$NetBSD$ NetBSD ------ NetBSD is a free, fast, secure, and highly portable Unix-like Open Source operating system. It is available for a wide range of platforms, from large-scale servers and powerful desktop systems to handheld and embedded devices. PowerPC, Alpha, SPARC, MIPS, SH3, ARM, amd64, i386, m68k, VAX: Of course it runs NetBSD. What is the NetBSD Project? --------------------------- The NetBSD Project is an international collaborative effort of a large group of people, to produce a freely available and redistributable UNIX-like operating system, NetBSD. In addition to our own work, NetBSD contains a variety of other free software, including 4.4BSD Lite2 from the University of California, Berkeley. One of the primary focuses of the NetBSD project has been to make the base OS highly portable. This has resulted in NetBSD being ported to a large number of hardware platforms. NetBSD is also interoperable, implementing many standard APIs and network protocols, and emulating many other systems' ABIs. NetBSD is distributed in three forms: formal releases, maintenance branches, and NetBSD-current. Formal releases are done periodically and include well-tested binaries, source code, and installation tools. Maintenance branches usually provide bug and security fixes and minor enhancements. NetBSD-current is a nightly distribution of the latest development sources, meant for people who want the absolute latest software, and don't mind an occasional bug. NetBSD is largely supported by users, via Usenet newsgroups, mailing lists, and direct contributions. If you're having a problem, it's likely that someone will have seen it before and will be able to help you. The NetBSD Foundation is incorporated in the United States as a tax-exempt corporation (under Section 501(c)(3) of the US Internal Revenue Code) that devotes itself to the traditional goals and spirit of the NetBSD Project and owns the trademark of the word "NetBSD". Building -------- NetBSD is designed to be buildable on most POSIX-compliant host systems. The basic build procedure is the same whether compiling natively (on the same NetBSD architecture) or cross compiling (on another architecture or OS). This source tree contains a special subtree, "tools", which uses the host system to create a build toolchain for the target architecture. The host system must have at least C and C++ compilers in order to create the toolchain (make is not required); all other tools are created as part of the NetBSD build process. (See BUILDING for more information.) Tests ----- The NetBSD test suite provides a collection of automated tests for two major purposes. On the one hand, the test suite aids developers in catching bugs and regressions in the code when they are performing modifications to the source tree. On the other hand, the test suite allows end users (and, in particular, system administrators) to verify that fresh installations of the NetBSD operating system behave correctly in their hardware platform and also to ensure that the system does not suffer from regressions during regular system operation and maintenance. The NetBSD tests are implemented using the Automated Testing Framework (ATF), a third-party package shipped with NetBSD; see atf(7) for details. The NetBSD test suite is distributed as a separate installation set, named tests.tgz, and the test programs are all installed under the /usr/tests hierarchy. Useful resources ---------------- https://www.netbsd.org/ The NetBSD Project https://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/ The NetBSD Guide https://www.netbsd.org/mirrors/ NetBSD Mirror Sites http://man.netbsd.org/ NetBSD Manual Pages https://www.netbsd.org/mailinglists/ NetBSD Mailing Lists https://nxr.netbsd.org/ NetBSD Cross-Reference https://www.pkgsrc.org pkgsrc