Because I’ll likely never bother to get it in a proper blog post format, I’ll just link to the notes I’ve made whilst switching to NetBSD. When I say switch, I mean replacing my OSX 10.5 PPC “shell account” with a NetBSD i386 XEN one and getting my base install of software up and running:

  • Mutt (Binary package via Pkgsrc works fine for me, need to ensure LC_CTYPE and LC_MESSAGES are set to UTF-8 though)
  • Offlineimap (Pkgsrc binary works fine)
  • Notmuch (Need to do from source. I went for the same version I used under OSX (0.13) as that matches same version requirement for talloc that Pkgsrc provides. Got a bit confused with gmime as could only find older version for awhile in Pkgsrc)
  • TTYtter (No problems, just needed some Perl packages via Pkgsrc for some of the extensions I use)
  • Remind (No problems via Pkgsrc)
  • Vim (Needed to do from Pkgsrc source for Python and Ruby support)
  • PWMan (Built fine! Even including my tweaks)
  • Abook (No problems)
  • Elinks (Built via Pkgsrc source to enable gopher support)
  • Snownews (Is proving a bit fiddly due to Curses display glitches, see the linked notes)

[EDIT: 2016-05-27] Added a couple of notes relating to my “new” Dell Optiplex 745 NetBSD machine.