On Tue, 12 Nov 1996, Philip Blundell wrote:

> Perhaps.  But there is a lot of Linux-compatible software out there, and
> there are a lot of people who are more at home with Linux than with BSD.

I really don't want to start YALABD (Yet Another Linux Against BSD 
Discussion ;-) ), just two thoughts:

-What do you call "Linux-compatible"? If the software was written 
carefully, it should not be hard to compile it under BSD. You'll have to 
recompile the programs anyway so all the things which are not available 
as source are out of reach under ARM-Linux as well as RiscBSD anyway.
I don't know how the variable types are defined under Linux ie whether 
you can get signed char problems under ARM-Linux as well.

-What's the big difference between Linux and BSD from a user's and 
administrative point of view? I don't think that's really severe. I use, 
maintain and hack NetBSD at home and FreeBSD and Linux at the Fachhochschule. 
It's not difficult to get used to the differences IMHO. Anybody who's 
familiar with Linux can switch to BSD easily I think. You rather have to 
get used to the fact that you have to do a lot more yourself ie port 
programs, find out things which aren't documented and so on. To a large 
degree this will also apply to ARM-Linux I would say.

I will stick to RiscBSD and want to help to improve it as much as I can.
I would like to have a look at ARM-Linux though, but there's by no means 
enough room on my harddisk...

Anyway, it's good to have more people working on free Unix for Acorn 
machines and it's always good to have a choice. Competition is never bad too.

I very much appreciate the fantastic work Russell has done. I thought he 
couldn't keep up with the fast Linux development and would have stick to the 
A5000 because of the work involved to port it to the RiscPC. Not much 
seemed to be happening to ARM-Linux when you were looking at it as an 
outsider like me.
I don't know how he manages to achieve the things he does achieve (almost?) 
single-handedly. He can't be a normal human being. ;-)

Cheers, Markus