Re: I may be on the wrong list (NetBSD noob), sorry. Help?

[Jochen Kunz <jkunz%unixag-kl.fh-kl.de@localhost>]

On Wed, 2 Jul 2008 19:25:34 -0600
"s. keeling" <keeling%nucleus.com@localhost> wrote:

> Where's a NetBSD Dummies Guide online?
http://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/index.html
(It is only two mouse clicks away from the start page.)

> What's the NetBSD equivalent of:
> 
>    dpkg-reconfigure $some_server
> 
>    aptitude update && aptitude upgrade && aptitude install $blah
The way to update NetBSD is to build the world from source yourself.
I have to admit that this is not a convinient way for a non-programmer
person. Currently NetBSD does not provide automated binarty updates.
(Though you can always get binaries from the autobuild cluster instead
of compiling them yourself.)

NetBSD does not provide some (semi) automated setup scripts. If you
wane configure some subsystem you have to do everything yourself by
editing the apropriate configuration files. This is laborious at first
sight, as you have to learn all the details about that subsystem and
how to configure it. But this is exactely why I love NetBSD. There is
no fancy admin GUI or the like that gets in my way and that I need to
learn how to work around. I am controling my computer, not some admin
GUI, that tries to guess what I want, takes control over my machine and
does what it thinks I could have meant insted of giving me control to
do it myself.

Administering NetBSD is not easy. You will learn a lot. The learning
curve is steep. But once you got up that hill things will come easy.

> I've NetBSD Sparc 3.1 Disk 1 installed so far.  What now?
http://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/index.html
Note that the pakage system is independent from the base system. (A big
advantage, as a broken pakage database etc. will not break the base
system.)

You may want to switch your machine to -current. -current is quite
stable at the moment. There are some improvements in -current for
ULTRAsparc that are worthwhile to get. (Mostly working pthreads.)
http://www.netbsd.org/docs/current/index.html
-- 


tsch__,
       Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/