Return to BSD News archive
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!nic-nac.CSU.net!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!yeshua.marcam.com!zip.eecs.umich.edu!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!uunet!brunix!mhw From: mhw@cs.brown.edu (Mark Weaver) Subject: 386BSD Remarkable? (was Re: Call for 386BSD Rel.1.0 SIG (Special Interest Group)) Message-ID: <1994Aug27.175807.20821@cs.brown.edu> Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc Sender: news@cs.brown.edu Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science References: <FOO-MAN.94Aug23191512@raven.raven.csrv.uidaho.edu> <jmonroyCv2Iw2.AD9@netcom.com> <1994Aug25.074246.4082@cs.brown.edu> <Cv5u8o.CEn@calcite.rhyolite.com> Date: Sat, 27 Aug 1994 17:58:07 GMT Lines: 58 In article <Cv5u8o.CEn@calcite.rhyolite.com>, Vernon Schryver <vjs@calcite.rhyolite.com> wrote: >In article <1994Aug25.074246.4082@cs.brown.edu> mhw@cs.brown.edu (Mark Weaver) writes: >> ... >>I'm not saying that 386BSD 0.1 wasn't a remarkable accomplishment. >>It *WAS*. If it wasn't for his work, we'd probably all be using >>Linux right now. .... > > [...] > >The first sentence is an overstatement at least by implication. 386BSD >0.1 was remarkable in the literal sense, as in "worthy of notice," but >technically it was at best unremarkable. Hundreds of other people had >ported UNIX to more difficult platforms over the previous decades, and >done better jobs of it. 386BSD 0.1 was remarkable mostly because it >was free. Actually, I think you're overlooking something here. 386BSD was not merely a port, because it was based on Net/2, which was not a complete operating system. Trying to get a port up when you only have to write a few simple routines and drivers is one thing. But I think 386BSD was a bit more than that. For instance, the VM system was replaced with Mach's VM. I may be showing my ignorance here, because I really don't know for sure how much is missing from Net/2. >Before you praise 386BSD 0.1, boot it. Remember how easy it was to >crash the tinybsd floppy? Remember how much of a mess it was to install >on a hard disk? It was perhaps more than you'd expect from the first >3-12 weeks of a porting job, which would be fine except that that was >all there ever was. The "dog (disk crash) ate my homework" story was >ok for a few weeks, but smelled bad after 6 months. Since the hardware on the PC architecture is so varying and unreliable, it seems to be very difficult to write robust drivers that work for everyone. I think you're being a little unfair. >You could argue that 386BSD 0.1 was remarkable as a very bad thing, that >it caused the fragmentation into NetBSD/FreeBSD/Linux. Imagine what >might have happened if 386BSd 0.1 had not appeared. What if we had only >commercial source products like BSDI and free Linux? Linux's NFS and >network code might be far stronger, and benefiting the efforts of people >who know the BSD source. That would have been a better world for many >reasons. Actually, this point I might agree with. Linux has been getting better and better, and for those who haven't looked a Linux in a few months, you'd be surprised. It's extremely stable and fast, and the networking is ALMOST there. My only beef with it is that the C library is primitive compared to NetBSD. Followups to comp.os.386bsd.misc. Mark -------------------------------------------------------------------- Email: Mark_Weaver@brown.edu | Brown University PGP Key: finger mhw@cs.brown.edu | Dept of Computer Science