[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[Michael Kerpan]

As a long-time Linux user and a long time Unix history buff, I've been
wanting to "play" with classic Unix variants for quite some time.
Obviously, Research Unix up through V7 and the BSDs are readily
available and I've at least mucked around with them, but post-V7 AT&T
Unices have always been unavailable, at least at any price that I can
afford on my college student budget. Solaris, however, at least
started out as an implementation of SVR4 and is freely available. How
much of System V still lurks inside Solaris 10 (the last version to
include such traditional workstation elements as CDE and DPS in the X
server) and how much has been removed in favor of a more GNU-ish
userland experience? Is Solaris a good way to get a System V
experience without breaking either the bank or copyright law, or is
this a hopeless situation?

Mike

[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[Larry McVoy]

I don't think there is much similarity between solaris and the old 
system v.  There is some in that sun was pedantic about command 
line / libc / syscall compat (to their detriment in my opinion)
but much has been changed.  Just start diffing.

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 01:00:35PM -0400, Michael Kerpan wrote:
> As a long-time Linux user and a long time Unix history buff, I've been
> wanting to "play" with classic Unix variants for quite some time.
> Obviously, Research Unix up through V7 and the BSDs are readily
> available and I've at least mucked around with them, but post-V7 AT&T
> Unices have always been unavailable, at least at any price that I can
> afford on my college student budget. Solaris, however, at least
> started out as an implementation of SVR4 and is freely available. How
> much of System V still lurks inside Solaris 10 (the last version to
> include such traditional workstation elements as CDE and DPS in the X
> server) and how much has been removed in favor of a more GNU-ish
> userland experience? Is Solaris a good way to get a System V
> experience without breaking either the bank or copyright law, or is
> this a hopeless situation?
> 
> Mike
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

-- 
---
Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com

[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[Tim Bradshaw]

On 28 May 2009, at 18:00, Michael Kerpan wrote:

> Solaris, however, at least
> started out as an implementation of SVR4 and is freely available. How
> much of System V still lurks inside Solaris 10 (the last version to
> include such traditional workstation elements as CDE and DPS in the X
> server) and how much has been removed in favor of a more GNU-ish
> userland experience? Is Solaris a good way to get a System V
> experience without breaking either the bank or copyright law, or is
> this a hopeless situation?

I never (other than transiently, and even then in various heavily  
bastardised versions such as Masscomps' RTU) used a Sys V Unix other  
than Solaris. However I did live through the SunOS 4 -> Solaris  
transition.  My memory of that is that the early Solaris versions  
(2.2?) seemed extremely austere and unpleasant compared with BSD- 
derived systems.  Solaris doesn't seem like that now, and in fact when  
I play with BSD derivatives they seem quite austere.

So I would suspect that, no, Solaris is not any kind of good  
representative of what System V was once like.  It's not a GNUoid  
userland (who knows what the next release will be like, if there is  
one?  OpenSolaris seems to have drifted rapidly off into optimize-the- 
desktop neverland and I hope will not be representative of what the  
next Solaris looks like), but it's no more representative of what  
things were once like than any system still under development is  
representative of what its distant ancestore were like.

(CDE is not a traditional workstation element in any real sense - it's  
pretty recent.  I don't think it even existed in the early Solaris 2  
releases.)

--tim

[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[Pepe]

