Frequently Asked Questions

Contents

Frequently Asked Questions

1. General Questions

1.1. What is MINIX 3?

MINIX 3 is a small free UNIX clone designed for very high reliability. It is especially well-suited for low-end PCs, resource-constrained systems, and embedded applications. It is available with all the source code, which makes it well-suited to classroom or self study by people wanting to learn how an operating system works.

1.2. What hardware do I need to run MINIX 3?

See UsersGuide/HardwareRequirements.

1.3. Where can I get MINIX 3?

MINIX 3 Version 3.1 is distributed on a CD-ROM included with the text Operating Systems Design and Implementation, 3/e by Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Albert S. Woodhull. Newer versions are available for free at the MINIX 3 download page.

1.4. Where can I get help with MINIX 3?

Post your question to our Google group, and we'll be glad to help.

1.5. I am a beginner. Where can I learn about MINIX 3 programming?

See the DeveloperGuide as a start.

1.6. Somebody must have seen my problem before. Is the newsgroup archived?

Yes. You can see the following archives:

1.7. A page I once saw is gone. Is there a way to find it?

Maybe. Try the Wayback machine.

1.8. Where can I find information about using MINIX 3 for teaching?

A good place to start is this Teaching Web page.

1.9. Can I become a MINIX 3 developer?

If you have the requisite time, interest, and knowledge, you are welcome to join the MINIX 3 community. See the DevelopersGuide for some starting points.

2. Legal Questions

2.1. What is the MINIX 3 license?

The MINIX 3 license is a clone of the Berkeley (BSD) license. In plain English, it says you can do whatever you like with the system provided that (1) you agree not to sue us under any conditions, and (2) you keep the credit lines in the source, documentation, and publicity unless other arrangements have been made. Specifically, you are free to modify the source code, redistribute it, incorporate it into commercial products with only the above restrictions.

2.2. Why didn't you use the GPL?

We feel the GPL is too restrictive. Companies that put a lot of money into further developing open-source software rightly do not want to give it their competitors. Since MINIX 3 has clear applications in embedded systems, we felt the BSD license was more appropriate.

2.3. What is the relationship between MINIX and Linux?

MINIX was released in 1987 as a small easy-to-understand UNIX clone for use in courses teaching operating systems. Linus Torvalds, then a student at the University of Helsinki, studied MINIX in an operating systems course and was sufficiently impressed that he bought a PC to run it. He then used MINIX as a platform, guide, and inspiration to develop a MINIX clone, named Linux, which he released in 1991. Here is his announcement of Linux.

2.4. Linus has been accused of stealing Linux from MINIX. Is that true?

No. Absolutely not. Ken Brown of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution wrote a report, funded in part by Microsoft, claiming that Linus stole Linux from MINIX. Brown's conclusion was that companies should not use Linux because the ownership of the intellectual property rights is unclear. This is complete garbage. While it is most unlikely that a 21-year-old student would have been capable of writing his own operating system had he not had the complete source code for a similar operating system available to use, study and modify, Linus wrote the initial version of the Linux code himself. The Brown report and a response from the creator of MINIX was discussed in detail on Slashdot.

3. Technical Questions

3.1. How do I boot the USB image?

Write the usb image file to the usb device sector-by-sector. In other words, don't write it to a FAT filesystem on the usb device, but write the file to it starting at the 0th sector. This will, of course, effectively wipe all other information that was on the usb device.

Then you can boot from the usb device if your BIOS supports that.

3.2. How do I change the network configuration after an install?

Edit /etc/inet.conf. Usually, the format is:

eth0 fxp 0 { default; };

where fxp is the name of the ethernet driver you want to start (this is the name of the process inet looks for to talk to for ethernet). Take a look at /usr/etc/rc how ethernet drivers are started. Currently, the choices are:

lance rtl8139 fxp dpeth dp8390

For details on inet.conf, please see the inet.conf manpage.

3.3. My SATA drive doesn't work with MINIX

MINIX 3 does actually have SATA support, but we've seen problems if they're set to "Enhanced" (sometimes called "Native") mode. Try changing the setting to "Legacy" or "Combined" in BIOS.

3.7. Why doesn't the elle editor behave the way the man page says it should?

For help with elle, see this document on elle.

3.8. Is it possible to exchange data between file systems of different operating systems?

Yes. See this document on data exchange.

3.9. How do I view a draft man page that hasn't been installed yet?

Use

nroff -man ''man_file'' | more

3.10. What is the performance of MINIX 3 like?

We made measurements of the performance of MINIX 3 (user-mode drivers) versus MINIX 2 (kernel-mode drivers) and MINIX 3 is 5-10% slower. We have not compared it to other systems because there are so many other differences (e.g., the current disk driver does not even have DMA, the ACK compiler is faster than gcc but the code is worse, the file systems differ etc.) The biggest difference is that MINIX 3 represents about 1 man-year of work so far and other systems represent thousands of man-years of work and our priority has been reliability, not performance.

3.11. How do I boot MINIX3 from GRUB?

See Running Multiple Operating Systems.

4. Running Minix 3 on a Virtual Machine

4.1. How do I run MINIX 3 on VMWare?

Yes. See Running MINIX on VMWare.

4.2. Can I transfer data between a MINIX 3 guest on VMWare and the host?

See UsersGuide/FileTransfer.

4.3. Can I use the Bochs emulator to run MINIX 3?

Yes. See Running MINIX on Bochs.

4.4. Can I run MINIX 3 on top of Windows using Virtual PC?

Yes. see this document on MINIX and Virtual PC.

5. Binary Packages

5.1. X: When I run xdm, nothing happens. What gives?

X is probably running out of memory. If you're running Minix on a VM, try increasing the VM image's memory. If not, try using chmem to reduce X's memory allocation. It's possible chmem =80000000 /usr/X11R6/bin/Xorg may work for you. You may need to play with the exact value.