Berkeley Software Design, Inc. BSD/386 Version 1.0 Questions and Answers BSD/386 Version 1.0 is the first production release version of BSDI's ground- breaking UNIX-like operating system for your PC or compatible. It includes features and capabilities from the NET/2 release of the Computer Systems Research Group at University of California, Berkeley. Additionally, it in- cludes MIT's X Window system and other software from a wide variety of sources. BSDI's operating system releases are unique in their offering of supported base systems software with almost complete source code. We invite you to read these questions and answers to clarify the many features and bene- fits of BSDI's BSD/386. Question: What is BSD/386? Answer: BSD/386 is a IEEE POSIX-compliant operating system for 386 and 486 PC-compatibles. It includes a wide range of functionality, a rich set of utilities, and the X11R5 window system. The product currently shipped by BSDI includes both the binaries and source code for just about the entire system. A future product will in- clude only the binaries (at a lower price, of course). As of March, 1993, BSDI has shipped over 600 copies of BSD/386 to customers around the world. Question: What hardware is required to run BSD/386? Answer: BSD/386 runs on 386 and 486 PC systems. You'll need at least 4 MB of memory for the base operating system or at least 8 MB if you in- tend to use the X window system. Any console display will work for text mode. Your PC will need a color SVGA-compatible display for its console if you wish to run the X Window System. You'll also need a PC keyboard and a 3.5" floppy drive and controller (BSD/386 boots via these floppies). BSD/386 does not currently support Micro-Channel Architecture (MCA) machines or peripherals. You'll need a hard-disk drive, at least 70 MB for the base operat- ing system code plus 30 MB for swap, a total of 100 MB. The in- stall procedures enable use of smaller disks (if you omit certain functionality, e.g., emacs or on-line manual pages). If you wish to use X, add 60 MB (about 50MB for binaries, the rest for swap space). To put the binaries and sources on the disk, you'll need at least 350MB if you intend to compile programs and keep the .o files on the hard disk. If you compile from CD-ROM, this space re- quirement is dramatically reduced. BSD/386 supports IDE, ESDI, RLL, and MFM hard disks on the ISA and EISA buses. If you have (or are soon to purchase) SCSI peri- pherals, BSD/386 supports the Adaptec 1540B and 1542B and the 1740 series interfaces to SCSI devices. Almost any SCSI disk will work with BSD/386. BSD/386 is distributed on CD-ROMs, QIC-150 cartridges, and Exabyte 8mm tapes. Currently, BSD/386 supports SCSI QIC-150 (e.g., Maynard/Archive 2150S) drives and Exabyte 8 mm tape drives (again, only on Adaptec 1540B, 1542B and 1740 series), and, on the ISA bus, the WangTek 5150PK QIC-02 drive and controller and the Everex EV- 811, EV-831, and EV-833. BSD/386 supports the Mitsumi LU002 and LU005 ISA-based CD-ROM readers (available from BSDI) with their own controllers. Most SCSI CD-ROM drives should work, as well. BSD/386 can load software over your PC's Ethernet from a remote system that supports the rsh protocol and has a QIC-150 tape or supports remote NFS mounting of Rock Ridge format CD-ROMs. Question: What hardware is supported under BSD/386? Answer: BSD/386 supports a wide variety of hardware. The 486DX includes floating point hardware on the chip which BSD/386 exploits. If you have a 387 (or equivalent) floating point chip, the operating sys- tem will take advantage of it. Otherwise, floating point opera- tions are emulated in software. BSD/386 supports almost all SCSI disks and tapes (via the Adaptec 1540B, 1542B, 1740 series SCSI interface controllers). BSD/386 supports up to 64MB of extended memory installed on ISA and EISA bus machines. BSD/386 supports most Ethernet controllers: Western Digital (WD)/Standard Microsystems Corp. (SMC) 8003/8013 EtherCard PLUS/Elite series, 3COM 3C501 (EtherLink), 3C503 (EtherLink II), 3C505 (EtherLink Plus), 3C507 (EtherLink 16), 3C509 (EtherLink III), the Novell NE1000 & NE2000, and the Intel EtherExpress 16. BSD/386 supports standard COM ports and most serial mice. The SDL RISCom/8 MAXPEED, and AST-4 multi-port serial cards are supported. No source code is supplied for the MAXPEED driver. BSD/386 supports any standard monochrome or color display controll- er in text mode. The X window system requires color SVGA cards and enough memory for the virtual screen size desired (usually about 1 MB). Although all the cards listed below are supported, if you're looking to purchase an SVGA card for your system, we recommend pur- chasing the ATI Graphics Ultra. SuperVGA Cards for X11R5 Max Res ChipSet -------------------------------------------------- Compuadd Hi-Rez card w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000 Diamond SpeedStar 1024x768 ET4000 EIZO MD-10 800x600 ET3000 GENOA 5300/5400 800x600 ET3000 GENOA 6400 800x600 GVGA Optima Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000 Orchid ProDesigner 800x600 ET3000 Orchid