Tim Bradshaw <tfb at tfeb.org> wrote:
> 
> On 28 May 2009, at 18:00, Michael Kerpan wrote:
> 
> > Solaris, however, at least
> > started out as an implementation of SVR4 and is freely available.
> > How much of System V still lurks inside Solaris 10 (the last
> > version to include such traditional workstation elements as CDE and
> > DPS in the X server) and how much has been removed in favor of a
> > more GNU-ish userland experience? Is Solaris a good way to get a
> > System V experience without breaking either the bank or copyright
> > law, or is this a hopeless situation?
> 
> I never (other than transiently, and even then in various heavily
> bastardised versions such as Masscomps' RTU) used a Sys V Unix other
> than Solaris. However I did live through the SunOS 4 -> Solaris
> transition.  My memory of that is that the early Solaris versions
> (2.2?) seemed extremely austere and unpleasant compared with BSD-
> derived systems.  Solaris doesn't seem like that now, and in fact when
> I play with BSD derivatives they seem quite austere.
> 
> So I would suspect that, no, Solaris is not any kind of good
> representative of what System V was once like.  It's not a GNUoid
> userland (who knows what the next release will be like, if there is
> one?  OpenSolaris seems to have drifted rapidly off into optimize-the-
> desktop neverland and I hope will not be representative of what the
> next Solaris looks like), but it's no more representative of what
> things were once like than any system still under development is
> representative of what its distant ancestore were like.
> 
> (CDE is not a traditional workstation element in any real sense - it's
> pretty recent.  I don't think it even existed in the early Solaris 2
> releases.)

To my knowledge, System V is not quite a well defined concept: there
were several releases and each had different features and capabilities.

The closest you can get today to test the flavour of running an early
System V (not a System V Release 4) native on real and affordable/common
hardware, I think would be getting some old Xenix for the 386 (SVR3),
which is floating around some P2P networks (in eMule I know it is).
Legality of getting it this way for personal and non-commercial use?
Depends on your local law, so beware. This Xenix which is on eMule lacks
TCP/IP (it was an add-on package sold separately), lacks the Development
Kit (compiler, headers, etc.; also sold separately), and obviously lacks
the source code. So if you already know Unix, in two days of use maximum
you should have seen all there is to it and be really bored about it.
The Development and Streams/Tcpip kits for this Xenix are also
"available" in some Internet "places", but I have not ventured to try
them because Xenix is a real bitch to live with...

If you want to inspect the source of a somewhat early System V Release
4, in eMule you also have a tar.bz2 file with the sources for Solaris
2.6 (beware, it won't unzip properly on Windows because some files names
are incompatible with Windows filesystem, i.e. "con" filename, etc.).
You won't be able to "run it", but you can inspect the source of a SVR4
which is only 8 years separated from the original SVR4 AT&T release.

And don't forget OpenServer 5.x, which is a UNIX System V Release 3.2
with many custom add-ons. Version 5.0.7 is still supported by it's now
bankrupt mother company, runs on modern Intel PCs, and has the really
old and rusty taste of ancient UNIX.

After trying all that, you would be thankfull for having the GNU userland
and the Linux kernel. That was my bottom line, anyway.

-- 
Pepe
pepe at naleco.com

[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[Wesley Parish]

FWIW, I did ask Novell a year or so ago about releasing OSF/1 from the SysVRx 
license requirement; I sent them a reminder, together with the request that 
they consider giving TUHS an SysVRx source/binary license.

So far they haven't responded.  Maybe I should get onto the local branch and 
ask them to take it up with headquarters ... :)

Wesley Parish

On Saturday 30 May 2009 13:51, Jason Stevens wrote:
> I'm trying to get something out of Novell on this... so far they keep
> on wanting to sell me Linux they seem perplexed about their ownership
> of any UNIX ip, even when I point them to their own pages proclaiming
> such.......
>
> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 8:20 PM, Michael Kerpan <mjkerpan at kerpan.com> wrote:
> > So far, it seems that the consensus is that Solaris isn't a good
> > representative of System V... With that said, the second part of my
> > question still remains: is there a way to pay with a classic System V
> > environment that is both free/cheap AND legal or am I SOL?
> >
> > Mike
> > _______________________________________________
> > TUHS mailing list
> > TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> > https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

-- 
Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish
-----
Are couch potatoes good to eat?
-----
Mau e ki, he aha te mea nui?
You ask, what is the most important thing?
Maku e ki, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
I reply, it is people, it is people, it is people.

[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[Jason Stevens]

I don't think there ever was "free" unix, but there was Unixware/OpenServer...

Sadly you've missed it by 13 years...

ftp://ftp.uni-duisburg.de/SCO/docs/Free-OpenServer.pdf

I'd say troll craigslist New York & ebay... it turns up from time to
time in the neighbourhood of $25-150 or so...  I think I paid $100 for
my 7.0.1 ...

