--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EDF00005 Date: 09/10/97 From: DAVID J PORTER Time: 12:57pm \/To: JAMES VAHN (Read 3 times) Subj: FreeBSD/Linux James Vahn, In a message on 7 September, to Lawrence Garvin, wrote : JV> Yup, just pulling your leg. I did have a look-see at the FreeBSD install JV> disks. It seemed to be setting up the kernel, rather than the Linux JV> method of using every driver known. That was good, even though I blew it JV> and killed what apparently was the hard disk driver.. But I'm amiss JV> at what makes FreeBSD any better or worse than Linux. They are both bette JV> than what I was using before. :-) FreeBSD and Linux are so similar that I think choosing between them is more a religious decision as any thing else. Where Linux may have fallen down in the past due to lack of coherent support, has to a large extent been allayed with the emergence of companies of the like of Caldera and Red Hat. As for me, I am currently using a FreeBSD _and_ Linux system side-by-side, although most of my development work is done on the Linux machine, and the server functions are handled on the other. Cheers, DJP ... * ATP/Linux 1.42 * Linux, the choice of a GNU generation. --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: The Farm - Christchurch, NZ, +64-3-385-4750 (3:770/255) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EDF00006 Date: 09/10/97 From: DAVID J PORTER Time: 01:11pm \/To: LAWRENCE GARVIN (Read 3 times) Subj: Www Lawrence Garvin, In a message on 8 September, to James Vahn, wrote : JV> And the WWW? What is that for? Clear the way, I have an JV> installation to make... :-) LG> Actually, if you get past all the 'glitter', the WWW has LG> some wonderful functions. The problem is that amateur LG> programmers have clouded the functions with glitz and LG> graphics, and now animation, video, and sound. LG> I want the INFORMATION -- not the marketing hype. It is going the same way as television. Remember all of the grandiose claims that it would enable widespread education of the masses... Now look at it! And the WWW will get to the same point about... well... yesterday. But, yes, there are still great resources available if you ignore all of the home pages put up by everyone and their dog, and cut straight to the sites that you're interested in. JV> But I'm amiss at what makes FreeBSD any better or worse than JV> Linux. They are both better than what I was using before. :-) LG> Perhaps if someday I get a chance to see both side by LG> side... I'll write a treatise on the issue. :) I've got just that situation here, but IMHO there are not enough differences to make such an exercise that relevant, unless you want to get into the technicalities of kernel implementation or software writing considerations. Cheers, DJP ... * ATP/Linux 1.42 * The young know the rules, the old know the exceptions. --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: The Farm - Christchurch, NZ, +64-3-385-4750 (3:770/255) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EDF00007 Date: 09/10/97 From: DAVID J PORTER Time: 01:21pm \/To: ROGER MORENO (Read 3 times) Subj: How valuable are Unix sk @SUBJECT:How valuable are Unix skills? N Roger Moreno, In a message on 7 September, wrote : RM> the merits of RM> knowing Unix, DOS, Windows, Applications, and entry level RM> computer programming? IMHO you are approaching this the wrong way. You should work out what you would like to do, and then figure out what skills will get you there. Cheers, DJP ... * ATP/Linux 1.42 * Only the hand that erases can write the true thing. --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: The Farm - Christchurch, NZ, +64-3-385-4750 (3:770/255) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EDF00008 Date: 09/10/97 From: KEVIN BERRY Time: 08:41pm \/To: LAWRENCE GARVIN (Read 3 times) Subj: What echo? Hello Lawrence! On Sunday September 07 1997, Lawrence Garvin spewed forth to Kevin Berry: LG>> And if you've got a slower pipe, say ISDN, or god-forbid, 33.6k, LG>> it could be a week long project! KB>> Funny, I'm the person he's talking about, and it only took about KB>> 3 