Let's Help NetBSD Cross the Finish Line Before 2025 Ends
42 points by jaypatelani
42 points by jaypatelani
I have a few friends who like to give a few $ now and then to good causes. This would be a good one, even for non-technical people, because it can be explained so easily for certain things:
"Windows and most Linux distros aren't supporting old PCs any more. Instead of those computers going to landfills, people can run NetBSD as a modern OS instead."
I'm going to give this a try and see if I can scrounge up a few donations :)
Old Linux distros can often run on old hardware. How many old computers that can't run neither new nor old Linux distros are there really? And is that tiny slice of the pie valuable to keep alive, or does that hardware use so much power that an arduino or raspberry pie would be better for the environment?
It's often not quite as simple as that. People all over the world have no choice about what kind of hardware they have beyond what's available. If someone only has a netbook, or a 32 bit Mac mini, or even a power hungry Pentium 4, it's not really on us to say that they should replace it with something newer and more power efficient, unless we're also offering them the replacement hardware.
At the same time, many distros want to end support for 32 bit Raspberry Pi variants and other 32 bit Arm systems, so we're in the same position even if we do want to give people more power efficient machines.
Likewise, people shouldn't have to run old and possibly less secure OSes and software because their machines are older. There's no good reason to run an outdated Linux distro just because most have ended support for 32 bit, for instance, rather than run a modern OS and up to date software.
Sure, you might not want to run modern Firefox on a machine with 512 megs of memory, but, for instance, pkgsrc has Firefox 52 ESR (old, but with up to date security patches), Artic Fox and others that are intended for slower / older machines with less memory.
These are all good points! Thanks for the informative explanation. NetBSD makes more sense to me now.
Firefox 52 ESR (old, but with up to date security patches),
Which package is that? At least www/firefox52 says it's explicitly unsupported and looking at the commits touching it, that does seem to be the case – as best as I can tell it last got a security update in 2018.
Here you can find information https://pkgsrc.se/www/firefox52
Mainly it will be on mailing list conversations
That seems to be the same package, with the mention of it being unsupported and all, and no security updates in several years.
esr version is 140 https://pkgsrc.se/www/firefox-esr
I am aware. What I'm interested in is the 52ESR-but-up-to-date-security ~johnklos claimed exists but which I cannot find evidence of
I see Makefile updated just 6 days ago
https://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/pkgsrc/www/firefox52/Makefile?rev=1.109
Heavy NetBSD user here going back to the 1.5 days, with a Macintosh IIci and Mac mini G4 that both run full time. I also have bootable volumes for the AlphaPC 164LX, WorkPad z50, HP Jornada 690, Cobalt RaQ 2 and Power Mac 7300. It's wonderful how much it supports.
One of my first jobs (at uni) used NetBSD machines. That was my first real exposure to sysadmin work, using CLI tools extensively, and C. It also got me in the habit of using ssh, vi, and friends for my core dev work. I sometimes wonder how different my flow (and possibly career) would be if not for this experience.
I’ve had to use Linux ever since - but I am always curious to dig into the BSDs again.
Donation link: https://netbsd.org/donations/