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Xref: sserve comp.unix.solaris:624 comp.unix.bsd:8312 Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!hp9000.csc.cuhk.hk!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!csn!raven!rcd From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn) Subject: Re: Solaris 1.1 vs. Solaris 2.0 (BSD vs AT&T) Message-ID: <1992Nov25.173708@eklektix.com> Organization: eklektix - Boulder, Colorado References: <1992Nov13.232053.7061@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu> <1992Nov16.075931@eklektix.com> <1992Nov24.064615.18607@robohack.UUCP> Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1992 17:37:08 GMT Lines: 47 woods@robohack.UUCP (Greg A. Woods) writes: >rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn) writes: >> The only reason SysV is alive is because of SVR4, and the only reason any- >> one wants SVR4 is because of the BSDisms. .... >"BSDisms"!?!?!? Read you're own signature Dick! .... >> ...Simpler is better. Sigh...yes. BSD *is* more complicated than it needs to be; I certainly railed against it when I first encountered it (coming straight from V7) many years ago. But after several years, I had to go back to what UNIX had "officially" turned into--SysV. There is *nothing* to make you appreciate BSD quite so much as working with SysV! >The only good stuff in BSD or SVR$ [sic] came from the Labs, *not* >CSRG, or USG [USL]! [Barring the obvious exceptions, of course.] Come on. BSD has some cruft, but a lot of good came along with it. There's fundamental stuff like the file system improvements (over-wrought, but good performance and at least it doesn't turn into block-assignment- by-random-selection as the file system ages), long file names, or all of the networking. Why did it take most of a decade for AT&T to figure out that it needed those? There's also a lot of little BSD stuff that makes life easier--like "mv" doing what you want instead of just whining, or "diff" being more gracious with its argument handling. I wish they hadn't added so much stuff, but at least a fair part of it has been genuinely useful. Compare this with the sort of cruft added to SysV. The first example that comes to my mind is always the "three weird sisters"--msg/sem/shm. What a misbegotten collection of wrong ideas badly implemented! The one positive thing you can say about SysV up through R3 is that it gave vendors like Interactive and SCO an incredible opportunity to add value. But the idea behind SVR4 is partly an admission that AT&T/USL had fallen so far behind in real improvements that there was no way they could catch up by evolving their own system. O,BTW: >What are you smoking, and where can I get some (legally)??? I was drinking. Seems more fitting when contemplating what USG/UI/USL has done to UNIX. I hate to think what could happen to Plan 9. -- Dick Dunn rcd@raven.eklektix.com -or- raven!rcd Boulder, Colorado ...Ain't no time to hate.