Subject: Re: Your use of NedBSD?
To: None <netbsd-help@netbsd.org>
From: James K. Lowden <jklowden@schemamania.org>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 12/16/2002 19:28:26
On Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:03:52 -0500, Sam Carleton <sam@linux-info.net>
wrote:
> 
> I thought I might take a poll.  Why do you use NetBSD?  

NetBSD is my firewall.  I installed it while I was waiting for my Linux
CDs to arrive in the mail, by downloading the sets over a dialup link. 
That was three years ago.  
NetBSD is my last OS.  When my firewall went from i368 to Sparc, the only
new thing I had to learn was to netboot.  Ditto when I get around to
employing my Vaxen.  I figure most of what I learn here I won't have to
unlearn or relearn in five years.  So far, so good.  

NetBSD is my server: www, mail, ftp, samba, ssh, talk (!).  One of these
days, Coda.  

NetBSD writes my CDs, edits my images, rejiggers and prints my ps and pdf
files.  

NetBSD is my desktop and development platform.  I use Abiword and Gnumeric
occasionally, but I spend my days and nights writing text: English, sgml,
html, C.  

I use NetBSD because I measure uptime in months.  

I use NetBSD for pkgsrc, 213 packages atm.  Even if pkgsrc doesn't have
every last program out there, it's got the all the best ones, so it's a
good place to check first.  If I don't find what I need, oftentimes Google
points me to something that, after all, turns out to be in pkgsrc.  

As a matter of fact, the only thing I don't use NetBSD for (computingwise)
is to play DVDs.  I use a Win32 box for that, because it Just Works, and
my interaction with the software is limited to starting and stopping the
player.  And rebooting the machine before every movie.  Seriously.  

I use NetBSD because the lists, the documentation, the source code, and
the web site all evince quiet intelligence.  Present company excepted, of
course. ;)

--jkl