From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue Jan 6 19:35:59 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA01215 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 19:35:59 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from freebsd1.cimlogic.com.au (cimlog.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.51.31]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA01181 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 19:35:44 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jb@freebsd1.cimlogic.com.au) Received: (from jb@localhost) by freebsd1.cimlogic.com.au (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA10746; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 14:40:22 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from jb) From: John Birrell Message-Id: <199801070340.OAA10746@freebsd1.cimlogic.com.au> Subject: Re: Alpha port.. In-Reply-To: <4886.884132377@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at "Jan 6, 98 04:19:37 pm" To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 14:40:21 +1100 (EST) Cc: jim.king@mail.sstar.com, freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL32 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org 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