Path: sparky!uunet!ferkel.ucsb.edu!taco!gatech!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!
remus.rutgers.edu!glenw
From: gl...@remus.rutgers.edu (Glenn Wasserman)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: 386BSD or LINUX?
Message-ID: <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18690@remus.rutgers.edu>
Date: 3 Nov 92 01:33:38 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 17
As the subject heading says, which is it? Which is the better,more
supported operating system (I know I'm going to get a lot on this
one!)
I have Linux running on my machine now, and I'm just wondering if this
is the right choice. Is 386BSD more stable? Is there any reason to
switch?
Just wonderin'.
-Glenn
--
* Glenn Wasserman - Rutgers University - Computer Science *
*************************************************************************
* gl...@remus.rutgers.edu * gl...@gandalf.rutgers.edu *
*************************************************************************
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sparky!uunet!caen!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!menudo.uh.edu!wjin
From: w...@cs.uh.edu (W. Woody Jin)
Subject: Re: 386BSD or LINUX?
Message-ID: <1992Nov4.052106.29266@menudo.uh.edu>
Sender: use...@menudo.uh.edu (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: modigliani.cs.uh.edu
Organization: University of Houston
References: <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18690@remus.rutgers.edu>
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 05:21:06 GMT
Lines: 42
In article <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18...@remus.rutgers.edu> gl...@remus.rutgers.edu
(Glenn Wasserman) writes:
>As the subject heading says, which is it? Which is the better,more
>supported operating system (I know I'm going to get a lot on this
>one!)
>
>I have Linux running on my machine now, and I'm just wondering if this
>is the right choice. Is 386BSD more stable?
Version numbers say it : Linux 0.98 <--> 386BSD 0.1 p58.
I have 386BSD 0.1p58 running (not properly). Still, 'ps -aux' does not
work properly (reports 'nlist ... so so..' and all the CPU usages are
0 % ). Booting takes forever loop, fsck reporting some error messages
(So, I had to type ^C and did fsck manually - this was a new problem
after I did patches). I still cannot do 'mwrite' nor downloading or
uploading using modem (tip, rz, and sz as described in INSTALL.NOTES).
It just simply does not work (using given binaries, source codes, and
58 patchkits - I think I have to ask around how other people are doing).
Installing DOS and 386BSD in a single IDE drive is an extreme headache,
which I don't want to suggest you to try unless you have lots of free time
or nothing to do. I could finally do it after spending a whole day.
But there is something mysterious. Whenever I format C: drive (in DOS)
it says "Trying to recover allocation unit xxxxx".
>Is there any reason to switch?
Not now, unless you are extremely intrigued (like me).
I would not recommend current 386BSD to an average UNIX user who is busy
doing his regular jobs.
But when you hear 386bsd is stable, I am sure that 386bsd will be THE unix
system on 386/486. And I am eagerly waiting for 386BSD 0.2.
--
____ ____ ____ ____________________________________ (___) _________________
| | | | | | W. Woody Jin (w...@cs.uh.edu) (o o) Moo....
| | | |__| | PhD Student. Research Asst. o=======\ / I'm a Cow Lover.
| | | | Dept. of Computer Science / | ||O My wife was born
\ |---| |--| | University of Houston ` ||'---|| in Cow year. Mooo
\____/|__| |__| _______________________________^^ ^^_____________________
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!
ira.uka.de!Germany.EU.net!gmdtub!prosun!gt
From: g...@prosun.first.gmd.de (Gerd Truschinski)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: 386BSD or LINUX?
