Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.announce:38 comp.os.386bsd.questions:1993
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!constellation!osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!agate!usenet
From: burgess@hrd769.brooks.af.mil (Dave Burgess)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.announce,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: FAQ_01
Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Date: 25 Apr 1993 16:10:32 -0700
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 489
Sender: cgd@agate.berkeley.edu
Approved: 386bsd-announce-request@agate.berkeley.edu
Message-ID: <9304212127.AA25497@hrd769.brooks.af.mil>
NNTP-Posting-Host: agate.berkeley.edu
Content-Type: text
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20]
Content-Length: 19655
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
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.
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.
To see the Future of 386bsd as seen by Bill and Lynne Jolitz, I suggest you
read the INSTALL.NOTES that come with 386bsd.
1.3 386BSD software projects in progress
The list of 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.
Nate Williams (Nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu) has volunteered to be the focal
point for software projects. His job will be to get people with similar
interests together to minimize wasted effort and people working at cross
purposes.
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.
In keeping with that, if you find a 'bug' in 386bsd, or find a problem
that causes you some headaches and find a solution, you should contact
the author of the particular driver/module/program and let them know.
In addition, you caould also post the problem and/or fix to
"comp.os.386bsd.bugs".
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. Others claim that it is the smallest usable
computer (based on RAM and speed constraints) and others 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 an MGA card, with at
least 2Meg of RAM and a 20 Megabyte hard disk. While not all SCSI cards
(especially EISA) are supported, a great many are either in the base
distribution or through patches. This configuration is tricky to prepare,
and will certainly be hard to use, but it is possible.
A comfortable installation which includes source and binary distributions,
as well as other utilities will work in about 100Meg or hard drive.
'X' requires at least a Hercules MGA; for masochistics only, from what I
understand.
See section 8 for more details.
1.5 Where to get the source and binaries
1.5.1 Forms available (floppy, FTP, CDROM)
386bsd is available in just about every format known to man, with the
possible exception of stone tablets and papyrus.
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. Austin Code Works and others (usually
advertisers in PC magazines) offer the base 1.0 "official" distribution
for a fee.
Note that there are virtually no restrictions 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
un archive them using 'extract' or one of the other methods suggested in
Section 2 of the FAQ.
The list of sites that have 386BSD is covered in section 1.8 below.
1.5.1.3 Where can I get the distribution on CD ROM?
Info-Magic sells one, and there are probably others in the works.
CD-ROM.faq
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.
These sites maintain a historical record of the traffic in the Usenet
Newsgroups indicated. There are others, but I haven't gotten their
names yet.
Host Name IP address Location Newgroups archived
-------------------- -------------- -------------- ----------------
minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au 131.236.20.70 Australia comp.unix.bsd
src.doc.ic.ac.uk 146.169.2.1 London, UK comp.os.386bsd.*
1.6.3 386bsd mailing lists.
There are at least two mailing lists for 386bsd. Both are for discussions
of the patchkit and patches. They are:
386bsd_patchkit@cs.montana.edu: This list is primarily for discussion of the
patchkit and other patch procedure discussions.
patches@cs.montana.edu: This list is for patch submissions.
NOTE: The patchkit is discussed in detail in Section 2 of the FAQ.
1.6.4 Other electronic resources.
There are many bulletin boards throughout the world that have 386bsd
software and information available. 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 is the set of manuals written
specifically for 386bsd. Most of these are books and 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.
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.
1.7.2 BSD books
There is an excellent set of works recommended by Bill and Lynne in the
INSTALL.NOTES. In addition, these books have been recommended by
Andrew Moore and others.
For learning how to work in the Unix environment, the standard text
is "The Unix Programming Environment," by Kernighan and Pike.
For Unix Administration, the best is "Unix System Administration
Handbook," by Nemeth, Snyder and Seebass.
For systems level programming (i.e., systems calls), I recommend
"Advanced Unix Programming," by Marc Rochkind. Unfortunately it is
outdated and oriented towards System V. A new book "Advanced
Programming in the Unix Environment," by W. Richard Stevens is very
up-to-date, and an excellent reference.
For network programming, "Unix Network Programming," by W. Richard
Stevens is highly regarded.
The 4.3BSD Unix Manuals contain loads of invaluable tutorials and
historical papers in addition to hard copies of on-line documentation.
