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New Release of MINIX 3 For x86 and ARM Is NetBSD Compatible
An anonymous reader writes MINIX 3 is a small POSIX-compliant operating system aimed at high reliability (embedded) applications. A major new version of MINIX 3 (3.3.0) is now available for download at www.minix3.org. In addition to the x86, the ARM Cortex A8 is now supported, with ports to the BeagleBoard and BeagleBones available. Finally, the entire userland has been redone in 3.3.0 to make it NetBSD compatible, with thousands of NetBSD packages available out of the box. MINIX 3 is based on a tiny (13 KLoC) microkernel with the operating system running as a set of protected user-mode processes. Each device driver is also a separate process. If a driver fails, it is automatically and transparently restarted without rebooting and without applications even noticing, making the system self-healing.
The full announcement, with links to the release notes and notes on installation, can be found at the Minix Google Groups page.
Its not novel but its simple and clean. Minix is really an education tool more than a production ready OS.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Uhhh... I think you switched the cart and the horse, there, fella.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Minix tries to take a state snapshot, reconstruct something workable,
That's frieking fascinating. I just posted about how I didn't think restarting a driver could really be transparent because state would be lost. Then I read that it actually transfers the state. Do you have any good links with an overview of that? My immediate thought is "well, if the state is transferred, won't the restarted service crash too?" but I'm guessing someone has already thought of that...
As an embedded-systems guy, I'd _love_ to have a Unix-like where I could schedule events that were guaranteed-by-design to fire within some deadline of when they were scheduled. Then I could host my once-per-kHz hardware service routines on the same processor that was also running my device's web-server.
Minix's microkernel architecture seems like an ideal fit for that kind of use case. If there are any Minix devs reading this thread, how easy would it be for me to make a system like that using Minix?
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
Magic bullet? There never are any magic bullet for complex systems.
A microkernel is the realization of best practices for security systems and - dare I say it - follows the original Unix philosophy.
Do one thing (IPC) and do it well (ensure security guarantees are kept). Keeping the critical code small makes it easier to verify code in both the practical and mathematical sense.
But it will be complex in small, discrete, independently-verifiable pieces, like a cookie with raisins, M&Ms, and a peanut butter cup arranged on top rather than a chocolate-peanut-butter cookie with raisin puree mixed in.
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