Can anybody explain why the 2BSDs that were distributed with kernel source
code are numbered 2.8BSD upwards. Why start numbering at 8?
P.S Actually I have a 2.79BSD in the archive which came out in 1979 just
before 2.8BSD, so could it be that the '2.79' means 1979, and numbering
followed incrementally after that?
Cheers,
Warren
Well, the matter is simple: I'm trying to install 2.11 BSD in one PDP-11/23
PLUS with 4MB of ram, and the 'restor' and 'icheck' utilities don't load in
he PDP, returning this message:
"Can't load split I&D files"
I tried with the diverse distributions of Vtserver and diverse versions of
'restor'. In the case of the 2.9BSD this don't happen but the utility can't
understand what is the 'vt' device.
Someone has encountered and solved this problem ?
Regards
Sergio
On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 04:34:22PM -1000, Tim Newsham wrote:
> I just got to watch the video (slow download) and it looks
> like the talk went very well! What was the BOF like? Did
> you get a chance to demo the system and have people poke at it?
Yes, the BOF went well, about 30 people from various vintages, a few young
Linux-types, but also old farts like Norman Wilson, Andrew Hume and Bill
Cheswick. I showed them V1 in action, but not ed as my ed skills are not
flash. Also showed V5, V7, but didn't get nsys working. Still, showed them
the nsys code. Lots of stories & anecdotes. It went for 2 hours or so,
with a few stragglers left chatting after that for another 1/2 hour. Overall
a good response.
Cheers,
Warren
Hi,
Anyone any info on PDU (Portable Distributed Unix) A one-time
competitor to RFS (the one-time competitor to NFS). I have read
that PDU is releated to the Newcastle connection, but how did it
differ?
Also, is there any relationship between either PDU or RFS and the
Eightth or Nineth edition network file systems (NETA and NETB)?
-Steve
> 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.
Tim Bradshaw <tfb(a)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(a)naleco.com
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
