386BSD
Also known as Jolix, 386/BSD
386BSD (also known as "Jolix") is a Unix-like operating system that was developed by couple Lynne and William "Bill" Jolitz. Released as free and open source in 1992, it was the first fully operational Unix built to run on IBM PC-compatible systems based on the Intel 80386 ("i386") microprocessor, and the first Unix-like system on affordable home-class hardware to be freely distributed. Its innovations included role-based security, ring buffers, self-ordered configuration and modular kernel design.
Key facts
- OS.name
- 386BSD
- OS.logo
- 130px
- OS.screenshot
- 386BSD installer screenshot.png
- OS.caption
- 386BSD Release 0.1 installer ("Tiny 386BSD")
- OS.developer
- William JolitzLynne Jolitz
- OS.family
- Unix-like
- OS.released
- 0.0
- OS.license
- BSD license
- OS.succeeded by
- FreeBSD, NetBSD
- OS.source_model
- Open source
- OS.latest_release_version
- 2.0
- OS.working_state
- Historical
- OS.supported_platforms
~9 min read
Article
8 sectionsContents
- History and releases
- FreeBSD and NetBSD
- Unix and BSD lawsuit
- Copyright and use of the code
- Relationship with BSD/386
- Further reading
- References
- External links
386BSD (also known as "Jolix") is a Unix-like operating system that was developed by couple Lynne and William "Bill" Jolitz. Released as free and open source in 1992, it was the first fully operational Unix built to run on IBM PC-compatible systems based on the Intel 80386 ("i386") microprocessor, and the first Unix-like system on affordable home-class hardware to be freely distributed. Its innovations included role-based security, ring buffers, self-ordered configuration and modular kernel design.
Development began in 1989 while the Jolitzes were at the University of California, Berkeley's Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG), intended to be a port of BSD to 386-based personal computers. They then contributed the project to the university with some of the work ending up in BSD's Net/2, distributed in 1991. However, when the CSRG scrapped the project and ruled that his work was "university proprietary", Jolitz rewrote the code from scratch, based on the incomplete free code from Net/2. Jolitz also claims that 386BSD was the base of Berkeley Software Design (BSDi)'s commercial BSD/386.