• UsersGuide
• RunningMinixOnVirtualBox

Running MINIX 3 on VirtualBox

This page describes the process of installing MINIX 3 on VirtualBox.

1. Preliminaries

Please install VirtualBox. VirtualBox binaries can be downloaded from their webpage. If you're running a Linux distribution, you can install VirtualBox via the package manager.

2. Virtual Machine Setup

Before you install Minix 3, you will need to create a new virtual machine configuration. The VM configuration specifies the parameters of your Virtual machine, e.g., how much memory you want the VM to use, how big you want the virtual hard disk to be, etc.

In the main screen of VirtualBox, press the big New button.

1. Press Next in the Welcoming Screen.

2. At the VM Name and OS Type screen, for Name write MINIX3. Operating System and Version select Other.

3. At the Select a Guest Operating System, select Other and Version Other.

4. For Virtual Machine Name, write MINIX3 (anything would work).

5. At the Memory screen, select the amount of memory for this Virtual Machine. 256 MBs is more than enough.

6. In Virtual Hard Disk screen we set the size and properties of the Virtual Hard Disk. The default is a 2GBs partition, which is sufficient.

7. Pressing Finish will create the Disk Image and the Virtual Machine that we will run.

Select network configuration and choose an adapter PCNET-PCI II (am79c970a).

3. Installation

Assuming you have downloaded and decompressed a MINIX 3 ISO image from the download page, you can mount the ISO file:

1. Select MINIX3 on the list on the left.

2. In the menu on the right, press CD/DVD-ROM.

3. In the next menu, tick Mount CD/DVD Drive, and select ISO Image File.

4. Browse, select the .iso Minix image we downloaded earlier and press OK.

Then you can follow the normal installation instructions.

Warning: select Lance (6) for network adapter.

When the installation is over, type

shutdown

to exit Minix. When you get the d0p0s0> prompt, select Machine-Close-Power off the machine from the menu, in order to shutdown the Virtual Machine.

4. Booting MINIX 3

Now you have installed MINIX 3 on the virtual machine. First thing that needs to be sorted, is that next time you boot, you want to boot from the operating system, and not from the CD image.

1. In the menu on the right, press CD/DVD-ROM.

2. In the next menu, untick Mount CD/DVD Drive

Great, now you can boot into the newly installed operating system.

1. Press the big Start Button on the main menu.

5. Post-install Configuration

You should read Post Installation for some configuration tips.

6. Workarounds

6.1. MINIX 3.1.5 / 3.1.6 install issue (w/o hardware acceleration)

1. You can enable hardware acceleration:
   • Verify that your processor has the virtualization extensions (VT-x, AMD-V)
   • Enable hardware acceleration in your BIOS.

   • Go to the Settings dialog for your VM image. Right-click your image and click Settings.

   • Click on System

   • Click on the Acceleration tab.

   • Check Enable VT-x/AMD-V.

2. If you aren't able to use hardware acceleration (e.g. VirtualBox 3.1.2 + Core 2 Duo + Minix 3.1.5):

   • Follow all the installation steps as above.

   • Uncheck Enable VT-x/AMD-V.

   • Start your VM with this command: VBoxSDL --startvm minix --norawr0 --norawr3.

   • Replace your VM image's name for minix in the preceding command.

6.2. Lance workaround

In MINIX 3.1.3, the Lance driver set-up is broken, resulting in no network support for Minix3 in VirtualBox.

You can use this set of instructions to get the Lance driver to work.