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The article contends that Linux is not as sophisticated as BSD. While I agree that certain features of BSD might be more advanced (e.g. from a brief chat with one of the NetBSD folks, the UVM sounds cool), Linux is braving uncharted water in a number of previously shunned areas (I was stunned to find, for example, that I can choose to enable a kernel-based static http server in my Linux kernel as of 2.3.x). This willingness to break with UNIX tradition is what sets Linux apart, and frankly is the reason that many of us like it.

I also like BSD (I was a huge fan of 4.2, back when Ultrix was 4.2 with the serial numbers filed off). BSD has a tradition of stability and innovation that is hard to match, and look forward to a world where BSD and Linux are equal participants in the operating system development community. But can we stop pretending that one OS is "better" than another, and focus on which OS is right for a given task/environment?

I'll leave the comments about which kernel is better to the more knowledgable, but I have to wonder why you'd question some random suit about it just because his managers holds the Unix trademark this year.

Reading the mailing lists tech-kern, tech-smp, tech-userlevel, port-macppc seem to point that NetBSD/macppc is a suspect.

If you installed another OS and know how to close bugs you can report or query a bug. If you have not found how to get NetBSD CD-ROMs LinuxMall sells these three: NetBSD 2-CD Set, NetBSD-current Snapshot CD or an out of stock NetBSD T-Shirt XL.

Reading the mailing lists tech-kern, tech-smp, tech-userlevel, port-macppc seem to point that NetBSD/macppc is a suspect.

If you installed another OS and know how to close bugs you can report or query a bug. If you have not found how to get NetBSD CD-ROMs LinuxMall sells these three: NetBSD 2-CD Set, NetBSD-current Snapshot CD or an out of stock NetBSD T-Shirt XL.

Reading the mailing lists tech-kern, tech-smp, tech-userlevel, port-macppc seem to point that NetBSD/macppc is a suspect.

If you installed another OS and know how to close bugs you can report or query a bug. If you have not found how to get NetBSD CD-ROMs LinuxMall sells these three: NetBSD 2-CD Set, NetBSD-current Snapshot CD or an out of stock NetBSD T-Shirt XL.

Reading the mailing lists tech-kern, tech-smp, tech-userlevel, port-macppc seem to point that NetBSD/macppc is a suspect.

If you installed another OS and know how to close bugs you can report or query a bug. If you have not found how to get NetBSD CD-ROMs LinuxMall sells these three: NetBSD 2-CD Set, NetBSD-current Snapshot CD or an out of stock NetBSD T-Shirt XL.

Reading the mailing lists tech-kern, tech-smp, tech-userlevel, port-macppc seem to point that NetBSD/macppc is a suspect.

If you installed another OS and know how to close bugs you can report or query a bug. If you have not found how to get NetBSD CD-ROMs LinuxMall sells these three: NetBSD 2-CD Set, NetBSD-current Snapshot CD or an out of stock NetBSD T-Shirt XL.

Reading the mailing lists tech-kern, tech-smp, tech-userlevel, port-macppc seem to point that NetBSD/macppc is a suspect.

If you installed another OS and know how to close bugs you can report or query a bug. If you have not found how to get NetBSD CD-ROMs LinuxMall sells these three: NetBSD 2-CD Set, NetBSD-current Snapshot CD or an out of stock NetBSD T-Shirt XL.

Reading the mailing lists tech-kern, tech-smp, tech-userlevel, port-macppc seem to point that NetBSD/macppc is a suspect.

If you installed another OS and know how to close bugs you can report or query a bug. If you have not found how to get NetBSD CD-ROMs LinuxMall sells these three: NetBSD 2-CD Set, NetBSD-current Snapshot CD or an out of stock NetBSD T-Shirt XL.

www.netbsd.org/Ports/

NetBSD does support IP Filter! Just see here.

Im not the best example, but please check the facts before posting.. :-)

I went through the 4.x to 5.x transitions for SunOS (and use both Linux and OpenBSD for research), so I know what you mean about the idiosyncracies.

I've been thinking about designing a reference implementation of an 80386 motherboard, one that actually does things right - hardware that puts the processor into 32-bit protected mode *right* *away*, minimalistic yet functional boot PROM similar to Sun bootproms on Sun3+, clean hardware design, multiple bus support - add to the list. What first got me thinking about this was Ingo Cyliax's CS335 workstation, a homebrew 68030 motherboard with an ISA bus and a Minix port. Essentially, a somewhat PC-compatible 68k machine. This is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time - an open motherboard design with schematics and all else freely available. Granted, it's limited and not particularly fast, but it still is worth looking at. There was a similar project that involved building an NS32535 machine, called the pc532. It's supported in NetBSD and (possibly) OpenBSD. I'm not naive enough to suggest that a home-grown motherboard design could ever be fabricated economically, but the fun part would be designing it and perhaps porting Unix to it while the machine is running on a circuit-level simulator. That's close enough to the real thing for me (I don't look forward to trying to debug problems on a five-layer PC board, do you? :-) Flame and moderate away, but at least give some thought as to what "open source hardware" could be. Wouldn't it be satisfying to have had in designing a well-engineered x86 workstation (Sun 386i comes to mind, amongst others), built from cheap parts but free of the insanity of Wintel architecture? Dreamer.. you're nothing but a dreamer.. :-)

The NetBSD project already has a port to the VAX desktops and some mainframes. See NetBSD/Vax It's not stable though...

It's interesting that IBM would do their own port of Linux.. I wonder what's wrong with their current mainframe OS?

The NetBSD project already has a port to the VAX desktops and some mainframes. See NetBSD/Vax It's not stable though...

It's interesting that IBM would do their own port of Linux.. I wonder what's wrong with their current mainframe OS?

Your history of the Unix forks isn't as bad, but it appears that you have the chronology confused a bit. The splits in the BSD camp predated the AT&T/BSDI/UC Berkeley lawsuit, for example.

Your exactly right. The time table of BSD shows Rick is incorrect. If I remember correctly (and whatever I say is from reading around. I wasn't into UNIX then), Bill Joltz took the BSD code and began removing AT&T code. He then released his implements under a free license so that BSD could was held back. However, as he lost interest in the project and wouldn't maintain it (he could have been the Trovalds of BSD, perhaps), and both FreeBSD and NetBSD sprouted up by developers. 386BSD eventually died, and of course OpenBSD sprouted off of NetBSD (Theo's archive of why seems to give him good reason).

Here's where I'm a bit mucky on things. I thought Bill Joltz told free developers that they couldn't use his code, and there was a scramble to move FreeBSD to 4.3BSD-lite.

I am glad Rick pointed out that BSD splitting had very good reason that and that if such existed for Linux, it would split too. I don't believe the GPL prevents forking, because the reason Rick noted (that any improvements would return be integrated to Linux), is the same with BSD. However, I believe the GPL reduces forking by creating the idea that there is a dictatorship, while BSD groups create whole bodies to look after the code. People think of Alan Cox and Linus Trovalds when they think of who looks over the kernel, while they think of FreeBSD, Inc., when they want to improve that system. Both have core members, just the way they present themselves looks different (while it might not be).

The survey is missing my choice - a browser that works, don't much care whose.

Over the few years on NetBSD, I've tried Chimera (surprisingly good), Arena (you call that a GUI?), Lynx, Netscape (remotely), possibly Amaya, Plume, w3/xemacs, probably others I don't remember... oh, yeah, kfm of course (It was wonderful until it quit showing GIFs and PNGs for a reason I've never figured out). I've been on pins and needles for Opera to come out; it came to be the only reason to use Winduhs and if it ultimately is only for Linux I may switch from NetBSD.

I finally got so desperate for a browser that I implemented one in TCL around TkHTML. I don't need Java or plugins or cookies or frames or all that junk - even CSS can go, I just need HTML/3.2, GIF (if permitted), PNG, JFIF, and a few standard protocols!! It's a pretty pass when what I can cobble together in a week is better for me than the other stuff... (PS: Hmmp. My forms usually work, but /. won't take 'em... I'll have to use Lynx.)

