MINIX Releases
This page provides some information on the various MINIX 3 releases. You can download release media from the download page.
Current Status
The current stable MINIX release is: 3.1.6.
The current experimental MINIX release is: n/a.
Release 3.1.6
Release date: February 8, 2010
Major Features:
- New drivers: Atheros L2, Intel E1000, Realtek 8169, DEC Tulip
- VirtualPC Network Support (DEC Tulip)
- PipeFS - removed pipe handling from filesystem drivers
- HGFS - support for mounting VMware shared folders as file system
- VFS: supplemental group support
- VFS: sticky bit support
- FPU support
- System Event Framework (SEF)
- Experimental APIC support (disabled by default)
- More ports: more recent QEMU, BSD utilities, Benchmarks
Known Issues:
VirtualBox 3.1 cannot boot Minix. Please use VirtualBox 3.0 for now.
- Qemu/KVM 0.12 cannot boot Minix. Please use Qemu/KVM 0.11 for now.
VirtualBox: Minix 3.1.6 cannot be installed w/o hardware acceleration support (VT-x, AMD-V)
Workaround: See UsersGuide/RunningMinixOnVirtualBox
Release 3.1.5
Release date: November 5, 2009
Major Features:
- Better performance
- Shared memory
- setitimer function
- ISO9660 FS
- Open Source Sound System
- Trap NULL accesses now, for user convenience
- Improved signal handling
- Better support for debuggers (ptrace improvements, etc.)
- Network card autodetection (for supported PCI cards), improved network configuration
- More ports: PostgreSQL, QEMU, Sudo, and a more recent OpenSSH, Tcpdump, Nedit, Gnu Go
Known Issues:
VirtualBox: Minix 3.1.5 cannot be installed w/o hardware acceleration support (VT-x, AMD-V)
Workaround: See UsersGuide/RunningMinixOnVirtualBox
- VMware: after working correctly for a period of time, the lance driver may stop working silently, causing all network traffic to be dropped for some period of time.
- Workaround: when this happens, run "service refresh lance" as root to restart the lance driver.
- This issue has been fixed in the Minix trunk available from Subversion.
Release 3.1.4
Release date: June 28, 2009
Major Features:
- Virtual Memory support
- Improved Virtual Machine support (when MINIX runs as guest)
Release 3.1.3a
Release date: June 8, 2007
- Fixes to 3.1.3
Release 3.1.3
Release date: April 13, 2007
Major Features:
- Virtual File System (VFS)
See http://www.minix3.org/download/releasenotes-3.1.3.html.
Release 3.1.2a
Release date: May 29, 2006
Major Features:
- Packman package manager
Known Issues:
- Installation issue when auto-partitioning disks.
Release 3.1.0 (Book Release)
Release date:
First release of MINIX 3
Corresponds with source discussed in OSDIv3.