"It doesn't matter to operating systems, but confuses some bootloaders. In general it's safer to use a smaller root partition and a separate one for /home. However, NetBSD worked just fine off a single full-disk partition."

A favourite component of NetBSD for me has always been the i386 bootloader. Perhaps it is personal taste but I have not found another one that I like better.

"Even NetBSD comes with some bloatware ;-) To save as much RAM as possible, you can turn it off by adding to /etc/rc.conf:

   inetd=NO
   postfix=NO
   cron=NO
   virecover=NO
   makemandb=NO
   powerd=NO
   syslogd=NO"

Isn't powerd off by default

For example, if install provided sets from https://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.4/i386/binary/set...

Look at https://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-release-9/src/etc/d...

"You can also reduce the amount of consoles by commenting them out in /etc/ttys."

By default only one tty is enabled

Look at https://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-release-9/src/etc/e...

NetBSD might have some "bloatware" but _the user must enable it_ first

Everything is off by default. That is one of the things that makes NetBSD great IMHO

"I was able to fix it by adding usermod disable wss to the bootloader line."

Does he mean userconf

Another option is comment the driver out in the kernel source and recompile

For example https://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-release-9/src/sys/a...

"... I think it's the ultimate UNIX to put on a spare, underpowered machine."

100%

Some folks who are not "developers" or gamers use underpowered computers every day

I've used it for decades as a daily driver