story"></a>1.1. Ôhe story of NetBSD</h2></div></div></div>
<p>The first version of NetBSD (0.8) dates back to 1993 and
springs from the 4.3BSD Lite operating system, a version of
Unix developed at the University of California, Berkeley (BSD
= Berkeley Software Distribution), and from the 386BSD
system, the first BSD port to the Intel 386 CPU. In the
following years, modifications from the 4.4BSD Lite
release (the last release from the Berkeley group) were integrated
into the system. The BSD branch of Unix has had a great importance
and influence on the history of Unix-like operating systems, to which
it has contributed many tools, ideas and improvements which are now
standard: the vi editor, the C shell, job control, the Berkeley
fast file system, reliable signals, support for virtual memory and
TCP/IP, just to name a few. This tradition of research and
development survives today in the BSD systems and, in particular, in
NetBSD.</p>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="chap-intro-features"></a>1.2. ÎetBSD features</h2></div></div></div>
<p>NetBSD operates on a vast range of hardware platforms and is very
portable. The full source to the NetBSD kernel and userland is
available for all the supported platforms; please see the details on
the official site of
the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.NetBSD.org/" target="_top">NetBSD Project</a>.</p>
<p>A detailed list of NetBSD features can be found at: <a class="ulink" href="http://www.NetBSD.org/about/features.html" target="_top">http://www.NetBSD.org/about/features.html</a>.</p>
<p>The basic features of NetBSD are:</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
<li class="listitem"><p>Code quality and correctness</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>Portability to a wide range of hardware</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>Secure defaults</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>Adherence to industry standards</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>Research and innovation</p></li>
</ul></div>
<p>These characteristics bring also indirect advantages.
For example, if you work on just one platform you could think that
you're not interested in portability.
But portability is tied to code quality; without a well written and
well organized code base it would be impossible to support a large
number of platforms.
And code quality is the base of any good and solid software system,
though surprisingly few people seem to understand it.</p>
<p>One of the key characteristics of NetBSD is that its developers
are not satisfied with partial implementations.
Some systems seem to have the philosophy of <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">If it works, it's
right</span>”</span>.
In that light NetBSD's philosophy could be described as <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">It
doesn't work unless it's right</span>”</span>.
Think about how many overgrown programs are collapsing
under their own weight and <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">features</span>”</span> and you'll understand
why NetBSD tries to avoid this situation at all costs.</p>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="chap-intro-platforms"></a>1.3. Óupported platforms</h2></div></div></div>
<p>NetBSD supports many platforms, including the popular
PC platform (i386 and amd64), SPARC and UltraSPARC, Alpha,
Amiga, Atari, and m68k and PowerPC based Apple Macintosh machines.
Technical details for all of them can be found on <a class="ulink" href="http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/" target="_top">the NetBSD site</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="chap-intro-target-users"></a>1.4. ÎetBSD's target users</h2></div></div></div>
<p>The NetBSD site states that: <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">The NetBSD Project provides a
freely available and redistributable system that professionals,
hobbyists, and researchers can use in whatever manner they
wish</span>”</span>.
It is also an ideal system if you want to learn Unix,
mainly because of its adherence to standards (one of the project
goals) and because it works equally well on the latest PC
hardware as well as on hardware which is considered obsolete
by many other operating systems. To learn and use
Unix you don't need to buy expensive hardware; you can use that old
PC or Mac in your attic. It is important to note that although NetBSD
runs on old hardware, modern hardware is well supported and care has
been taken to ensure that supporting old machines does not inhibit
performance on modern hardware.
In addition, if you need a Unix system which runs consistently on a
variety of platforms, NetBSD is probably your best choice.</p>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="chap-intro-applications"></a>1.5. Ápplications for NetBSD</h2></div></div></div>
<p>Aside from the standard Unix productivity tools, editors,
formatters, C/C++ compilers and debuggers and so on that are included
with the base system, there is a huge collection of packages
(currently over 8,000) that can be installed both from source and in
pre-compiled form.
All the packages that you expect to find on a well configured system
are available for NetBSD for free. The framework that makes this possible,
pkgsrc, also includes a number of commercial applications.
In addition, NetBSD provides binary emulation for various other *nix
operating systems, allowing you to run non-native applications.
Linux emulation is probably the most relevant example. You can run
the Linux versions of</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
<li class="listitem"><p>Firefox</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>the Adobe Flash player plugin</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>Acrobat Reader</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>many other programs</p></li>
</ul></div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="chap-intro-howto-get"></a>1.6. Èow to get NetBSD</h2></div></div></div>
<p>NetBSD is an Open Source operating system, and as such it is freely
available for download from
<a class="ulink" href="ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org" target="_top">ftp.NetBSD.org</a> and
its <a class="ulink" href="http://www.NetBSD.org/mirrors/" target="_top">mirrors</a>.</p>
<p>There is no <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">official</span>”</span> supplier of
NetBSD CD-ROMs but there are various resellers.
You can find the most up to date list on the relevant
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.NetBSD.org/sites/cdroms.html" target="_top">page</a> on
the NetBSD site.</p>
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