Oldest version of FreeBSD still in current use

[Datapanic]

What system C compiler does that setup provide? I cannot seem to find out when GCC was introduced to replace the more original UNIX ones.

The default /usr/bin/cc is gcc version 1.42

 

[kpedersen]

Oh wow. So BSD adopted GCC that early? For some reason I thought that GCC entered at BSD 4.4 Lite to replace one that was potentially patent encumbered.

Edit: Whilst doing some history fact finding, turns out iXsystems *is* BSDi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IXsystems). I had absolutely no idea. That's pretty cool. I knew they were very active in the BSD community but didn't know they had that legacy.

 

[ralphbsz]

... turns out iXsystems *is* BSDi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IXsystems).

Well, sort of. iXsystems is the successor to BSDi (or BSDI, both spellings exist). But the thing that (to me) created BSDi was the people; a company founded and run by Kirk McKusick, Bill Jolitz, Keith Bostic, Rob Kolstad, Mike Karels, and a few others I forgot. None of those people have been involved with iXsystems in the last 10 or 15 years, as far as I know. Staff wise there was a significant break between 1998 and 2005.

 

[Datapanic]

I was going to install a FreeBSD 1.0-RELEASE but got discouraged Setting up the floppies

 

[Jose]

Oldest CDROMs I can find. I should try to install one of them on an old box sometime.

 

[George]

bsdstats reports one version 0.8.6 this month, but this might be fake.

http://bsdstats.org/bt/releases.html

 

[FreeBSDArcade]

I tried to install desktop environements on 5.5 but didn't worked.

 

[mark_j]

The ones included with 5.5 will work. You have zero chance with 99% of the latest packages.

 

[FreeBSDArcade]

I installed everything with the disc 1 and disc 2 but i got a syntax error or something like that.

 

[grahamperrin]

*BSD Usage Statistics: Releases Stats

Hmm

I guess that most people either (a) no longer participate; or (b) are not aware. I'm an (a) person.

 

[oed]

Not FreeBSD, but I've got 4.4BSD permanently running in an gxemul:

$ uname -a
4.4BSD *****.*******.** 4.4BSD-Lite 4.4BSD-Lite #6: Mon Jun 13 21:52:19 MET DST 1994 oscar@*****.******.**:/sys/compile/BSD DEC
$ uptime
4:35PM up 12 days, 17:48, 1 user, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00


The host is running FreeBSD 13.0, but the oldest boot environment it has is 10.0-RELEASE.

 

[neel]

I have run 4.x and 5.x on a Pentium 4 Gateway and Pentium III Dell Optiplex, both which I bought for the purpose of retrocomputing.

Being much younger myself, I didn't realize how painful XFree86 configuration was, I grew up with Xorg autoconfiguration.

 

[Jose]

I have run 4.x and 5.x on a Pentium 4 Gateway and Pentium III Dell Optiplex, both which I bought for the purpose of retrocomputing.

Being much younger myself, I didn't realize how painful XFree86 configuration was, I grew up with Xorg autoconfiguration.

Oh man, you just brought back some bad memories about struggling with dotclocks and modelines.

I found this video on how those old monitors worked fascinating:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJU2drrtCM

They show how modern LED TVs draw too. I wish they'd done a plasma TV. I still have one of those.