Message-ID: <2582@bigfoot.first.gmd.de>
Date: 4 Nov 92 13:35:38 GMT
References: <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18690@remus.rutgers.edu>
<1992Nov4.052106.29266@menudo.uh.edu>
Sender: n...@bigfoot.first.gmd.de
Organization: GMD Berlin (FIRST)
Lines: 38
In article <1992Nov4.052106.29...@menudo.uh.edu>, w...@cs.uh.edu (W. Woody Jin)
writes:
|> In article <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18...@remus.rutgers.edu> gl...@remus.rutgers.edu
(Glenn Wasserman) writes:
|> >As the subject heading says, which is it? Which is the better,more
|> >supported operating system (I know I'm going to get a lot on this
|> >one!)
|> >
|> >I have Linux running on my machine now, and I'm just wondering if this
|> >is the right choice. Is 386BSD more stable?
|>
|> Version numbers say it : Linux 0.98 <--> 386BSD 0.1 p58.
|>
^^^^ ^^^^^^^
Hey, its --> 4.3 <--- 386BSD isn't it :-)
/gT/
|>[stuff deleted]
But, may be that your disk is brocken?
|>
|> --
|> ____ ____ ____ ____________________________________ (___) _________________
|> | | | | | | W. Woody Jin (w...@cs.uh.edu) (o o) Moo....
|> | | | |__| | PhD Student. Research Asst. o=======\ / I'm a Cow Lover.
|> | | | | Dept. of Computer Science / | ||O My wife was born
|> \ |---| |--| | University of Houston ` ||'---|| in Cow year. Mooo
|> \____/|__| |__| _______________________________^^ ^^_____________________
--
Gerd Truschinski | INTERNET: g...@first.gmd.de
c/o GMD-First Berlin |
O-1199 Berlin-Adlershof | TEL: +49 30 6704 2662
Rudower Chausee 5 (13.7) | FAX: +49 30 6704 5088
Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!torvalds
From: torva...@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: 386BSD or LINUX?
Message-ID: <1992Nov4.160417.25258@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 4 Nov 92 16:04:17 GMT
References: <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18690@remus.rutgers.edu>
<1992Nov4.052106.29266@menudo.uh.edu> <2582@bigfoot.first.gmd.de>
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 79
In article <2...@bigfoot.first.gmd.de> g...@prosun.first.gmd.de (Gerd Truschinski)
writes:
>In article <1992Nov4.052106.29...@menudo.uh.edu>, w...@cs.uh.edu (W. Woody Jin) writes:
>|> In article <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18...@remus.rutgers.edu> gl...@remus.rutgers.edu
(Glenn Wasserman) writes:
>|> >
>|> >I have Linux running on my machine now, and I'm just wondering if this
>|> >is the right choice. Is 386BSD more stable?
>|>
>|> Version numbers say it : Linux 0.98 <--> 386BSD 0.1 p58.
> ^^^^ ^^^^^^^
>Hey, its --> 4.3 <--- 386BSD isn't it :-)
Yes, yes, yes. I promised myself that I wouldn't bother with this
thread, but so what. Anyway, the only good way to tell which is better
for your needs is to actually try them both out. Version numbers don't
tell you much: different people give different version-numbers, and the
different design policies between the setups also change the way the
numbers grow: linux has "real-time" developement, ie most of the time
people can use a version that is at most a week or two away from my
current one, so linux numbers automatically grow differently.
386bsd was started before linux was (judging by the DDJ articles), but
due to various problems (disagreement about the first version as well as
just the porting problems) linux has actually been available for a
longer time. So in some respects linux may be more stable, especially
when it comes to the 386-specific things. But yes, 386bsd has many
years of developement behind it, so not surprisingly it probably is more
stable in other areas (networking.. you can still easily crash linux
with heavy ftp'ing it seems)
As to other arguments I've seen: neither 386bsd or linux are
microkernels, and I cannot really say anything about speed. There has
been some talk about linux seeming more responsive: that may be
partially true due to (a) scheduler implementation and (b) less memory
usage due to shared libs (especially under X). On the other hand, I
assume 386bsd handles swapping more gracefully: the linux paging deamon
(actually implemented in the kernel) isn't exactly clever. It's gotten
a lot better since 0.95, but it's still simplistic.
And yes, both kernels seem to have problems with some hardware: not
surprising when you consider the amount of different hardware available
for the IBM PC/AT. I have reports of linux running for 50 days (under
actual load - not just sitting there) without a reboot (and even then
due to upgrading the kernel), but I also have some reports of linux not
even booting, although the hardware "in theory" should fit. I'd assume
the same holds for 386bsd.
