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Received: by minnie.vk1xwt.ampr.org with NNTP id AA1463 ; Tue, 23 Feb 93 14:42:42 EST Xref: sserve comp.os.linux:26441 comp.unix.bsd:11306 Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!haven.umd.edu!mimsy!nocusuhs!nmrdc1!dsc3pzp From: dsc3pzp@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil (Philip Perucci) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Linux or 386BSD? Message-ID: <C2Lu0n.620@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil> Date: 17 Feb 93 18:00:22 GMT References: <1993Feb15.030611.18966@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg> <C2I6x0.LzD@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <1lroci$ed9@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu> Organization: Naval Medical Research & Development Command Lines: 47 In article <1lroci$ed9@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu> pauls@css.itd.umich.edu (Paul Southworth) writes: >>> : However, you said that it takes "days". I have installed SLS in about >[...] >>> We only need half an hour to install the basic distribution of 386bsd. >>> The latest dist.fs helps because we do not need to use nu or other partition >>> editor to put the A5 code. >[...] >>Not counting the ftp time, it took me about 1/2 an hour to install Linux >>and LILO. Admittedly, I'm not using X (some extra disks), and I still >>have to re-configure my kernel to use my 3c503 ethernet card, but that >>would be a one-time investment of time if I wanted to install on many >>machines. > > >Well *I* can install 386BSD with X, Mach, Motif, and a NeXT Step 486 >partition from 360k floppies in about 4.2 minutes. Furthermore the fact >that I do it so fast means that it works better, right? > > >Paul Southworth >Computer Systems Consultant >UM - Ann Arbor >pauls@umich.edu One problem I had with 386BSD was with bad blocks on an old 80M MFM drive. With Linux, you just "mkfs -c" and you get the bad blocks mapped out for you. With 386BSD, 1) there is a separate utility for mapping bad blocks (bad144), 2) you have to feed bad144 the bad block list manually, 3) you can't run bad144 until you install - catch 22 for a bad drive. My drive had about 200K of bad blocks. Tolorable for an 80Mb drive (for me). I tried to get a co-worker to trade PCs (he has IDE), to no avail... You CAN run bad144 from the "fixit" disk, but there was not enough documentation or USENET support to do so, at least for me. "Disklabel", "bad144", "newfs" and the various device names are tricky to get straight with no man pages. The ability to install through ftp sure is tempting though! Wish I had an IDE/SCSI at work so I could test drive ... sigh -- ============================================================================== phil perucci | "Any opinions expressed are my views, dsc3pzp@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil | not the position of any organization" ==============================================================================