> >But the point being made was that I've been around the block, I've worked
> >on and/or looked hard at many different Unix variants and I'm not at all sad
> >to see them go.
>
> Why are you here then?
Good question. I like it here, I like old Unix. I have little fondness
for all the commercial unices, see http://www.bitmover.com/lm/papers/srcos.html
for my reasons.
I think you may be confusing my dislike for commercial unix with a dislike
for unix. If so, that's mistake because I love Unix. I've dedicated a
huge portion of my life to helping unix as best I can.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.comhttp://www.bitkeeper.com
On Mon, 22 May 2006, 19:38:21 -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
>But the point being made was that I've been around the block, I've worked
on and/or looked hard at many different Unix variants and I'm not at all sad
to see them go.
Why are you here then?
It's a fact that many of the big-gun Unix vendors have moved on but Unix
development continues to persist, so don't put it down yet. Unix is still
very much alive and kicking. Unix has been around forever and the Unicies
that remain still offer enough diversions to mix up the market and make
things interesting for us all. If Linux was the only Unix like system out
there then what would happen if Linux went belly-up. It could easily
happen if the big Linux vendors Redhat, Suse etc went to the dogs. Having
other Unix systems out their competing with each other as well as Linux is
healthy.
Hello everyone, I'm just trying to get into PDP-11 Unix.
I have a couple older machines lying around not doing much (a SPARCstation 4
and an Ultra 1), and I've been fiddling around with the simh pdp11 and
2.11BSD on the Ultra 1. I can get the system to boot using the
211bsd.simhconfig file from the tarball here:
http://ftp.gcu-squad.org/tuhs/PDP-11/Boot_Images/2.11_on_Simh/
I can boot into what appears to be a workable system, but I'd like to have
networking and a larger hard drive. Can somebody help me out with getting
this set up? If anybody else out there has done the same thing, I'd like to
hear exactly what you did.
Thank you very much
John F.
Does anyone know how to compile gcc-3.4.6 for the pdp11? I use
the --target=pdp11 switch and the compiler runs for awhile then breaks. The
output says it's bulding for a pdp11-unknown something so there maybe
something I'm not using.
Bill
> Michael Sokolov, it was, that writted:
> [stuff]
>
> ====
>
> You silly, twisted boy, you.
Indeed. Michael does not seem to have been taking his meds. Nice guy but
a bit out there.
Tim wrote:
> A good example would probably be SunOS 4 - we already know that Sun are
> quite interested in open sourcing stuff given OpenSolaris, but SunOS 4
> hasn't been, presumably because it is full of stuff-they-don't-own and has
> no commercial value at all.
I'm the guy who took SunOS 4.1.3 and removed all the non-free stuff from it
(which was 90% STREAMS) and demo-ed it to McNealy in effort to set it free.
A lot went into this: http://www.bitmover.com/lm/papers/srcos.html
There isn't much chance they'll release it and at this point it is so far
behind I'm not sure I see the point. Even though that is the one kernel
that I really loved.
> From: Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy(a)optushome.com.au>
> SMP support started earlier than 4.1.4. The sun4m machines (SS470,
> SS670) were the first SMP machines and ISTR they were supported in
Um, search google groups for lm@slovax - that was a 470. It was most
definitely not an SMP box though it was my favorite Sun machine. Great
machine, my home machine is still named slovax in honor of that box (which
was named slovax in honor of a Wisconsin 11/750 that held the 4.x BSD source
which taught me more than anything else).
And for those who care, slovax/470 now belongs to Theo Deraadt, I'm
ashamed to say that I sold it to him so I could buy some parts for my
VW van at the time. At the time I didn't have any money, if I could do
it over again I would have given it to him.
The 670 was an SMP, that's Chuck Narad's box. Pretty nice except that
bcopy performance was really bad.
-----
But the bigger point I wanted to make was to react to all the stuff about
OSF/1 or Ultrix or Tru64 or AIX or whatever. Most of you probably have
no idea who I am or what we do. I run a company that makes a software
product which runs on all those old Unix platforms. We have all the
boxen with all the various Unix versions.
Other than SunOS 4.x, if they all fell off the face of the earth tomorrow
I couldn't be happier. They suck. And even SunOS sucks in some ways, it's
way behind Linux. I'm a file system guy, I'm the last guy who did anything
significant to UFS (ask Kirk), and I have to admit that the Linux guys are
in some ways running circles around the old school Unix guys. The one
exception (that I know of) is ZFS. That's pretty cool, the Linux guys
are unlikely to do anything that good, it's too complex.
But my point is that the love for the old unix versions is mostly
misplaced. V7, you bet. That teaches you "small" (as does Comer's
Xinu work). But all of the vendor Unices, even my beloved SunOS, pale in
comparison to Linux. Sad but true, I've spent a lot of time in the code.
