Why was 4.4BSD discontinued reddit / BSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- imnotpathetic · 2021-08-26 09:48 the title ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrRichBOB · 2021-08-26 09:54 IIRC, 4.4 BSD Lite (which actually couldn't boot—it was a political statement), stopped development because Berkley dissolved the research group developing it. And thank God, they did. Otherwise we might not have all the BSD distros we have today. All… five of them? On a side note, I wonder if it is possible to get 4.4 to boot in a virtual machine? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- imnotpathetic · 2021-08-26 09:56 But don't you think if BSD continued then it would've beaten Linux? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrRichBOB · 2021-08-26 10:14 Edit: Actually, no. The reason is because BSD “failed” solely due to AT&T causing legal issues. If the FreeBSD dev team or OpenBSD were to dissolve tomorrow, four more forks would continue the work as they see fit, tomorrow. - - - - I am personally not pro-BSD any more than I am pro Linux. I am pro-both, though I prefer Linux because I am a masochistic software-commie that worships the GPL and even dreams of publishing textbooks using the GFDL. I am a diversity person, tbh. I am new to all this and perhaps I don't get an opinion, but I think a 21 y/o cheapo college student accidentally finishing GNU and starting a revolution preaches better from behind the pulpit at Church of EMACS services. I just wish Linux could stop being trendy and start trying to go back to more of the UNIX way. But after we got these massive influxes of Windows nubes, they became Linux supremacists and have ran afoul relations between Linux and BSD communities, best I can tell. I think the biggest thing that holds back Linux is the fact that the kernel devs don't have freedom to do what they want. Like Linus Torvalds complains about how they literally just can't fix userspace because it breaks thousands of packages that everyone depends on but no one cares to spend five minutes to fix. And so this is an advantage the BSD's have and I love. They are tightly integrated and can do whatever they want. I love the FBSD dev model. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- imnotpathetic · 2021-08-26 11:59 Ok ---------------------------------------------------------------------- laffer1 · 2021-08-26 14:13 We're way past 5. FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, MirBSD, DragonFly, MidnightBSD, HardenedBSD, and depending on how strict we're talking GhostBSD, HelloSystem, ... Well you get the idea. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Testiclese · 2021-08-26 14:44 I mean…. yeah… the *core* OS - kernel + 40 binaries in /bin, /usr/bin, /sbin and /usr/sbin are developed and released as a “unit”, sure, but I get bored playing around with sed and awk all day from a bare bones xterm in a 1980’s twm session. Last time I installed Firefox or GNOME in OpenBSD it essentially pulled down half of all standard Linux userland libs including shit like DBus just so I can open up a browser. After that my “pure” BSD system resembled some kind of unholy hybrid mutant where the “core” system was absolutely dwarfed by the non-core 3rd party libs and ports and packages. This whole “*BSD is an operating system” and “Linux is just a kernel” meme is just 15 years past its prime at this point. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- johnklos · 2021-08-26 15:27 > This whole “*BSD is an operating system” and “Linux is just a kernel” meme is just 15 years past its prime at this point. If you think that installing Firefox meaningfully changes the OS, then I think you're missing important distinctions between what constitutes an OS versus what constitutes installed software. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dannomac · 2021-08-26 15:34 >On a side note, I wonder if it is possible to get 4.4 to boot in a virtual machine? IIRC.. no. It's not possible to get it (4.4lite2) to boot *at all*, since some of the AT&T code that was removed was critical. Besides that, 4.4BSD (the actual tape release by Berkley) was for the VAX, so it might run in an emulator if you can get ahold of the tapes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrRichBOB · 2021-08-26 16:12 Exactly. I use OpenBSD because of the userland. It is vetted, and I am reasonably confident that most of the software will be relatively bug free, and even if a particular software has not been entirely properly vetted, at least its default configuration might err on the side of secure. Back to the core utils, I _know_ they won't _not_ be POSIX compliant. And I know that they probably won't have any POSIX+ features. But I do _not_ enjoy not being able to mount ext4 at least as RO. lol. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrRichBOB · 2021-08-26 16:14 I forgot about HardenedBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrRichBOB · 2021-08-26 16:17 > ... since some of the AT&T code that was removed was critical. That is what I was referring to. I know people run it in VM's. But... I admit, I am hoping someone will come along and say: “Here's this link to a tutorial, you'll be using TUHS archive for literally everything.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ConfusionForward · 2021-08-26 16:30 Honorable mentions: [NomadBSD](https://nomadbsd.org/), [Fuguita](http://fuguita.org/), and [Airyx OS](https://airyx.org/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- VENTDEV · 2021-08-26 16:35 No, But if the ATT lawsuit didn't happen, there would have been no Linux. As Linus mainly started working on Linux due to the BSD delays caused by the lawsuit. Right person, in the right place, at the right time. But who knows, in that alternative universe, maybe Hurd attracts enough developers to become the next big thing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Testiclese · 2021-08-26 16:55 How does installing hundreds of MB’s libs and even new services/daemons *not* fundamentally change an OS? That whole “no security vulnerabilities in the defiant install” sure as hell goes out the window, no? I’m not saying that you couldn’t have a “meaningful” install that can serve as a firewall or email sever or whatever that has nothing but OpenBSD-vetted compiled source code, if’s just that there isn’t that much of it. You can only do so much before you start installing the same exact third-party crap that is full of vulnerabilities due to it *not* having come from the core team. I read source code a lot and there’s a huge difference in quality when you compare the stuff from the core team to some horrific random GNOME lib needed by an even more horrific sound sever or whatever emulator. