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From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.)
Subject: Re: Is this group for the discusion and use of BSD 2.x?
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Organization: St. Peter's College, US
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 08:30:39 GMT
Message-ID: <1996Mar13.033039.1@spcvxb.spc.edu>
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In article <4i4mvm$611@beta.datastorm.com>, John A. Maier <johnam@beta.datastorm.com> writes:
> Is this group for the discusion and use of BSD 2.x?
Yes. [Hooray! An on-topic post that isn't from Steve! 8-]
> If so is there a FAQ on the nature of this group and BSD 2.x? I.e. is it
> free, will it work in a PDP-11 or PRO-350, where can I get it, etc.
I don't think there's a FAQ. However, lots of friendly 2BSD users (all of
us?) monitor this newsgroup and will [usually] cheerfully answer questions.
2BSD is based on a version of USB CSRG Unix [4.3BSD] which is encumbered
by Western Electric/AT&T/USL/Novell/SCO (choose one or more) licensing. In
order to legally run 2BSD you need to have a license that allows you to
run the code 4BSD was derived from (I'm not exactly sure what that is -
it's either 7th Edition or System V). In addition, that license has to have
the particular PDP-11 you want to run 2BSD on listed (or it could be a site
license, but those are few and far between).
While it's theoretically possible to port one of the free BSD-derived
systems to the PDP-11, some things get in the way: First, there's been a
lot of "code bloat" since 2BSD (my 2BSD kernel is 150629 bytes; my Net2-
derived kernel on a 386 is 957931 bytes) - when you only have 4MB, that
hurts. Next, all of the system-specific modules need to be written, and
Gang-of-N copyright is claimed in most of the existing 2BSD machine mod-
ules as I recall. Lastly, you'll need to find somebody to do the work.
Steve and I came up with a [much simpler] new pseudo-VM scheme that would
allow virtually (no pun intended) unlimited code and data segments, but
even that was impossible to get implemented.
In the "old days", 2BSD was distributed by Usenix - you send them some
amount of money and you got a set of 2BSD tapes. You could also pick up a
set of the 4.3BSD manuals on the same purchase order. I don't think they
do this any more. If you have a valid license, you can ask Steve what the
best way to get a copy is - send mail to sms@moe.2bsd.com.
2BSD (the current version, 2.11.something) runs on PDP-11's that have
I/D space and a Unibus or a Q-bus. Supervisor mode is necessary if you
want to run the networking (TCP/IP) parts (it's no fun without that).
There once was a version of 2BSD that ran on the Pro, but the current
version doesn't. I heard a rumor that a) Venix runs on the Pro, and b) it
is available for either free or next-to-free from somewhere. Sorry but I
didn't save that snippet of info - perhaps someone else can comment?
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask 'em here.
Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing
terry@spcvxa.spc.edu St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA
+1 201 915 9381 (voice) +1 201 435-3662 (FAX)