[HN Gopher] For BSD Unix, It's Sayonara (1992)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       For BSD Unix, It's Sayonara (1992)
        
       Author : operator-name
       Score  : 77 points
       Date   : 2023-07-21 18:22 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.tech-insider.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.tech-insider.org)
        
       | stan1234 wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | CodeCompost wrote:
       | I don't know what it is about the BSD's. I just keep getting
       | drawn to them, and I don't even use them personally or
       | professionally.
       | 
       | I think it's because they are complete operating systems with
       | their own user-land and complete documentation. Plus the fact
       | that BSD users get excited about little things like when an extra
       | command line switch or a new filesystem flag. All this meticulous
       | attention to detail...
        
         | LeFantome wrote:
         | Try Chimera
        
         | parlortricks wrote:
         | This is me as well, im excited to know there is a whole
         | solution in one. Ive run them here and there to experiment, but
         | for my needs i still use Debian. I feel Debian gives me some of
         | the BSD vibe, but i still enjoy reading about all the new
         | features the BSDs bring each release. Hope one day they catch
         | up to what my linux box does, so i can enjoy it more.
        
       | drewg123 wrote:
       | Not according to the computer I'm typing this on, 31 years later
       | :)
       | 
       | FWIW, Klara has a good series on the history of FreeBSD:
       | 
       | https://klarasystems.com/articles/history-of-freebsd-unix-an...
       | 
       | https://klarasystems.com/articles/history-of-freebsd-part-2-...
       | 
       | https://klarasystems.com/articles/history-of-freebsd-part-3-...
       | 
       | https://klarasystems.com/articles/history-of-freebsd-part-4-...
        
         | 9front wrote:
         | The article is about BSD Unix which had a final release in June
         | of 1995. So BSD is sayonara!
         | 
         | Long live FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD, the stepchild(s) of BSD.
        
           | voytec wrote:
           | Nevertheless, it shows an interesting crossroads moment in
           | the BSD history and uncertainty of it's future.
           | 
           | > There are still options to secure BSD code, with one
           | company, Berkeley Software Design (Falls Church, Va.), a
           | company employing former Berkeley programmer Mike Karels,
           | planning to offer a commercial version of Unix for SPARC
           | systems based on the 4.4BSD code but free of AT&T source
           | licensing requirements. It currently offers BSD/386, a
           | version of Unix for 386 machines based on the Berkeley NET2
           | release.
           | 
           | (commented from a laptop running FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT;)
        
             | DonHopkins wrote:
             | Does it still have that classic Berkeley smell?
             | 
             | "It was a matter of their taking it in and peeing on it
             | until it smelled like Berkeley."
        
             | inferiorhuman wrote:
             | Ah, I was looking at the history of BSDi (nee Berkeley
             | Software Design). Turns out BSD/OS was killed off by Wind
             | River in 2003? I didn't realize it had lasted so long. Nor
             | did I realize BSD/OS had such strong market share in '95.
             | 
             | (commented from a laptop building an osx -> dragonfly cross
             | compiler)
        
           | Paul-Craft wrote:
           | Don't forget Darwin, the step-grandchild of BSD. It might not
           | be as free as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, but it'd be hard
           | to argue it's not as important.
        
       | slavapestov wrote:
       | "The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System" is
       | a classic: https://www.amazon.com/Implementation-Operating-
       | paperback-Ad...
        
         | assimpleaspossi wrote:
         | Don't forget the newer, updated versions, the last release just
         | a few years ago.
        
       | shon wrote:
       | Ahem... Darwin. Because of Darwin (iOS) and its derivatives, BSD
       | probably powers 10-20% or more of all daily user hours logged on
       | the planet.
        
       | yuhong wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | InTheArena wrote:
       | It's neat to start reading and immediately run into professor Evi
       | Nemeth being quoted. I TA"d for her a few year later, and it was
       | axiomatic in her labs that BSD Unix was the only true Unix, that
       | slowaris was a abomination and ATM was the worst network protocol
       | ever devised.
       | 
       | We eventually got her onto this new Linux thing..
        