The six volume set is available from Usenix for $60.00 (email:
office@usenix.org)
I could go on, but let me mention just two more - if you have a full
386BSD installation, you may want to learn the bash shell (in
/usr/othersrc/public). This is an extension of the Bourne shell (sh)
with features from both the C shell (Csh) and the Korn shell (Ksh).
The Korn shell is described in "The Kornshell," by Korn (of course).
Second, I recommend you look at "The AWK Programming Language," by Aho,
Weinberger and Kernighan. This is a very nice prototyping language -
powerful and easy to use.
Another excellent reference book for 386bsd is "The Design and
Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating system" by Samuel J.
Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J. Karels, John S. Quarterman
1989, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-06196-1. While this book is
out of date in many sections, it is purported to be an excellent
source of historical information, if nothing else. Chris Demetiriou
recommends the sections on the treatment of filesystems, caching and
the networking layer. The sections in this books which do not apply to
386bsd include the VM section, bootstrapping, and autoconfig.
In addition, there are many other books which, for one reason or another,
have not made it into this brief list. Rest assured that this is not
intended to be an exhaustive list by any means. In fact, Lynne Jolitz has
offered to supply the FAQ with her prefered reading list describing the
current and future versions of 386bsd.
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 the feature series entitled
"Porting UNIX to the 386: A Practical Approach", appearing in Dr.
Dobbs' Journal, USA (January 1991 to July 1992) and UNIX and iX
Magazines, Germany (June 1991 to present). For inquiries on the
article series (including reprints), contact the magazines for
information.
"Porting UNIX to the 386: A Practical Approach" (feature series) by
Jolitz and Jolitz
1/91: DDJ "Designing a Software Specification"
2/91: DDJ "Three Initial PC Utilities"
3/91: DDJ "The Standalone System"
4/91: DDJ "Copyright, Copyleft, and Competitive Advantage"
4/91: DDJ "Language Tools Cross-Support"
5/91: DDJ "The Initial Root Filesystem"
6/91: DDJ "Research and the Commercial Sector: Where Does
BSD Fit In?"
7/91: DDJ "A Stripped-Down Kernel"
8/91: DDJ "The Basic Kernel"
9/91: DDJ "Multiprogramming and Multiprocessing, Part I"
10/91: DDJ "Multiprogramming and Multiprocessing, Part II"
11/91: DDJ "Device Autoconfiguration"
2/92: DDJ "UNIX Device Drivers, Part I"
3/92: DDJ "UNIX Device Drivers, Part II"
4/92: DDJ "UNIX Device Drivers, Part III"
5/92: DDJ "Missing Pieces, Part I"
6/92: DDJ "Missing Pieces, Part II"
7/92: DDJ "The Final Step: Running Light with 386BSD"
6/91: UNIX Magazin "Portierung von BSD-UNIX auf den 80386. Heimlich
Liebe."
7/91: UNIX Magazin "Steighilfe."
8/91: UNIX Magazin "Systemverwaltung durch Tabellen"
9/91: UNIX Magazin "Sicher bewegen auf fremdem Terrain"
10/91: UNIX Magazin "Damit die Fehlersuche nicht zum Hurdenspringen
wird"
11/91: UNIX Magazin "Alles in eine Schublade"
12/91: UNIX Magazin "Feuer und Wasser"
1/92: UNIX Magazin "Rekursives Speicher-Mapping"
2/92: UNIX Magazin "Tanz auf dem Eis"
3/92: UNIX Magazin "Aus Hanschen wird Hans"
4/92: UNIX Magazin "Das Geheimnis des Multiprogramming"
5/92: UNIX Magazin "Zeitmanagement scheibenweise"
6/92: UNIX Magazin "Magie des Kernels"
7/92: UNIX Magazin "Erkenne Dich Selbst"
9/92: UNIX Magazin "Niemand is eine Insel"
10/92: UNIX Magazin "Treiberlatein"
12/92: UNIX Magazin "Einlandung erforderlich"
1/93: iX Magazin "??"
2/93: iX Magazin "??" - Titles Unknown
3/93: iX Magazin "??"
4/93: iX Magazin "??"
NOTE: The series in UNIX Magazin was moved to IX Magazin in 1/93.
