Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 14:40:21 +1100 (EST) From: John Birrell <jb@cimlogic.com.au> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: jim.king@mail.sstar.com, freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha port.. Message-ID: <199801070340.OAA10746@freebsd1.cimlogic.com.au> In-Reply-To: <4886.884132377@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at "Jan 6, 98 04:19:37 pm"
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Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > I don't think that any of the other *BSD/ALPHA releases would be as > approachable as ours, however - have you ever tried to install > NetBSD/ALPHA, for example? :-) Yes I have. And I've also installed two of the other NetBSD ports. Even the lastest NetBSD/i386 install leaves a lot to be desired compared to what FreeBSD has been doing for several releases. So, yes, I agree with you. With limited resources, though, I'd like to see FreeBSD leverage what already exists and progress it instead of re-doing it. > It's definitely an exercise for the > more skilled engineer It needs a developer. The difference in approach between the FreeBSD and NetBSD organisations results in that. That's what is good about FreeBSD. But, in a way, I think that is also what is good about NetBSD. Otherwise the two groups are trying to the exact same thing. Try installing NetBSD/mvme68k! And then try building the source. It takes 3-4 days. Oh, and then the kernel takes another day. 8-) > and I think that taking the ALPHA market away > from NT, Digital Unix and even to a small extent Linux/ALPHA is going > to take a far more concerted effort than anyone in the *BSD camp > has, IMHO, exerted so far. With DEC pushing VMS, NT, DU _and_ Linux, I doubt that the *BSD camp will be able to make much of a dent in the Alpha market. To tell you the truth, I'm not really interested in that, though I recognise what popularity can do for an OS. I just want an OS that can provide me with a choice of hardware plus the features that support what I want to do. And do it at a price that lets me compete. > > Now if you wanted to ask the question of whether or not the FreeBSD > project was capable of exerting that necessary degree effort itself, > well, that would indeed be a very good question. :-) Now if FreeBSD is prepared to work to a common BSD interface that allows developers to just recompile the code and "it will work", then I'd be prepared to contribute to that. And by that I mean that I want to be able to take a stock NetBSD/Alpha system, grab the FreeBSD source tree and build a system that will run as FreeBSD on top of the NetBSD kernel. I want my application code to compile, link and run on that system just the way it did on FreeBSD/i386 with only machine architecture #ifdefs. Is anyone prepared to work at _that_? > > Jordan > Regards, -- John Birrell - jb@cimlogic.com.au; jb@netbsd.org; jb@freebsd.org CIMlogic Pty Ltd, GPO Box 117A, Melbourne Vic 3001, Australia +61 418 353 137
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