hours to get a usable system downloaded and installed, LG> A "Usable" system, Kevin -- or a COMPLETE system? Usable, as in kernel, fileutils, textutils, netutils, ppp, vi, pine, tin, and maybe a few other goodies I forgot. I had a system with such a configuration able to easily fit within 50mb of space. That included compilers and major libraries, btw. LG> I have _TWO_ CDROM's in my posession containing the entire LG> distributions of Slackware 3.2 and a bunch of extra accessories. The LG> first CDROM is just the 'official' distribution of Slackware, and it LG> tells me it needs about 275MB of disk space. Thing is, that's if you install EVERYTHING. You don't need to install everything. LG> Now... even I know how long it takes to download 275MB on an ISDN LG> line, god forbid a 28.8K line. (About 23 hours, if nothing goes LG> wrong.) No one needs to download all that. You only have to grab what you are going to use. LG> Then again, if all we're talking about is a "usable" system, the LG> Linux LG> kernel installs in about 5MB of disk space, so I guess one could LG> download the raw kernel and boot to a command prompt in about 30 LG> minutes at 28.8k. But what would be the point? That's the bloody source. My kernel usually never eats more than 400k. LG> Even the -compressed- images of Slackware 3.1 took up in excess of LG> 100MB of space on my filehub, and that was not including the half LG> dozen or so files that didn't make it through the filebone to my LG> system. A 100MB of files at 28.8 takes about 8.3 hours, if nothing LG> goes wrong. But, no sane person needs to grab that much at a time. If you want X or something badly enough, you can download enough to get a base system going first, and grab X later. Later Days, Kevin or ... If you consult enough experts, you can confirm any opinion. --- GED/386-Squish1.11-BT/XE5 * Origin: The D.C.P. Point I, 'There isn't enough bloody mail!' 1:130/222.1) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EDM00000 Date: 09/16/97 From: DAVID J PORTER Time: 08:45pm \/To: JAMES VAHN (Read 3 times) Subj: Re: What echo? James Vahn, In a message on 13 September, to Tim Provencio, wrote : JV> How about some specific examples? From what I've seen, Linux looks like JV> a blue car, and FreeBSD looks like a green one. Linux comes in different JV> shades of blue, while FreeBSD comes in any color you want- as long as JV> it's green. ;-) Well, if you are going to use that metaphor, Linux can be painted _almost_ green, and FreeBSD can be painted _almost_ blue. Cheers, DJP ... * ATP/Linux 1.42 * Faint hearts never win in love nor sell life insurance. --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: The Farm - Christchurch, NZ, +64-3-385-4750 (3:770/255) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EDM00001 Date: 09/16/97 From: DAVID J PORTER Time: 08:59pm \/To: JOHN LINDLEY (Read 3 times) Subj: X Windows John Lindley, In a message on 9 September, to Gerard O'donnell, wrote : JL> I thought, I may be wrong, that the idea of X windows was that it was an JL> window manager. So that the look and feel depends on the front-end you ec JL> to use with it. X Windows is the name of the protocol used between X server & clients. The look of the windows you see on the screen comes from the particular window manager that you use. Cheers, DJP ... * ATP/Linux 1.42 * I have seen the future and it is now the past. --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: The Farm - Christchurch, NZ, +64-3-385-4750 (3:770/255) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EDM00002 Date: 09/16/97 From: DAVID J PORTER Time: 09:02pm \/To: JOHN LINDLEY (Read 3 times) Subj: Re: SCO Experience? John Lindley, In a message on 11 September, to Adam Colley, wrote : JL> One life form detected, ID'd as one captain Adam Colley. AC> Whoever decided to use signed integers for such things needs a good AC> seeing to. JL> Probably Mr Gates I don't think Billy has much influence over at SCO! Cheers, DJP ... * ATP/Linux 1.42 * Talk is cheap, until you hire a lawyer. --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: The Farm - Christchurch, NZ, +64-3-385-4750 (3:770/255) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EDM00003 Date: 09/14/97 From: WILLIAM HURN Time: 03:44pm \/To: MATT BENEDICT (Read 3 times) Subj: Re: UNIX Machines -=> Quoting Matt Benedict to William Hurn <=- MB> To write the floppy all you gotta do is go into a directory on HD or MB> Cd that contains BOTH BOOT.FLP and FDIMAGE.EXE and type in the MB> following (make sure you have a blank disk in the drive :) ) MB> FDIMAGE.EXE BOOT.FLP A: That did it, the floppy runs on cold boot and I've seen UNIX run on my machine! Since you're good at answering dumb questions, maybe you won't mind a couple more: What happens when I provide the Kernel info and select "Q" to save? Do you remember if there is a menu? It won't just start writing to my harddrive will it?!!! I get the impression (from what I've read around here) that there is a way to keep the floppy as a boot disk and have the UNIX files on your harddrive. They must be on a separate partition (logical drive) from the DOS/Windows stuff, right? Can you just run freeBSD from the floppy temporarily (and slowly) or do you need something smaller like MINIX for that? Of course if you're one of the Gurus, you use a dual-boot setup or a separate machine. Thanks. --- * Origin: D.M.U.G. BBS Dayton Ohio (1:110/69) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EDM00004 Date: 09/15/97 From: DENNIS MCCUNNEY Time: 12:24am \/To: LAWRENCE GARVIN (Read 3 times) Subj: UNIX Machines *PID: BWPCB 4.01 [Reg] *MSGID: 1:124/2113.0 341cd3ba ** From Lawrence Garvin to Dennis Mccunney on 26 Aug 97 19:39:00 ** Re: UNIX Machines DM> A rough summary of years of tangled history, and not guaranteed to DM> be perfectly accurate, but you asked: LG> Yes, there are a couple of items that I'm thinking might be a bit LG> inaccurate. LG> The most notable being that the Xenix port to the Motorola processors LG> existed in a Version 7 flavor, because that's what -I- sold and LG> supported on the Tandy 6000 in 1985. Consider that bit corrected - now that you mention it, I vaguely remember that product, but never used it (or Tandy machines in general) myself. I tended to think of Xenix as being solely an Intel product. LG> Other than that, Dennis, there's lots of 'history' here that I've LG> -never- seen, read, or heard from any other source -- not at all to LG> imply that I'm an expert on Unix history -- but I have read numerous LG> histories of Unix and this is new information to me. I'd be curious to LG> know what your source(s) for this information is(are). Various. Tell me which parts were unknown to you, and I might be able to provide sources. A lot of it came from trade journals like UNIX Today, UNIX World, and UNIX Review, as well as Computer Systems News, Computer Reseller News, Information Week and others. As it was, I abstracted and truncated a bit, particularly concerning non-mainstream variants and look-alikes like Venix, Coherent, Idris and the like. (And do forgive the lateness of this reply: I was snowed under at work, and had an old PC die on me just as I brought home the new machine, so it was a bit before I could restore my standard configuration. I'm only about 5MB of mail behind, so I may get current someday...) --- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 * Origin: Lunatic Fringe * Richardson, TX * 972-235-5288 * (1:124/2113) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EDM00005 Date: 09/15/97 From: DENNIS MCCUNNEY Time: 12:39am \/To: ERIK WARMELINK (Read 3 times) Subj: UNIX Machines *PID: BWPCB 4.01 [Reg] *MSGID: 1:124/2113.0 341cd3bb ** From Erik Warmelink to Dennis Mccunney on 27 Aug 97 03:43:00 ** Re: UNIX Machines EW> It only owns the brand, not the ideas. Pffff ;-) DM> It doesn't own the brand. The trademark was passed on to DM> the X-Open consortium. EW> You're right, thanks for the correction. It makes me wonder what EW> Lawrence meant when he said that SCO owns Unix. ;-) I guess it depends upon what you consider UNIX. SCO owns the AT&T developed code, but not the name. --- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 * Origin: Lunatic Fringe * Richardson, TX * 972-235-5288 * (1:124/2113)