Very Computer

In the interest of starting a whole new flamewar that I
will immediately killfile...
        http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/99mar/19990301.html

(OK, I'm joking, already!)

I'm a *, an OS junkie. Walked into Egghead some years back
with the intention of buying Desqview to replace the illegal copy I'd
been running a dos bbs with. Walked out with OS/2 instead because
it was cheaper. Soon graduated to Linux and then on to other Unices.

The m*of the story is that where UNIX is concerned, Linux was
my first exposure, and my story is _very_ common. Sure, Linux gets
all the press, but otoh, how many less people would be running xBSD
if not for the fact that they'd been to Linux first? And to follow that up,
remember the golden rule of society: supply and demand. How many
fewer applications would be available for xBSD?

---------------------------
Dana Booth <dana[at]oz.net>
Tacoma, Wa., USA
---------------------------

[snip]

Quote:> I'm a *, an OS junkie. Walked into Egghead some years back
> with the intention of buying Desqview to replace the illegal copy I'd
> been running a dos bbs with. Walked out with OS/2 instead because
> it was cheaper. Soon graduated to Linux and then on to other Unices.

> The m*of the story is that where UNIX is concerned, Linux was
> my first exposure, and my story is _very_ common. Sure, Linux gets
> all the press, but otoh, how many less people would be running xBSD
> if not for the fact that they'd been to Linux first? And to follow that up,
> remember the golden rule of society: supply and demand. How many
> fewer applications would be available for xBSD?

Back in March '93 I wanted to _have_ a Unix that i could have my hands on.  
I had two choices within my budget constraints: Soft Landing Software Linux, or
BSDi's BSD/OS v1.0 (the one w/ the kerfuffle with AT&T/Novell (?) over
encumbered code.)  

BSDi was pretty cheap then, and pretty well inherited the Berkeley legacy,
and had spartan H/W support unless you were totally SCSI.  SLS Linux was a
whack of diskettes and you were on your own to make them work.  Remember
how Usenet access was back in '93?

I stuck with BSDI up to v2.1.1 and their grandfathering pricing policy,
and then noticed that FreeBSD was pretty much the same thing, except for
a 1-800 phone-number to go "boo-hoo" to, and the outlay of $$$.  I switched
from BSDI to FreeBSD, and I'm glad i did.

BSDi was good for me: i learned much from my exposure to it, about the
importance of adhering to Unix/BSD conventions, standards & portability.

I'd just like to qualify your point (and it's a valid one, that Linux
introduces folks to Unix) with the corollary that Linux is not the only
stepping-stone.

cheers,
        tom

--
Why not just drop everything and go fishin'?

        remove NO_SPAM. from address to reply

back then, it was BSD/386 (not to be confused w/ 386/BSD)

--
Why not just drop everything and go fishin'?

        remove NO_SPAM. from address to reply

Same here. If it wasn't for Linux, I might never have run across
FreeBSD. About a year ago, I was looking for something to replace
NTServ, so I started looking at the various Linux distros to see which
one I wanted to try. Somewhere along the line, I stumbled across
www.freebsd.org and found that you could install it via ftp. Intrigued,
I gave it a shot and was shocked when the sucker fired up on the first
go-round. After recalibrating myself from \ to / and comparing it to NT4
for a week on the same hardware, I was not surprisingly hooked and
fdisked NT to oblivion. Somewhat later, I bought Red Hat 5.1 and gave it
a try, but it didn't like my hardware very much so I left it alone. Less
than a year down the road, FreeBSD became my desktop OS, too.

The m*of *this* story is that Linux's notoriety got me thinking
about freenix in the first place. For whatever reason, FreeBSD's PR
machine hasn't gotten the word out nearly as well. At the risk of being
flamed I have to say that given the militant nature of many of the
grass-roots Linux promoters, the FreeBSD community may be better off
without that sort of thing anyway.

If you compile it, they will come... :-)

-j

Quote:>The problem I see happening with many Linux users is this:
>     * They run it because it's not Microsoft.

