*BSD News Article 33482


Return to BSD News archive

Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:2937 comp.os.linux.misc:20654
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!uunet!news.widomaker.com!escape!shendrix
From: shendrix@escape.widomaker.com (Shannon Hendrix)
Subject: Re: Usefulness of BSD/Linux Source Knowledge (was BSD vs. LINUX)
Message-ID: <1994Jul29.041113.7319@escape.widomaker.com>
Organization: HNN UNIX Network
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 04:11:13 GMT
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> <cln.775305310@dynamo>
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc
Lines: 77

matthew green (mrg@mame.mu.OZ.AU) wrote:
: shendrix@escape.widomaker.com (Shannon Hendrix) writes:

: as i've pointed out before, netbsd and freebsd (and 4.4,
: for that matter), -also- follow posix carefully.  and as

And as I've pointed out I never said BSD didn't have it.

: jtc rightly pointed out, none of them have been tested,
: though, so none can _claim_ posix conformance.

Oh they've been tested... by programmers everywhere.  I write compliant
programs and the port trivially compared to before I started reading
POSIX guidlines.  Of course, habit is still the winner but I'm gradually
making the shift to POSIX code and it's making things much smoother.  So
while I might not be able to claim conformance 100% I certainly know
it's working for me.

: sunos 5 is not svr4.2 - it is svr4.0

Minor bauble on my part, and on Sun's since that's what their reps
told me 2 days ago.  The local office has been known to be less than
accurate so I'll accept what you say.

: as much as sun hate it, sunos4 is still alive and kicking,
: currently.  sadly though, it won't last.

Yep, we'll be running it on our 4/xxx machines till they croak I guess
since Solaris is so slow on them.  Networking really takes a hit... I
supposed it's STREAMS based in solaris 2.x?  Hopefully the SS10's are
fast enough so the extra overhead of Solaris 2.x isn't all that bad.
And, we probably could just run 4.1.3 on them but Sun says they'll
ship with Solaris 2.x.  They pretty much won't discuss getting 4.1.3.
Secondly, for various reasons we'll pretty much have to run Solaris
anyway.

: posix doesn't get your that much, really.  it is very
: very restrictive to write _purely_ posix code.  (if

Yes, but not that bad.  Actually, writing good C is one of the best
ways to make code portable.  A lot of the POSIX books spend a lot of
time discussing that as much as POSIX conformance.

: you want to discuss this further, take it to email,
: or to some other group - it does not belong here).

: why is bsd dead?  there are _several_ commercial bsd
: unixes available, but no linux ones.  i don't see why
: you think bsd is dead.

I mean dead in the sense that UNIX vendors are moving away from it
and it's not likely that future systems will be running BSD.  They'll
ship with SysV UNIX.  Many already are.  Of course, I'm sure BSD
will get ported to them if people find the time but it won't be from
the vendors and thus most of the machines will be running SysV.

: you claim that bsd is dead, above, and then state here
: that it is `getting a lot of the stuff from SysV' in it.

So?  That's not contradictory.  Atari ST's are getting a lot of UNIX
code running on them.  Atari is still dead and so is Amiga (and lot's
of UNIX code is still being ported to Amigas).

: i wish at&t would die, and take svr4 with it.  it's
: really sad that svr4 is the ``industry standard.''

I agree.  But since I've got to start using SysV pretty soon at work I'm
just focusing on being glad I get to program in UNIX at work and not
Windows or some other crap.  At least I can get my favorite BSD and GNU
software running under SysV after a little effort.

: .mrg.
-- 
csh
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
shendrix@escape.widomaker.com (UUCP)     | Amd486/40 Linux system
shendrix@pcs.cnu.edu (Internet)          | Christopher Newport University