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From: jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan Stone)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.ultrix
Subject: Re: decstation 5000/133: linux/MIPS, OpenBSD/pmax or NetBSD/pmax
Date: 2 Jul 1997 08:41:50 GMT
Organization: Stanford Distributed Systems Group
Lines: 105
Sender: jonathan@Cup.DSG.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan Stone)
Message-ID: <5pd48e$e4i$1@nntp.Stanford.EDU>
References: <867662387.22833@dejanews.com> <33b787ba.0@rainbow.hrz.uni-siegen.de>
Reply-To: jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: cup.dsg.stanford.edu
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:6194 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3628 comp.unix.ultrix:29048
[ Note: (1) comp.os.linux.advocacy, trimmed from Newsgroups: line
(2) Disclaimer: I'm the primary maintainer of NetBSD/pmax,
I try to be fair here in comparing OpenBSD and NetBSD, but
I don't pretend to be impartial. ]
In article <33b787ba.0@rainbow.hrz.uni-siegen.de>, engel@numerik.math.uni-siegen.de (Michael Engel) writes:
> Hi,
>
> The largest difference between NetBSD and OpenBSD on the DECstation is that
> NetBSD lacked support for shared libraries last time I checked.
Not so.
How recently did you check? That hasn't been true for a *long* time.
It's true that the NetBSD 1.2 distribution didn't support shared
libraries. However, NetBSD/pmax snapshots have had shared library
support for over a year, and the snapshots are recommended over the
1.2 distribution (which is now very old).
NetBSD 1.3 will be out this summer-ish; it will have;
* shared libraries (of course)
* X11R6.3 clients and X11R5 Xserver
* ext2fs support, in case you really want to share disks with Linux.
* Fixes for some old, very nasty interrupt bugs in the Berkeley
4.4BSD/pmax code
* Fixes for some nasty SCSI driver bugs
* support for the mips3 CPU (r4000 and r4400) upgrades
(DECstation 5000/50, 5000/150, and 5000/260)
And of course, *all* of these are also available in the latest
NetBSD/pmax snapshots, all of which are more reliable than the NetBSD
1.2 release. (Like NetBSD/alpha, there was no NetBSD-1.2.1 release
for pmax; the snapshots are more reliable and more robust than a 1.2.1
release would be. At least one person has rebuilt the 1.2.1 source
with shared-library support, though).
As far as I know, the last three items above aren't in OpenBSD, but I
haven't looked at OpenBSD recently, and *never* in any great detail.
To be fair, I should point out that the mips3 CPU support in NetBSD is
based on Per Fogelstrom's work, originally for the Acer Pica port of
NetBSD. Per has been an OpenBSD developer for some time. (The
svr4-ABI ELF shared library code in both systems is also derived from
Per's work.)
> : - Which-one has the best 'support' (read: most programs, most users).
>
> Most free software should compile on either system.
Yes. OpenBSD is derived from NetBSD, which is in turn derived from
Net2/4.4BSD-lite + BSD386. Both systems have GCC 2.7.2.2, GNU
binutils, and ELF shared libraries. Most free software should treat
both systems identically.
> Commercial software is
> not available for any of the three. OpenBSD claim to have an Ultrix binary
> compatibility mode, but we weren't able to get the kernel compiled with
> compatibility enabled.
I don't think that's a fair description of the facts. AFAIK,
OpenBSD's Ultrix compatibility mode is derived from the Ultrix
emulation code I wrote for NetBSD. If Ultrix emulation doesn't work
on OpenBSD, that sounds to me like a good reason to choose NetBSD instead;).
Personally, I run NetBSD/pmax machines with /usr/local/share
NFS-mounted off an Ultrix machine. Most things -- tex, ssh, sup,
mount, the entire X11R6.1 client suite, emacs (apart from grovellling
load-level out of Ultrix kernel memory :-) Just Work. Even the LBL
multicast toolset for Ultrix works, which is pretty impressive,
considering that IPmulticast support for Ultrix was third-party kernel
patches.
I haven't tried krb5 compiled for Ultrix on NetBSD/pmax in a while;
there may be some incompatiblities with login and job control. (A
tcch binary compiled under Ultrix runs, but you need to type two
returns after each command, due to job-control differences).
> Note that the installation of either NetBSD or OpenBSD is by far not as
> easy as Ultrix installation, but you get advantages like NFS V3 etc ...
True, unfortunately. The PROMs in DECstations give much less help to
an OS installation than, say, Sparcstations. And nobody has yet
written really nice low-level installation tools for DECstations.
Installation of either NetBSD and OpenBSD is very similar. In fact,
significant portions of the OpenBSD installation guide are copied
verbatim from the NetBSD 1.2 release documentation, complete with the
typos and spelling errors ;).
[snipped from above]
> I'd recommend OpenBSD at the moment. It works quite well on our DECstations
> here.
Full credit to the OpenBSD team for all the enhancments they do make;
but when it comes to DECstation or Alpha hardware, I think there's a
clear and compelling reason to choose NetBSD over OpenBSD: you get
support directly from the main developers of the hardware-specific
code, (CPU support, device drivers, OS emulation, etc) rather than (so
to speak) at one remove.
Though I'm sure the OpenBSD developers will disagree :)