ProDesigner II/1024 1024x768 ET4000 Paradise VGA Professional 640x480 PVGA1A Paradise VGA 1024 640x480 WD90C00 Sigma Legend 1024x768 ET4000 STB PowerGraph w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000 Swan SVGA with VCO chip 1024x768 ET4000 TRICOM Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000 Trident TVGA 1024x768 TVGA8900C High speed chipsets: Cards for X11R5 Max Res ChipSet --------------------------------------------------- ATI Ultra/Vantage 1024x768 MACH8 ATI Ultra Plus/Pro 1280x1024 MACH32 Diamond Stealth 1024x768 86C911 ELSA WINNER 1000 1280x1024 86C928 ELSA WINNER 1280 (Rev C) 1280x1024 82C480 ELSA WINNER 1280 (Rev C) 1280x1024 82C481 GENOA 1024x768 86C911 Nth Engine/150 1280x1024 82C480 Nth Engine/250 1280x1024 82C481 Orchid F1280 1024x768 86C911 Orchid F1280VA 1024x768 86C801 Paradise 8514 1024x768 WD9500 PixelWorks WhirlWIN 1280x1024 82C480 Radius XGA-2 1024x768 SGS Thompson XGA STB PowerGraph X24 1024x768 86C801 Question: What about Ethernet adaptors for laptops? Answer: BSD/386 supports the Xircom Pocket Ethernet 2 parallel port ethernet adaptor (the generic kernel optionally uses it for booting). Question: Does BSD/386 require special hardware configurations? Answer: The generic kernel supports the following configuration (`*' indi- cates any that the card supports): Device Port IRQ DRQ iomem -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First com port 0x3f8 * Second com 0x2f8 * Floppy 0x3f0 * 2 Tape 0x300 * 1 1st hard disk 0x1f0 * 2nd hard disk 0x170 * Microsoft Busmouse 0x23c 5 Adaptec 1540B/1542B SCSI ctlr 0x330 * 5 Adaptec 1740 series SCSI ctlr * * * WD/SMC Ethernet * * 0xd0000 NE Ethernet 0x320,0x340,0x360 * 3c501 Ethernet 0x320 * 3c503 Ethernet * * * 3c505 Ethernet 0x240,0x320 * 3c507 Ethernet 0x310 * 0xd0000 3c509 Ethernet 0x250 * Intel EtherExpress 16 0x260 * Xircom Pocket Ethernet/ Parallel port 0x378 7 Mitsumi LU002 CD-ROM 0x334,0x340 2/9 3 Mitsumi LU005 CD-ROM 0x334,0x340 2/9 6 Note: the Mitsumi CD-ROM 8-bit card uses DRQ 3, and the 16-bit card uses DRQ 6. Also available but not in generic kernel as distributed are: Device Port IRQ iomem --------------------------------------- RISCom/N1 0x220 12 MPU-401 MIDI 0x300 * SDL RISCom/8 0x220 * Parallel Port 0x378 * AST-4 0x2a0 * MAXPEED - - 0xd2000 See the installation information for Ethernet installation. BSD/386 includes autoconfiguration code to ease installation. Question: Can I run SCO UNIX applications on BSD/386? Answer: Originally, BSDI had planned to support the execution of SCO SVR3.2 applications in its 1.0 release. Unfortunately, this schedule has slipped to late 1993. Question: Can I run DOS applications on BSD/386? Answer: BSD/386 supports an environment for running many DOS applications. This environment uses the 8086/8088 emulation mode and supports up to 640KB of RAM. Most applications that don't require special hardware or Windows should run. Question: How is BSD/386 installed? How long does it take? Answer: BSD/386 boots to single user mode via a boot floppy. The running operating system then copies files from tape or CD-ROM to the hard disk. Once the hard disk is loaded, BSD/386 boots from there. In- stallation speed varies with the speed of peripherals, particularly the tape drive. The fastest tape drives reduce loading time for the base system and the X window system to under one hour; CD-ROM installs go even faster. Question: Can I share a disk between BSD/386 and other operating systems? Answer: BSD/386 supports ``co-residency'' so that one hard disk can support as many as four different OS's. Question: Can I share disk files between BSD/386 and MS-DOS? Answer: BSD/386 supports the popular mtools package for reading and writing DOS format filesystems (on both floppies and hard disks). BSD/386-mountable MS-DOS filesystems are not yet available. Question: Does BSD/386 support floating point operations? Answer: BSD/386 supports floating point operations in hardware or, if no floating point hardware is available, through emulation in software. Question: What standards does BSD/386 support? Answer: BSD/386 supports the IEEE POSIX 1003.1 standard (though certifica- tion has not yet been completed). BSDI has tracked the IEEE POSIX 1003.2 standard and is modifying utilities to conform. BSD/386 networking includes both the OSI and TCP/IP standards. BSDI's C compiler supports ANSI C; all system headers comply with ANSI-C's requirements. The X11R5 window system is an industry standard win- dow system based on software from MIT. Question: What happens when the CSRG releases new software? Answer: BSDI plans to track Berkeley's releases very closely (including the upcoming 4.4 release). All Berkeley features will be incorporated into BSD/386. Question: What filesystems does BSD/386 support? Answer: BSD/386 supports the UFS filesystem (also known as the Fast Filesystem) and an in-core filesystem (known as MFS). The filesys- tems support long file names and symbolic links. BSD/386 also sup- ports the ISO-9660 and Rock Ridge filesystems, now in popular use for CD-ROMs. Additionally, BSD/386 includes a reimplementation of Sun's