So, where's a good place
to pester folks for help in 211BSD, v6, v7 when it's less along
the historical interest line and more along the help I can't get
this or that working line?
As an example, I'm having some challenges with the networking in
211, right now. I finally (after on again off again attempts over
2 years) gotten both a vanilla 211BSD p195 system to be accessible
via telnet on my local lan and am able to ping out to the
internet, if I so choose, and Andru Luvisi's 211BSD p495 doing
networking as well. Thanks to Andru's notes and Warner Losh's
blog. In both cases, everything just "works"... well most things
work :). In the 195 system, I don't seem to be able to get
hostname set correctly:
Assuming NETWORKING system ...
sparks: bad value
add net default: gateway 192.168.2.1
Whereas on the 495 system, it sets fine...
Assuming NETWORKING system ...
add host sparks: gateway localhost
add net default: gateway 192.168.2.1
and on the 195 system, name resolution doesn't seem to function,
whereas it does on the 495 system.
On neither of the systems do I know how to display the routes (no
netstat and route doesn't seem to have a display mode).
Anyhow, I'm not really asking the question here (feel free to
answer it though, if you feel so inclined), but it's the kind of
question that I sit on not knowing where to ask it. I know that I
often tread the knife's edge between interesting and annoying on
some of my questions in TUHS and SIMH because of my lack of
knowledge around these systems, but I really enjoy working in them
when they work and have found that everything I learn interacting
with these ancient systems significantly enhances my skills in the
modern realm at least with regards to FreeBSD/Linux and Mac.
Whereas, on the other hand, most of what I know about the modern
systems doesn't really have an easily accessible analog in ancient
unix. Take the question above, to view the route table in freebsd
- it's just netstat -r, easypeasy, what the heck it might be in
211bsd is a complete mystery. Grepping the manual turns up nothing
that I recognize, which is more often the case than I'd like to
admit.
The question may be 211bsd, but the same type of questions often
arise for the research unixes as well. Any suggestions about where
to throw these kinds of vintage unix tech support questions?
Regards,
Will
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