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From: burgess@hrd769.brooks.af.mil (Dave Burgess)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.announce,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: FAQ_01. First Draft.
Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Date: 3 Apr 1993 19:17:53 -0800
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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Section 1. (General Network Information)
General information
This section of the FAQ is about the electronic support network that
exists for 386bsd.
1.0 What is 386BSD? (Taken from the INSTALL.NOTES)
Welcome to 386BSD Release 0.1, the second edition of the 386BSD
operating system created by William and Lynne Jolitz. Like its
predecessor, 386BSD Release 0.0, Release 0.1 comprises an entire and
complete UNIX-like operating system for the 80386/80486-based AT i
Personal Computer.
386BSD Release 0.1 is an enhanced version of the original release done
by William F. Jolitz, the developer of 386BSD. 386BSD Release 0.0 was
based on the Networking Software, Release 2 from the University of
California at Berkeley EECS Department, and included much of the 386BSD
work done earlier by Bill and contributed by us to the University. The
latest release, 386BSD Release 0.1, contains new work by the developer
and many new items which have been freely contributed by other software
developers for incorporation into 386BSD (see the file CONTRIB.LIST).
These contributions have increased the functionality and made it more
robust. As a courtesy to the developer and the many people who have
generously contributed these software enhancements, we request that
users abide by and properly maintain all attributions, copyrights, and
copylefts contained within this release.
386BSD is intended to foster new research and development in
operating systems and networking technology by providing this base
technology in a broadly accessible manner. As such, like its
predecessor, 386BSD Release 0.1 is freely redistributable and modifiable.
1.1 Feature summary
386BSD Release 0.1 is intended to be widely used by those interested in
"pushing the envelope" towards the formation and development of innovative
ideas in computer technology. As such, we have spent considerable time
developing a system which is simple to partition and install and emphasizes
stability and completeness.
The objective of this release is to allow anyone interested to quickly
obtain and install 386BSD, so that the time is spent using the system and
not on arcane system administrative details.
Among the many features of 386BSD:
* New "Tiny 386BSD" System Installation Floppy
* Simplified installation procedures.
* 386BSD partitioning for use on an MS-DOS system.
* Compressed, multivolume CPIO dump format binary/source/other
distribution sets on MS-DOS floppies.
* 387 emulation.
* SCSI support.
* CD-ROM support.
* NFS, TCP/IP and full networking.
* New 386BSD "Fix-It" System Maintenance Floppy.
* New "Additional User Software" MS-DOS floppy dump.
We hope that while you browse through 386BSD Release 0.1, you will take a
moment to look at the CONTRIB.LIST file to see the many people who have
made this release possible.
1.2 The future of 386BSD.
Forecasting the future is always a tricky business. There is work underway
to implement version 0.2 of 386bsd. In addition, many people are involved
in a project to put together a 386bsd version 0.1.5, which will be a
complete distribution set including all relevent patches and updates to
new versions of many of the software packages that are currently available.
Here is the Future of 386bsd as seen by Bill and Lynne Jolitz (from the
INSTALL.NOTES).
The Future of 386BSD: It's up to You
386BSD Release 0.0 has met with tremendous enthusiasm and support, and
we hope that 386BSD Release 0.1, a stable robust version of 386BSD with
enhanced functionality, will allow more people to try 386BSD.
But ironically, the very success of 386BSD has made it impossible for
us to continue doing out-of-pocket personal releases. Complete releases
such as we are doing are demanding, time-consuming, and expensive. It has
been most frustrating to us that while the vision, the will, the experience,
and the leadership are all present, the practical constraints have become
too great for us to ignore.
Over the course of these releases, many people have become confused as
to what 386BSD actually is. As such, we feel is important to underscore the
basic differences between a commercial release and a research release such as
386BSD. While both are extremely costly to develop, engineer, and release,
they actually have very different agendas.
Commercial releases efforts are defined by well established customer
demands, prior product releases, and (occasionally) strategic marketing
directions. In addition, if something needs to be added, it can be
"tossed in" to satisfy immediate needs (the old "give the customer what he
thinks he wants" mentality). Long-term objectives are generally given
short shrift.
Unlike commercial releases, releases targeted to the research and
educational communities are much more demanding in that the developer must
possess a broad understanding of long-term technological trends and
objectives and incorporate them into each release, while still maintaining
functionality. As a consequence, research releases and new work are
generally done only under the appropriate supervision and auspices of a
well-funded University project.
However, we have discovered that any group selected to shape these
releases must demonstrate leadership, vision, good judgment, and a devotion
to ethical behavior in all their dealings. A development group chosen merely
on the basis of convenience and cynicism (i.e. a "political" solution) will
result in the immediate desecration of these goals.
