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From: storm@cs.mcgill.ca (Marc WANDSCHNEIDER)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.os.386bsd.misc
Subject: Re: [q] Why (Free & Net)BSD use different binaries?
Date: 14 Feb 1994 22:20:47 GMT
Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Lines: 139
Message-ID: <2jotfv$irj@homer.cs.mcgill.ca>
References: <CL7tvx.A74@news.cis.umn.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mnementh.cs.mcgill.ca

In article <CL7tvx.A74@news.cis.umn.edu>,
Pitt Cheang <cheangk@marlin.micro.umn.edu> wrote:
>I have been using Linux for a while and very happy with it, browsing through
>386bsd newsgroups and having some opinion compare between the two different
>multiprocessing OS, makes me want to try how 386bsd taste. I believe people
>from here would suggest either FreeBSD or NetBSD, however I have a question
>thought. Why would there exist two versions of XFree86 for FreeBSD and
>NetBSD ? Motif ? If both are diversed from 386bsd, I couldn't think of
>any ideas what is the difference would make seperate binaries, are they
>different in binary code or just filesystem structure? Are the different
>in kernel code ? or are they just different in distribution method?
>Right now have just downloaded FreeBSD, (it takes me two days to get
>them all), should I try NetBSD also? 

	sigh.

	in the beginning, there was 386bsd.  Bill Jolitz, a weird guy
	to say the least, ported the BSD 4.3 Net/2 code to intel i386
	chip.  the port kinda worked and kinda did most unix things
	that people want it to do, except it was extremely unstable, 
	buggy, and to some people, poorly written.  however, it was
	free, and there was an excellent series of articles in dr.dobbs
	journal startin in jan 91 i believe that described the porting
	process.

	a bunch of people who were working on 386bsd started up what
	became the 'patchkit' for 386bsd.  every once in a while,
	a whole collection of patches and bug fixes would be submitted
	that people could add to their source tree to make it run 
	better.

	all the while, bill jolitz was promising the imminent release
	of 386bsd version 0.2 [up until then, there had been 0.0 and
	0.1 only].  this version of 386bsd was promised to:

	1. fix everything broken in 0.1
	2. contain a real sysv streams implementation
	3. solve world hunger.
	4. contain vast tracts of Jesus Monroy Jr's [ye groupe foole]
	code. [hahahhahahhaha]



	now, some people who did a lot of work on 386bsd came along,
	and decided that 

	1. 0.2 was never going to come out
	2. 386bsd kinda sucked.
	3. too much of bsd's platform independance had been
	removed.

	thus, they started NetBSD 0.8, with the intent of removing
	the 386 from 386bsd.  ports to the amiga, mac, and sparc
	quickly followed, all the while work on the 386 continued.

	the code tree was massively reorg'd, and work to make it easier to
	port followed.  0.9 soon after came out [i386].

	now, there wer e a bunch of people who were still holding out on 0.2,
	but slowly  started to realize that it had about as great a chance
	as showing up sometime soon as bob dole did of convincing the world
	that he really does believe in gay rights.

	these people were tempted to join up with the netbsd camp, and 
	start the mother of all free operating systems. [most being
	largely of the opinion that linux was pooopoo for what they
	wanted].

	however, oweing to -phenomenal- tact, diplomacy, and general
	conversation skills above and beyond that of a dandelion [barely],
	what ended up ensuing was a series of donnybrooks that would do Orca 
	[oops Oprah] proud.

	thus, the netbsd people decided to do what they were doing, and the
	old 386bsd people decide to continue working on the 386bsd
	code base, but instead rename it to freebsd, since 386bsd was all but
	dead.

	freebsd 1.0 [after about 50 beta, alpha, gnu, pie, epsilon, and
	gamma releases], finally came out, and proved to be a stable upgrade to
	386bsd 0.1.  the goal of freebsd was not concentrate on getting the
	multi-platform stuff working as much as getting the i386 stuff
	working[well].

	NetBSD 0.9 came up with a dfferent executable format that was 
	more similar to BSDI's QMAGIC, than 386bsd's OMAGIC [god, i hope
	i got the letters right ;-)], while FreeBSD continued to use
	the same format as 386bsd, since it worked just fine.

	thus, 386bsd and freebsd 1.0 binaries would run under netbsd 0.9,
	as would many [all?] bsdi  bsd/386 1.0 binaries.  however,
	netbsd and bsdi binaries would not run under freebsd 1.0.  i believe
	that freebsd can now run the qmagic binaries from bsdi and netbsd, 
	although i will not accept to being quoted on that one.

	both netbsd 0.9 and freebsd 1.0 are pretty old in that the code base
	both os's were based on has changed much since, in compeltely
	different directions [ie, they were once pretty similar, but
	this similarity grows less on a regular basis].  to get the 
	most up to date code trees, you want to look at the netbsd-current
	and freebsd-current trees.  these both have shared libraires,
	fixes this and that, etc.....  freebsd has a newer serial
	and western digital disk driver, while netbsd continues to be plagued
	by a broken serial driver and a buggy wd driver.  the netbsd/amiga
	sparc, and  mac trees continue to evolve at a pleasant rate.

	both now require different xfree86/motif/moo trees, since
	they differ a lot oat the system level.  most freebsd ported
	apps compile sans trouble under netbsd, and vice versa [ie,
	in user land, the differences aren't quite as severe...]



	thus, to sum it up:

	386bsd is the common ancestor.  netbsd and freebsd are diverging
	code trees that both do pretty much the same thing. [run
	unix :-)].  both will likely upgrade to BSD 4.4-lite at the easrliest
	opportunity.


	which one should you use for you intel computer?

	Not 386bsd 0.1.  anything else is pure religion.


	if you've downloaded one, you might as well stick with it.




						toodlepip!
						marc 'em.

-- 
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Marc Wandschneider					    Seattle, WA
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