Why don't I work on Mozilla or kfm or Konqueror? I don't much feel like playing with DLing ±30 MB (you're lucky to have 28800 kb/s here) of C++ (I could never grok C++) and then try to fight to have my changes taken back.)

> Stop playing hippie counterculture wannabe and unite the 'nix community

BSD is hippie counterculture?
I wouldn't say the BSD has a "not invented here" syndrome either.

Maybe you should do some reading.
BSD.org
FreeBSD
OpenBSD
NetBSD

NetBSD is production-class on many alphas, but not all of them. OSF^WDU^WTru64 also supports more of the whacky proprietary DEC hardware (like turbochannel graphics cards) than NetBSD does at the moment... I'm sure Linux is in the same boat with its Alpha support.

Having a working box with a proprietary OS today is sometimes preferable to having a non-working box with a soon-to-come free OS.

I'm upgrading my A3000 to potato this weekend, whoohoo! For more info on these UNIX's, check out:

• MINIX Information Sheet (the Amiga disk images are here).
• Installing Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 For Motorola 680x0
• NetBSD/amiga news
• OpenBSD/amiga info

Just off the top of my head, I can think of several platforms that Linux runs on:

• PPC
• x86
• ARM
• SPARC
• Alpha

You BSD guys just never give it a rest, do you?

Add to that list

• VAX
• Sun-3
• HP 300/400
• Mac 68K
• Amiga
• Atari TT/Falcon
• NeXT
• MIPS HHPC
• NS32532
• BeBox
• Hitachi SH3

But don't take my word for it, go visit the NetBSD Supported Hardware page and see for yourself. Nobody implied Linux isn't portable, just that NetBSD has been ported to more platforms than just about anything else. Next time, try to keep your knee from jerking quite so hard.

Since when does lots of info mean rambling? At least he isn't throwing Linux FUD (Which I wish were an oxymoron.)

NetBSD does support more hardware, at least officially. check here

Yes, people can come up with a lot of lists of ports to linux that do exist - I know about the N64 and various voice-mail computers - but when it comes to officially supported platforms, the list doesnt seem to go very far past Brian Knotts's list. I'm sure if OpenBSD had as many hard-core users as Linux, it would have more fringe ports, too.

If anyone is interested, NetBSD is already booting on WinCE hardware, check it out.

THE GOOD

• LinuxCare's little bootable Linux recovery CD kicks ass. No bigger than a business card, it fits in the 3" diameter groove in CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive trays and has the potential to save your butt when lilo eats itself. They also had some Linux stickers that now adorn the case of my 386... (Yes, it runs Linux.)
• IBM had a presence. Although certainly not the largest or flashiest booth in the show, Quake 3 on a rather large plasma display attracted lots of attention. Dual PII-400 Intellistation + Voodoo 3 3000 + large plasma display. Mmmmmm. Thanks to the guys there for letting me get some game time on that mammoth thang...
• O'Reilly also had a presence, and their trade show pricing kicks much booty. Picked up a few books for 20% off list and got a shirt to boot...
• Mad props to VA Linux Systems for not only having a cool booth and giving away lots of stuff but for supplying the machines used for public Internet access. Their Debian boxed set is pretty cool and sports Learning Debian GNU/Linux from O'Reilly. (Yes, I was one of the people who stood around in line for ten or fifteen minutes to win this...)
• Thanks to the Sun and Rave Systems folks for all the free stuff. Learn to play Quake 2 without cheating before next year's show... :-) (Now where's my complimentary Sparc 5?)

THE BAD

• None of the shirts I got fit. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. I'm 6-foot-3-inches tall and weigh 295 pounds. Show me the big-assed shirts!
• The IBM guys told me that the Showcase had a T-1 connection to the 'Net. I couldn't verify -- the packet loss and latency was horrible on the connection. I'm hoping this is only because lots of geeks were pounding on the connection like a pack of wild monkeys...
• Food choices were few, and lines were long. Within the Galleria, your choices were Subway, some cafe whose name I don't remember, Ruby Tuesday's, and Chick-Fil-A. If you were bold, you could go to the movie theater downstairs and buy a big tub of popcorn. The group I was with walked across the street to another mall and ate at Arby's. Yum... I think.

