[NikkiA]

In early 1992 I emailed BSDI asking about the possibility of buying a copy of BSD/386 as a student - the $1000 they wanted was a little too high for me. I got an email back pointing me at an 'upstart OS' called linux that would probably suit a CS student more, and was completely free, that week I think it was 0.13 I downloaded that week, it got renamed 0.95 a few weeks later, there was no X (I think 0.99pl6 was the first time I ran X on it, from a yggdrasil disc in august 1992) but it was freedom from MSDOS.

Ironically, 386BSD would have been brewing at the same time with a roughly similar status.

[LeFantome]

I installed 386BSD for my university admin in 1992 I think. They paid my to do it but otherwise it was free. Linux was not yet version 1.0 if I remember correctly.

[NikkiA]

Yes, 386BSD was free, and the precursor to FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD. BSD/386 was a different, commercial product though, available a few months earlier.

All 3 projects, BSD/386, Linux and 386BSD gained recognition over the span of about 6 months in 1992.

[LeFantome]

Yes, I know. Interesting that BSD/386 was pointing people at Linux. I guess they knew that 386BSD would eat their lunch. Perhaps they did not see Linux as real competition.

[LeFantome]

I installed 386BSD for my university admin in 1991 I think. They paid my to do it but it was otherwise free.