For all those who don't know what NetBSD is and how get started with it I want to describe it here. Also for the people who want to work with my distribution Menhir it is a starter document.

NetBSD is just like FreeBSD a free and complete operating system which is categorized as "Unix-like". Please, look at YourWaytoFreeBSD to get an idea what "complete operating system" and "Unix-like" means.

NetBSD is a little younger than FreeBSD. It's history is in very condensed form in the NetBSD Guide http://netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-intro.html#chap-intro-story .

Your way into NetBSD begins at their website http://www.netbsd.org .

The first step is to decide if you want to run a tested and stable or a development branch of NetBSD. In the "Get NetBSD" section of the website you can find various links to download one these branches. The formal release is at this moment at version 3.1. Formal release measn that some time ago the developers freezed the code - this means that no new features are introduced in the code - and tested it, made all neccessary documentations and then released it under this specific version.

Your next step is to look at the documentation. Under the section with this name you can find a book which describes you all steps to install and maintain your operating system. I cannot decide which book of FreeBSD's or NetBSD's is better.

If you get into trouble with your installation or configuration of NetBSD then you will find under the section "Community" a big list of mailing lists and newsgroups. As in FreeBSD NetBSD needs all these lists because all thigs of the operating system are developed in this project.

After making your installation and needed conversations in the mailing lists you can read the Quarterly Status Reports to see what the developers are doing for NetBSD. These Reports you can find on the NetBSD Foundation webpage which is linked from the "About" section.

It is so easy to find your way into the NetBSD world.

For all your questions and your thoughts the comment section is waiting :)