And in some ways it isn't sad at all, it's cool. Linux is free.
The only sad part that I still see is maybe personal. I loved SunOS
because working in it, as a young kid, I didn't know shit. But there
I was, hacking away. When I started, wandering through the code made
me feel like I was in a fog, I couldn't see the next step. But as time
went on the fog cleared and I saw this very clear and clean architecture.
It became something that you could really see and see why it was that
way and see how you could extend it and see how you shouldn't extend it.
The generic kernel source (take away drivers and file system
implementations, but keep the VFS layer) is very small. I've lived for
many years in SunOS, I've lived in IRIX, I've lived in SCO (which is
more true to V7 than anything else), I've lived in Linux, I've read the
HP-UX code, I haven't read Ultrix, OSF/1 or AIX, but the ones I know,
they are all pretty simple. The only one that ever cleared the fog for
me was SunOS, all the other ones looked like a mess which is why I don't
share the sentiment that we should be crying over the loss of all the
vendor Unices.
I don't want to go back. Linux is pretty nice. Maybe they'll fuck it
up, that seems to be a Unix OS tradition, but so far so good.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.comhttp://www.bitkeeper.com
> I couldn't be happier. They suck. And even SunOS sucks in some ways, it's
> way behind Linux. I'm a file system guy, I'm the last guy who did anything
> significant to UFS (ask Kirk), and I have to admit that the Linux guys are
As Mike H pointed out, Kirk has been more busy than I remembered and has been
busy in UFS, so I retract that.
That point made, I think the general point that I was making, which is that
the Linux guys seem to be moving faster, is still valid. I'm very fond of
UFS and have a lot of respect for Kirk, so it's not about that, it's just
that the energy seems to be elsewhere. For better or worse.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.comhttp://www.bitkeeper.com
Perhaps an OSF1-"lite", on par with 4.4BSD-Lite which had the
copyrighted code removed, would be possible to get released. Of course,
HP would have to have a motive in doing so.
All of this, the closing of UNX, the loss of the VAX and now the dying
of the Alpha chip, is very disheartening. Although I'm lucky enough to
have access to 5 VAXen (running 4.3 BSD UNIX and one running Ultrix4),
it's tough for anyone to learn and play with this stuff, because they
are becoming so scarce (you can by a VaxStation/MicroVax on eBay, but
these will only run Ultrix and not 4.3 BSD, unfortunately).
I also am very disappointed about the abandoning of the Alpha chip.
>From it's start I was very impressed with it. It was a very good RISC
architecture, and the first to really do 64-bit computing, and do it
well. Before they decided to kill it, it was still the best
architecture for 64-bit computing on the market.
Even though I'm pro-open-source, I also can't help but lament losing
many of the commercial Unices over the past few years. The next version
of HP-UX will apparently be the last, PA-RISC is dying along with Alpha,
so presumably OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 is either dead or end-of-lifed as
well, IRIX has moved to x86 (the platform I tend to loathe the most,
probably because I know it best and learned it first), AIX is still
around but IBM is focussing strongly on Linux, and Solaris is still
around (but they did kill SunOS 4.1.4 -- personally one of my favorite
Unices of all time, basically 4.3 BSD + Sun stuff such as OpenWindows +
nice improvements such as loadable kernel modules + pcc ported to
SPARC).
Not to mention all the mid-to-late 80's versions of UNIX -- Interactive,
AT&T System V (actually branded as that, uname -a returned
UNIX_System_V), as well as a ton of others I'm forgetting.
I guess I'm somewhat nostoglic about old UNIX, and I enjoy seeing it's
evolution. That's why whenever I'm able to view the source code of some
closed-source UNIX, it's very enjoyable to me. Old UNIX has a rustic
appeal to me.
It's unfortunate that it seems we must resign ourselves to a future of
x86-based OSs, such as Linux, or even Open/Free/NetBSD, which aren't
really UNIX (Linux definitely isn't, and the modern BSDs have changed
enough that they also aren't IMO).
It seems there's no diversity anymore, both in software and hardware.
It's amazing how x86 (an inferior architecture) could win the war of
architectures when it was basically a bastardized version of the VAX
(the best CISC chip ever, IMO). There were so many superior
architectures out there, such as SPARC, MIPS, Alpha, PA-RISC, POWER,
PowerPC, and VAX. For x86 to win, really shows that the quality of
technology in a product really has no bearing on how it will do in the
market. It's not about quality, it's about profitability, and they are
very often not the same.
