*BSD News Article 38175


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From: paul@isl.cf.ac.uk (Paul Richards)
Subject: Re: 386BSD Release 1.0 Ships!!!
Message-ID: <1994Nov21.042126.24134@cm.cf.ac.uk>
Sender: paul@isl.cf.ac.uk (Paul Richards)
Nntp-Posting-Host: isl-gate.elsy.cf.ac.uk
Organization: ELSYM, University of Wales, College of Cardiff, UK.
References: <jmonroyCz4rG2.9wH@netcom.com> <3a7g56$2tq@obelix.cica.es>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 04:21:25 +0000
Lines: 31

In article <3a7g56$2tq@obelix.cica.es>,
Jonathan Noel Tombs <jon@obelix.cica.es> wrote:
>
>What is this talking about "Today is one of..." Linux existed for about a
>year before 386BSD 0.1, and was in a usable state about 6 months before the 
>release. It was a further 6months before any release of 386BSD was usable
>(the early versions took a dislike to my hard disks, and long commandline 
>arguments caused a kernel panic).

Not to knock Linux, which I have a lot of respect for, but the above statement
is a little inaccurate. Linus started working on it about a year before
386BSD 0.1 but it had certainly not been useable for 6 months before. You
could just as easily claim that 386BSD was several years older since Bill
had been working on it for quite some time.

At the time 386BSD 0.1 was released Linux was in a less functional state 
although was perhaps a little more robust at what it did do. Not hard
considering it was ridiculously simple to knock 386BSD flat on its face.

Linux had only just gone multi user. The first Linux snapshot I picked up
was single user and that was only about a month or so before 0.1 came out.

At the time I was running Linux and it was 50/50 which way I'd go since
neither were useable platforms. Networking was what swung me initially since
it was essential for me and writing a driver to support my card seemed a 
lot less work than writing all the network stack too :-)
-- 
  Paul Richards, FreeBSD core team member. 
  Phone: +44 1222 874000 x5958 (work), +44 1222 457651 (home)
  Dept. Mechanical Engineering, University of Wales, College Cardiff.
  Internet: paul@FreeBSD.org,  JANET(UK): RICHARDSDP@CARDIFF.AC.UK