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messe 5 hours ago

> most portable os

Eh... I think the Linux kernel + your choice of libc/userland has it beat these days.

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lproven 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The Linux kernel dropped 386 support fourteen years ago.

https://www.theregister.com/2012/12/12/linux_no_longer_runs_...

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messe 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm well aware, thank you. I'm not contesting ability to run on a 386, I'm contesting the title of "most portable OS".

	▲	lproven 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		OK. In context -- discussing an article talking specifically about AMD 386 chips -- that was not at all clear. I was at a talk celebrating NetBSD's 30th anniversary. I wrote about it: https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/17/30yo_netbsd_releases_... They're well aware of this. But as Linux edges closer to dropping 32-bit x86 completely -- most distros already have -- I think NetBSD may suddenly regain some relevance in this specific area. There's also a new initiative to improve its jails facility: https://netbsd-jails.petermann-digital.de/

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anthk 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Modern Linux can't even scratch a 486 and some Motorola platforms. Or VAX. Heck, I run NetBSD 10.1 vanilla under simh 3.8 for 9front emulated on an amd64 laptop (old Celeron, 2GB). Slow, but enough to play Slashem.

On portability on compilers, plan9/9front it's unbeatable. Do you now Go compiling from any OS to any arch? The same here, but just for an OS obviously. Albeit I can still run Golang under i386, and tools like Rclone under 9front i386. That's really cool.

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messe 4 hours ago | parent [-]

That's a very limited view of what portability means.

Driver support for a niche SoC? Good luck getting NetBSD on before Linux. The sheer amount of SoCs supported by the Linux kernel dwarfs anything NetBSD has to offer.

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spijdar 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, NetBSD's support for modern hardware isn't amazing compared to Linux. I love it (and run my personal web server on it!), but the portability thing feels like a meme from the 4.4BSD days, where it ran on basically every workstation platform.

Like sure, it runs on my VAX, my Sun4/75, and my Alpha box, but it doesn't run on my POWER9 workstation nor does it run my Amlogic A311D ARM device (at least in a usable capacity), and I couldn't even get i.MX 8M running. I didn't try super hard, to be fair, but why would I burn cycles getting an OS with less peripheral support running when Linux "just works"?

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hulitu 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't think Linux "just works" on VAX, Sun4/75, or Alpha.

My experience with Linux on a Sun Sparcstation 20 circa 2000 was that it was slow as hell compared to Net or OpenBSD.

	▲	messe 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I doubt NetBSD "just works" fully on those systems either. I see a lot of rose tinted glasses when NetBSD portability comes up. Those older systems barely get stress tested, as the system has become too large to be self-hosted on them anymore and has to resort to using cross compilation to build a working base. At least OpenBSD, when it says it supports a platform, _actually supports that platform_, and the system is stable enough that it can build itself.

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actionfromafar 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Modern Linux dropped support for a lot of old and niche CPUs.

	▲	messe 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		And NetBSD is missing support for an order of magnitude more SoCs. I like NetBSD. I've run it on several systems in the past, and not just as a toy. I like the whole BSD family, and even deploy FreeBSD in production at work, and use OpenBSD on my home router. But NetBSD's claim as the most portable OS doesn't hold up these days.