I'm completely new to the NetBSD system, but i'm planning to
test it on my axppci33, and replace Linux if it would be
better for me. Deorganization, tons of "the only right"
distributions, making in "user friendly" by some companies
- it's not for me, user who want good, stable operating
system with a warranty of being well maintained in a future,
and really user friendly (meaning i know and decide what's
going on).

But here is my questions (about NetBSD current):

1) How much memory/swap space should i reserve. I have 64MB 
RAM, but how much swap should i have - it depends of course
of what i will use, but please send me some hints.

2) What's the difference between NetBSD partition and DOS/Linux
partition table. Will i be able to read foreign DOS/Windoze
hard disk from NetBSD ? Can NetBSD read linux filesystem? 
Can i read filesystem on WHOLE unpartitioned disk (like
mount /dev/hdc /mnt under linux)

3) Tell me shortly what are disk device naming under NetBSD.
What's the names for normal devices and raw devices.
Lack of raw devices makes writing HQ animation/video processing
software at least difficult, sometimes impossible.
Buffered devices uses about 5% CPU per each MB/s read from disks.
Will requesting read from raw device directly to graphics card
address space (see question 5) cause bypassing main memory (which
is slow on axppci33) and speed up things.

4) Has it driver for Soundblaster 16 Vibra, and
  a) does kernel PnP (Plug and Pray -)) implementation works.
  b) does linux isapnptools works in NetBSD.

5) Is it possible to access physical address space from user-level
program (running with root privileges) ?
I will often need it to test/program some homemade things, but
dont like to write kernel-level code (and reboot each time).

5) Will my S3 Trio64V+ be usable with NetBSD/X windows.

6) Will my IDE controller be usable (performance doesn't matter
much, it will be only for foreign disks)

7) How to make use of pkgsrc ? It contains only patches, but where
are sources?! Are there precompiled packages for Alpha somewhere ?

8) Is there something like 
   a) linux hdparm
   b) scsiinfo/scsiformat
   c) linux kbd package (to set up Polish keyboard and font).

9) Will i understand networking subsystem -) (I understand Linux
networking well - at least i think it's well).

10) What's the UVM exactly and why it's better ? There a lot of
places in netbsd homepage containing the word UVM.

11) Is there any MP3 encoding software available (i would 
prefer free software of course) for alpha.

12) Will DEC Unix Netscape work under NetBSD ?

Sorry if it's too many questions at a time.

Happy not intel dependent

					Wojciech Puchar