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Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:12833 comp.os.386bsd.development:1358 comp.os.386bsd.questions:6416 comp.os.386bsd.misc:1347 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!constellation!osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!sdd.hp.com!math.ohio-state.edu!usc!yeshua.marcam.com!zip.eecs.umich.edu!quip.eecs.umich.edu!dmuntz From: dmuntz@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Dan Muntz) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.386bsd.development,comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.os.386bsd.misc Subject: Re: WILL ???BSD DIE? Date: 2 Nov 1993 17:11:42 GMT Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI Lines: 95 Message-ID: <2b64ce$l4o@zip.eecs.umich.edu> References: <jmonroyCFv39C.Iv1@netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: quip.eecs.umich.edu First, let's trim down the crossposting a bit... Jesus Monroy Jr <jmonroy@netcom.com> wrote: >cgd@agate.berkeley.edu wrote: >> Date: 1 Nov 1993 19:41:25 -0800 >> >> Barring serious objections, the 386BSD FTP Site on agate.berkeley.edu >> will be disappearing on December 1, 1993. >> >> There are several reasons for this: >> >> (1) the 386BSD ftp site is taking up approximately 120M >> of disk space, which can be better used for other >> things. >> > Yes, I here NETBSD might actually need this space. > Is this true? The problem is that other sites (sites that don't care about a measly 120M) are mirroring agate. *It would be nice* if you (cgd) could arrange things so that when 386bsd is removed from agate that it doesn't automatically disappear everywhere else. Perhaps this isn't a problem, since I don't know how the mirroring is set up. >> (2) the 386BSD 0.1 release is no longer very useful; >> it is old, and newer, more stable and usable >> releases have been made. >> > This is an opinion. That you hold. Please substitute > I'm afraid I have to agree with Jesus here. IMHO, 386bsd 0.1 + pk 0.2.4 *is* more stable than FreeBSD (epsilon) and NetBSD 0.9 (not current). People discussing stability here have done slimy things like comparing Net and Free to 386 w/o patches, but when it comes right down to it, my 386bsd systems have stayed up for weeks (probably months) with only one (XS3 related) crash. One machine acts as a slip gateway, and both are used signifcantly every day for various tasks (xtroff, simulations, remote login, games, etc.). BUT... > >> (3) For all intents and purposes, 386BSD 0.1 is 'unsupported'. >> > This is argueable. This is true, and thus I am now using NetBSD on one machine. I ran FreeBSD epsilon for a few days, but it was far to easy to kill. I've also had some problems with NetBSD (a mysterious hang and reboot under X2.0 _once_, and it started refusing remote connections, also just once so far), but it's quite usable and the emerging multiple platform support is a plus. >> There was an unofficial patch kit at one point, >> but that has since been abandoned, and support by >> the author has always been minimal. I'm not sure what this little bit of rhetoric means. The patchkit was sufficiently supported and worked quite well. > As the moderator of "announce" your role has at best been > obtrusive. I know from my own past experience that the > pitifull excuses, and muses you contrive bear a real > relivence to a certain purple dinasour. There does seem to be a bit of a conflict of interest here... This has come up before, but perhaps someone should CFD *netbsd and/or *freebsd newsgroups. >> Therefore, considering that 386BSD 0.1 has little futher useful >> purpose, is unsupported and only marginally usable, that we need >> the disk space, and that there are better alternatives available, >> I propose that it is yanked from the agate.berkeley.edu ftp site. Marginally usable!? I don't think so. Marginally useful? Possibly, due to the lack of support. Better alternatives? Not at the moment, stability-wise, but we can hope (and write code :) >>> If you have comments on this, please send them to me, and i will >>> take them into consideration. > > Give me a break... If there's anything we've learned from 386bsd, it's the need to keep things in the public eye. When the developers retreat to their private mail/mailing lists, some other group is liable to come along and form StableBSD (*no*, I'm not suggesting it, there are already at least two too many BSDs as it is). Along this line, I find remarks by some of the devlopers to the effect that 'bugs/comments/etc. should be sent to the mailing lists, because we're to busy to keep up with the newgroups' to be completely lame. Newsgroups are obviously the way to go if you want to get "the public" involved. If you don't want the unwashed masses messing with your code, perhaps it will just go the way of 386bsd. -Dan dmuntz@eecs.umich.edu