One major difference between the systems is the way they grow: linux has
grown openly with many smaller patches and releases and with different
people handling different aspects of the system (I only handle actual
kernel source: others do gcc/X11/rootdisk etc). This has it's good
sides: the system has grown pretty fast, and people who want to keep up
can do so. The more centralized (and judging by myself probably better
administered) 386bsd releases mean people don't have to worry about
where to get things, when to upgrade etc.
The linux realtime releases have had their share of problems: it means
end-users can be bitten by bugs more easily (but it also means they can
be found/fixed more easily). It also means many have gotten the idea
that you have to recompile the kernel every week just to keep it
working, as well as resulting in that there has often been different
versions of the same binary that may use features that aren't available
in all kernels. But if you are a kernel hacker, the linux way is
probably preferable.
So the result of the above is: read both c.o.linux and c.u.bsd, try them
both out, keep an open mind, and select the one that fits you (or keep
running both: variatio delectat). Linux is more of a hackers kernel:
both the kernel and tools are updated all the time (gcc has generally
been available for alpha-testing under linux even before it's been
released - hlu has made images from the snapshots GNU puts out. And so
on). And while linux now does have networking and NFS support, 386bsd
is still probably the choice if you really need networking as opposed to
"just want to play around with it".
Linus
PS. No, I don't follow my own advice: I haven't got the diskspace to
try out 386bsd. That has never hindered anybody else on usenet from
giving good advice. And besides, I'm biased. Just a teeny-weeny bit.
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sparky!uunet!boulder!kinglear!drew
From: d...@kinglear.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt)
Subject: Re: 386BSD or LINUX?
Message-ID: <1992Nov4.205620.8184@colorado.edu>
Sender: n...@colorado.edu (The Daily Planet)
Nntp-Posting-Host: kinglear.cs.colorado.edu
Organization: University of Colorado at Boulder
References: <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18690@remus.rutgers.edu>
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 20:56:20 GMT
Lines: 83
In article <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18...@remus.rutgers.edu> gl...@remus.rutgers.edu
(Glenn Wasserman) writes:
>As the subject heading says, which is it? Which is the better,more
>supported operating system (I know I'm going to get a lot on this
>one!)
I'd say that Linux and 386BSD are "different", but that neither is
"better". I personally use Linux, since at this point, networking
is not important to me, and disk space is at a premium. If I had
more space, more memory, and needed networking, I would probably
lean towards BSD.
Linux +'s :
Shared libraries. This results in a significant disk space savings,
especially in the case of 'X' applications that can shrink by
an order of magnitude when compiled with shared libraries.
Modern VM, with a unified buffer cache and user memory pool.
This improves performance for very memory intensive or very I/O
instensive tasks as the balanace between the two can shift
dynamically.
Many kernel structures, such as pty's, are dynamically allocated. This
increases the amount of pageable memory that is available.
More "odd" hardware is supported in the stock distribution. For
instance, SCSI support is there for Seagate, WD7000, Future Domain,
Ultrastor 14f, and Adaptec boards.
There are more WhizzyFeatures (tm), such as /proc.
Linux supports the MSDOS file system, and can run vm86 tasks such
as the DOS emulator, if you consider these +'s.
Linux -'s :
NFS is not yet stable.
SUNRPC is not yet stable.
It's not BSD.
BSD +'s :
The networking code is BSD, and quite stable. This means SLIP, NFS,
RPC, etc all work fine.
It's BSD.
BSD -'s :
No shared libraries means you can't fit as many toys onto a small
system.
A larger kernel means that you have less space for user programs.
>I have Linux running on my machine now, and I'm just wondering if this
>is the right choice.
Maybe.
>Is 386BSD more stable?
That depends on what you define as "Linux" and what you define as "386BSD".
If you compare Linux alpha code, such as the NFS implemention, Sun RPC,
Xenix fs, etc, chances are that you'll find BSD more stable.
