2.9BSD

[bostic at ucbvax.UUCP]

This posting is in response to a recent posting in comp.unix.questions
regarding 2.9BSD and its future.

> What is the present status of 2.9BSD?
> Is it being updated by Berkeley?
> Will there ever be a 2.10 or 3.0?
> Is there a version of 2.9BSD that supports ethernet?
> Would it be worth it for me to port 4.3BSD utilities to 2.9BSD?

Yes, the technology that would not die... it's kind of heart-warming, isn't
it?  I prefer to think of it as job security myself.  (If you didn't know,
DEC just released a brand new machine in the PDP-11 line, the 11/53, this
fall.)

2.9BSD is currently being worked on.  A few months ago, Casey Leedom and
I locked ourselves in a large closet and made, shall we say, rather major
changes.  There will be a 2.10BSD.  (We couldn't call it 3.0, there was
a BSD VAX release with that designation.  We wanted to call it System 6,
but some people didn't find that funny at all.)

In any case, I plan to have beta tapes on several machines around the end
of February and I'm hoping for a widespread distribution during March and
April.  2.10 is a faster, solider system than 2.9.  It will contain 4.3's
ioctls, tty drivers, dz, dh, and dhu drivers, all of the 4.3 non-networking
system calls (with the exception of readv, writev and quotas), all of the
4.3 applications that are reasonably portable and many other things.  It
will also contain support for the new machines, i.e. the 73, 84, etc, and
may support the PROs.

It is currently unclear what level of networking support 2.10 will have;
Although I have not yet made any effort to move 4.3 networking into place,
at least two other sites have, and I hope to install some version of their
networking.  At a minimum, it will have the 4.1a/b/c support it had before.

If you have any specific questions and/or comments, please contact me
directly.  I will be posting more information in comp.bugs.2bsd as the
distribution details firm up.

Keith Bostic
	keith at okeeffe.berkeley.edu
	ucbvax!keith
	(415) 642-8524