In addition, other major articles which discuss 386BSD in detail:
8/92: UNIX Magazin "Interview mit Bill Jolitz. Das passiert mit 386BSD"
by Jurgen Fey
8/92: DDJ "Very High-Speed Networking" by W.F. Jolitz
12/92: DDJ "Inside the ISO-9660 Filesystem Format" by Jolitz and Jolitz
You can contact M&T Books (DDJ) for reprints if you can't get them from
your technical library:
1-800-356-2002 (inside CA)
1-800-533-4372 (North America)
1-415-358-9500 (international)
Reprints of the first 19 parts on the UNIX Magazin series are available
from:
iX Redaktion
Stichwort: 386BSD-Serie
Verlag Heinz Heise GmbH & Co KG
Helstorfer Str. 7
3000 Hannover 61
Some of the parts are without code listings due to the unclear status of the
BSD releases stemming from the Net/2 release.
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. Good examples of the latter are
the FAQs for elm, C-News, and innd.
The observant reader will notice that there are very few '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.mit.edu and via Usenet
News in news.answers and/or comp.answers.
1.8 FTP sites for 386BSD
A standard tool on Internet connected hosts 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. For UUCP sites, FTP-Mail
is available from {somewhere}.
For those folks that have access to telnet, but not FTP, you can use archie
by using telnet and connecting to 132.206.2.3. Log in as 'archie' and use
the 'prog' command to find programs of interest.
Host Directory
agate.berkeley.edu /pub/386BSD/
animal-farm.nevada.edu /pub/386BSD/
archive.afit.af.mil /pub/386BSD/
ascwide.ascii.co.jp /pub/386BSD/
bode.ee.ualberta.ca /pub/OS/386BSD/
capella.eetech.mcgill.ca /pub/386BSD/
chook.cs.adelaide.edu.au /pub/386BSD/
chook.cs.adelaide.edu.au /pub/XFree86-1.1/386BSD/
cs.ubc.ca /mirror3/386BSD/
delbruck.pharm.sunysb.edu /pub/386BSD/
f.ms.uky.edu /pub2/386BSD/
ftp.cs.uni-sb.de /pub/386BSD/
ftp.denet.dk /pub/OS/386BSD/
ftp.uu.net /systems/unix/386BSD/
goya.dit.upm.es /info/unix/386BSD/
grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr /pub/unix/386BSD/
isfs.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp /BSD/386BSD/
jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu /pub/public_domain_software/386BSD/
kirk.bu.oz.au /pub/OS/386BSD/
math.orst.edu /pub/386BSD/
math12.mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de /pub/ibm_pc/386BSD/
mcsun.eu.net /packages/386BSD/
miki.cs.titech.ac.jp /pub/os/386BSD/
minnie.zdv.uni-mainz.de /pub0/pub/386BSD/
plains.nodak.edu /pub/386BSD/
plan9.njit.edu /pub/386BSD/
pprg.eece.unm.edu /pub/386BSD/
procyon.cis.ksu.edu /pub/386BSD/
quepasa.cs.tu-berlin.de /pub/os/386BSD/
reseq.regent.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de /informatik.public2/BSD/386BSD/
rs3.hrz.th-darmstadt.de /pub/os/386BSD/
sifon.cc.mcgill.ca /pub/packages/386BSD/
switek.uni-muenster.de /pub/386BSD/
theta.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp /386BSD/
unix.hensa.ac.uk /pub/uunet/systems/unix/386BSD/
walhalla.germany.eu.net /pub/comp/i386/386BSD/
wnoc-fuk.wide.ad.jp /pub/386BSD/
The code may soon also to be available, or perhaps is already available,
from both CompuServe and BIX.
1.8.2 Official distribution sites
According to Lynne Jolitz, there is no such thing as an 'official' 386bsd
site. The closest we have is 'agate.berkeley.edu' which is mirrored
at several of the sites listed above.
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 test-bed 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 either been ported to
386bsd or are available to the world. Use archie to find these sites, or
read comp.os.386bsd.* for more information.
A pointer to one of the most popular sites for ported software comes from
mycroft@gnu.ai.mit.edu:
alpha.gnu.ai.mit.edu:/386bsd (for ports of software).
--
Please send submissions for comp.os.386bsd.announce to:
386bsd-announce@agate.berkeley.edu