On Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 4:06 PM Greg A. Woods wrote: > At Mon, 20 Jan 2020 14:09:00 -0500, "Theodore Y. Ts'o" > wrote: > Subject: Re: [TUHS] Early Linux and BSD (was: On the origins of Linux - > "an academic question") > > > > On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 07:32:57PM -0800, Greg A. Woods wrote: > > > > Out of curiosity, did the articles contain download information for a > > > > bootable copy of 386BSD? > > > > > > Yes, they did: > > > > > > > https://www.drdobbs.com/porting-unix-to-the-386-the-final-step/184408800 > > > > .... which is dated July 1992, and describes a "launch" of 386BSD > > Release 0.0 in March 17, 1992. This is contemporaneous with Linux > > 0.95a (which by coincidence was also released on March 17th, 1992.) > > Yes, though as I recall all of the articles mentioned that the OS could > be downloaded, but I pointed at that final article as it was the first > one in which I found explicit mention of the FTP server name(s). > > > The first "real" distribution, the Soft Landing System, was released > > in May 1992. (The Manchester Computer Centre distribution in November > > 1991 was a floppy-based distro containing command-line and development > > utilities, but not X Windows, so some people don't feel it counts as a > > full-featured distribution.) > > The actual 386bsd Release 0.0 (the one done directly by Bill and Lynne > Jolitz) announcement is dated "March 7, 1992" according to the first > post about it on comp.unix.bsd (and according to that announcement there > was a meeting at Apple in Cupertino (SVNet) on the 11'th where copies of > the floppies were made available for copying (comp.unix.bsd: > <2763@tardis.Tymnet.COM>). > > Note that according to an article from Unigram ("Issue 396", dated > August 3-7, 1992, (p)re-posted by Tom Limoncelli in comp.unix.bsd) this > "386bsd 0.0" was actually a re-write of earlier work to create a "386" > based release of BSD. Apparently UCB lawyers asked Jolitz to destroy > all the initial work done for the release, and he complied and rewrote > what became 0.0 from scratch again, starting with the plain NET2 > release. (comp.unix.bsd: <1992Aug1.020513.14170@plts.uucp>) > > I would argue that in one way of looking at things NetBSD (and by > extension FreeBSD) really started with the 0.0 patch kit, and that's > also dated March 15, 1992 by Chris Demetriou. I agree though that the > creation of the first commits in the CVS repository represent a more > direct reflection of the intent to create a unique thing called NetBSD. > Lots of people were building CVS repos based on the patchkits... Chris wasn't trying to start a project, but more was trying to find a way of organizing everything that people were working on. At least that's what I recall from the rumors I'd heard on campus after Chris visited Boulder... Warner (On March 13, 1992 there was a post by Mike Stump on comp.unix.bsd > asking for someone to coordinate patches for 386bsd; and Pace Willisson > posted the first patch in response on March 14, 1992; and Chris replied > on the same day saying he would put such patches up on > agate.berkeley.edu; and the "README.PATCHES" file appeared there on > March 15, 1992.) > > -- > Greg A. Woods > > Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack > Planix, Inc. Avoncote Farms >