Why would I want to use NetBSD-Athena?

Like all decisions, picking an operating system is one you should think about carefully, and you might even consider installing multiple OSes. Here we try to present some reasons why you'd pick NetBSD in a fashion not as biased as we otherwise might be.

Requirements

Memory (RAM):
NetBSD requires at least 16 megabytes of RAM to perform acceptably while running the MIT X Window System.
Disk space:
We commend devoting at least 80 megabytes of disk space (preferably more), particular if you plan on doing program development, maintaining local home directories, etc., etc.
Hardware support:
NetBSD supports a more limited cast of devices than some other i386 operating systems. As such, before purchasing a device (ethernet card, CDROM drive, sound card, etc., etc.) we recommend that you ensure that NetBSD supports it, or consider writing a driver yourself.

Pros

NetBSD offers numerous advantages over operating systems DOS/Windows, Windows95, and Windows NT:

How does it compare to Linux?

NetBSD is superiour to Linux in the following ways:

What about my Windows applications?

Although there is a project called WINE to port Windows to X (which will work on both NetBSD and Linux), it is in not near completion.

If you wish to use Windows programs, you will have to do so by booting Windows. Functionally, this means you will need to divide your hard-drive between the two (or more) OS's you chooose to use. NetBSD can read files off your DOS partitions, but the inverse is not true. Unfortunately, DOS's filesystem has severe limitations compared to NetBSD's native filesystem, and so it is not reccomended you use it for anything other than sharing files between DOS and NetBSD.

As of the 1.3 release, NetBSD supports the Linux ext2 filesystem, so it is possible to share a ext2 partition between NetBSD and Linux.

There are currently several utilities to help you run multiple operating systems, and they are well documented in the installation notes.


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