While we’ve all been deluged with new Linux releases lately, there’s a particular Unix release that flew past almost without getting a brief look at. NetBSD 6.1 was released in mid-May.
NetBSD is the Unix of today. And it’s probably about as close to the original Unix as you can get in 2013. More so than the FreeBSD project, despite its increased popularity. Due to NetBSD’s target market being very specific, it could be considered niche. Which is probably why such releases often go unnoticed by this pioneer of the Unix sector.
In summary, let’s take a look at what updates have been packed in to NetBSD 6.1:
- Userland kernel panic issues resolved
- grep vulnerabilities patched
- Security fixes in the kernel
- General kernel fixes and updates
- Kernel fixes for raid 5
- IPv6 improvements
- Issue which caused QEMU to crash has been resolved
- smbfs fixes
- ext2fs ad msdosfs 32bit compatibility mode fixed
- v7fs errors resolved
And additionally:
- Many driver support fixes, additions and improvements
- Lots of architecture and platform specific updates. x86 and ARM receiving the most attention
I have always kept NetBSD handy running in a virtual machine in Oracle VM VirtualBox. Albeit, I do not use it for anything specific other than testing and poking around in a Unix system. I installed NetBSD 6.1. It always impresses me that a minimal installation is completed in under 3 minutes. For a virtual machine environment, that’s impressive stuff.
If you’re interested in giving NetBSD a try, a list of worldwide mirrors is kept here http://www.netbsd.org/mirrors/. Chances are, your local University’s own mirror will most likely have it hosted on their mirror. And on a fast broadband connection, you’ll have the ISO ready in less than a couple minutes as the image comes in at a mere 314 and 340MB for i386 and amd64 images, respectively.