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- johnklos · 2021-08-26 17:15 The OS is a distinct entity from installed software. Decades of shitty software like Windows has taught people that it doesn't seem like that's the case, but it is. If you fill a truck with stuff, then empty it, it doesn't meaningfully change the truck, but experience shows us that if you install software on Windows, then uninstall it, it'll never be the same. With real OSes, any other installed or compiled software either depends on the same dependencies, in which case two pieces of software *could* be related, or it doesn't, in which case they're not related. Installing Firefox doesn't magically change dependencies for other software, installed or compiled, to start depending on or using Firefox where it wouldn't already. Proper OSes with proper security keep the OS and the OS's binaries and libraries separate from installed software. This is definitely the case with the BSDs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- johnklos · 2021-08-26 17:24 And to answer your question more directly, the OS doesn't run *any* installed software unless you tell it. It doesn't run services unless you configure them. This is unlike Windows, or even macOS or Linux these days, where services can be enabled via allowed installation methods. Likewise, system libraries and system binaries aren't overwritten or superseded by installed software using FreeBSD's ports or NetBSD's pkgsrc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Nettly_ · 2021-08-26 17:25 Also other upcoming projects like [Potabi](https://potabi.com) and one other I heard rumors of. Also SoloBSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Testiclese · 2021-08-26 18:46 > The OS is a distinct entity from installed software. How so? Stuff in /usr/bin and /bin is certainly "installed software" and certainly "part of the core OS" as far as the OpenBSD team are concerned. What's an OS *without* any installed software...? Just a /dev directory? The OpenBSD team writes, maintains, and *vets* the software they ship with the OS - all the pre-installed binaries you get like 'cp' and 'du' and the shell without which you have...nothing. But my point is, that's not that *much*. I don't think that many users just fire up 'vi' to write some C code or edit file files with 'sed'. And the vast, vast majority of "modern" UNIX software requires a bunch of stuff that was written with Linux in mind. There's a reason FreeBSD can run Linux binaries "natively", wouldn't you say? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- crashj · 2021-08-26 19:33 Some attempts were made: https://www.geeklan.co.uk/?p=936 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 7yearlurkernowposter · 2021-08-26 19:36 I forgot which interview but it was mentioned GNU originally toyed with using the current BSD source and re-licensing but were too intrigued by the concept of microkernels and went for Hurd instead. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tireseas · 2021-08-26 19:47 Linux and it's associated ecosystem will never go back to the "UNIX way" because it was only there in the first place for pragmatic reasons. What Linux is today is very much a consequence and expression of what it always was going to be. Perhaps not in specific implementations but definitely in terms of process. It's the wild and organic growth that's the ecosystem's biggest strength just as much as the more considered monolithic style of the core BSD descendents is their biggest strength. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- masta · 2021-08-26 19:55 Well, it also depends if you consider the BSD kit on Unix.... Like hpux had a bad user land. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- johnklos · 2021-08-26 22:21 Umm... Perhaps we have to start from scratch. The OS comes with /bin, /usr/bin, /sbin and friends. This is the OS. pkgsrc and ports install to /usr/pkg or /usr/local (or wherever you want, if you set LOCALBASE or PREFIX). Software installed via pkgsrc or ports does *not* overwrite /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, or any other part of the OS. I think it was pretty clear that I was referring to third party software when I wrote "installed software" and not to the OS itself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- aedinius · 2021-08-27 00:31 I had to look up [GFDL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documen tation_License#GPL_incompatible_in_both_directions), and I learned an interesting thing. > The GNU FDL is incompatible in both directions with the GPL—material under the GNU FDL cannot be put into GPL code and GPL code cannot be put into a GNU FDL manual. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrRichBOB · 2021-08-27 00:56 GFDL is for documents, like manpages. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- aedinius · 2021-08-27 01:33 Yes, I understand that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tcmart14 · 2021-09-01 10:29 Yea it is hard to say for certain. I err on BSD probably would be where Linux is today as far as popularity. However, a bunch of people could have jumped in on HURD and we would finally have a HURD 1.0 release. In the alternate universe, if licensing is really the strong point of why Linux is where it is today, then HURD probably would have grown dominant. If it was about having something working and available, then the BSDs surely would have been the move. All supposing that Linux never wrote the kernel. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RogerLeigh · 2021-09-07 20:13 This still causes all manner of problems though. What happens if I selectively embed snippets of source code from the main codebase and example code in the documentation? Many documentation generating tools let you source it directly. What happens if I write example code in the documentation explicitly intended for use by others? The GNU FDL was not at all well thought out. The invariant sections are a travesty for freedom to modify and redistribute. It causes problems in mixed GPL/GFDL or LGPL/GFDL codebases. Like many, I tried it out and ultimately ended up relicensing the documentation under exactly the same licence as the source code. It's more trouble than it's worth. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oscaredv · 2021-10-23 07:34 http://www.netside.co.jp/~mochid/comp/bsd44-build/