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From: jmonroy@netcom.com (Jesus Monroy Jr)
Subject: A few words about BSDI
Message-ID: <jmonroyCCtzDv.2vE@netcom.com>
Followup-To: /dev/null
Keywords: BSDI review
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1993 13:13:07 GMT
Lines: 63
SunWorld Sept. 1993
Article in discussion
---------------------
Unix on x86, Part 1
---------------------
The stumbling blocks of the PC are now coming to light
with the inept persceptions of individuals claiming to be
hackers at best. One often wonders as to professional nature
of this venture, BSDi, but since they seem to have the deep
pockets for a court room fight, far be it for me to deter the
actions of business-in-motion.
I have often wondered if Rob Kolstad was more than the
mere marketing guru of this omnipresent organization.
However, as I continued to be plumeled with references to my own
competence, I have decided to make the new friends that I do.
USL's concerns make me wonder how this incident could
have occured; a question I think everyone has. To date Bill
Jolitz, author of 386bsd - a Public Domain version similar to
BSDI's OS , has stated that he would prefer to remain unquoted
on this subject; saying at most the entire incident is "stupid".
--------------------------oOo--------------------------------
About the article, it seems that BSDi hard coded the
floppy drive/disk to use at boot-time; the 3 1/2" diskette
drive is culpurit in this circumstance. Albeit that such a
trivial item is in reality a nusicance to life, it shows the
lack of prerequisite intelligence to this minimualistic
application.
Here's a clue guys.... both the 3 1/2" diskette and
the 5 1/4" have at least 15 sectors. Owww..what a revelation!
Here's another clue... use rtc_in().. Gee did I spill
some properitary information.
I guess in all respects I shouldn't be so rough on
these guys, cause the people at SunWorld had just as much
problem installing other commercial versions of *nix. It does
seem that all this cuteness surrounding the PC is coming to
light. No marketing whiz is available for this klunkiness GUYS..
a bug can be called an undocumented feature, but a bad feature
is just that... bad. Gee, with a comment like that you might
think the whole world is inept. So true is the world on this
issue that I often wonder if all the real programers are
working on MS-DOS products.
Let's give some good news on this. "The total time to
complete installation (of the BSDI OS) was almost a day."
"Hardwire Hell" terms the marketing haunt for the PC.
Welcome aboard, Boys.... Have a nice day.
___________________________________________________________________________
Jesus Monroy Jr jmonroy@netcom.com
/386BSD/device-drivers /fd /qic /clock /documentation
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