NFS, the industry standard for network file sharing. A special feature of BSD/386 enables NFS to use (optionally) the TCP/IP protocols so that it can reliably use low-speed or long-haul links. Question: How fast is BSD/386? Answer: BSD/386's speed depends, of course, on the underlying hardware. A 486-based system with 33 MHz clock and reasonable SCSI disks per- forms at about the same speed as a SPARCStation 1+; with a 50 MHz clock, the 486 processors seem to benchmark at about 25 MIPS. A 486/50 can rebuild the entire kernel from scratch in just seven minutes. Question: Where did the compilers come from? Answer: The C and C++ compilers are derived from those distributed by the GNU project. In the 1.0 release, the compilers are both version 1.40. BSDI hopes to stabilize the 2.x series of compilers for a future release. Question: How can a full source license cost so little? What about the USL license costs? Answer: BSD/386 is not System V. It includes no licensed code from System V, System III, or any other USL product. Because BSD/386 is unen- cumbered by external licenses, BSDI can pass the savings along to you. Question: Is BSD/386 System V compatible? Answer: Beyond IEEE POSIX standards, the X11 window system, and the upcom- ing SCO compatibility mode, no special System V compatibility is supplied. BSD/386 is very compatible with other Berkeley-based software environments (e.g., SunOS, Ultrix, and OSF/1) for compila- tion of source code and general system administration. Question: Can I redistribute BSD/386 to my friends? Answer: Right now, BSDI prefers to distribute most domestic copies of BSD/386 directly through BSDI. Special licensing arrangements are available for VARs, OEMs, distributors, and educational institu- tions. In a word, the answer is ``no'', although you can redistri- bute many parts of it. The BSD/386 source code contains a number of modules written by BSDI to glue together the various components of the release. It also contains a large amount of freely redistributable code. You are free to redistribute those modules which are not marked as proprietary. Question: Can I redistribute BSD/386 to customers of my business? Answer: Vertical marketers and others may wish to distribute binary copies (or, more rarely, source copies) of BSD/386 as part of their pro- duct. Contact BSDI for pricing information, which ranges from $200/unit down to very low prices when large quantities are pre- purchased. Question: Can I share modifications to BSD/386 code with my friends or custo- mers? Can I post the modifications to `the net'? Answer: Any software you develop using BSD/386 is yours to own, share, and/or sell as you choose. Of course, if it includes software which is proprietary to BSDI, we must ask you not to make the source available to anyone not having a BSDI source license. We feel that it's in everyone's best interests to make bug fixes and improvements available to the entire community. Therefore, custo- mers are free to post reasonable diff's to the net (as long as the post doesn't contain too much BSDI proprietary code). Question: When will binary licenses be available? Answer: Current projections are that BSDI will offer binary-only licenses in the second quarter of 1993. Current thinking indicates that the binary-only license will cost under $600. Question: Is Motif available? Answer: Motif is available from Snitily Graphics Consulting Services (408- 255-9665) for about US$245. Question: What documentation is provided with BSD/386? Answer: Complete release and installation documentation is supplied. The man pages are supplied online in both formatted and unformatted forms. Question: What about support? Answer: BSDI prides itself on outstanding support. Customers have quick access to our support engineers via toll-free telephone numbers and, when needed, access to our development engineers. Question: What if I buy BSD/386 and decide I don't need it? Answer: BSD/386 comes with a 90-day money-back guarantee. Question: How do I report bugs? Answer: Report bugs by sending electronic mail to problems@bsdi.com (the sendbug program uses this mechanism for bug reporting). If you do not have network access to send mail, call or FAX our service per- sonnel. Question: How does BSDI help me if I have trouble? Answer: BSDI's telephone trouble desk generally operates during business hours (9 am Eastern Time through 5 pm Pacific Time). If you have a telephone support contract (or if you're still on your initial 60- day service period), call them for assistance. If you have an e- mail/fax support contract, send them a note describing your prob- lem. 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This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and their contributors. BSD/386, BSDI, and the BSDI logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Berkeley Software Design, Inc. in the U.S.A. and other countries. All oth- er brand or product names are or may be trademarks of, and are used to identi- fy products and services of, their respective owners. (c) 1992, 1993 Berkeley Software Design, Inc. All Rights Reserved.