THE UGLY

• Where the hell were the Slackware people? I wanted Slackware apparel... Hmmph.
• Linux merchandise places came out of the woodworks to hock their goods. Yay capitalism...
• Don't eat at Shoney's. Our group waited over an hour for food before giving up and leaving.

THE REST

• The andover.net/freshmeat.net/slashdot.org booth was smack dab next to the linux.com booth. Taken together, it looked like one big congregation of slackers with laptops. All things considered, however, I wouldn't have minded flopping down on the couch for a rest after walking around for a few hours...
• I will seek revenge against the guy in the Debian shirt who shot me in the arm with a Nerf dart... muahahahaha
• The Debian folks had a Sun Ultra 5 running XaoS, Netscape, and some Tetris clone in separate windows. Just for kicks, I maximized the XaoS window. Can we say slideshow?
• I had nothing interesting enough to trade with the lady at the VA Linux booth, so I didn't get one of those nifty enlightenment shirts. Dammit.
• NetBSD was there. Go figure.

Overall, it was a pretty cool show, but I wish I didn't have the 2-1/2 hour drive. It was put on very professionally and appeared to be very well organized. I was only slightly disappointed that the show wasn't any bigger... The nifty canvas bag attendees got and the included CD made up for that, though.

Linux does run on it. Check out LinuxPPC and NetBSD.

I will be brief:

Linux.
FreeBSD.
NetBSD.
OpenBSD.

They are all free (beer and speech). They are all Unix-like. Three of them are descended from the same code. Two of them were the same code four years ago. All of them, the last I heard, have growing user bases.

Stupid article, would probably have been ignored on Usenet, not worth mentioning on Slashdot.

Care to point to a good (re: specific) resource which tracks the entire history of BSD to, well, whatever was derived from it? Like Free/Net/Open.. The various project pages sure don't do the most exciting job of doing so. ;)

However, The History of the NetBSD Project might prove to be of some interest to a few.. Specifically the little graphic toward the bottom. Not the most precise thing in the world, but it certainly suggests that NetBSD and FreeBSD aren't based solely on 4.4 Lite..

It all goes back to that "promote understanding" thing, which I'm all for. I personally don't find tracking the history of *BSD to be the most exciting thing in the world, but it could prove.. useful.. in certain situations.

NetBSD/macppc is a new NetBSD port, only recently imported into the source tree. It supports Apple Power Macintosh computers with PowerPC processors and Open Firmware. For older (680x0-based) Macintosh computers, see NetBSD/mac68k. There is also an experimental NetBSD/bebox port for Be, Inc's PowerPC-based BeBox.

Supported System Models

• Apple Power Macintosh 7300/7600
• Apple Power Macintosh 8500/8600
• Apple Power Macintosh 9500/9600
• Apple Power Macintosh G3 MT266/DT233
• Apple PowerBook 2400c/180
• Apple PowerBook 3400
• Apple iMac (all flavors) and Blue G3
• Apple PowerBook G3/400
• UMAX Apus2000
• PowerComputing PowerWave 604/120
• Motorola StarMax 3000/240
• Apple Power Macintosh 7500 (With G3 upgrade such as w/XLR8)

No, not really. Despite the recent dabblings with the Alpha, the focus of the FreeBSD group has always been on getting it to work well on Intel hardware. Look to the other BSDs for PowerPC support:

• http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/macppc/in dex.html
• http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/ofppc/inde x.html
• http://www.openbsd.org/powerpc.html

No, not really. Despite the recent dabblings with the Alpha, the focus of the FreeBSD group has always been on getting it to work well on Intel hardware. Look to the other BSDs for PowerPC support:

• http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/macppc/in dex.html
• http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/ofppc/inde x.html
• http://www.openbsd.org/powerpc.html

• http://www.netbsd.org/
• http://www.openbsd.org/
• http://www.freebsd.org/

Seriously, all three contain a lot of information and links. Have fun!

