Ingo Schwarze wrote: > > Continuing the timeline backwards: > > July 19, 1993 FreeBSD: Rodney W. Grimes adds myname(5) and mygate(5) support > commit message: > "From NetBSD, copied verbatium. May need some work yet." > https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/0a71fe69 > This tells us that none of this came from FreeBSD. > Apr 20, 1993 NetBSD 0.8 release > Apr 02, 1993 cgd@ commits myname(5) and mygate(5) support to NetBSD > Jul 14, 1992 386BSD 0.1 release > There, /etc/netstart uses /etc/myname (but not mygate) > https://github.com/386bsd/386bsd/blob/0.1/etc/netstart > Appears to be based on SCCS revision 5.9, but with modifications > March 1992 386BSD 0.0 release; it uses neither; SCCS revision 5.9 > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/386BSD-0.0-Snapshot-Development/usr/src/etc/netstart > So 0.0 is apparently based on Net/2 (5.9) without modifications. > Aug 20, 1991 4.3BSD Net/2 release; it uses neither; SCCS revision 5.9 > June 1990 4.3BSD-Reno release; it uses neither; SCCS revision 5.9 >
Now you got me curious. It appears the use of /etc/hostname in the Linux world dates back to Debian 0.93 R5 or R6 which were released in 1995. This was predated by the use of /etc/HOSTNAME in Debian 0.91 released in January 1994. The use of /etc/HOSTNAME is actually traced to the convention in an early version of hostname(1) source code, the default file when no argument was passed to `hostname -S` (/bin/hostname -S would be called on boot). Other preeminent Linux distros of the time e.g. Slackware just set the hostname on boot via /etc/rc.local manually. If we are arguing who is more right going by dates alone, if anyone should have to change it would be the Linux people. :)
