About VMUNIX.com

Why vmunix.com? Well, I'm really into Unix and in particular FreeBSD Unix. FreeBSD is based on the work done at the University of California at Berkeley: BSD (Berkeley Software Distributions). BSD was the first complete, all in one package UNIX and was the foundation of products like SunOS. Most of the commercial world has now departed from the BSD codebase in favor of SystemV but considerable interest is still directed at the *BSD Unix spinoffs. To get to the point, vmunix was the name of the original BSD kernel that contained virtual memory support (2.9BSD). The kernel is still called vmunix on several UNIX systems today, including Tru64 UNIX (formerly Digital UNIX)!

The vmunix.com domain and system is run by me, Mark Mayo. If you've bumped into it looking for mountains of info on BSD, well, you're probably going to be disapointed. Although I do have links to various BSD related sites on the front page, that's likely all that you'll find here (aside from local mirrors and such).

Time for some poetry!

From duke!chico!harpo!floyd!trb Tue Feb 2 16:20:31 1982 (floyd.52) net.general : The VMUNIX Blues I wrote this ballad a couple of weeks ago, and gave a premiere performance at USENIX with esquire!psl at the keyboard, and a chorus of hackers in the background. We were dubbed "Andy and the Free Inodes." The tune is the same as "Deep Elem Blues," recently covered by the Grateful Dead. Mail additions to floyd!trb. It has about 1k verses to go, but, by popular demand, here it is, The VMUNIX Blues: VMUNIX Blues 21-Jan-82 by Andy Tannenbaum (c) 1982 by Andy Tannenbaum Profits to go to the Smithsonian Hacker Folk Music Archive. When you bring up VMUNIX, Just to have a little fun, You'd better have your Western License, When the Board of Regents come. Oh, sweet mama, hacker's got the VMUNIX Blues, Oh, sweet mama, hacker's got the VMUNIX Blues. Once I met a pinstripe, Knew his doubly nested do, He logged in to VMUNIX, Now his FORTRAN days are through. Oh, sweet mama, ... When you debug a C program, Don't know what the hell to do, Segmentation violation, It's a structure pointer screw. Oh, sweet mama, ... It comes time to clean up shit work, You type r m foo space star, By the time you realize it, You won't know where those files are. Oh, sweet mama, ... When you run on an eleven, With a quarter meg of core, And some loser cranks an nroff, There ain't no response no more. Oh, sweet mama, ... Ar as at, Bc dc adb, Df du dd, It don't mean a thing to me. Oh, sweet mama, ... When you argue with a netnews flamer, Be prepared to lose, Because that burnt out flamer's got, The VMUNIX Blues, Oh, sweet mama, hacker's got the VMUNIX Blues, Oh, sweet mama, hacker's got the VMUNIX Blues.