🚀 go-pugleaf

Dan Pop (Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch) wrote:
: In <adtDDqttF.1DL@netcom.com> adt@netcom.com (Anthony D. Tribelli) writes:
: >Dan Pop (Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch) wrote:
: >: ... Without any kind of marketing forces behind it,
: >: Linux got pretty well spread ...
: >
: >No "marketing forces"? Every expensive UNIX workstation vendor out there
: >is a "marketing force" pushing linux. Every university providing UNIX
: >systems to students is a "marketing force" pushing linux. Linux fell into
: >a vacuum and "got pretty well spread", no surprise there. 

: A vacuum?  You must be kidding.  Minix, Coherent (a commercial Unix sold
: for $99 including very good documentation) and 386BSD (the "parent" of
: NetBSD and FreeBSD) were already in place when the Linux project was 
: started.

You are very generous in what you consider to be a modern UNIX
implementation comparable to expensive workstations or linux :-). 

Minix:    16-bit, doesn't count.
Coherent: 16-bit at first, doesn't count.
          When available in 32-bit linux was on it's way (so I didn't 
          bother with it).
FreeBSD:  Was not as stable as linux. A long time ago I bought a linux CD
          and a FreeBSD CD. Linux installed, FreeBSD crashed.

I still argue that linux was the first 32-bit, stable, and full-featured 
UNIX for the PC that the public became aware of. If something else worked 
this well and got attention first, then this other implementation would 
be the popular system today.

: And you seem to dismiss completely all those people whose _first_ contact
: with Unix was Linux...

How am I dismissing them? You said that there were no marketing forces
behind linux. I pointed out that this was incorrect and offered one
counter-example. 

Tony
-- 
------------------
Tony Tribelli
adtribelli@acm.org