While IA-64 is based on the PA-RISC, it's still Intel, and the choice of
operating systems for it is still going to be limited to the handful
previously mentioned. Apple's move away from a RISC architecture
(PowerPC) to x86 is just as disheartening.
Oh well. I guess we are nearing the finish-line of this "race to the
bottom", because of the capitalistic influence on the computer industry.
My advice to anyone interested in UNIX (and computer architecture)
history is to stock up on machines now, while you can still find them on
places like eBay. Some of the newer-but-still-dead architectures such
as SGI/MIPS are numerous on eBay. Although, be careful when buying on
eBay, because many times you'll get a banged up, stripped of components,
unworking shell of one of the slower models of a system. This is
particularly true when trying to acquire a SparcStation on eBay. Good
luck trying to find a 2way SparcStation 20 with a nice size hard drive
and lots of RAM (the fastest machine SunOS 4.1.4 could run on -- and
I've heard that 4.1.4 did have very alpha SMP support, similar to what
Linux and the modern BSDs used for a long time, that being a "big giant
lock" [mutex] around the kernel).
...Jon
-----Original Message-----
From: tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org [mailto:tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org]
On Behalf Of patv(a)monmouth.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 2:40 PM
To: Lyrical Nanoha; tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down
I have heard some grumblings of TOG possibly releasing CDE as open
source, but have no idea of where that stands. To be perfectly frank,
it had a lot of problems, especially in a 64-bit world. There were too
many word size assumptions, and a very good friend struggled for many,
many hours fixing those problems before it went to DEIL in India for
support. It could probably still benefit from a good "many eyes"
developer review and bug fix session in the hands of open source
developers. However, IMHO, it no longer has any advantage over KDE or
Gnome, but, as I said, that is my opinion.
Personally, I'd love to see OSF1 released open source. There were
experimental x86 and two Itanium versions in various states of
completion floating around DEC/Compaq/HP. I was part of the last
Itanium effort before the HP merger. That one booted to single user
before the project was killed.
OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX was already branded as UNIX, and it would
be fun to see what would happen to the landscape if a branded UNIX was
free.
Unfortunately, too many proprietary licensed pieces of code in the HP
version, especially in System V support, for that to ever happen. Oh
well, we can all dream ...
Pat
> On Wed, 17 May 2006, patv(a)monmouth.com wrote:
>
> > Another loss to the UNIX community that I can personally report was
> > the closing, one year ago this month, of the old DEC Manalpan
facility (UNX).
> > This was the home of VAX System V, a large portion of Ultrix, and
> > everything that made up OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX except for
> > kernel, drivers, and several other components (although I personally
> > did some kernel work on occasion). We did shell and utilities,
> > about 1/2 of X, Motif, CDE, installation, mail, and other parts of
> > the OS that made it useful. If you look at old uucp headers
> > anywhere on usenet, any of the traffic with headers that included
> > systems with "unx" in the name was routed through this facility. I
> > was there from when it was Digital through Compaq and finally HP,
almost all the way through to the closing.
>
> It would be nice if CDE were free, the rest is either part of the
> Heirloom project or cloned in some open-source system (e.g., Lesstif).
> --;
>
> -uso.
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
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>
> I don't want to go back. Linux is pretty nice. Maybe they'll fuck it
> up, that seems to be a Unix OS tradition, but so far so good.
> --
> ---
> Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com
I hate when these discussions become religious. What I initially said was
I'd love to see what would happen if a TOG branded UNIX were open source.
As for which one, I don't really care. It doesn't matter which. The
hypothetical scenario is if suddenly there was a "Open Source UNIX" out
there, what would happen to all the FUD and other marketing spin?
This hypothetical OS could easily be a Linux based GNU distribution,
almost any BSD, or some other OS out there. I just mentioned OSF/1 because
it already has been branded UNIX.
Pat
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Tim Bradshaw <tfb(a)tfeb.org> wrote:
> A good example would probably be SunOS 4 - we already know that Sun are
> quite interested in open sourcing stuff given OpenSolaris, but SunOS 4
> hasn't been [...]
Yes it has been open sourced, albeit by force since they refused to do
it voluntarily:
ifctfvax.Harhan.ORG:/pub/UNIX/thirdparty/SunOS/sunos-414-source.tar.gz
SF
Michael Sokolov, it was, that writted:
Then why don't YOU release it as open source? Yes, you personally.
Pull out your personal copy of the source (I sure hope you've had enough
brains to smuggle one home with you when you left HP/Comfuq), put it on
a bunch of Free Software FTP sites (IFCTF would gladly host it), and
announce it to the world. And while you are at it, shoot a few cops and
hang their heads on a wall as war trophys (in the humanity's war for
liberation of all software, of course).
====
You silly, twisted boy, you.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
Idiot Connoisseur
