*BSD News Article 33425


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From: rmk@rmkhome.com (Rick Kelly)
Subject: Re: Usefulness of BSD/Linux Source Knowledge (was BSD vs. LINUX)
Organization: The Man With Ten Cats
References: <30jqp1$ees@grex.cyberspace.org> <1994Jul21.182603.15882@belvedere.sbay.org> <2NsBkiCqLiLU068yn@cs.odu.edu> <30pn0a$9rf@hermes.unt.edu> <CtEuyA.En1@world.std.com> <1994Jul24.185248.5906@escape.widomaker.com>
Message-ID: <9407282112.17@rmkhome.com>
Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.com (Rick Kelly)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 02:12:17 GMT
Lines: 75

Shannon Hendrix (shendrix@escape.widomaker.com) wrote:
: Lee E Parsons (lparsons@world.std.com) wrote:

: : Which brings up the reason I went BSD instead of Linux. When I set up my
: : PC I didn't just want a unix at home. I wanted a unix at home I could 
: : hack, destroy, change and review. And I wanted all of these things with
: : the assurence that what I was learning during the above process had some
: : applicability to something other than Linux.

: Linux is probably more applicable to the future of UNIX than BSD.  It's
: following POSIX very closely and all other OS are going that way too.
: It's also very much like SysV and has most of the BSD stuff in it.

It is also claimed that HP300 MPE, OpenVMS, and Windows NT are POSIX
compliant.  It's a nice buzzword.

: Also, SunOS is no longer a port of BSD.  It's yet another version of
: SVR4.2 now, not BSD.  It's been that way since Solaris 2 was released
: and it is the future, like it or not.

Sun is still making enhancements to SunOS 4.1.3.  That's BSD.

SunOS 4.1.3 (Solaris 1.1.1_U1 Release B) runs on ALL Sun hardware.

That's BSD.

: : With Linux I felt I would be spending my time learning the guts of 
: : a system written by Linus. While that may be very educational it doesnt
: : do much for my ability to say "Our OS works like THIS"

: He wrote it following POSIX and standard UNIX so it's mostly the same.

Saying "POSIX" is a lot like saying "National Health Plan".

: : Before somebody flames me let me provide an example. If I wanted to 
: : understand how Ultrix computes the loadaverage I could go to FreeBSD
: : and get a pretty good idea how it is done. Where does Linux get its
: : code for the loadaverage? Is it a total rewrite? If so how can I
: : make any other choice except FreeBSD.

: Because BSD is dead.  I wish it were not so because I prefer BSD but
: SVR4.2 is the future of UNIX, not BSD.  You actually made a wrong 
: choice by your own critieria.

If SVR4.2 is the future of UNIX then Linux is dead because it isn't.

: Anyway, the two are fine Unices so you should choose what you like best.
: What you learn in either one is good for you and the differences between
: the two are shrinking because SVR4.2 and Linux have most of BSD in them
: and BSD is getting a lot of the stuff from SysV in it.  Like I said,
: all OS are merging and your learning won't be wasted either way.


So I take it your also looking at VMS and VM sin they are also current
operating systems and therefore are merging with UNIX.  And MacOS, and
RSX11M, and OS/9.......

: : Am I not putting enough faith in Linux? Too much in FreeBSD?

: No, you just argued against yourself a lot.

And your argument is:

"There is only Linux"

"There is no other OS"

Right.

Everyone knows the one true OS is Plan 9.


-- 

Rick Kelly  rmk@rmkhome.com  rmk@bedford.progress.com