If you only look at beta code, one user posted a "success story" to the
mailing list detailing how they'd run a patient tracking system on a
network of Linux and Xenix machines, and that a Linux system hadn't
crashed after 40 days of being up and running with a real load.
>Is there any reason to
>switch?
I'd say that if you want BSD, because it's BSD, or if you want
stable NFS NOW, and not in two weeks, that it might be worthwhile.
--
Microsoft is responsible for propogating the evils it calls DOS and Windows,
IBM for AIX (appropriately called Aches by those having to administer it), but
marketing's sins don't come close to those of legal departments.
Boycott AT&T for their absurd anti-BSDI lawsuit.
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sparky!uunet!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ira.uka.de!Germany.EU.net!
news.Hamburg.Germany.EU.net!gulasch!elmar
From: el...@gulasch.hanse.de (Elmar Folba)
Subject: Re: 386BSD or LINUX?
References: <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18690@remus.rutgers.edu>
Organization: Spare-time Hacker, Hamburg, Germany
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 20:17:21 GMT
Message-ID: <1992Nov4.201721.1036@gulasch.hanse.de>
Lines: 14
In article <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18...@remus.rutgers.edu> gl...@remus.rutgers.edu
(Glenn Wasserman) writes:
>As the subject heading says, which is it? Which is the better,more
>supported operating system (I know I'm going to get a lot on this
>one!)
>...
Not necessarily. Who, do you think, has significant and comparable experience
with both systems?
And: what is 'better'? Better suited to which purpose?
--
Kind regards, Elmar Folba
Hamburg, Germany
el...@gulasch.hanse.de
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sparky!uunet!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!
eichin
From: eic...@athena.mit.edu (Mark W. Eichin)
Subject: Re: 386BSD or LINUX?
In-Reply-To: elmar@gulasch.hanse.de's message of Wed, 4 Nov 1992 20:17:21 GMT
Message-ID: <EICHIN.92Nov4224548@tsx-11.mit.edu>
Sender: n...@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Nntp-Posting-Host: tsx-11.mit.edu
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
References: <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18690@remus.rutgers.edu>
<1992Nov4.201721.1036@gulasch.hanse.de>
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 03:46:01 GMT
Lines: 136
In article <1992Nov4.201721.1...@gulasch.hanse.de> el...@gulasch.hanse.de
(Elmar Folba) writes:
>>Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
>>From: el...@gulasch.hanse.de (Elmar Folba)
>>References: <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18...@remus.rutgers.edu>
>>Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 20:17:21 GMT
>>Not necessarily. Who, do you think, has significant and comparable experience
>>with both systems?
>>And: what is 'better'? Better suited to which purpose?
"significant and comparable experience"? I certainly do... I got a 486
machine in January, immediately put linux 0.10 up on it, hacked with
that for a while, then 386BSD 0.0 came out, so I blew everything away
and put that up instead. When 0.1 came out, I took the kernel sources
(since there hadn't really been major changes to anything else, and
the install program didn't impress me...) and worked with those for a
while... and then I needed (for work reasons) to get a DOS partition
again, to run djgcc/go32, so I put linux (SLS 0.98) up and started
hacking on the networking code.
There are various ways to compare the two systems. It would be
impolite to treat them as being in competition; I'll merely try to
list things that "make a difference" between the two.
1) Networking.
386BSD has had TCP/IP support (Ethernet and SLIP) in kernel
since 0.0 (after all, the socket interface was originally developed as
part of BSD.) Just about everything you or your sysadmin knows about
configuring unix networking will apply, which makes the setup seem
fairly easy.
Linux has had TCP support in the form of the KA9Q networking
package, though I seem to recall this is only "free" for educational
or ham radio use, since the early days; the 0.98 release actually has
in kernel TCP, which is still a bit rough, but serves a useful purpose
as an independent implementation. Great if you want to hack (like I
do) but not quite up for heavy use; this is changing rapidly.
2) File Systems.
386BSD has the Berkeley Fast File System; you can read
research papers on the implementation and design. It is quite robust,
and fsck can fix most problems due to sudden shutdown. There is a VFS
layer, but not many alternate disk-based file systems as of yet (NFS
for both TCP and UDP are included, though, and mostly work as of 0.1.)