If new research directions are to be fully explored and developed
using 386BSD, then 386BSD itself must evolve. These first two releases,
historic though they may be, are just the beginning of this process, and
not an end in themselves.
Over the course of our 386BSD series in DDJ, we have occasionally
touched upon many areas of new technology with which 386BSD and other
UNIX-like operating systems must contend, such as symmetric multiprocessing,
multimedia applications, and gigabit networks. We are fully aware of
how to focus 386BSD to head in these directions, and we have spoken to many
others in the research community who want to work on and share in this vision.
However, if the benefits which 386BSD offers are to be "claimed" by the
entire research and educational community, the costs must be borne by all of
us as well.
Quite frankly, if 386BSD is to have any future, it will require
considerable resources and assistance, as well as the continued goodwill and
enthusiasm of its user base. Your interest, involvement, and support of
386BSD and its goals will ultimately determine the future of 386BSD and
successive releases.
1.3 386BSD software projects in progress
The list os software projects in progress is just too volatile to go into a
static document like the FAQ. Suffice it to say, if there is something
you want to do using 386bsd; ask first to see what has been done.
1.3.1 Contacting software authors
Whenever you are working on a port of a software package, it is always a
good idea to contact the original author and offer whatever changes
you needed to make in order to port the software. That way, subsequent
releases of the package may include changes that allow all users of
386bsd the advantage of reusing your work over and over.
1.4 Minimum hardware configuration recommended
There has been considerable debate about what the REAL minimum configuration
for 386bsd is. Some would claim that it is the smallest computer that an
installation will succeed on. Other claim that it is the smallest usable
computer (based on RAM and speed constraints) and other would claim that it
should be based on using 'X'-windows.
For specific hardware, see Section 8.
The smallest installable platform is an 80386, using a VGA card, with at least
2Meg of RAM and a 42 Megabyte hard disk. While not all SCSI cards (especially
EISA) are supported, a great many are either in the base distribution or
through patches. See section 8 for more details.
Personnaly, I would like to see a smaller 'minimum', but hey, I just maintain
the FAQ.
1.5 Where to get the source and binarys
1.5.1 Forms available (floppy, FTP, CDROM)
386bsd is available in just about every format known to man, with the
possible exception os stone tablets and apayrus.
1.5.1.1 Where can I get the distribution on floppy or tape?
Many people will copy files onto diskettes or tapes if you coordinate it
with them ahead of time. In addition, many companies offer 386bsd on
various types of media for money.
Note that there are virtually no restictions on distributing the 386bsd
distributions. Basically, wherever you can find it, you can get it.
1.5.1.2 Where can I get the distribution via FTP?
The files you should look for specifically when using FTP are directories
called srcdist, bindist, and etcdist. These directories will hold the
files for each of the distributions. Once you have received the files
via FTP, you can either load them directly onto your system and then unarchive
them using 'extract' or one of the other methods suggested in Section 2
of the FAQ.
The list of sites that have 386BSD is cover in section 1.8 below.
1.5.1.3 Where can I get the distribution on CD ROM?
This answer is out of date. New information will be available soon.
1.6 Electronic Information Groups for 386BSD
1.6.1 Usenet newsgroups
comp.os.386bsd.announce
Announcements relating to the 386bsd operating system. (Moderated)
Announcements should be mailed to cgd using the address
"386bsd-announce@agate.berkeley.edu".
comp.os.386bsd.apps
Applications which run under 386bsd.
comp.os.386bsd.bugs
Bugs and fixes for the 386bsd OS and its clients.
comp.os.386bsd.development
Working on 386bsd internals.
comp.os.386bsd.misc
General aspects of 386bsd not covered by other groups.
comp.os.386bsd.questions
General questions about 386bsd.
1.6.2 Newsgroup archives.
There is a newsgroup archive in Australia. See the regular posting in
comp.os.386bsd.announce for details. Other archive sites are probably
available.
1.6.3 Other electronic resources.
There are many bulletin boards throughout the world that have 386bsd
software and information available. There are also Internet mailing lists
available, although I don't have the names available at my fingertips.
Also, there are Compuserve and other On-Line services that have 386bsd
discussions.
1.7 Documentation available
There are two types of documentation for 386bsd. First is the set that
covers the operation and theory used in BSD-Unix. These sources are
often excellent for background and understanding of the current implementation
of 386bsd. Second, the set of manuals written specifically for 386bsd. Most
of these are books anbd magazine articles written by Bill and Lynne Jolitz.
