NetBSD 11.0 now runs on 64-bit RISC-V single-board computers, making it the first stable NetBSD release to support the architecture. The port targets StarFive JH71XX-based boards including the VisionFive 2 and PINE64 STAR64, with support for PCI and PCIe devices, VirtIO networking and storage, hardware random-number generation, and temperature sensors. QEMU is also supported for testing without dedicated hardware.
The release brings initial support for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite platform and its Oryon CPU cores on the aarch64 port, with drivers for battery and charger sensors, GPIO, and I2C controllers. For virtualization workloads, a new MICROVM kernel for x86 (both i386 and amd64) can boot a virtual machine in roughly 10 milliseconds on 2020-era hardware by leveraging PVH boot and VirtIO MMIO, a practical addition for anyone running lightweight VMs on a mini PC or home server.
Linux compatibility received significant work in this cycle. The compat_linux subsystem now handles epoll (implemented around kqueue), inotify, clone3, POSIX message queues, and several other system calls, which should make it easier to run Linux binaries on NetBSD. The npf firewall gained layer 2 and user/group filtering, the OS now targets POSIX.1-2024 and C23 compliance, and a new virt68k port runs the Motorola 68000 architecture in QEMU with paravirtualized devices.
NetBSD 11.0 is available now as a 660 MB ISO for amd64, with images for dozens of other architectures including the new RISC-V and aarch64 ports from the project's mirror network.
