Date: Sat, 22 Jun 1996 13:26:15 +0200 (MET DST) From: grog@lemis.de (Greg Lehey) To: crb@glue.umd.edu (Christopher R. Bowman) Cc: hackers@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: RFC on L.W Jolite books Message-ID: <199606221126.NAA14710@allegro.lemis.de> In-Reply-To: <v01530500ade822d53dbf@[128.8.22.196]> from "Christopher R. Bowman" at Jun 15, 96 04:23:42 am
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Christopher R. Bowman writes: > > Anybody have a review or comment on the following two books? > How relevant would these be? > > Operating Systems Source Code Secrets (The 386 Bsd Operating System > Reference, Vol 1) > > by L.W Jolite > > Volume 1 > Hardcover > List: $49.95 -- Amazon.com Price: $49.95 > Published by Peer to Peer Communications > Publication date: February 1, 1996 > ISBN: 1573980269 > > Virtual Memory System Source Code Secrets (The 386 Bsd Operating System > Reference, Vol 2) > > by L. W. Jolite > > Volume 2 > Hardcover > List: $44.95 -- Amazon.com Price: $44.95 > Published by Peer to Peer Communications > Publication date: June 1996 > ISBN: 1573980277 Wow, people have really been silent about this one, haven't they? I don't think it takes much imagination to guess that the authors are really Lynne and Bill Jolitz. There's been enough bad press about them already; all I'd say here is that, a priori, I would expect the first volume to be mildly relevant, while the second one would be completely irrelevant. 386BSD is based on the Net/2 release. Somehow USL and Novell never bothered to follow up the Jolitz's (everybody else involved had to commit to moving to 4.4BSD), and they're still using the encumbered code. There are a number of similarities, of course, but the FreeBSD VM system has been completely rewritten, and other BSDs have significantly changed since the Net/2 days, so I don't know who would want to buy volume 2. Having said that, I bought a copy of the "386BSD 1.0 Reference CD-ROM (directly bootable)" a couple of years ago. The most expensive CD-ROM I ever bought ($100), and one of the most useless. All the documentation was in a strange format which I had never seen before, and is completely useless for anybody without the viewer (not supplied). The CD-ROM contains no boot code whatsoever. I feel cheated by this CD-ROM, and I would be very careful buying a book from the same authors. Of course, the book has the advantage that you can look at it before buying it. Greg
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199606221126.NAA14710>