Yes, this is the same type of thing that happened with IBM's OS/2 at
its height, which is why Team OS/2 (a very well-meaning organization
in its original incarnation) became associated with zealotry.  :-(

--

    OS/2 + Linux (Slackware+RedHat+SuSE) + FreeBSD + Solaris + BeOS +
    WinNT4 + Win95 + PC/GEOS + MacOS + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven!
                              Lemon curry?

[...]

Quote:>The m*of the story is that where UNIX is concerned, Linux was
>my first exposure, and my story is _very_ common. Sure, Linux gets
>all the press, but otoh, how many less people would be running xBSD
>if not for the fact that they'd been to Linux first? And to follow that up,
>remember the golden rule of society: supply and demand. How many
>fewer applications would be available for xBSD?

Looking further down the time telescope, how many of us older fartz
would be using either FreeBSD or the L-word if it wasn't for Minix or
(for me) Coherent?

Mister_T
--
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   |   RC17   KLR600    Roces BCN    FreeBSD 2.2.5-R    NT4W (ugh)   |
   |           tedp[at]replicant[dot]apana[dot]org[dot]au            |
  \|_________________________________________________________________|

Heh heh. PR1MOS, anyone? JCL? TSS/8??? FWIW, I have never use Linux; went
straight from MacOS to FreeBSD, with a little SunOS and SVR4 on the way.
What an eye-opener.

--

Hmm... this "Spam-B-Gone" doesn't seem to work...
What would happen if I pulled the plug on the Reality Engine?

Linux does get the limelight, but maybe we need some better PR'smanship
in the BSD community..... not really.... word of mouth is the best
adverts for converts.  And, if they get their feet wet elsewhere, and
then come into the fold, that is often as good as getting here first.

Quote:>> Looking further down the time telescope, how many of us older fartz
>> would be using either FreeBSD or the L-word if it wasn't for Minix or
>> (for me) Coherent?

Well, some of us OldenPfartz touched a real PDP-11 (but were too stupid
to know much back then.....(:+{{....), and then graduated to the infamous
RatShack Model 16 with its incantation of V7.  When something ``modern''
like AIX on the RT, and later PS/2 came along, we thought ``wow!''.
Minix and Coherent could not compete with those, though, but that
persnickety 386BSD-0.0 made a good pass at it.  Linux came along for
some tests, but when FBSD 2.x came out, Linux always came out a little
behind on production boxes, in my hands.  It is getting there, though.

Quote:> Heh heh. PR1MOS, anyone? JCL? TSS/8??? FWIW, I have never use Linux; went
> straight from MacOS to FreeBSD, with a little SunOS and SVR4 on the way.
> What an eye-opener.

Primos.... egads!  We turned that thing finally into a deskside table,
and put a flower pot on it.  (now it holds a printer).

Sunos was pretty good, and I still like that olden tymer at home on real
heavyweight hardware for heating the house in winter.  Ultrix was....nah.

But, when it is all said and done, I still place my bet on FreeBSD first,
AIX second, Sunos third, and Linux fourth, based upon my experiences.
The rest don't really compete, although BSD on the olde RT is a nostalgia
trip, and Coherent comes up on the least little bit of 386toy.

Still, you gotta give Linus his due, since that did get a lot of folks
to wet their feet a bit, where otherwise it would have been more of a
problem.  Think of what it would be like if Jolitz had gotten that kind
of press, and the encumbered code fracas never occurred.

We will get some press for the *BSD's, but slowly, methinks.

RDK

Yes, I came through the Linux way too. I started with msdos,mswinxx and
Linux. Thanks to Linux I got my first small window to peep into the
UNIX world.

  Julio

How about MINIX or my favorite,Technical Systems Consultants UNIFLEX on
the old Motorola 6809? that was a beut! 8/16bit CPU runing a unix like
system on before IBM recognized they could do it on their PC's.
It was stripped down unix but it worked in as little as 128k of ram and
even off a DSDD 5.25 Floppy

---
Gary B. Corell                          Powered by FreeBSD   2.2.1