         | rootbear wrote:
         | I always attended her talks at Usenix. I'm still sad about her
         | loss.
        
         | kazinator wrote:
         | I recognize her as one of the authors of the _Unix System
         | Adminstrator 's Handbook_.
         | 
         | Re: ATM: https://books.google.ca/books?id=uAblPu1lpqIC&pg=PA130
        
         | gwright wrote:
         | > ATM was the worst network protocol ever devised
         | 
         | Having 53 byte payloads is something only a committee could
         | love.
        
           | matthiasl wrote:
           | ATM cells have 48 byte payloads.
           | 
           | Supposedly that was because different groups involved in the
           | standardisation process wanted either 32 or 64 byte payloads.
        
             | marcus0x62 wrote:
             | Supposedly it was the largest size the French contingent to
             | the standards committee would accept. They wanted a very
             | small sample size to reduce the need for echo cancellation
             | in their network.
        
             | chungy wrote:
             | That's definitely a "split the baby down the middle" kind
             | of solution.
        
               | Paul-Craft wrote:
               | More like a "fuck all you guys, I'm going home" kind of
               | solution, if you ask me.
        
           | p_l wrote:
           | Still better than 193 bit frames
        
             | marcus0x62 wrote:
             | I assume that's a T1 dig? It worked quite well for the
             | intended purpose - carrying voice traffic.
        
           | InTheArena wrote:
           | yeah. 53 bytes was the total packet size, not the payload
           | size. But oh hey! lets pick a large prime number for the
           | number of bytes that a payload could be transmitted in. Lets
           | also pick a small prime number of bytes so we can't do byte
           | boundaries.
           | 
           | Needless to say, I am glad that TCP/IP won. Moving on.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | Paul-Craft wrote:
       | Funny. This reminded me of the old saying "Two of the most famous
       | products to come out of Berkeley are BSD and LSD." Turns out, as
       | a tech person, I'm (very) tangentially involved with BSD and my
       | landlord was pretty deeply involved with LSD decades ago. ;)
        
       | bitwize wrote:
       | It's not over till Netcraft confirms it.
        
         | tiffanyh wrote:
         | Whatever happened to the old Netcraft site where I type in a
         | url and it'd tell you what OS, webhost, webserver, etc it ran.
         | 
         | Netcraft seems all corporate now.
        
           | toast0 wrote:
           | Security checklists.
        
         | Sylamore wrote:
         | Throwback to my slashdot sig: To misquote Churchill, never has
         | an operating system (FreeBSD) used by so many been administered
         | by so few. - NetCraft
        
           | baz00 wrote:
           | So basically it's an anti-Kubernetes?
        
         | kstrauser wrote:
         | Clap. Clap. Clap.
        
           | jakedata wrote:
           | So it goes.
        
             | kstrauser wrote:
             | Eh. _I_ thought it was funny, anyway!
        
           | bitwize wrote:
           | Good, that's still working.
        
             | kstrauser wrote:
             | I, for one, welcome our Slashdot-era meme overlords.
        
         | vondur wrote:
         | Wow forgot about that, How many times did the Slashdot trolls
         | have the "BSD Is Dying" posts over the years?
        
           | kstrauser wrote:
           | I bet that continues, but I don't want to be the one to
           | investigate.
        
       | zitterbewegung wrote:
       | Yea it's strange that right now we have four direct derivatives
       | (OpenBSD, FreeBSD ,NetBSD and DragonflyBSD) and an combination of
       | OSF Mach 4 and FreeBSD which has Billions of users (macOS ,iOS)
        
         | declan_roberts wrote:
         | Given Apple's market share, BSD is actually extremely popular!
        
       | [deleted]
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-07-21 23:00 UTC)