Linux started with the Minix filesystem, but now has a VFS
layer and several additional filesystem types, most popularly the
Extended Filesystem (just stretch the Minix entries by a factor of
two, but it does work...) and the MSDOS filesystem type (a *major* win
- none of the inconvenience of mtools, just mount the floppy or hard
drive and use cp/mv/emacs and it just works.) There is also a /proc
filesystem (at least I think it is done as a filesystem type, haven't
looked at the code.)
3) Utilities.
386BSD has the various Berkeley utilities included, as well as
groff, gcc (based on 1.39); it is easy to get most of the GNU
utilities up (and for some things it is necessary -- /bin/sh is a
crippled shell that doesn't handle quoting well enough to run
Configure, so you'll probably replace it with BASH right away.)
Linux comes with mostly GNU utilities, and what it doesn't
come with usually configures and builds cleanly. The "standard" gcc
(at the moment) is gcc 2.2.2d (lots of patches from 2.2.2) and I
expect 2.3.1 to work with little effort.
4) Shared Libraries
Linux has them; BSD doesn't. This means that Linux can be
installed rather completely on a much smaller system (I've done kernel
builds on an AST 386sx/20Mh/2Mram/40Mdisk from inside of emacs, with
everything important installed... no X, no TeX, but there was room
left for at least one of those.)
5) Hardware support
Linux seems to have more support for "low budget" hardware,
contributed by people who have it. There is a good deal of
cross-breeding here, however, with some people working on drivers on
both sides (since, after all, the *hard* part is actually talking to
the hardware, not talking to the O/S.) My personal experience has been
that Linux boots from scratch on more machines than 386BSD does.
6) Development "Life Cycle"
Bill and Lynne Jolitz manage the entire release very closely;
this reults in reasonable quality control, but a long cycle between
releases (if I recall correctly, 0.0 came out in March, 0.1 over the
summer, and submissions for 0.2 are solicited now though no date is
even hinted at for a release.) It is also reported that the Jolitz'
have not been able to keep up with NetNews since Septmber 1.
Linus Torvalds keeps a very close eye on the kernel -- in
fact, he rewrites many submissions (though not all) to meet his coding
standards, improving them in the process. Other people handle the
release of installable systems, moving at various paces. Linus also
participates very actively in discussions on both comp.os.linux and
comp.unix.bsd. Improvements to the kernel come out at a rapid pace; I
was recently off at a conference for a week, and am about two
revisions behind on the kernel, to give you some idea of the pace --
the changes mostly involve the networking code, which is in active
flux right now, so this is a feature for developers who want it (and
those who don't simply stay with older versions.)
7) License and Politics
Linux is released under the GNU Copyleft; this means that if
you sell it to someone, you have to include sources with it. (I think
this is a great idea :-)
BSD is released under the various Berkeley copyrights which
say that you can do what you want as long as you don't hold the
Regents liable; also, the Jolitz' have asked for donations to some
charity (their "CareWare" program) if you wish to make them. They have
also said that BSD is simply not *ready* for commercial use, and
advise against making commercial use of it, simply for technical
reasons.
There is also a pending lawsuit (AT&T vs. BSDI and UCB) which
may affect the ownership of the 4.3net2 release which 386BSD is based
on. However, no actual action has been taken by a court in this
matter, although UCB and CMU have apparently reacted to it anyway (UCB
by no longer shipping tapes of 4.3net2, and CMU by no longer releasing
the BNR2SS single-server for Mach.)
8) Availability
Linux and 386BSD are both available for anonymous ftp from
numerous sites; Austin Codeworks apparently resells both in source
form; FTP Software Inc was giving away a CDrom at Interop Fall 92 with
386BSD source and binaries (as well as X11R5, the Crynwr Packet
Drivers, and the RFC's and IEN's) as a promotion. Linux has been
uploaded to a number of BBS'es around the world. I'm sure other forms
are available, essentially if you want it you can probably get it.