It seems that anyone who sold SYSV, except for SUN(Oracle) IBM is
basically out of the market, even if they are still in business..

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 8:20 PM, Michael Kerpan <mjkerpan at kerpan.com> wrote:
> So far, it seems that the consensus is that Solaris isn't a good
> representative of System V... With that said, the second part of my
> question still remains: is there a way to pay with a classic System V
> environment that is both free/cheap AND legal or am I SOL?
>
> Mike
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>

[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[Jason Stevens]

I'm trying to get something out of Novell on this... so far they keep
on wanting to sell me Linux they seem perplexed about their ownership
of any UNIX ip, even when I point them to their own pages proclaiming
such.......

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 8:20 PM, Michael Kerpan <mjkerpan at kerpan.com> wrote:
> So far, it seems that the consensus is that Solaris isn't a good
> representative of System V... With that said, the second part of my
> question still remains: is there a way to pay with a classic System V
> environment that is both free/cheap AND legal or am I SOL?
>
> Mike
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>

[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[Michael Kerpan]

So far, it seems that the consensus is that Solaris isn't a good
representative of System V... With that said, the second part of my
question still remains: is there a way to pay with a classic System V
environment that is both free/cheap AND legal or am I SOL?

Mike

[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[Brantley Coile]

Solaris is not pure System V.  I started working on the internals of  
System V in 1985 and I have purchased a number of Solaris boxes in the  
1990's and 2000's and while Solaris is based on the System V kernel,  
it doesn't feel like System V.

Brantley

On May 29, 2009, at 9:08 AM, Tim Bradshaw wrote:

> On 29 May 2009, at 13:12, A P Garcia wrote:
>
>> It sure looks like the Solaris 8
>> userland, at least, is almost pure System V.
>
> I don't think that follows from the copyright headers.  Those can't be
> removed unless there is (essentially) *nothing* remaining of the
> original.
>
> Alternatively, you could say that, yes, it's a System V, but it's a
> late 90s System V (and Solaris 10 is a 2005 System V).  So it depends
> on what you are after I guess: if you want to know what System V was
> like in 1980-something then Solaris won't tell you that, any more than
> OS X will tell you what 4.2 BSD was like.  If you want to know what a
> *modern* System V or BSD is like then, sure, look at Solaris or OS X.
>
> --tim
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>

[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[Tim Bradshaw]

On 29 May 2009, at 13:12, A P Garcia wrote:

> It sure looks like the Solaris 8
> userland, at least, is almost pure System V.

I don't think that follows from the copyright headers.  Those can't be  
removed unless there is (essentially) *nothing* remaining of the  
original.

Alternatively, you could say that, yes, it's a System V, but it's a  
late 90s System V (and Solaris 10 is a 2005 System V).  So it depends  
on what you are after I guess: if you want to know what System V was  
like in 1980-something then Solaris won't tell you that, any more than  
OS X will tell you what 4.2 BSD was like.  If you want to know what a  
*modern* System V or BSD is like then, sure, look at Solaris or OS X.

--tim

[TUHS] How good a representative of System V is Solaris

[A P Garcia]

> post-V7 AT&T
> Unices have always been unavailable, at least at any price that I can
> afford on my college student budget. Solaris, however, at least
> started out as an implementation of SVR4 and is freely available. How
> much of System V still lurks inside Solaris 10 (the last version to
> include such traditional workstation elements as CDE and DPS in the X
> server) and how much has been removed in favor of a more GNU-ish
> userland experience? Is Solaris a good way to get a System V
> experience without breaking either the bank or copyright law, or is
> this a hopeless situation?

I purchased a Solaris 8 source media kit from Sun for around $100 back
when they offered it. A lot of files still have headers saying
Proprietary Unpublished AT&T source code or some such. I don't know
how different it is from System V, because I've never been able to
procure a copy of that source. It sure looks like the Solaris 8
userland, at least, is almost pure System V.