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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!inquo!in-news.erinet.com!ddsw1!news.mcs.net!newspump.sol.net!howland.erols.net!agate!news.Stanford.EDU!nntp.Stanford.EDU!Cup.DSG.Stanford.EDU!jonathan 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 23:27:26 GMT Organization: Stanford Distributed Systems Group Lines: 83 Sender: jonathan@Cup.DSG.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan Stone) Message-ID: <5peo4u$s61$1@nntp.Stanford.EDU> References: <867662387.22833@dejanews.com> <33b787ba.0@rainbow.hrz.uni-siegen.de> <5pd48e$e4i$1@nntp.Stanford.EDU> <33babc1b.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:6201 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3634 comp.unix.ultrix:29053 In article <33babc1b.0@rainbow.hrz.uni-siegen.de>, engel@numerik.math.uni-siegen.de (Michael Engel) writes: > Heavens, I didn't want to start that old Net vs. OpenBSD dispute again ! :-) But Comparisons of the two are a good way to do that. If the comparison is based on out-of-date facts, it's almost certain :). > : 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. > > This is especially nice, since it will make our Linux port to the MIPSels > easier ! But why would you even bother with a Linux port, if you can run MIPS linux binaries on NetBSD in emulation mode?? > > [...] > : Even the LBL > : multicast toolset for Ultrix works, which is pretty impressive, > : considering that IPmulticast support for Ultrix was third-party kernel > : patches. > > Yes, I know the multicast patches. _This_ is really impressive ! Uh, you're welcome ;). > And the lots of bugs in the different PROM revisions don't make life easier. > > I have two otherwise identical DS2100 here, one with PROM rev. 7.0, the > other with 7.01. The one with 7.0 is unable to boot kernels of more than > 1 MB in size via tftp, the 7.01 PROM works well ... I know how that feels. the 5000/120 I upgraded to a 5000/150 won't tftpboot NetBSD kernels at all. But in your case, you could always pull the PROMs out and copy from the 7.01 PROM to the other. I don't know how DEC would view that. Would they lose any revenue from allowing that? If not, it might happen when they officially abandon support for Ultrix. > : 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 ;). > > I was also amused when I realised that ;-) ... I'm confused. Exactly *what* about the OpenBSD installation is easier than NetBSD? NetBSD now has a diskimage install, and you could almost follow those portions of the OpenBSD notes that weren't just plagiarized from my NetBSD text. And the OpenBSD/pmax Web page points you at the NetBSD/pmax Web page if you run into installation problems. > [...] > > Btw., do you have _any_ documentation on the Personal DECstations and > the 5000/1xx systems lying around ? We could use some of that for our > Linux port for the DECstations. No, I just have the 4.4BSD/pmax source code, and folklore. I'm rather puzzled why anyone would invest time in porting Linux to DECstations. It's like comparing *BSD and Linux. Except in the case of DECstations, the momentum and user-base is relaly on the *BSD side, not Linux! Most of the DECstation userbase is used to Ultrix, which is a BSD system. The existing free-Unix-on-DEcstation user base is used to either NetBSD or OpenBSD. The expertise on how to install free-Unix, on device-drivers, and on machine-specific code is all in the *BSD camps. I don't know if there's an already-existing set of precompiled binaries for Linux/MIPS. But if there is, and you want to run them, you should be able to run them under NetBSD's emulation mode. It sounds like a case of NIH to me. And if you want to do DECstation kernel hacking, you're welcome to hack on NetBSD :).