[TUHS] BSD/OS

[Chet Ramey via TUHS]

On 8/31/24 12:40 AM, Kevin Bowling wrote:

> BSD/386 seems to be a first order derivative of net/2.  Source:
> https://ia902809.us.archive.org/25/items/BSD3861.1CD/bsd1.1-manual.pdf.
> To what degree that it incorporated anything from 386bsd would
> probably rely on first hand accounts.

We ran all of these at CWRU for many years. The mail system, DNS, and
other services all ran on BSD/OS machines. Nice, clean distribution
will full source code and excellent support.

> I don't have much to go on for BSD/OS 2.x but it seems like it was
> about rebasing on 4.4-lite if we look at the family tree
> http://www.netbsd.org/about/history.html

This is about where we got seriously into the game. I probably still have
the source for it somewhere.

I did a bunch of development on that version.

> Not much sourcing to go on for BSD/OS 3.x.

Probably have the source for this, too.

> 
> Luckily for BSD/OS 4.x we get some release notes:
> * https://ia600908.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22/items/bsdos-4.01/bsdos-4.01-binary.iso&file=RELEASENOTES.pdf
> * https://ia800900.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/21/items/bsdos-4.1/bsdos-4.1-binary.iso&file=RELEASENOTES.pdf

We definitely used these versions heavily, up through the mid-aughts.

> For 5.x I again don't have much to go on 

I think I have a box with this distribution in my office. That was
after I got out of the server game.

> 
> And what I was initially after, a comparative report on how BSD/OS
> related to others:
> https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/usenix99/full_papers/metz/metz.pdf
> (page 6)
> 
> I would be pretty confident in saying BSD/OS is _not_ a FreeBSD
> derivative but a first order derivative of net/2 that eventually wound
> up looking a little bit like FreeBSD in its later years.

Yep.

BSDI employed a bunch of BSD heavy hitters.

Mike Karels
Keith Bostic
Donn Seeley
Chris Torek
Rob Kolstad (President)
Jeff Honig
Bill Jolitz
Kirk McKusick (one of the founders)

They were a pleasure to work with.

Chet

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet at case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/
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