Back in the Day: Unix, Minix and Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Back in the Day: Unix, Minix and Linux

#21

Post by m-i-l » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 8:12 PM UTC

ytwj wrote: post #17

ThinkBeat wrote: post #13

I see that Linux and MacOS run Unix dervied kernels. I dont see how Windows does so. Its heritage is more along the line of VMS. https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/windows-nt-and-vm... Unless he means the Windows Subsystem for Linux but it is my understanding that it is not runing a Linux kernel, but mapping to the Windows (NT) kernel.

Didn't windows used to distribute BSD code? The old EULAs used to mention the regents of berkley. Was that the Windows kernel or some network stack?

Yes, the Windows TCP/IP stack was from BSD. I'm not sure if the code is still in Windows, but I think it is still configured via an etc/hosts file. I believe the BSD licence was preferable to Microsoft (as it was to Apple who based OSX on BSD). The networking stack was supposedly better on BSD than Linux too, but I'm not sure how correct that is (but I did hear that the software company I set up a website for in the mid 1990s switched from Linux to NetBSD pretty much as soon as I left for that reason).

Re: Back in the Day: Unix, Minix and Linux

#22

Post by marmot777 » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

That was an awesome article. Fun to read.

Re: Back in the Day: Unix, Minix and Linux

#23

Post by 3xblah » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 8:53 PM UTC

"Since nowadays GNU without Linux isn't hugely helpful, it's basically just been assimilated into core Linux and just about every distro of Linux includes GNU utilities or GNU versions of common UNIX-born tools."

Nowadays, GNU compiler collection with or without Linux can be hugely helpful. e.g., it's basically just been assimilated into "core BSD" and just about every distribution compiles with GCC.

Even in the case of one "distro" where it was recently removed from "core" and replaced with clang, it is still easily added back from the ports/packages collection.

Re: Back in the Day: Unix, Minix and Linux

#24

Post by contingencies » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

I got on board with Slackware[0] 3 for 80386. Tried Minix a couple of times, also FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc. Linux killed them due to community. Among other luminaries I met with Jon 'Maddog' Hall[1] a couple of times around 2000-2001, once in Sydney and once in Taiwan. We had various discussions, and I recall he said Linux was going to be "huge" in embedded. In 2008, Android happened. Fast forward another 10 years and now I am in China running a hardware company, and we're yet to see an open mobile offering. Even as my company have migrated from Linux to smaller microcontrollers for most tasks, and as computing and electronics at all layers continue to seep in to the rest of society causing massive changes (social networking, consumer-first walled garden devices, connected TV, mobile payment, everything-aaS etc.) on unsuspecting, status-quo industries, it's interesting to reflect on the continued significance of Linux's culture in shaping the technical community.

I don't in any way miss the hardware and bandwidth limitations of those days... but sometimes not having a billion examples on tap forced you to engage more deeply or distinctly with system fundamentals.

[0] Today I am a supporter of Gentoo (IMHO the 'spiritual successor' to Slackware) and NixOS.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Hall_(programmer)

Re: Back in the Day: Unix, Minix and Linux

#25

Post by type0 » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 10:16 PM UTC

3xblah wrote: post #23

"Since nowadays GNU without Linux isn't hugely helpful, it's basically just been assimilated into core Linux and just about every distro of Linux includes GNU utilities or GNU versions of common UNIX-born tools." Nowadays, GNU compiler collection with or without Linux can be hugely helpful. e.g., it's basically just been assimilated into "core BSD" and just about every distribution compiles with GCC. Even in the case…

> it's basically been assimilated into every distribution of BSD.

So that should be called GNU/BSD right, anyway why haven't I heard about the LiGNUx naming before is it some kind of pseudostallmanism?

Re: Back in the Day: Unix, Minix and Linux

#26

Post by type0 » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 10:21 PM UTC

basetop wrote: post #9

pictur wrote: post #5

What makes the minix operating system special?

In additional what phicoh said, it's also one of the most popular OS in the world. https://www.networkworld.com/article/3236064/minix-the-most-...

Maybe not most popular but definitely most deployed

Re: Back in the Day: Unix, Minix and Linux

#27

Post by 3xblah » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 10:38 PM UTC

type0 wrote: post #25

3xblah wrote: post #23

"Since nowadays GNU without Linux isn't hugely helpful, it's basically just been assimilated into core Linux and just about every distro of Linux includes GNU utilities or GNU versions of common UNIX-born tools." Nowadays, GNU compiler collection with or without Linux can be hugely helpful. e.g., it's basically just been assimilated into "core BSD" and just about every distribution compiles with GCC. Even in the case…

> it's basically been assimilated into every distribution of BSD. So that should be called GNU/BSD right, anyway why haven't I heard about the LiGNUx naming before is it some kind of pseudostallmanism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy

Re: Back in the Day: Unix, Minix and Linux

#28

Post by AdmiralAsshat » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

type0 wrote: post #25

3xblah wrote: post #23

"Since nowadays GNU without Linux isn't hugely helpful, it's basically just been assimilated into core Linux and just about every distro of Linux includes GNU utilities or GNU versions of common UNIX-born tools." Nowadays, GNU compiler collection with or without Linux can be hugely helpful. e.g., it's basically just been assimilated into "core BSD" and just about every distribution compiles with GCC. Even in the case…

> it's basically been assimilated into every distribution of BSD. So that should be called GNU/BSD right, anyway why haven't I heard about the LiGNUx naming before is it some kind of pseudostallmanism?

Doesn't every major GNU tool have a clean-room implementation in BSD? Or I guess it would be more correct to say that BSD and GNU are both clean-room implementations of the original UNIX tools. Just thinking of the oft-posted, "Why GNU grep is fast" article.[0]

[0]https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2010-Aug...

Re: Back in the Day: Unix, Minix and Linux

#29

Post by dehrmann » Sun, Apr 28, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

3xblah wrote: post #23

"Since nowadays GNU without Linux isn't hugely helpful, it's basically just been assimilated into core Linux and just about every distro of Linux includes GNU utilities or GNU versions of common UNIX-born tools." Nowadays, GNU compiler collection with or without Linux can be hugely helpful. e.g., it's basically just been assimilated into "core BSD" and just about every distribution compiles with GCC. Even in the case…

Isn't Clang the default compiler on FreeBSD, now?

Re: Back in the Day: Unix, Minix and Linux

#30

Post by e12e » Sun, Apr 28, 2019, 1:45 AM UTC

3xblah wrote: post #23

"Since nowadays GNU without Linux isn't hugely helpful, it's basically just been assimilated into core Linux and just about every distro of Linux includes GNU utilities or GNU versions of common UNIX-born tools." Nowadays, GNU compiler collection with or without Linux can be hugely helpful. e.g., it's basically just been assimilated into "core BSD" and just about every distribution compiles with GCC. Even in the case…

AFAIK freebsd has depricated gcc in favour of clang, and openbsd as well. Not sure about netbsd - I think there was some experiments with pcc?