NetBSD 11!
I was holding off on discussing this until I had all my machines upgraded, but I think the news is worthy enough to mention in the interim. Everyone’s favourite OS hit version 11 at the end of July, and it’s an awesome release.
These are the highlights from the release notes, emphasis added:
New port to the RISC-V processor architecture. NetBSD 11.0 is the first stable release to include support for 64-bit RISC-V platforms, including a range of StarFive JH71XX-based devices such as the VisionFive 2, PINE64 STAR64, as well as QEMU.
Enhanced compliance with POSIX.1-2024 and C23 programming interface standards.
Enhanced support for Linux system calls in compat_linux(8), including epoll (implemented around kqueue), POSIX message queues, statx, readahead, close_range, waitid, renameat2, clone3, sync_file_range, syncfs, and inotify.
Initial support for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite platform.
Improvements to the npf(7) firewall, including layer 2 and user/group filtering.
New MICROVM kernel for x86, supporting both i386 and amd64, NetBSD 11.0 introduces a dedicated MICROVM kernel designed for extremely fast virtual machine boot, leveraging PVH boot, VirtIO MMIO, and multiple kernel optimizations, it can boot in about 10 ms on 2020-era x86 CPUs.
New virt68k port, for running the Motorola 68000 port in QEMU using paravirtualized devices.
I may dedicate a post to each one of these, there’s SO MUCH to talk about here. I use NetBSD as our home router, so npf(7) updates will likely be the most consequential in the short term. But I also have a VisionFive 2 board, and am interested in the MICROVM kernel, and the Motorola 68000!? Sorry, I know more level-headed people like to talk scientifically and rationally about changes like this, but to me I feel like a kid in a chocolate store. They also mention improved support for vintage hardware, because of course. ♡
Thank you so much to the developers, release engineers, documenters, supporters, and everyone else who keeps this OS going. I’ll be writing more about this in the coming weeks.
