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Date:      Fri, 28 Mar 1997 12:39:51 +1030 (CST)
From:      grog@lemis.de
To:        ghelmer@cs.iastate.edu (Guy Helmer)
Cc:        freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: BSD Anniversary
Message-ID:  <199703280209.MAA00699@papillon.lemis.de>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.HPP.3.96.970324212529.20824A-100000@popeye.cs.iastate.edu> from Guy Helmer at "Mar 24, 97 09:36:37 pm"

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Guy Helmer writes:
> It's been five years this month since FreeBSD's ancestor, 386BSD 0.0, hit
> the streets.  Anyone remember how much fun it was to install?

How time flies!  It's also been the 5th anniversary of the release of
BSD/386 version 0.31, which I installed (I think--from memory) on 19
March 1992.

At the time, BSD/386 was obviously in *much* better shape than 386BSD.
I can't pretend that the installation was as easy as modern versions
of FreeBSD--in particular, disk setup still required lots of
calculation--but even at the time, it beat the socks off the
commercial System V offerings I had used (in particular Inactive
UNIX).

In general, I was very pleasantly surprised by BSD/386.  I came from a
System V background (apart from Interactive and XENIX "System V", I
also worked for Tandem with their System V offerings), and there was
always a hint of "Bezerkeley" in references to BSD.  In the last five
years, I've been completely converted, and have come to recognize how
important the lack of commercial pressure (and its consequent
requirement of justifying modifications) is to software quality.  I
find that this particular aspect has reared its head in the BSD camp:
I started with BSD/386, and still have a 4 machine license, but I'm
using it less and less in favour of FreeBSD.  Full marks to the
FreeBSD team, but I'm still a little sad that BSDI hasn't quite taken
up the position I expected them to.

Greg




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