[net.unix] 8th edition Unix

phil@amd70.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (02/05/84)

I was reading Kernighan and Pike and noticed that the book was typeset
on a VAX-11/750 running the 8th edition of Unix. Presumably that's the
one that came after the 7th edition (what my machine is currently running).

I'd be interesting in hearing about it, how it is different and why it
isn't available outside the labs, if anyone reading this knows about it.
-- 
Phil Ngai (408) 988-7777 {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amd70!phil

gwyn%brl-vld@sri-unix.UUCP (02/06/84)

From:      Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn@brl-vld>

"8th Edition UNIX" is also known as "Research Version 8" and is what
the Bell Labs computer science research folks have.  You didn't really
expect them to stop evolving UNIX, did you?

The official AT&T UNIX product is UNIX System V, and I am sure they do
not want to support more than one version of UNIX.  I believe and hope
that the more useful innovations from Research Version 8 and elsewhere
will appear in AT&T UNIX somewhere down the pike (pun not intended).

I personally do not have access to Research Version 8; I think one or
two universities may have a copy.  My understanding is that its kernel
evolved from the 4.1BSD kernel and its user utilities are rationalized,
without all the typical Berkeley cruft (e.g. "cat -v").  If this
description is not correct, presumably someone will further respond.

henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (02/10/84)

As I've heard it, the story on the "8th edition" is as follows.

The kernel is roughly 4.1BSD plus Dennis Ritchie's line disciplines.
The user-level stuff is extensively worked-over, with a lot of Berkeley
garbage ripped out and a lot of new stuff added.  There are undoubtedly
a good many other miscellaneous things like Blit support, networking
software, and so forth.

The 8th edition basically runs on the machines at the Research lab
(the home of Unix) and nowhere else.

The official word is (or at least, has been in the past) that the 8th
edition will *never* be distributed.  The folks at Research apparently
went through immense effort and pain getting V7 out the door, and swore
off software distribution forever as a result.  It also seems safe to
assume that the 8th edition doesn't fit well with AT&T's current view
that System V is the be-all and end-all of Unixes and will be the base
for all future work.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry