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Andy Tanenbaum Releases Minix 3

Posted by Hemos on from the a-thousand-flowers-of-code-burst-forth dept.

Guillaume Pierre writes "Andy Tanenbaum announced the availability of the next version of the Minix operating system. "MINIX 3 is a new open-source operating system designed to be highly reliable and secure. This new OS is extremely small, with the part that runs in kernel mode under 4000 lines of executable code. The parts that run in user mode are divided into small modules, well insulated from one another. For example, each device driver runs as a separate user-mode process so a bug in a driver (by far the biggest source of bugs in any operating system), cannot bring down the entire OS. In fact, most of the time when a driver crashes it is automatically replaced without requiring any user intervention, without requiring rebooting, and without affecting running programs. These features, the tiny amount of kernel code, and other aspects greatly enhance system reliability."In case anyone wonders: yes, he still thinks that micro-kernels are more reliable than monolithic kernels ;-) Disclaimer: I am the chief architect of Globule, the experimental content-distribution network used to host www.minix3.org."

3 of 528 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Honest question by g0sub · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Minix was (is) an operating system designed to be used for educational purposes. In addition Tannenbaum uses it to prove his point about mikrokernels. Torvalds got the idea of making your own unix from having used minix.

  2. RTFA by fandrieu · · Score: 1, Redundant

    It's relevance lies in it's use in teaching operating system design

    used to be true, but not any more, from TFA:

    "MINIX 1 and 2 were intended as teaching tools; MINIX 3 adds the new goal of being usable as a serious system on resource-limited and embedded computers and for applications requiring high reliability."

  3. Re:Minix on a modern machine? by worf_mo · · Score: 0, Redundant

    What you say is true for Minix 1 and 2, but Minix 3 seems to head for a different route (from TFA): MINIX 1 and 2 were intended as teaching tools; MINIX 3 adds the new goal of being usable as a serious system on resource-limited and embedded computers and for applications requiring high reliability.