*BSD News Article 29754


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From: jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: Netbsd freebsd? what happened?
Date: 22 Apr 1994 17:22:35 GMT
Organization: Kendall Square Research
Lines: 37
Message-ID: <2p914r$75f@hopscotch.ksr.com>
References: <2p7jjb$oic@hearst.cac.psu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: kaos.ksr.com

heller@akh104.rh.psu.edu (Andrew K. Heller) writes:
> now there is NetBsd-current and Freebsd-1.1gamma (sounds really official dont
>it?!)
> so.. why do we have 2 different systems here?
>I mean whats WRONG with netbsd that had to have freebsd out there?

In short:  the FreeBSD team held out hope for 386bsd 0.2 longer than the
NetBSD team, and by the time they gave up, the two teams had different
preferences for where they wanted to go.  Beyond that, some apparent
personality differences prevented the two teams from merging.

>and should I run netbsd-current or freebsd-1.1gamma?

Maybe.

>did netbsd fix that #$@%$^^ bug that locked up WD controllers?

People appear to be happier with the WD driver in NetBSD-current.

>why hasnt netbsd come out with another release?

They have a wish list a mile long (in fact, I gather they have TWO wish
lists a mile long), and more of a "it'll be ready when it's ready" attitude.

>help!

If you're desperate to find out what netbsd is like, netbsd-current is readily
available by FTP.  It is, perhaps, a bit unsteady at this very moment (at
least for my tastes; sun-lamp.cs.berkeley.edu is running the latest & greatest
and appears happy), so you might or might not want to wait just a bit.

Why do you need to change from BSD/386, by the way?  If it ain't broke, don't
fix it!

[Disclaimer:  I run NetBSD-current (or nearly current), contribute the odd
fix now and then, but am not a member of the Team nor privy to their inner
thoughts.  (And even less so to FreeBSD's.)]