Installing NetBSD

Like I mentioned yesterday, today I am continuing
to play around with operating systems. I am now
installing NetBSD. The paritition and slicing
tool feels friendlier then the OpenBSD one. I
can simply enter the sizes I want them to be,
unlike the OpenBSD tool asking to enter CHS
values manually. That was just horrible...

From this perspective NetBSD clearly wins,
on the other hand, there are other things
OpenBSD clearly wins. For example user
accounts. OpenBSD gave the option to
create user accounts during installation,
which NetBSD (and also ArchLinux) did not.

NetBSD asks what password cipher to use,
something OpenBSD did not. Perhaps this
is a point for NetBSD again.

I know I am comparing different operating
systems, but, this is not really the OS
itself but the installer, and the choices
offered during the installation procedure,
which are, from my perspective, not that
much related to the OS itself, as creating
users, offering to set up a (minimal) X
instalaltion, and such things, shouldn't
differ (much) on various *NIX OS'es.

So, not having a user added automatically,
I have to add my user manually. Which works
basically the same on any *NIX OS, but living
on a *BSD OS, I should add my user to the wheel
group in order to be able to su.

So far so good.... software is next... and
the same package management is in use as it
was under the OpenBSD. pkg_add and the likes.


So far, I say OpenBSD wins... for
making the user account during setup,
configuring the X during setup, configuring
network during startup. (ok I have to add the
network to the services to startup, but apart
from that, the configuration was done)

However, NetBSD scored some points for the
parition/slices tool during setup, the choice
of the password cipher, and basically a decent
looking installer. The installer didn't ask as
much as I wished for, but what it actually did,
seemed to me to be in a more decent manner then
the OpenBSD installer.

---

Edit/Update:

I removed some part as it was incorrect,
but after some investigation there was still
a point of truth in there. So, the pkg_add
just setting up the path and such makes it
run after all.... I just overlooked a small
thing that make me wonder if I had to download
the package database to the local machine
in order to be able to use the packages
at all... well... just setting the
enviorement variable is enough to install
something, but there is no pkg_mgr in here,
The pkg_mgr site mentioned to have it's roots
in pkg_select, which is available in NetBSD.

Another thing is the quering seems to be
different, op OpenBSD I just did a
pkg_info -Q whatever
but in NetBSD it seems to require another
variable of which I am not sure yet what
is should be.