Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Palm Top Alyssa :yuyueat: :american_megatrans: (ezio@akko.wtf)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 10:54:00 JST Palm Top Alyssa :yuyueat: :american_megatrans:
   wow why are there so many expensive bsds
   • Embed this notice
     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: (allison@hidamari.apartments)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 10:53:59 JST :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:

     in reply to
     @ezio Because (1) there legally couldn't be a free one before Net/2 and 4.4BSD-Lite were released and (2) BSD was/is actually good. It represented the cutting edge of Unix development for a long time so a lot of vendors got in on it early on and AT&T couldn't compete with it by merit so they had to buy 20% of Sun to kill off SunOS and replace it with the SysVR4-based Solaris.
     Phantasm likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: (allison@hidamari.apartments)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 10:58:27 JST :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:

     in reply to
     @ezio There are three different Sun Unix operating systems. The first (very early on) was a straight port of V7 Unix by Unisoft (just like a lot of other vendors), then Sun hired a bunch of the early BSD developers from CSRG and made a BSD derivative called SunOS. This continued until AT&T invested in Sun buying out something like 15-20% of their common stock. A condition of the investment was that they had to kill off the BSD-based SunOS and base the next major version (SunOS 5) on SysVR4 and that operating system (SunOS 5.x) was branded Solaris in marketing copy to differentiate it from the BSD-based SunOS that came before.
     Phantasm likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Palm Top Alyssa :yuyueat: :american_megatrans: (ezio@akko.wtf)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 10:58:28 JST Palm Top Alyssa :yuyueat: :american_megatrans:

     in reply to

     • :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:
     @allison wait so solaris wasnt sunos after a while?
   • Embed this notice
     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: (allison@hidamari.apartments)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 11:03:27 JST :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:

     in reply to
     @ezio The other Unix vendors got spooked by it and decided to form the OSF and make their own (Mach-based) competitor system called OSF/1. This ended up garnering fairly limited interest in practice except from Digital who was the biggest investor bankrolling it and that OS through many renames eventually became Tru64 Unix. That being said, the hackers mostly jumped ship to either Linux or Net2/4.4Lite based BSDs as soon as it was viable. Lots of interesting background info from a contemporary internal memo at Sun here https://www.landley.net/history/mirror/unix/srcos.html
   • Embed this notice
     Palm Top Alyssa :yuyueat: :american_megatrans: (ezio@akko.wtf)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 11:03:28 JST Palm Top Alyssa :yuyueat: :american_megatrans:

     in reply to

     • :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:
     @allison TIL, some pretty evil buisness tactits there
   • Embed this notice
     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: (allison@hidamari.apartments)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 12:00:00 JST :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:

     in reply to

     • Sun Microdevil Pte Ltd
     @ezio @koakuma IIRC Daniel J. Bernstein (of cryptography and qmail fame) was using BSD/OS on Pentiums and SPARCs throughout most of the 1990s. Definitely a valid option especially if you want something close to 4.4-Lite but with quality of life fixes. I archived all the images a kind benefactor gave me here https://archive.org/details/@bsdunixfan
   • Embed this notice
     Palm Top Alyssa :yuyueat: :american_megatrans: (ezio@akko.wtf)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 12:00:01 JST Palm Top Alyssa :yuyueat: :american_megatrans:

     in reply to

     • Sun Microdevil Pte Ltd
     @koakuma THAT SOUNDS LIKE WORK
   • Embed this notice
     Sun Microdevil Pte Ltd (koakuma@uwu.social)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 12:00:02 JST Sun Microdevil Pte Ltd

     in reply to

     @ezio Install commercial BSD in your Pentium :02smile:

   • Embed this notice
     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: (allison@hidamari.apartments)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 12:01:39 JST :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:

     in reply to

     • Sun Microdevil Pte Ltd
     • :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:
     @ezio @koakuma (if you do try it, I recommend https://archive.org/details/bsdos-4.3 on a small hard disk or equivalent)
   • Embed this notice
     Mikoto BSD (mikoto@akko.wtf)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 13:05:43 JST Mikoto BSD

     in reply to

     • Sun Microdevil Pte Ltd
     • :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:
     @allison @ezio @koakuma just tried it now in an emulated pentium mmx machine and for some reason it doesn't want to actually detect the hard disk drive or cdrom
     
     sounds like it'll be quite the uphill battle to get it working
     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: (allison@hidamari.apartments)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 13:06:15 JST :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:

     in reply to

     • Sun Microdevil Pte Ltd
     • Mikoto BSD
     @mikoto @ezio @koakuma I'll try doing a working 86box config later
   • Embed this notice
     Elias Mårtenson (loke@functional.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 17:59:49 JST Elias Mårtenson

     in reply to

     • :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:

     @allison @ezio Specifically, they named the new product Solaris 2.x, with the underlying operating system named SunOS 5.x. The BSD-based SunOS versions were retroactively renamed Solaris 1.x, with the underlying OS called SunOS 4.x.

     This is indeed very complicated, and most people just kept calling the old system SunOS and the SysV-based one Solaris.

     Source: I was working for Sun around the time when Solaris 2 because usable.

     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: and Phantasm like this.
   • Embed this notice
     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: (allison@hidamari.apartments)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 18:01:31 JST :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:

     in reply to

     • Elias Mårtenson
     @loke @ezio Not entirely related to any of the above but did you ever see Spring while you were working there? I've been trying to track down a copy for the better part of a decade now and all my potential leads have come up thin.
   • Embed this notice
     Elias Mårtenson (loke@functional.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 19:37:15 JST Elias Mårtenson

     in reply to

     • :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:

     @allison @ezio Sorry, I didn't. Me and a few other colleagues did play around with getting old stuff that we found running, like a version of Solaris 2.0 beta that we found on a CD (it was terrible). I also remember coming across a CD with Sun Nextstep.

     But I don't think I ever heard about Spring.

     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: and Phantasm like this.
   • Embed this notice
     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: (allison@hidamari.apartments)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 19:39:22 JST :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:

     in reply to

     • Elias Mårtenson
     @loke @ezio Understandable, it seems to have been a pretty isolated project even within Sun. Solaris 2.0 Beta sounds *incredibly* cursed, really I would say all of them were up to... 2.5.1?
   • Embed this notice
     Elias Mårtenson (loke@functional.cafe)'s status on Thursday, 27-Mar-2025 09:33:59 JST Elias Mårtenson

     in reply to

     • :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans:

     @allison @ezio yes, 2.5.1 was the first version that was production grade, especially with the later patches.

     I do remember that to get that Solaris 2.0 beta to run we had to dig out some really old hardware in the lab. Thankfully we had shelves full of it.

     :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: likes this.