In summary, there are numerous differences between Linux and 386BSD;
it is entirely up to you whether they "make a difference" in your
situation.
_Mark_ <eic...@athena.mit.edu>
MIT Student Information Processing Board
Cygnus Support <eic...@cygnus.com>
ps. This posting ignores other 386 Operating Systems since, after all,
we're only discussing Free ones here. Also, I'm sure it is clear to
you that these are my opinions from my experience, and not meant to
represent those of MIT or Cygnus Support (although some of them
certainly coincide) particularly regarding any lawsuits in progress.
Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!jvnc.net!nuscc!ntuix!eoahmad
From: eoah...@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Othman Ahmad)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: 386BSD or LINUX?
Message-ID: <1992Nov5.060658.639@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg>
Date: 5 Nov 92 06:06:58 GMT
References: <1992Nov4.205620.8184@colorado.edu>
Organization: Nanyang Technological University - Singapore
Lines: 79
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Drew Eckhardt (d...@kinglear.cs.colorado.edu) wrote:
:
: Linux +'s :
:
: Shared libraries. This results in a significant disk space savings,
: especially in the case of 'X' applications that can shrink by
: an order of magnitude when compiled with shared libraries.
Let us compare sizes:
bash$ size 386bsd
text data bss dec hex
376832 20480 147996 545308 8521c
(this is 386bsd with terry patches, generic ISA, Xserver,Uconsole, Nfs,Tcp,
10 ptys)
sh$ size X386
text data bss dec hex
860160 40960 43696 944816 e6ab0
sh$ size xterm
text data bss dec hex
532480 28672 17464 578616 8d438
bash$ ps -aux | more
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TT STAT STARTED TIME COMMAND
eoahmad 927 0.0 0.1 492 0 p0 Is 12:59PM 0:01.81 (bash)
root 926 0.0 0.1 892 0 vg S 12:59PM 0:07.70 (xterm)
eoahmad 924 0.0 0.1 780 0 vg S 12:59PM 0:03.67 (twm)
root 923 0.0 0.1 1664 0 ?? S 12:59PM 9:24.28 (X)
:
: Modern VM, with a unified buffer cache and user memory pool.
I never believe in VM. Once we do not have enough RAM, might as well buy
more RAM.
Unified buffer cache? How much can we gain? CAn you tell us more
about its algorithm, especially how it decides to choose which is to give
priority to, and how it handles the paged user memory?
:
: Many kernel structures, such as pty's, are dynamically allocated. This
: increases the amount of pageable memory that is available.
How do we change its number? CAn we add pty indefinitely?
:
: More "odd" hardware is supported in the stock distribution. For
: instance, SCSI support is there for Seagate, WD7000, Future Domain,
: Ultrastor 14f, and Adaptec boards.
:
: There are more WhizzyFeatures (tm), such as /proc.
:
: Linux supports the MSDOS file system, and can run vm86 tasks such
: as the DOS emulator, if you consider these +'s.
Where is the source for this DOS emulator?
:
: I'd say that if you want BSD, because it's BSD, or if you want
: stable NFS NOW, and not in two weeks, that it might be worthwhile.
Have you forgotten that it has the VFS(?), which is the Posix complient file
system. Or has linux used it already? What it does is to have long file names,
faster throughput because of large block sizes(4K),without much fragmentation
becaue it can go down to 1K block size as well,or am I mistaken?
It also uses standard BSD library, which makes it easy to port
software written in BSD systems which is widely used in Academic circles.
This is the other reason why I choose 386bsd over linux. However it is
not completely true because 4.3 BSD is slightly different from 4.2 BSD. Use
of GNU utilities make it slightly incompatible with full blown mainframe
BSD or those used in ultrix and Sun workstations.
The other reason is that linux is more for hackers. Lynne goes to
great lengths to make 386bsd installation easy for "idiots"/beginners.
How about performance comparisons? I've posted the results of iozone 1 to
comp.unix.bsd .
--
Othman bin Ahmad, School of EEE,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 2263.
