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DoN. Nichols[_2_] DoN. Nichols[_2_] is offline
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Default Sears, I'll miss the tools

On 2012-01-08, Gary A. Gorgen wrote:
On 01/05/2012 09:38 PM, DoN. Nichols wrote:
On 2012-01-05, Gunner wrote:


[ ... ]

http://www.pcbsd.org/


And I tend to prefer OpenBSD -- but because it is *less*
Windows-like. It concentrates on security, so I use it for systems
which are exposed to outside -- and for building a firewall, and other
systems are used from behind the firewall.

http://www.openbsd.com


[ ... ]

Ayup..Its good stuff by all accounts. I had a multi cd version of
something BD 10 yrs ago..and never played with it. Didnt seem to have
as many different versions so Ive just not gotten around to it..but I
hear good things about it.

Isnt it more Unix ? Or something all together different?


Warning -- what follows may be a lot more than you wanted to
know. :-)

Well ... by real standards, linux is a unix as well. But the
life history of unix (or the family tree, if you prefer) is strange.

It started in the depths of AT&T, and had gotten up to "Version
6" before it escaped much. Universities got the source license, and
started working with it, adding to it. Version 7 was more widely
distributed -- often with licenses without source.

One university in particular, University of California at
Berkeley, did a *lot* of development, adding things to the utilities and
the kernel. It eventually grew to be its own flavor of unix, called
"BSD" (Berkeley Software Distribution). And the earliest which I have
seen mention of are in the 2.x versions.


Berkeley did a lot of work on Version 7 Unix also called BSD.
You had to have a V7 source license to get it.

BSD became the standard for the VAX, because Unix 32V, from AT&T didn't
work very well.
You had to have a 32V source license to get it.
I don't know of any VAX, that ran the AT&T distribution.


For good reasons. :-)

[ ... ]

Somewhere around this time, AT&T started playing with a new OS
called "Plan 9", and may still be doing that internally. But they sold
the rights to unix to -- who was it now? But that company eventually
sold the rights to unix to SCO (Santa Cruz Organization), which
proceeded to sue everyone with a unix like OS for licensing fees. They
were finally shut down.


Unix went from AT&T to Novell to SCO.


Aha! That was what I was trying to remember. :-) Weren't they
at first a networking company for PCs?

SCO was originally formed to market and support Microsoft Xenix.
There were several large parties, when SCO disappeared.


Indeed so. :-)

In the meanwhile, linux was started by Linus Thorvalds, which
was written from scratch to work like unix, but to not have a single
line of AT&T copyrighted code init. (He may have started from another
minimal unix kernel written by someone to use as a tool for teaching OS
programming -- called Minux (or was that Minix?).


Minix.


Thanks!

Linux got hit by the
SCO lawsuit along with anything else unix like.

The oldest examples I have of the various ones is v7 unix on
a Motorola MC68000 CPU, BSD 4.2 on a National Semiconductor CPU and made
by Tektronix, and SysVr2 on an AT&T Unix-PC/7300/3B1 (again Motorola
MC68010 this time.)


The Unix-PC, was made by Convergent Technology.


Yes -- but sold by AT&T -- unlike the MiniFrame which Convergent
sold under their own name. (68020 IIRC, instead of the 68010 in the
Unix-PC.

Thanks,
DoN.

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