Post by @cazabon@mindly.social
Some #NetBSD questions that keep coming up.
We don't use modules for HW drivers in the default install. All baked into the kernel. If you're curious about desktop hardware, for x86 there are lists https://wiki.netbsd.org/laptops/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/gpus/ (and the pci/usb manual pages)
x86 virtual machines. https://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-virt.html#chap-virt-guest
For disk encryption there's different options, such as creating a small root with the installer, then adding encrypted partitions later (see man cgdconfig). Also: cgdroot.
I've been looking at NetBSD's documentation over the last few days (for some reason...). I've been trying to figure out if it's suitable for large storage needs, and the FAQ/guide and man pages haven't really given me much hope for that.
First, only FFS and LFS (and ext2)? Man pages talk about tuning a filesystem for a "large" 1 TB filesystem, but that's not exactly large these days. I have several XFS filesystems because they're too big for ext4 (>16 TB), and a couple that are >100 TB. XFS also has much better performance on large filesystems. Can NetBSD realistically handle this?
Secondly, there are a couple places in the docs that imply NetBSD supports GPT, but the install guide only ever talks about MBR plus BSD disklabel. Can you avoid MBR entirely, right from install?
I realize you're probably swamped with messages at the moment, almost like people are disgusted with their current OS for some reason...
1 boost
>Can you avoid MBR entirely, right from install?
The installer asks whether you want to use GPT or MBR.
>First, only FFS and LFS (and ext2)?
Also ZFS. I don't know what the maximum size for a FFS file system is off hand.
<cough>
* http://jdebp.info/FGA/BSDs-for-Linux-users/
Two of the hyperlinked pages are directly on point for you.
I've also done a contribution to the #NetBSDGuide that went in less than a week ago, thanks to an actual #NetBSD person, dealing with GUID partitioning, and I'm working on another one, which I hope that xe will check over and also put in, updating it to dealing with modern bootstrap.
You can follow along on my system tools account.