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The End Of Minix?
Otter writes "Minix is best known as the Unix clone for x86 that inspired Linus Torvalds to write one himself. It's pretty much dropped off the map since. The latest patch for XFree86's xterm drops support for Minix. As the changelog notes, 'Juliusz Chroboczek noted it was removed from XFree86 server; there have been no users since 1996.'"
You know, considering that Minix made Linus Torvalds want to write his own OS, is that really much of a compliment to Minix? I'm surprised it still had that support. But you know, without Minix, you have to wonder if we'd have anything like GNU/Linux right now.
Isn't it more of an educational tool these days, rather than a practical OS? I think every CS student had to buy Tanenbaum's book for their OS class. I think it's more of a prototypical UNIX that's good for studying how OS's actually work.
since when were you required to run XF86 when you ran any Unix-based OS?
Ever since everybody begun to think desktops were requirements of a computer.
I for one don't even run X on my FreeBSD machine. I mean, it's installed, don't get me wrong. But I don't use it. I don't like it, why would I use it?
What's wrong with Bash?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
The ironic thing is that Tanenbaum's argument is now correct, even though it was not ten years ago.
Nobody would now would make a new monolithic kernel if they were in their right minds. However, nobody now would make a new Mach-alike if they were in their right minds either. Microkernels have finally proven themselves to be up to the job of being the basis of serious operating systems (e.g. BeOS, QNX, ChorusOS etc), but they're not the kinds of microkernels that Tanenbaum was advocating in 1992. Microkernels of the time spent far too much time shifting data between servers, whereas modern microkernels a) do at most as much address-space shifting as a monolithic kernel, plus b) they're even more "micro".
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
I believe in microkernels. Just look at QNX. Ever tried to make a decent Linux boot floppy? It's hard, and would be easier if the kernel were more modular. Fortunately, it is moving in that direction. The MINIX file system is still available, and makes a very good choice for floopies: full file permissions and very little space wasted. ext2 takes up half the floppy and reiserfs doesn't even fit on it. MINIX may be dead as a production system, but its legacy lives on, and it's still good for OS courses, which is what it was made for.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I am SO upset right now that you simply cannot imagine what I am going through. First of all, I use Minix on three of my four computers. Minix is certainly NOT dead, and I don't know why so many people think that it is. It's the most retarded thing I have ever heard of.
Give me a break. I know you're all Linus fanboys ("yes, Mr. Torvalds!" "excellent idea, Mr. Torvalds" "That's a great tie, Mr. Torvalds"), but all the Minix guy did was put forth his opinion that microkernels were the wave of the future, and then had that turned into a personal thing. Read the exchange
Because it's relatively simple. Have you ever compared Linus's original .99 version (the first he released publically, or anyway the first that I can find) with a modern 2.5 kernel? It's orders-of-magnitude more complex. Minix was designed to follow academic operating system principles, above practical issues such as performance. Because of that, it was easy to understand and teach.
Okay, so it's not finished, but it's somewhat useable, especially on older 32 bit hardware. Looking through dselect, there's quite a few apps available for it. The machine I'm using it on is a bit flaky (think there's a mobo/mem problem, because Linux actually crashes on it, too). I've got another machine sitting around that I'm going to try it on.
:-)
Haven't gotten around to trying X yet.
I'm not sure where they're going with the project, really, because, as you said, there doesn't seem to be alot of active development. What is there are quite a few good ideas, and something that's Not Unix.
Got a spare ext2 partition sitting around? Give it a shot. The Hurd.
>Do you think my old 286 running Minix could handle X well enough to be a remote x terminal?
Not a problem. I have old NCD X-Terms which only have a 68k processor @ 10 or 12 Mhz and 1-4 MB RAM. They run X just fine. Don't expect miracles, though. Netscape takes a minute to draw...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Here's the obligatory link to Tanenbaum's 1992 "Linux is obsolete" post.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
GNU/Minix
Let's get some facts. Is that true or not? Does Minix, like Linux, use the entire GNU suite of tools?
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
What do you think of Linux?
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Linus for producing it. Before there was Linux there was MINIX, which had a 40,000-person newsgroup, most of whom were sending me email every day. I was going crazy with the endless stream of new features people were sending me. I kept refusing them all because I wanted to keep MINIX small enough for my students to understand in one semester. My consistent refusal to add all these new features is what inspired Linus to write Linux. Both of us are now happy with the results. The only person who is perhaps not so happy is Bill Gates. I think this is a good thing.
You think that's funny.
I use awstats as my web statistics package, which happens to check if the OS is CP/M. I didn't know what to think when I saw that... maybe they werer just being thorough.
Well, once per month, I actually get a hit from someone using it. I mean... damn. I like vintage stuff and all (I just managed to get my Amiga 2000 up and running not so long ago, and I actually have a copy of Atari ST Minix) but how in the hell do you browse from CP/M?
I need to find this guy. Whether I should bitchslap him, or bow down in worship when I do, is something to debate
Note: I have a friend that likes to screw with me, telnets in and manually adds bizarre headers. But this isn't him, nor can I imagine someone else doing this for kicks on strangers' websites. I really am shocked and bewildered, in a way.
On the other hand, there were some religious sects that were able to grow their communes much more, and were much bigger than 25 people.
But they were only able to do this because they used religion to eliminate sex, and its attending issues.
Except for the issue that eliminating sex meant that the commune wouldn't last but a single genration.
BTW: The Farm in Tennessee is still going strong with 200 members. So is Twin Oaks, a community based on B.F. Skinners ideas in Walden 2. Twin Oaks has 100 members. East Wind in Missouri has 85 members.
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