From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 2abf4c5d for ; Sat, 18 Jan 2020 15:30:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 0B65A9C10B; Sun, 19 Jan 2020 01:30:24 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1C44C9BDD8; Sun, 19 Jan 2020 01:30:04 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id F21149C0F7; Sun, 19 Jan 2020 01:30:00 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 7BF2C9BD25 for ; Sun, 19 Jan 2020 01:30:00 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id 2878835E0B8; Sat, 18 Jan 2020 07:30:00 -0800 (PST) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 07:30:00 -0800 From: Larry McVoy To: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" Message-ID: <20200118153000.GC28686@mcvoy.com> References: <20200117195908.GF15253@ancienthardware.org> <20200118035051.GC481935@mit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20200118035051.GC481935@mit.edu> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Subject: Re: [TUHS] On the origins of Linux - "an academic question" X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: The Eunuchs Historic Society Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 10:50:51PM -0500, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote: +1 to everything Ted said, that's how I remember it as well. I knew about both Linux and 386BSD and while 386BSD felt very familiar to a SunOS guy, there was something special about Linux. For a while I played with both, 386BSD was sort of better in that it had networking, but like Ted, my network was a modem and TCP over a modem wasn't pleasant. So Linux won out and eventually networked just fine. > At the time when Linus announced his creation (not yet named) on > comp.os.minix in August 1991, it was already self-hosting. And that > happened pretty quickly; he first started working on the project in > June or July. > > Around the end of 1991, I had added Job Control (implemented from > POSIX.1 as a the specification), so we could put jobs in the > background. In 1992 X Windows was ported to Linux. Networking > support followed shortly thereafter. > > > So all in all.. As I remember it, there was never really a decision to 'make > > this great new OS!'.. It kinda happened with right place, right time, right > > people, etc. > > In the super-early days (late 1991, early 1992), those of us who > worked on it just wanted a "something Unix-like" that we could run at > home (my first computer was a 40 MHz 386 with 16 MB of memory). This > was before the AT&T/BSD Lawsuit (which was in 1992) and while Jolitz > may have been demonstrating 386BSD in private, I was certainly never > aware of it --- and Linus was publishing new versions every few days > on an ftp site. We'd send patches, and in less than a week, there'd > be a new release dropped that we could download. > > So the argument, "Linus would have never started on Linux if itT > weren't for the AT&T Lawsuit" I don't think fits with the timeline. > Development was very fast paced, and so it was *fun*. And at least > for me, the lacking of networking during the early days didn't bother > me much, since I didn't have networking at home. (I didn't have > grounded outlets, either, in my 3 people for $1050/month apartment. > Each leg was 50-60V to ground, and the wiring was cloth wrapped, and > was either steel or aluminum; I never did figured out which....) > Using zmodem over a 2400 bps modem was way more efficient than PPP, so > even once we had networking, I didn't always bring up pppd. And the > most common way I would download source was using set of 1.44 MB > floppies and a station wagon (literally; I was driving a Corolla wagon). > > During those early days, the fact that Linux was more "primitive" than > BSD may have been an advantage, since it sources was small, and > release engineering is simple when you only support one architecture. > > The other things I noticed was that because we didn't have the weight > of the Unix/BSD legacy, we were more free to experiment. Bruce Evans > was working on the serial driver for FreeBSD, and I was working on the > serial driver for Linux, and we had a friendly competition to see who > could get better throughput using the very primitive 8250 and later > 16550 UART. The figure of merit we were using was the CPU overhead of > a C-Kermit file transfer over two RS-232 ports connected via a > loopback cable. We'd compare notes to see how we could make things > better, me for Linux, and Bruce for FreeBSD, and it was *fun*. > Eventually, it got to the point where I was making changes to the tty > layer to further optimize things, and at that point Bruce reported > that he couldn't do some of the optimizations, since it would have > required changing the TTY layer that had been handed down from the > Gods of Olympus^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H BSD and so it was nixed by his > colleagues in FreeBSD land. > > In contrast, in Linux, people felt free to rip out and replace code if > it would make things better. Depending on how you count things, the > networking layer in Linux was ripped out and replaced three or four > times in the space of as many years. Sure, the first version was > pretty crappy, and was barely good enough for simple telnet > connections. But things got better fast, because people were felt > free to experiment. > > My personal belief is that it was this development velocity and > freedom to experiment starting with a super simple base is what caused > Linux to become very popular amongst the those who just wanted to play > with kernel development. Compare and contrast Linus's willingness to > accept patches from others and his turnaround time to get those > patches into new releases with Bill Jolitz's 386BSD effort --- and I > don't think you need the AT&T lawsuit to explain why Linux took off in > 1991-1992. FreeBSD and NetBSD was started in 1993 because of the > failure of Jolitz to accept patches in a timely fashion. > > - Ted -- --- Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm