386BSD

386BSD logo

386 BSD
Logging into a 386 BSD system
Type:	Multitasking, multiuser
Creator:	CSRG, University of California, Berkeley
Architecture:	i386 theoretically portable
This Version:	0.1 (1992)
Date Released:	1991

386 BSD was the first time that the Net/2 project was put into a functional release onto commodity hardware, and into the public under the BSD license. As the project eventually stalled, it became the starting point for both NetBSD & FreeBSD, via the patchkits. While 386 BSD may be of historical significance, it's not up to the challenge of day to day usage, as it hasn't received any updates or patches in over 15 years.

Releases

There seems to have been four releases of 386 BSD, starting with it being freely available on the internet, then only available to those who purchased CD-ROMs.

0.0

This is the first version of 386 BSD that was released. This version doesn't share it's disk with MS-DOS or any other OS's, and uses a VAX style disktab/disklabel, making it difficult to install.

• 386BSD 0.0

0.1

The 0.1 release was the most popular, as 0.0 proved to be very difficult to install, I'd think because it was more "VAX" like in how it treated the disks, and most people are not familiar with disklabels. There were 2 revisions to 0.1, with the patchkits, that eventually gave birth to both NetBSD and FreeBSD.

• 386 BSD 0.1
• 386 BSD 0.1 pl23
• 386 BSD 0.1 pl24

1.0

This was the CD-ROM / DrDobbs release

2.0

In an email with Lynne Jolitz, she has confirmed that there was a 2.0 release.

Where can I get a copy

At the moment the only known places to get copies are:

• oldlinux.org 0.0, 0.1 and the two patchkits.
• tuhs.org 0.0, 0.1 and the two patchkits.
• freebsd.org ISO with 0.0, 0.1, the patchkits in various states, a large number of other contributions to 0.0 and 0.1 and a USENET archive of comp.unix.bsd.

How do I get this to run?!

Right now the only version fully running in emulation is 0.1 The quickest way is to use 386BSD-0.1exe which is a ready to run package for Windows users that includes a preconfigured Qemu & disk image.