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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:2885 comp.os.linux.misc:20506 Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!MathWorks.Com!news2.near.net!das-news.harvard.edu!spdcc!merk!rmkhome!rmk From: rmk@rmkhome.com (Rick Kelly) Subject: Re: Usefulness of BSD/Linux Source Knowledge (was BSD vs. LINUX) Organization: The Man With Ten Cats References: <30jqp1$ees@grex.cyberspace.org> <1994Jul21.182603.15882@belvedere.sbay.org> <2NsBkiCqLiLU068yn@cs.odu.edu> <30pn0a$9rf@hermes.unt.edu> <CtEuyA.En1@world.std.com> <1994Jul24.185248.5906@escape.widomaker.com> Message-ID: <9407282112.17@rmkhome.com> Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.com (Rick Kelly) X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 02:12:17 GMT Lines: 75 Shannon Hendrix (shendrix@escape.widomaker.com) wrote: : Lee E Parsons (lparsons@world.std.com) wrote: : : Which brings up the reason I went BSD instead of Linux. When I set up my : : PC I didn't just want a unix at home. I wanted a unix at home I could : : hack, destroy, change and review. And I wanted all of these things with : : the assurence that what I was learning during the above process had some : : applicability to something other than Linux. : Linux is probably more applicable to the future of UNIX than BSD. It's : following POSIX very closely and all other OS are going that way too. : It's also very much like SysV and has most of the BSD stuff in it. It is also claimed that HP300 MPE, OpenVMS, and Windows NT are POSIX compliant. It's a nice buzzword. : Also, SunOS is no longer a port of BSD. It's yet another version of : SVR4.2 now, not BSD. It's been that way since Solaris 2 was released : and it is the future, like it or not. Sun is still making enhancements to SunOS 4.1.3. That's BSD. SunOS 4.1.3 (Solaris 1.1.1_U1 Release B) runs on ALL Sun hardware. That's BSD. : : With Linux I felt I would be spending my time learning the guts of : : a system written by Linus. While that may be very educational it doesnt : : do much for my ability to say "Our OS works like THIS" : He wrote it following POSIX and standard UNIX so it's mostly the same. Saying "POSIX" is a lot like saying "National Health Plan". : : Before somebody flames me let me provide an example. If I wanted to : : understand how Ultrix computes the loadaverage I could go to FreeBSD : : and get a pretty good idea how it is done. Where does Linux get its : : code for the loadaverage? Is it a total rewrite? If so how can I : : make any other choice except FreeBSD. : Because BSD is dead. I wish it were not so because I prefer BSD but : SVR4.2 is the future of UNIX, not BSD. You actually made a wrong : choice by your own critieria. If SVR4.2 is the future of UNIX then Linux is dead because it isn't. : Anyway, the two are fine Unices so you should choose what you like best. : What you learn in either one is good for you and the differences between : the two are shrinking because SVR4.2 and Linux have most of BSD in them : and BSD is getting a lot of the stuff from SysV in it. Like I said, : all OS are merging and your learning won't be wasted either way. So I take it your also looking at VMS and VM sin they are also current operating systems and therefore are merging with UNIX. And MacOS, and RSX11M, and OS/9....... : : Am I not putting enough faith in Linux? Too much in FreeBSD? : No, you just argued against yourself a lot. And your argument is: "There is only Linux" "There is no other OS" Right. Everyone knows the one true OS is Plan 9. -- Rick Kelly rmk@rmkhome.com rmk@bedford.progress.com