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Branden Robinson" To: Collin Funk Cc: seth.i.mcdonald@gmail.com, Alejandro Colomar , Seth McDonald , linux-man@vger.kernel.org Subject: Is 2.11BSD < 4BSD? It depends. (was: [PATCH v1 2/4] sys/man2/sysctl.2: HISTORY: wfix) Message-ID: <20251230072231.cbsmcowvonavhd4c@illithid> References: <1477de655f76e1e6e85c12cb03c068b120704511.1767072049.git.sethmcmail@pm.me> <87zf70xxog.fsf@gmail.com> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-man@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="kkawxfv2qfh55kkb" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87zf70xxog.fsf@gmail.com> --kkawxfv2qfh55kkb Content-Type: text/plain; protected-headers=v1; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Subject: Is 2.11BSD < 4BSD? It depends. (was: [PATCH v1 2/4] sys/man2/sysctl.2: HISTORY: wfix) MIME-Version: 1.0 At 2025-12-29T22:59:11-0800, Collin Funk wrote: > It actually existed before 4.4BSD. It existed in 2.11BSD at least [1]. Hang on a second. BSD version numbers are a little funny. It is true that 1BSD < 2BSD < 3BSD < 4BSD. After that, things get a little weird. 2BSD targeted only the PDP-11, and swapped out entire processes just as Unix historically always had. 3BSD targeted the VAX, and supported demand paging--just as UNIX 32/V, the most recent common ancestor of AT&T System III/V and [34]BSD, did.[0] 4BSD was a relatively minor update to 3BSD, also exclusively for the VAX. 4.1BSD was a much bigger deal and would have been 5BSD, except AT&T blew a gasket over the version numbered, seeking a proprietary claim over the number five. This has been discussed just this week on the TUHS list.[1] 2BSD however was not abandoned as soon as 3BSD or even 4BSD showed up. Some people still had PDP-11s around. And thanks to (Open)SIMH, we can all still run one if we choose. Features from 3,4BSD got backported to 2BSD, which eventually stabilized its minor version number at "11", I suspect because that was irresibility useful to characterize the system's only supported target architecture. 2.11BSD continues to be maintained today, as a set of literally hundreds of patches, as Berekeley-flavored Unix aficionadios explore just what they can do with what is now basically an "embedded system". The most recent patch I know of is #498, dated 2 September.[2] I wish we had a modern package manager for the thing. I've never been crazy about BSD's "patch && make world" approach. :-P Regards, Branden [0] The demand-paged kernel was such a big deal that it's why the "virtual memory" version of the Unix kernel appeared on disk as "vmunix". The Linux kernel aped this as "vmlinux"--"vmlinuz" for its compressed form--even though there has never existed a traditionally swapping version. The more arbitrary and esoteric a naming convention is, the more tightly Unix people cling to it. [1] https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2025-December/032903.html [2] https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/UCB/2.11BSD/Patches/ --kkawxfv2qfh55kkb Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAABCAAdFiEEh3PWHWjjDgcrENwa0Z6cfXEmbc4FAmlTfbAACgkQ0Z6cfXEm bc6Cdg/+Jc/zXShVl6vLyA2Ic1/b6uaoZWYiy8sOL5gLt1pvbHFqa3N7OX/Ds4TB aZVCSjq9h2aKtvcvughQqnPsM2KdF7C3If9miwx/HrutXCbQSFhhvuZECY6/k9el dBrw6rvvvuEdJG5BcNQF4h5v1KXiTB8BgF7HQ5Rju/pfCO4cznRMLIXX2qm3HEN/ RFYNeUNwJtjjDt2vEAi/cu1XWMT0t60E+YzBJXDLoJEJTCFDocNw/eYV2jx2qUyl 1mCp+wZBLlGSwClK2oT1HJOOUcKm0s3dn7bMdu0IVWjk4TEiSUGriUTYYzcook1C 4TL6OQOzTKEkIWLgb7nt8E4+6jEillYzRKrpimEUhypNoyu7r+Nm/nz8H2yqlSlr nwC8yDI+DnALA5oA2L4GieR7abgHqCr+FUtOAP8YHSS9lSGxnPpfzUvn4Brefz1O /zbWD0rbnLlnSZT4YHGMZ7ljFwogXUBIm/ljj14Q4Ilj5RRcOmO75AtGvGuFWiuq Evs0FYewTFwgoIFY/iiT9HsJDN1297iym60UiskPDC71U8Pgdac3FT2IFi0nDufd wPfSOD1H68WRNVXDTc1yAXV4CebuvrYoI0FitVLVpHqwJTqLY9yOJya133cv+AAC aOJiCtQNRzFuFk4EhvTA2iqDHVS8/aeNPvibbqiiOjmkkbBIkzA= =bC8v -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --kkawxfv2qfh55kkb--