1.7.1 BSD manuals
The full set of BSD documentation is available via anonymous FTP from
ocf.berkeley.edu in /pub/Library/Computer/doc4.3. To print this
documentation on 386bsd systems, replace the ditroff references in the
Makefile with 'groff -e -t -msU {SRC} >out.ps' to generate PostScript
format files. Use different options to make the output conform to other
print styles.
The etc distribution also comes with a documentation directory
~/share/doc which has nearly 3Meg of documentation about 386bsd.
1.7.2 BSD books (from the INSTALL.NOTES)
1. For a good general presentation on UNIX system design,
we recommend Maurice J. Bach's "The Design of the UNIX
Operating System" (Prentice-Hall Software Series, 1986,
471pp). Although it is now obsolete in some areas, it
still provides the best discussion of key system areas
such as the buffer cache.
2. For a more theoretical viewpoint of operating systems
design, we suggest Per Brinch Hansen's "Operating System
Principles" (Prentice-Hall Series in Automatic Computa-
tion, 1973, 366pp).
3. For an understanding of the roots of all UNIX-like
operating systems, one should obtain Elliot I.
Organick's "The Multics System: An Examination of Its
Structure" (MIT Press, 1972, 392 pp).
4. Of course, every serious student of computer science
should have Donald E. Knuth's three-volume set "The Art
of Computer Programming" (Addison-Wesley Series in Com-
puter Science and Information Processing, 1975).
5. "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" by D.M. Ritchie and K.
Thompson, Communications of the ACM, 17, No. 7 (July
1974). This is the classic paper on the UNIX system
which (we feel) set the tone for all future work with
UNIX-like systems:
The success of UNIX lies not so much in new inventions
but rather in the full exploitation of a carefully
selected set of fertile ideas, and especially in showing
that they can be keys to the implementation of a small
yet powerful operating system
6. On the 386-side, it's best to go to the source, with
John H. Crawford and Patrick P. Gelsinger's book
"Programming the 80386" (Sybex, 1987, 773pp). There are
many other 386/486 books available as well.
For general information on how-to-use UNIX-like systems, C++, GNU
software, and so forth, there are a number of good books available from
any technical bookstore, with more arriving daily. In addition, an
on-line manual is available (in the binary distribution set). It
contains specific information on the use of UNIX utilities and commands.
Type "man man" for information on the online manual.
1.7.3 The Jolitz Book
Bill and Lynne Jolitz are writing a book about 386bsd. It will be announced
once it is ready. A tentative date of late 1992 was once offered, but since
it is early 1993 and no book has been announced, we can assume that it will
be later than the original estimate.
1.7.4 Dr Dobbs journal
For users who wish to understand the internals of the 386BSD system
developed by William F. Jolitz from 1989 to the present, the most
immediate and available reference is our feature series entitled
"Porting UNIX to the 386", appearing in Dr. Dobbs Journal, USA
(January 1991 to July 1992) and UNIX Magazine, Germany (June 1991
to present). For inquiries on the article series (including reprints),
contact the magazines for information.
1.7.5 Other FAQ's on the net that are relevant
There are many FAQs that can be used in conjunction with 386bsd. These
include the FAQs for all of the GNU software, the different shells that are
available, the programming languages that are available, and many more.
In addition, many programs have their own FAQ which should be referenced
whenever that package is being added. Prime examples of the latter are
the FAQs for elm and innd.
The observant reader will notice that there is no 'X' questions in this
FAQ. The XFree386 FAQ is posted regularly to comp.os.386bsd.*. There is
no good reason to include any 'X' questions in this FAQ, with the exception
of the most basic 'Where can I get the 'X' FAQ'.
Most FAQs are available by anonymous FTP from rtfm.{somewhere} and via
News in news.answers and/or comp.answers.
1.8 FTP sites for 386BSD
A standard tool for finding files is 'archie'. Searching the
archie archive for 386BSD yields the following list. Searching
for 386bsd will also yield a long list of sites.