If I remember correctly, the 470 is one of the very first SPARC servers? That might be a problem, don't know. It is not explicitly on the "compatible" list, you see? (sun4: 4/100, 4/200, and 4/300 // sun4c: SS1, SS1+, IPC, SLC, SS2, IPX, and ELC // sun4m: at least the LC, LX, 4, 5, 10, 20, and 600MP)

You can find hints for the installation of the Debian port of Linux for Sparc at:
http://www.debian.org/releases/s link/sparc/install

But you could try OpenBSD, too (http://www.openbsd.org/sparc.html) or NetBSD (http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/sparc/inde x.html) as operating system for your box.

The developers it would attract are already engaged in various Gnu projects and Linux development itself.

It doesn't matter much to me what people claim about their code if they can't prove it. If they can, more power to them. If they're nice people, they'll say what they did, if not, it can probably be figured out.

(Anyway, everyone with a brain knows NetBSD is better than FreeBSD and BSDOS put together. ;^>)

(... please observe the smiley, kiddies.)

FreeBSD doesn't do m68k... You want NetBSD or OpenBSD for that. I'd recommend NetBSD, personally... The NetBSD/mac68k community is extremely active and extremely friendly, and NetBSD/mac68k is remarkably well-documented.

NetBSD/mac68k was the first Un*x I ran at home, since at the time Linux/mac68k just wasn't there yet and mac68k hardware was all I had. I've been happy ever since.

I use both NetBSD and GNU/Linux regularly, and I like them both, but I choose NetBSD for my personal systems because it simply feels more streamlined to me. I like the package system a lot. I like being able to easily rebuild userland. I like the way you configure NetBSD. I like the fact that it's the same on every platform. It just has a lot of good things that make it unlikely that I'll supplant it with GNU/Linux any time soon. Give it a try.

I found that .iso when doing ls on the server. Try if you can download :-) there are no files in the same directory or site regarding the .iso, so good luck with trying this iso image

Upon boot type 'h' for help (when prompted to press enter). If this doesn't work right away on your Multia, give the iso a try on another architecture, that might tell more on what you use to boot on Alpha.

http://www.no.netbsd.org/Ports/alpha/ btw I'm not a NetBSD developer, I only use NetBSD port-i386 & port-macppc.

I found that .iso when doing ls on the server. Try if you can download :-) there are no files in the same directory or site regarding the .iso, so good luck with trying this iso image

Upon boot type 'h' for help (when prompted to press enter). If this doesn't work right away on your Multia, give the iso a try on another architecture, that might tell more on what you use to boot on Alpha.

http://www.no.netbsd.org/Ports/alpha/ btw I'm not a NetBSD developer, I only use NetBSD port-i386 & port-macppc.

... and, not that I don't respect Jordan and his gang, I'd personally think you were cooler if you went to ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.4. 1 and picked your architecture.

Just download the boot.fs file, dd it to a floppy, and do an ftp install.

I agree completely with Jordan, nothing could be easier! Oh, wait, I guess his way could be easier if you don't know how to use dd. But that's pretty basic in my book... :^>

And here's the story.

Jordan is right about the PR war, as far as he goes. However, in the BSD world, it's FreeBSD that is getting the PR; those of us working on NetBSD are even more obscure, despite the fact that NetBSD runs on a lot more platforms (i.e. CPUs/systems other than Intel) than just about anything.

The reality is that it's hard to get hackers to do marketing because they're not really good at it (and most of them know it), and the people who are good at it are either insufferable, or attempt to control the engineering side and thus have to be jettisoned.

Where does one find good marketing people who know their purpose and their place?

You might want to check out my pdamips page for a complete list of MIPS based pdas. Please send me updates if I'm wrong about that :-)

Re: Linux on the Aero, you may have problems getting enough technical data from Compaq to actually do this. It uses the slower 70MHz R3900 based MIPS processors (although I'm not sure if it uses the Phillips one, or the Toshiba one).

