The greatest Christmas movie ever made is Die Hard (1988), in which Bruce Willis defeats a band of German thieves to save Christmas.

OK, OK, there’s also White Christmas and a couple other contenders, but one thing is undeniable: Die Hard to date is the only Christmas movie that features the BSD operating system.

Or at least, a pretend future version.  The movie is set at the fictional Nakatomi Plaza, and at a couple points, the computer systems of the firm that is the target of the heist are shown.

This was 1988.  Nothing BSD with a 9.2 version number would be released until FreeBSD 9.2 in September 2013.

Of course, FreeBSD didn’t even exist in 1988.  Neither did NetBSD or OpenBSD.  BSD in 1988 was still quite literally the Berkeley Software Distribution and was at 4.3BSD in 1988.  It would be several years before BSD was released, rather contentiously, to the world proper.

What likely happened is that someone in Hollywood asked around what a “business operating system” might be and heard BSD.  They then advanced it a few versions to make it sound “future” and hence, Nakatomi Socrates BSD 9.2.

Hey, that’d be a really good bonus code for RackNerd’s giveaway.

RackNerd was Amazing This Black Friday

RackNerd launched their latest giveaway for us on December 1st, right in the middle of Black Friday.  If you missed their offers…they’re still live!

RackNerd 2024 Black Friday VPS Offers

There’s loads more, so be sure to check out their full range of Black Friday offers (click here).

The Giveaway

Between now and December 31, 2024, enter for a chance to win one of:

• a TCL 75-Inch Class S5 UHD 4K LED Smart TV!
• 2x Logitech Wireless Lightspeed Headset!
• 5x Soundcore Noise Cancelling Headphones!
• A full year of dedicated server service.  Specs: Intel Xeon E3-1270 V3, 32 GB RAM, 2x 2 TB SSD, /29 IPv4 (5 IPs) deployed in New York. No obligation to renew, but renews at discounted rate of $55/Month.
• 5x $100 RackNerd Account CreditThanks, RackNerd!

How About a Bonus?

You can use promo code BSD92 for 10 extra entries!

How to Enter

Here’s the Gleam entry form.  If you don’t see it, you may need to disable your ad blocker.  Good luck everyone!

RackNerd-LowEndBox December Holiday 2024 Giveaway!

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raindog308

Dread Lord of LowEnd Content at LowEndBox

I'm raindog308, techno polymath and long-time LowEndTalk community Administrator. My technical interests include all things Unix, perl, python, golang, shell scripting, vintage operating systems such as MVS, and relational database systems such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.

I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308

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