Host agate.berkeley.edu (128.32.136.1)
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Feb 27 18:04 386BSD
Host animal-farm.nevada.edu
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Jul 17 1992 386BSD
Host archive.afit.af.mil
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Aug 19 21:55 386BSD
Host ascwide.ascii.co.jp
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 2048 Jan 19 10:13 386BSD
Host athene.uni-paderborn.de
Location: /uninstalled
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Aug 17 12:33 386BSD
Host bode.ee.ualberta.ca
Location: /pub/OS
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Aug 14 00:00 386BSD
Host bruno.cs.colorado.edu
Location: /pub/cs/distribs/eli
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 Jan 11 23:07 386BSD
Location: /pub/cs/doc/usl.vs.bsd/unigram
FILE -rw-r--r-- 4423 Aug 6 00:00 386BSD
Host capella.eetech.mcgill.ca (132.206.1.17)
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY dr-xrwxr-x 512 Apr 1 1992 386BSD
Host chook.cs.adelaide.edu.au
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Oct 8 12:32 386BSD
Location: /pub/XFree86-1.1
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Oct 7 11:02 386BSD
Host cs.ubc.ca
Location: /mirror3
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Aug 4 14:12 386BSD
Host delbruck.pharm.sunysb.edu
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Dec 5 17:34 386BSD
Host f.ms.uky.edu (128.163.128.6)
Location: /incoming
DIRECTORY drwxrwxrwx 512 Jun 3 1992 386BSD
Location: /pub2
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 1024 Feb 9 03:28 386BSD
Host ftp.cs.uni-sb.de
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Aug 13 00:00 386BSD
Host ftp.denet.dk
Location: /pub/OS
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Feb 9 17:49 386BSD
Host gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2)
Location: /.9/plan/eli
DIRECTORY dr-xr-xr-x 512 Feb 15 03:30 386BSD
Host goya.dit.upm.es
Location: /info/unix
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Aug 28 16:03 386BSD
Host isfs.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Location: /BSD
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 1024 Nov 15 03:10 386BSD
Location: /ftpmail/ftp.ascii.co.jp/pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Sep 23 22:31 386BSD
Location: /ftpmail/ftp.cs.keio.ac.jp/pub/os
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Nov 11 01:41 386BSD
Location: /ftpmail/ftp.mei.co.jp/free
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Dec 4 02:41 386BSD
Location: /ftpmail/theta.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Oct 27 22:56 386BSD
Host jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
Location: /pub/publicomainoftware
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Feb 13 02:31 386BSD
Host kirk.bu.oz.au (131.244.1.1)
Location: /pub/OS
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Sep 24 10:39 386BSD
Host math.orst.edu (128.193.16.60)
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Jan 14 09:38 386BSD
Host math12.mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de
Location: /pub/ibmc
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Jan 14 16:22 386BSD
Host mcshh.hanse.de
Location: /pub/systeme
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 80 Nov 5 01:12 386BSD
Host minnie.zdv.uni-mainz.de
Location: /pub0/pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Nov 5 12:30 386BSD
Host plains.nodak.edu
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 Jan 21 17:24 386BSD
Host plan9.njit.edu
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwx------ 512 Mar 18 1992 386BSD
Host pprg.eece.unm.edu
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Mar 28 1992 386BSD
Host procyon.cis.ksu.edu
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Jan 4 02:13 386BSD
Host quepasa.cs.tu-berlin.de
Location: /pub/os
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 Dec 14 16:43 386BSD
Host reseq.regent.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de
Location: /informatik.public/comp/os/bsd
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 Jan 26 19:50 386BSD
Host rs3.hrz.th-darmstadt.de
Location: /pub/os
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 Nov 28 04:11 386BSD
Host sifon.cc.mcgill.ca
Location: /pub/packages
DIRECTORY dr-xr-xr-x 512 Feb 14 12:35 386BSD
Host sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Jan 3 18:29 386BSD
Host switek.uni-muenster.de
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 Jan 27 08:29 386BSD
Host theta.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Location: /
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 Dec 25 14:27 386BSD
Host unix.hensa.ac.uk
Location: /pub/uunet/languages/eli
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Jan 29 04:56 386BSD
Location: /pub/uunet/systems/unix
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Jan 14 10:15 386BSD
Host walhalla.germany.eu.net
Location: /pub/comp/i386
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 May 29 1992 386BSD
Host walton.maths.tcd.ie
Location: /src
DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Jan 28 15:17 386BSD
Host wnoc-fuk.wide.ad.jp
Location: /pub
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 Jan 25 16:38 386BSD
The code may also soon to be available, or perhaps already available,
from both CompuServe and BIX.
1.8.2 Official distribution sites
As far as can be determined, agate.berkeley.edu and its 'mirror' sites are
the only official distribution site.
1.8.3 Reference sites
For a brief period, ref.tfs.com was available for use as a reference system.
This system was used as the testbed for many programs that were ported to
386bsd by many authors. Unfortunately, ref.tfs.com has been disabled as
a reference system. Once a replacement is established, it will be noted
here.
1.8.4 Unofficial archive sites that have neat stuff!
There are many sites that have things which have eihter been ported to
386bsd or are available to the world. Use archie to find these sites, or
read comp.os.386bsd.* for more information.
1.8.5 Why shouldn't I get my distribution from UUNet?
UUNET has a policy against binaries, so you won't be able to boot up if you
do download it. This makes getting started impossible, and generally creates
more trouble than it solves. Use 'archie' or the list above to get
REAL distributions.