h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good, insightful documentary on the origins of Linux.

Yes - I've heard of it. Can't easily get it in the UK, though.

???
Linux is as available in the UK as anywhere else in the world, it can be downloaded, regularly appears on CD covers of computer magazines and can even be purchased in PC World etc.

Not a big fan of Linux myself, the more holistic approach of BSD is much more my cup of tea

Traveller in Time on a windoze box, 'it is just a matter of managing' (Well I am happy with an uptime of 100days )
"I think the previous conversation is about a television documentary 'Revolution OS' "

I wasn't talking about Linux; I was talking about Revolution OS - the documovie.

"Not a big fan of Linux myself, the more holistic approach of BSD is much more my cup of tea"

The start of a good poem there. I've got NetBSD on my computer and it boots very quickly; I noticed particularly that its installation was surprisingly simple - much more flexible, I thought, than some Linux installations I've used. The point is that I don't understand how to use BSD! I managed to get X running but only with twm (), and I couldn't find out how to install more software.

REVOLUTION OS (US2002)

http://www.revolution-os.com/


http://www.thinkgeek.com/books/nonfiction/5dd5


Amazon.com have a listing too.

Baryonic Being - I'm posting to your page about NetBSD
but in general both Linux and the BSD's are designed to mimic UNIX (Linux designed to emulate UNIX, BSD evolved from UNIX) so both should be very similar.

"Disigned to mimic UNIX." Can you explain that one please?


Don't you think the ideology of UNIX and Linux could not be any further apart, one a private development, the other open source, one with a high price, the other as cheap as possible?

"Designed to emulate UNIX." Do you mean they have a similar CLI, many of the command words, and/or functions in Linux are ther in UNIX, Not that Linux us some kind of UNIX emulatior, but an OS in it's own right?


Many OS have the same command words, ie. FORMAT, this does not mean they are trying to 'emulate' any other OS, only provide 'standard task solutions' for common hardware/media...


A good idea, is a good idea.

UNIX was the original posix compliant operating system, from what I have read Linus Torvalds started the whole Linux thang in a quest to have a cheap/free posix compliant operating system (which Linux is, hence “mimic UNIX”).

From: [email protected] (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID:
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Hello everybody out there using minix -
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing
since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on
things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)
among other things).
I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work.
This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and
I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions
are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them
Linus ([email protected])
PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have .

(minix was another cheap UNIX like operating System)

Cheers HappyDude, least if anybody reads this thread in a hundred years, the won't be left to say: "Picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue."*

*From in the film: Airplane (1980/Jim Abrams/David Zucker): Line delivered by Lloyd Bridges. He picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue, drinking coffee, smoking and other kinds of other vices in this classic that's filled with performances by Leslie Nielson and June Cleaver.

your welcome...

in the interest of fairness now that we have established that Linux was designed from scratch to be a posix compliant operating system (hence "emulate") I should give the BSD story (abridged).
Once upon a time a university in Berkeley got UNIX, to make UNIX do what they wanted they rewrote some of code, as time went on they rewrote so much of the code that the nice UNIX people said they could not call it UNIX any more (hence "evolved")