Anyone with open commissions who wants to do some #art for NetBSD?
We've got a budget for paying for some concept art and can later talk about working with you on some merch. DM us!
Naturally, we cannot accept contributions using generative AI.
... and, yeah, we received $120,282 USD in total. Naturally, this has completely filled up our donations target bar which was set at $50,000. Time to fund some projects!
We got around 120 donations in September, it's a lot to sort through. Thanks everyone!
Apparently, we get notifications when people add us to collections now.
Apparently, someone added us to a collection called "Linux Distros & Desktop Environments", which is of course Deeply Unacceptable.
We gain on average 800 new followers per year, but in the last year (since before Linus made the GenAI-code-in-Linux posts) we gained around 1200.
It's great to see the wave of new interest. We're a community that's had 30 years to develop its culture, and things here might work a little bit differently than you expect. But don't let that discourage you from getting involved. This mastodon-account-manager first became a developer in 2018, and it's easily one of the best things she ever did.
NetBSD 10.2 released. https://blog.NetBSD.org/tnf/entry/netbsd_10_2_released
Three NetBSD talks from #EuroBSDCon 2026 that you can watch today:
Linux Compatibility with @sborrill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_1x70mciQw&t=8125s
I/O and theorems and barriers, oh my! with @riastradh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_1x70mciQw&t=12120s
Using modern NetBSD to get a system from 1983 running https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcOPLWc-_UE&t=18205s
Hope you're all doing well, and happy hacking.
Some NetBSD 9.0 history. Why was this such an important release?
It was the first to run on arm hardware in 64-bit mode, i.e. aarch64. It already supported UEFI booting and S905/RK3328/RK3399/A64. Since then it's become one of our most popular and well-supported archs.
It added NVMM, which allowed hardware-accelerating QEMU VMs on x86.
It added tons of new security / QA features, including kernel address and undefined behaviour sanitizers.
It contained our first production-ready ZFS port.
It's time to say farewell to the legendary netbsd-9 branch with one final release, NetBSD 9.5. The original 9.0 was released in February 2020.
In the meantime, that freshly released NetBSD 11.0 is looking pretty tempting. NetBSD 10.2 will also be released promptly.
thorpej added support for techav's "Wrap030" homebrew Motorola 68000 computer. https://freshbsd.org/netbsd/src/commit/buDJHaLy2w0sqAQG
Naturally, source code is available. For the computer. https://github.com/techav-homebrew/Wrap030
I've been hearing noise about Microsoft trying to make Windows 11 usable with 8GB RAM in wake of the shortage.
Behold, 16MB: https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/dmesgd?do=view&id=8726
Yes, we can count to 11!
Added hb68k, a new port targeting home-designed and home-built computers designed around Motorola 68000-based processors, often distributed as DIY electronics kits.
https://freshbsd.org/netbsd/src/commit/5VZn8FqRGWpDGcOG
"I'm working with other 68k-home-brewers to get support for their systems integrated."
Do you like accessibility? Do you want to make our software more accessible? Paid project.
https://wiki.netbsd.org/projects/project/flite/
Requires a good proposal/application to be written.
Having to contend with the internal conflict over technically being a Brand Account right now.
Anyway, install NetBSD. We don't get anything if you do, but it'll be good for you. You know that Raspberry Pi you bought in 2020 and has been sitting in a drawer ever since? How about that old laptop that's seen better days?
If you're running a release in the 10.x or 9.x series you might want to update to the stable branch to get the latest OpenSSL security fixes.
The last two weeks of changes have brought us many new sensor drivers for the Sun Ultra 45, and a new audio driver for the SGI Iris Indigo.
Also, initial support for the PowerPC 440 core and 460EX SoC, used on ACube Systems embedded hardware.
In less retro news, a ~1% performance for some ARM platforms. The -11 release is pending on security issues in OpenSSL, expat, and unbound, since our day keeps getting ruined.
Windows 11 or NetBSD 11... only one will never have ads in the default install.
#NetBSD 11.0 RC3 was tagged and will soon be shipped to a http or ftp server near you.
The decision was made to delay the release and make another RC because of a number of important fixes being pulled up. This included ZFS and swap reliability fixes, improvements to support for allwinner risc-v hardware, and a curses compatibility fix.
Like a few of you pointed out, NetBSD* became 33 years old yesterday.
In unrelated news, ow, my back...
* As in, our version control repository. The first commit was made on 21 March 1993.