Introduction

What is NetBSD?
NetBSD is an implementation of Unix for the Amiga. NetBSD is not a Unix emulator it is a complete operating system, and must be run instead of, not as well as AmigaDos.

O.K. So what is Unix?
Unix is an operating system, much like AmigaDos. Infact many of the features that make AmigaDos such a great operating system were borrowed from Unix. Unlike AmigaDos, Unix is a multiuser Operating System, which quite simply means that more than one person can use it at a time. As Unix was initially conceived in the good old days when graphics and sound on a computer were unheard of it is a heavily text based operating system. Although various Window Managers exists which allow you to run a Graphical User Interface users of Unix will still find themselves using the command line most of the time.

Why Unix?
So why then, if Unix is an old, text only operating system would you want to run it on your Amiga. Well there are a number of reasons. Firstly Unix is still widely used in the commercial sector. Most large companies have at least one Unix server. Unix is also the primary operating system used on the internet, with the majority of all web servers in existence today running under Unix Secondly there is a large amount of software available for Unix. Most of it is released as source code so if a version for your flavour of Unix doesn't exists you can compile it yourself. Languages like Java, Perl and C/C++ are freely available and can be run on an Amiga running Unix. Thirdly Unix is an extremely powerful operating system. A variety of shells are available some of which are more like a programming language than a command line. Unfortunately this power comes at a price. Modern Unix's require a large amount of disk space, a fast CPU and a lot of memory. For example the minimum configuration required for NetBSD is quoted as an 020, 4MB Ram and 65Meg of Disk Space. In order to install a more useful system a faster processor, at least 8 Megs ram and at least 150 Megabytes of hard disk are required. The more memory and disk space you have available the more comfortable to use Unix will become.

Which Unix?
Currently on the Amiga you only have two choices of Unix. NetBSD and Linux. Essentially they are two distinct dialects of Unix each with it's own set of commands and it's own look and feel.

NetBSD is based on the Berkeley Systems Distribution of Unix and has many similarities with other commercial Unix's such as Solaris and Irix. NetBSD is available for a variety of hardware platforms and due to the modular design of the kernel improvements made on one platform can be easily implemented on all the others.

Linux was originally developed on the PC from original code, and is therefore not related to any other flavour of Unix. Due to it's PC origins Linux is usually found running on desktop PC's. The Amiga version is not as up to date as the PC version which is where the major development occurs, however software that will run on the PC version of Linux will usually run without any modification on the Amiga version as well.

Which version you choose to install depends on your personal preference as both have similar hardware requirements.