Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 08:57:06 -0700 (PDT) From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com> Cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: What tipped the balance Message-ID: <199807281557.IAA00215@pau-amma.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.94.980727233030.17669B-100000@natsiq.nunanet.com>
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>Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 23:47:37 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Marcel Mason {Personal} <marcel@nunanet.com>
>> Someone asked me in private mail why I chose FreeBSD instead of another
>> OS, and I thought it might make an interesting topic.
>You're right Sue, it makes a darned good topic, so I'll toss my my 2 cents
>worth into it <grin>
>When I made the decision that the home machine had to be a *nix of some
>sort I started talking to people in the industry that I work with on a
>regular basis and almost without fail I was told, "cut your teeth on
>Linux, the learning curve is much more gentle and the transition to
>FreeBSD is just not going to be difficult, all the concepts carry across
>but Linux is just a bit more friendly on the start-up end".
Hmmmm....
Just 'cause it might prove interesting/amusing to some folks, I thought
maybe this would be a reasonably good point for me to unleash some of my
deathless prose.... :-}
Back in 1985, I had been working in an IBM mainframe environment for a
few years, the first couple doing "applications" work under CICS for a
financial institution. Although it, in theory, could have been done in
COBOL, I suppose, all our work was being doing in s/370 assembler. For
various reasons, I started getting noticed by the systems programming
group, and was offered a chance to switch over. [Note: in the IBM
mainframe world, a "systems programmer" plays a role very similar to
that of a "system administrator" in the UNIX world. One arguably
salient difference is that -- at least up to 1993, when I left the
mainframe world -- the only defined, supported interface to the actual
operating system was in terms of IBM-supplied assembler "macros." This
provided significant incentive for a systems programmer to be able to at
least *read* assembly code....]
So, I became a systems programmer. And S-100 computers were
interesting, along with Intel 8080s (which were based on the 4004), and
the Zilog Z80 was (from what I understood) quite an improvement....
Meanwhile, as a member of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and
a couple of its Special Interest Groups (SIGs) -- SIGPLAN [programming
languages] and SIGOPS [operating systems] -- I kept receiving articles
about research being done on various aspects of each topic... and
typically, that research was being done in UNIX-based environments.
I had begun to think about buying a computer for myself, and was leaning
toward an S-100 system... maybe building my own... and I bought (my
first copy of) Kernighan & Pike's _The UNIX Programming Environment_.
Also, as a new systems programmer, the first project I had was
installing & implementing RACF (an add-on package for IBM's MVS which is
often -- erroneously -- thought of as a "security" package; it's more of
an administration/authentication/auditing package).
Between those two experiences, I was quickly convinced that a multi-user
system was the only sort of thing that makes any sort of sense (except
possibly for an embedded system) -- unless, of course, the results are
of so little import that they don't matter, such as for playing games.
And around that time, vendors started making 68k-on-a-VMEbus-based UNIX
systems; I sent off for information to a couple of them: Charles River
Data Systems and Sage Microsystems.
And I was about to receive a cash-out of the Employee Stock Ownership
Plan, since the financial institution in question had just been merged
with another.
I received some information from Sage... but nothing from CRDS. Time
(end of year -- tax concerns) was running out, so I bought a Stride
Micro (Sage had changed its name) 440. (I finally did hear from CRDS a
couple of months later.) Turned out that the Stride didn't -- yet! --
have UNIX ready; that wasn't until the following May, so I had a few
months to learn somewhat about the hardware & UCSD Pascal (p-code,
anyone?).
Finally got System V/68 in May -- definitely AT&T-based. 14 characters
per filename maximum.... f77 didn't work, so Stride hadn't shipped it.
I set up an additional terminal in a spare bedroom that my brother used
when he visited (I was living in southern California at the time, and he
was teaching reasonably near by); when he wanted to write some FORTRAN
programs, I explained the lack of f77 & handed him my copy of K&R, and
"suggested" [being a big brother has its advantages...] that he learn C.
Got a second 'phone line; put a couple of MODEMs on the machine (it had
10 serial ports) & started giving away accounts on what became one of(?)
Orange county (California)'s first free public-access UNIX systems....
Also switched employers; spent another 7 years in the IBM mainframe
world by day, UNIX stuff at home.
Finally left IBM world to join the fellow who did the bulk of the UNIX
port to the Stride in his consulting business. While there, I had my
first exposure to UNIX (BSD/OS, in this case) on PC hardware (though
fortunately at the time, I didn't need to actually do much with said
hardware -- he handled that).
Had acquired a Sun 3/60 in the mean time, and have since worked at a few
other places; never needed to deal with PC hardware, let alone the
Microsoft environments for same. [Well, I tried to use them a few
times, and things kept breaking, which was effective aversion therapy
for me.]
Picked up a SPARCstation 5 (to join the other machines at home).
As for FreeBSD... well, here at work is the only time I've used it. I
still find PC hardware significantly more challenging than I think any
hardware has any right to be.
Then again, I recall being in the USENIX audience when Bill Jolitz got
the news that Mike Karels was going to join Rob Kolstad, working for
BSDI.... He was pretty upset....
Back to FreeBSD & PC hardware: so I'll admit that I'm no UNIX "newbie".
On the other hand, I could hardly be more of a "newbie" with respect to
PC hardware (and still function at all)....
And even here, there are a couple of SPARC servers running Solaris 2.5.
So FreeBSD isn't, by any means, an "exclusive" choice....
david
--
David Wolfskill UNIX System Administrator
dhw@whistle.com voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (650) 371-4621
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