Miles Nordin <carton@Ivy.NET> writes:
> I suspect NetBSD
> provides an unusually happy development environment.  We do a lot of work
> with the toolchain and have much more complete online documentation than
> Linux.  The ability to run on Hardware That Doesn't Suck is a big plus for
> a low-level developer, too.

* we don't tend to get that work on the toolchain back into mainline
GNU toolchain released.

* only recently have people started making cross-compilation really
work.  of course, to be done sanely, this requires that there be some
cross-tools sources which compile in a sane way.  There aren't.
(unless you can go into gnu/dist and ./configure and make on a
non-NetBSD, host, it's insane.  pkgsrc/cross at this point is insanity
pre-packed in the straightjacket for you, and even it doesn't provide
tools for some of the common embedded systems targets.)


> The <include> files are a typical
> glibc mess, the kernel is a notoriously poor example, and there is a
> paucity of textbooks available which discuss the internals of the
> OS.

As opposed to the textbooks available for BSD?

For instance, take the most-recommended books, the 4.3 and 4.4 design
and implementation book.  Now, I never hacked virgin 4.3 so i can't
say, but at least parts of the 4.4 book are ... more optimistic about
what the code did than appropriate.  Further, in large part (really,
probably except for the discussions about probably the scheduler,
mbufs, and, for some of the BSDs -- and growing fewer by the day --
the buffer cache, they're _way_ out of date.  vnode interfaces?
close, but not quite (and not in enought detail to be particularly
useful).  VM?  "uh, no."  MI/MD interface abstractions?  no so much
any more, getting less so as time goes on.


cgd
-- 
Chris Demetriou - cgd@netbsd.org - http://www.netbsd.org/People/Pages/cgd.html
Disclaimer: Not speaking for NetBSD, just expressing my own opinion.