instability in Berkeley versus AT&T releases

[Guy Harris]

> > 	4:00pm  up 5 days,  2:33,  6 users,  load average: 0.23, 0.07, 0.00
> > 
> > (etc.)
> 
> I am afraid that this is the point that proves the argument.

Bull.  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  If you mean that the
"uptime" listing there proves that 4.2BSD systems can't stay up more than 5
days, it's time to take a course in reasoning.  All it proves is that "sun"
(a machine which has had its share of hardware problems) had been up for 5
days at the time I type "uptime" at it.  The last time I bounced my own
machine, it was because it hung when I tried to exit the window system -
this could have been the fault of the window system (not 4.2BSD code), the
shell I'm running (an S5R2 Bourne shell with *lots* of hacks thrown into
it), or a number of other programs whose problems you couldn't blame on
Berkeley.

> Primarily, I would like point out that five or even fifteen days of uptime
> does not make a solid operating system.

OK.  Now I'll point out that frequent crashes/reboots does not make a flaky
operating system (I suspect hardware problems cause most of the trouble
around here).

> P.S.  Of course, we run System V.

With, I believe, 4.1BSD memory management code (unless you've dropped the
S5R2V2 code in) and possibly 4.2BSD (or 4.1aBSD or 4.1cBSD) networking code
(the use of "ruptime" in your message gives a possible hint).  As such, the
fact that CTIX stayed up on one particular machine for 45 days doesn't say
much about the reliability of System V vs. 4.xBSD.