www:documentation:improvements

MINIX 3 has many improvements over MINIX 2, too many to list. We will just list a few of them here.

New Features

Installation (based on a live CD) is much simpler
X Window System
Memory sizes up to 4 GB are supported
Disk blocks can be 1-, 2-, 4-, or 8-KB
The select system call has been added
Many new programs including gcc, g++, emacs, nvi, vim, bison, python, perl, GNU utilities
An information server has been added for debugging and other purposes
A reincarnation server automatically kills and replaces faulty device drivers on the fly

The kernel has been heavily rewritten, cleaned up, and reduced to under 4000 lines of code
Each device driver (except the clock) is now a separate user process
Many new reliability features have been added
A new nonblocking notification mechanism for IPC has been added
Timer management has been improved and simplified
Scheduling has been made more general
A bit map controls which destinations a process can send to
A bit map controls which kernel calls drivers and servers can make
Control of 'superuser-like' powers for kernel calls have been modularized
Interrupt notification and messages have been integrated