From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 5693 invoked from network); 16 Jul 2021 04:26:54 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 16 Jul 2021 04:26:54 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 9B98C9C83A; Fri, 16 Jul 2021 14:26:50 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A3E889C7F1; Fri, 16 Jul 2021 14:26:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 5593D9C7F1; Fri, 16 Jul 2021 14:26:22 +1000 (AEST) Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu [18.9.28.11]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4BC3C9C7F0 for ; Fri, 16 Jul 2021 14:26:19 +1000 (AEST) Received: from callcc.thunk.org (96-65-121-81-static.hfc.comcastbusiness.net [96.65.121.81]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id 16G4Pk73003459 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Fri, 16 Jul 2021 00:25:47 -0400 Received: by callcc.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id CA5DE4202F5; Fri, 16 Jul 2021 00:25:45 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2021 00:25:45 -0400 From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" To: risner@stdio.com Message-ID: References: <213a4c11-3ab2-4b4a-8d6b-b52105a19711@localhost> <5777F7E6-062B-4C5A-9C98-36FFE6AC3414@stdio.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <5777F7E6-062B-4C5A-9C98-36FFE6AC3414@stdio.com> Subject: Re: [TUHS] 386BSD released 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 Hysterical Society Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On Thu, Jul 15, 2021 at 10:33:52PM -0400, risner@stdio.com wrote: > > I have repetively seen discussion suggesting Linux was available first, but > having directly worked for a university at the time installing SunOS, AT&T > SVR3, and other old OS’s, we welcomed the concept of switching from AT&T > SVR3 on 386 machines to 386BSD. We’d probably have welcomed Linux if anyone > in the department knew about it. To be fair, Linux in 1991 was a very primitive affair; no TCP/IP, no X Windows. We had C-Kermit, and we had emacs, and we had basic shell utilities and a compiler. But not much else. So I doubt it would have been a good replacement for SVR3. The big difference was that Linus accepted patches, and turned around new releases *quickly* while Jolitz apparently sat on patches until the NetBSD and FreeBSD people finally lost patience and released a fork with their patch sets in 1993. So while Linux in 1992 was probably behind 386BSD from a feature perspective, its development velocity was much faster. I remember a friendly rivalry that I had with Bruce D. Evans in Australia, who was working on the serial driver for FreeBSD, where we would exchange tips and techniques for making the serial driver on our respective OS's more CPU efficient. (The metric was to see who could most reduce the system overhead of the serial interrupt and tty layers when running a C-Kermit file transfer over a pair of RS-232 ports connected via a loopback cable.) It was a lot of fun, and we both gained a lot from the exchange of ideas, but finally, I came up with an idea (flip buffers) that really reduced Linux's serial/tty overhead, but which Bruce couldn't match in FreeBSD, because the FreeBSD core team thought that clists were handed down from Mount Olympus by the Gods of BSD, and making that kind of change in the tty layer was tantamount to heresy. Heh. - Ted