Finally, this is booting Linux to a standalone shell. Much more work is needed before this will be useful. NetBSD/hpcmips allows one to login to the machine over the network! However, to the best of my knowledge, it doesn't have an X server or similar beast running on it at this time.

Enjoy!

USB? If you're lucky your mouse will work.
PNP? Linux makes this more difficult than non-PNP
...
That illustrates what tends to be the problem with the Open Source community, they'll produce the stuff that they personally want, but other things tend to be ignored.

cjs

The NetBSD folks have put together a FAQ about the Multia, which includes information on a part that needs to be replaced to help avoid heat death.

Note that this is a fairly slow machine, mostly due to the very slow memory controller in it; DRAM access is about one half to one third the speed of a Pentium at the same clock speed.

In terms of disk and stuff like that, if you get one just to play with cheaply, you can just net boot it (at least under NetBSD).

cjs

The NetBSD folks have put together a FAQ about the Multia, which includes information on a part that needs to be replaced to help avoid heat death.

Note that this is a fairly slow machine, mostly due to the very slow memory controller in it; DRAM access is about one half to one third the speed of a Pentium at the same clock speed.

In terms of disk and stuff like that, if you get one just to play with cheaply, you can just net boot it (at least under NetBSD).

cjs

The Multia also has built-in 10 Mbps Ethernet, with 10-base-T (twisted pair), 10-base-2 (thin coax), and AUI connectors.

Some Multia owners have experience reliability problems which can be solved by replacing a chip and/or the fan. Details are in the Net/BSD alpha Multia Frequently Asked Questions.

Since I used to use my Multias pretty heavily as web/mail/etc. servers, I collected a bunch of info about them here, including the service manual in PDF form.

Oh yeah, and if you don't think that $30 is a good deal for one of these, bear in mind that I paid an average of $1250 for mine. :-)

• NetBSD/alpha: Notes on System Models
• NetBSD/alpha Multia FAQ
• Digital UDB Information

• NetBSD/alpha: Notes on System Models
• NetBSD/alpha Multia FAQ
• Digital UDB Information

According to the applicable section of the A HREF="NetBSD FAQ, you should be using cdd for that.

centrally administered

But with greatly improved router discovery and neighbor detection, as well as mobile IP capabilities, etc. which make it actually _easier_ to make `just work' than IPv4

human configured

see above. and note that the protocol is designed to allow DHCP-style solutions to be much more flexible than in IPv4. The incredible range of addresses also gives some flexibility -- one can imaging a Palm VII type system where each unit shipped with a hard-coded IPv6 address and used a mobile-IP system to work `anywhere'.

bigger than IPv4 (which isn't all that lightweight)

although bigger (meaning, I assume, more featureful), IPv6 has actually been designed to require much _less_ work on the part of routers and gateways than IPv4. This means short, aligned headers, streamlined checksums, and a reduction of the twisty little maze of IP-Option headers which can make IPv4 rotuing so... intersting.

Topology sensitive, until you retrofit routing schemes

but much more easy to make less topology insensitive, even before you bring in MobileIP, dynamic configuration, and so on.

There is also a huge added benefit of IPv6 which I have not seen mentioned here:

The IPv6 standard requires that a conformant IPv6 implementation provide IPSEC, including cryptographic authentication of remote endpoints and end-to-end session encryption.

NetBSD's IPv6 support has this, with separate versions available from the US and Finland (to avoid export restrictions). Hopefully, Linux has this or will have it sometime soon. Knock on wood, the time will come when encryption of all data transfers is a matter of course.

The NetBSD docs have a good page on why vfork is still useful.

Yes, NetBSD did just release version 1.4 for several more 68k machines as well as PowerPCs, but does not support the Nubus Macs. More info can be found at NetBSD.org/Ports/macppc.

MkLinux was also gave me my first experience with installing and running Linux. I've really enjoyed the effort David Gatwood and others have put into the discussion groups and MkLinux.org.