Internet Email: eoah...@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg
Bitnet Email: eoah...@ntuvax.bitnet
Path: sparky!uunet!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!spool.mu.edu!agate!
doc.ic.ac.uk!uknet!cf-cm!news
From: spe...@thor.cf.ac.uk (Paul Richards)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: 386BSD or LINUX?
Message-ID: <13961.9211051436@thor.cf.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Nov 92 14:36:29 GMT
References: <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18690@remus.rutgers.edu>
<1992Nov4.052106.29266@menudo.uh.edu>
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In article <1992Nov4.052106.29...@menudo.uh.edu> w...@cs.uh.edu (W. Woody Jin)
writes:
|In article <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18...@remus.rutgers.edu> gl...@remus.rutgers.edu
(Glenn Wasserman) writes:
|>As the subject heading says, which is it? Which is the better,more
|>supported operating system (I know I'm going to get a lot on this
|>one!)
|>
|>I have Linux running on my machine now, and I'm just wondering if this
|>is the right choice. Is 386BSD more stable?
|
|Version numbers say it : Linux 0.98 <--> 386BSD 0.1 p58.
|
|I have 386BSD 0.1p58 running (not properly). Still, 'ps -aux' does not
|work properly (reports 'nlist ... so so..' and all the CPU usages are
|0 % ). Booting takes forever loop, fsck reporting some error messages
|(So, I had to type ^C and did fsck manually - this was a new problem
|after I did patches). I still cannot do 'mwrite' nor downloading or
I got rid of this problem by removing patch 21 and 38. I still get an
occasional fsck error when rebooting but they are rare and the
continuous reboot cycle has stopped i.e. fsck fixes these problems ok
now. I'd suggest NOT installing these patches unless you really need
them since thay seem to trash some disks.
|uploading using modem (tip, rz, and sz as described in INSTALL.NOTES).
|It just simply does not work (using given binaries, source codes, and
|58 patchkits - I think I have to ask around how other people are doing).
|
|Installing DOS and 386BSD in a single IDE drive is an extreme headache,
|which I don't want to suggest you to try unless you have lots of free time
|or nothing to do. I could finally do it after spending a whole day.
|But there is something mysterious. Whenever I format C: drive (in DOS)
|it says "Trying to recover allocation unit xxxxx".
|
|>Is there any reason to switch?
|
|Not now, unless you are extremely intrigued (like me).
|I would not recommend current 386BSD to an average UNIX user who is busy
|doing his regular jobs.
|But when you hear 386bsd is stable, I am sure that 386bsd will be THE unix
|system on 386/486. And I am eagerly waiting for 386BSD 0.2.
|
Well I think 386bsd is pretty stable now. Kernel crashes are very rare,
so rare that I can't remember when my kernel last crashed.
I am having problems with XFree86 though which seems to crash quite
regularly and once it has crashed it won't run again until I've rebooted
the machine. (Most of the crashes are bus errors/segment violations).
As time goes by I think you'll find that 386bsd has more thought put
into it. Linux developes very rapidly but not necessarily along the
right lines. Shared libraries is an example of this, they've been
available in Linux for quite a while but it's not the best
implementation. We may have to wait a while before they get put into
386bsd (Not too long I hope) but it'll be the better implementation in
the end.
--
Paul Richards at Cardiff university, UK.
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From: nel...@crynwr.com (Russell Nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: 386BSD or LINUX?
Message-ID: <720933919snx@crynwr.com>
Date: 5 Nov 92 03:25:19 GMT
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In article <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18...@remus.rutgers.edu> gl...@remus.rutgers.edu
writes:
As the subject heading says, which is it? Which is the better,more
supported operating system (I know I'm going to get a lot on this
one!)
Well, Linux's standard copyright is the Free Software Foundation's
GPL, whereas the 386bsd's standard copyright basically says "you
cannot remove this copyright". In the long run, the GPL is a better
copyright, because it prevents people from making proprietary
improvements. IMHO, of course.
-russ <nel...@crynwr.com> What canst *thou* say?
Crynwr Software Crynwr Software sells packet driver support.
