"Anthony J. Albert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [...]
> BeOS is free for the download, but I'm not sure Minix is. Last I
> knew, Minix was still on a purchase-only basis. This was some years
> ago, however.
I'm a closet Minix fan, ever since reading a copy of Tannenbaum's "Operating
Systems Design & Implementation" back in the mid-1980's. It was so great to
find a book with the actual source for an OS listed, at least back in the
bad-old days (pre-OpenSource). I was blown away to encounter the author in
newsgroups back then. I never got it running, but have been enthralled ever
since.
General info about Minix can be found at:
http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/minix.html (notice -- Andy S. Tannenbaum's site!),
and details on downloading it at:
http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/getting_minix.html . It looks like it's readily
available.
I know some have been concerned about "non-DOS" OSen being off-topic for
SurvPC. Here's a snippet from AST's pages:
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HARDWARE REQUIRED
To run MINIX 2.0, you need a PC driven by an 8088, 286, 386, 486, or Pentium
CPU. The system must be 100% hardware compatible with the PC-AT and its
successors (i.e, EISA bus, IDE disk, etc.).
To run the 16-bit version, 640K is the minimum. To run the 32-bit version,
2MB is the minimum. To run comfortably, another 512K is needed.
A hard disk is not technically required, but is strongly recommended to take
full advantage of the system. To load all the sources and be able to
recompile the system, 30 MB is the practical minimum but with a 20 MB disk
partition, you can still run and compile parts of the system.
The system must have either a CGA, EGA, VGA, monochrome, or Hercules video
card, or another card that emulates one of these. Both 5.25" and 3.5"
diskettes are supported, as are printers using the parallel port and modems
and terminals using the serial ports. Mitsumi CD-ROMs are also supported, as
are some Ethernet cards.
MINIX 2.0 FEATURES
Full multiprogramming (multiple programs can run at once)
Runs in protected mode on 286, 386, 486, Pentium
Support for extended memory up to 16M on 286; 4 GB on 386, 486, and Pentium
RS-232 serial line support with terminal emulation, kermit, zmodem, etc.
Up to 3 simultaneous users on one machine
System call compatible with POSIX (well, almost)
Full C source code (OS, utilities, libraries, etc.) supplied
ANSI C compiler
Shell that is functionally identical to the Bourne shell
Networking with TCP/IP
Five editors (emacs subset, vi clone [<-- GOTTA HAVE VI!], ex, ed, and
simple screen editor)
Over 200 utilities (cat, cp, ed, grep, kermit, ls, make, sort, etc.)
Over 300 library procedures (atoi, fork, malloc, read, stdio, etc.)
Spelling checker with 40,000 word English dictionary
Online manual pages
--- cut here --- cut here ---
If a 386 with 8 MB of RAM is too advanced, then surely THESE requiremets
aren't! If you've got a 386 with 8-12MB RAM, I'd probably go with Linux (a
lightweight distribution -- Steve still here?), but if you're strapped or
have an old box, Minix might be fun. I wouldn't bet the family business on
it, but it sounds like it's evolved considerably.
I know Robert Deering mentioned he was running Minix back before the list
went nuts. He can provide more hands-on info than I can (you still with us
Robert?).
- Bob
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