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From: h...@eecs.wsu.edu (H.J. Lu)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: 386BSD or LINUX?
Message-ID: <1992Nov5.185416.19643@serval.net.wsu.edu>
Date: 5 Nov 92 18:54:16 GMT
References: <Nov.2.20.33.38.1992.18690@remus.rutgers.edu>
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------
spe...@thor.cf.ac.uk (Paul Richards) writes:
As time goes by I think you'll find that 386bsd has more thought put
into it. Linux developes very rapidly but not necessarily along the
right lines. Shared libraries is an example of this, they've been
available in Linux for quite a while but it's not the best
implementation. We may have to wait a while before they get put into
------
I think it is a matter of opinion. Shared library under Linux is not
perfect. But it serves its purpose. If you take a close look at Linux
implementation, you will find out there is very little overhead in kernel
and user space. No tools need to be changed. No new tools are needed.
We welcome new ideas. When 386bsd comes up a new implementation for
shared library, Linux will use it if we think that is better than the one
we have now.
H.J.
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From: h...@eecs.wsu.edu (H.J. Lu)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: 386BSD or LINUX?
Message-ID: <1992Nov6.184556.11843@serval.net.wsu.edu>
Date: 6 Nov 92 18:45:56 GMT
Article-I.D.: serval.1992Nov6.184556.11843
References: <1992Nov4.205620.8184@colorado.edu> <1992Nov5.060658.639@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg>
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In article <1992Nov5.060658....@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg>, eoah...@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Othman Ahmad)
writes:
|> Drew Eckhardt (d...@kinglear.cs.colorado.edu) wrote:
|> :
|> : Linux +'s :
|> :
|> : Shared libraries. This results in a significant disk space savings,
|> : especially in the case of 'X' applications that can shrink by
|> : an order of magnitude when compiled with shared libraries.
|>
|> Let us compare sizes:
|>
I have a simple X11 program which just prints out "Hello world!".
It takes about 300K with static libs. With shared libs, it only takes
9K. I can even make it less than 3K.
[...]
|> :
|> : Many kernel structures, such as pty's, are dynamically allocated. This
|> : increases the amount of pageable memory that is available.
|>
|> How do we change its number? CAn we add pty indefinitely`?
You know the answer for `indefinitely'.
[...]
|> :
|> : I'd say that if you want BSD, because it's BSD, or if you want
|> : stable NFS NOW, and not in two weeks, that it might be worthwhile.
|>
|> Have you forgotten that it has the VFS(?), which is the Posix complient file
VFS? Without it, how can Linux support Minix, Ext, MSDOS, Xenix, NFS ...?
|> system. Or has linux used it already? What it does is to have long file names,
|> faster throughput because of large block sizes(4K),without much fragmentation
|> becaue it can go down to 1K block size as well,or am I mistaken?
|>
|> It also uses standard BSD library, which makes it easy to port
|> software written in BSD systems which is widely used in Academic circles.
I am responsible for the Linux C library. It is not that hard to port code
to Linux since the Linux C library is POSIX compliant with lots of SYSV,
BSD and GNU extentions. For most of PD stuff, you can chose POSIX, which
is the safest, BSD (I did it for compress.) or SYSV. I bet porting code
to Linux is easier than to 386bsd in general.
|> This is the other reason why I choose 386bsd over linux. However it is
|> not completely true because 4.3 BSD is slightly different from 4.2 BSD. Use
|> of GNU utilities make it slightly incompatible with full blown mainframe
|> BSD or those used in ultrix and Sun workstations.
You mean GNU utilities have lots of new switches? I just happen to like that.
They can do you want them to do.
|> The other reason is that linux is more for hackers. Lynne goes to
|> great lengths to make 386bsd installation easy for "idiots"/beginners.
That is true. Now the FSF is planning distribute Linux. We are trying to
make it idiot-proof. But noone can 100% guarantee it.
|>
|> How about performance comparisons? I've posted the results of iozone 1 to
|> comp.unix.bsd .
|>
I think that depends on the applications.
H.J.