eesrajm@cc.brunel.ac.uk (Andrew J Michael) (04/18/91)
In article <910416742@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org>, waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org (Fred 'The Rebel' van Kempen) writes: > Because MINIX was intended as a "simple OS that even a second-year > student could understand", MINIX lacks some of the things (read: > features) that are nice (actually: needed) when people start _using_ > MINIX. After a long and hard battle (:-) with Andy, we at NLMUG > decided it was time for a version of MINIX that was not necessarily > supported by Andy (i.e.: we had to apply all future patches ourselves, > and do our own research on top of that), but which was more _usable_ > on the real world. (Details of Advanced MINIX deleted) > Hope this helps a bit, > > Fred N. van Kempen As one who has been there before, let me inject a word of caution into this. A long time ago, when MINIX-ST was at version 1.1, a lot of ST owners were unhappy that MINIX-PC had got to 1.3 and MINIX-ST hadn't. Foremost among these was Jhawar Bammi, who got gcc to run on the ST, and then used it to produce an enhanced version of MINIX-ST known as gkernel. Gkernel was miles ahead of its time. It had virtual consoles before the PC had even thought of them, and had other goodies like nice and support for tape drives. I used it for a long time, and The MINIX Centre also agreed to distribute it in the UK. However, it had one major problem - because of the nature of the beast, it gradually grew further and further away from the "genuine" MINIX as sold by Prentice Hall. Because of changes in header files and libraries it got to the state where programs that compiled under normal MINIX wouldn't compile under gkernel. Then MINIX-1.5 came out. Ooops! Now what to do ? The MINIX Centre now had to make a choice between supporting an improved but non-standard gkernel, or moving to the official MINIX-1.5. After much discussion, it was decided to move to 1.5, and alter the gcc libraries to suit. But most of The MINIX Centre customers had stated that they wanted a "Go Faster" version of MINIX rather than the standard offering. So The MINIX Centre produced M-Kernel, which is basically an enhanced version of MINIX-1.5, with some extras added and all compiled with gcc. On the ST this dhrystones at about twice the speed of the P-H MINIX-ST; the 386 version doesn't show quite that level of improvement. In terms of code the 68k and 386 versions are as close as possible, for ease of maintenance. So, we already have at least two "Go Faster" versions of MINIX. I don't know what Fred's version looks like, and I don't suppose he has seen M-Kernel either. What is certain is that neither of them are anything like what Andy Tanenbaum has on his disk. So what do we do when the official P-H MINIX-2.0 is released ? Change it all back again, or carry on with versions of MINIX which are completely different to P-H ? Just be careful. -- Andy Michael "You might think that. I 85 Hawthorne Crescent couldn't possibly comment." West Drayton - `House of Cards' Middlesex email: eesrajm@brunel.ac.uk UB7 9PA or Andrew.Michael@brunel.ac.uk
X913%DMAFHT1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Martin Sckopke) (05/14/91)
Hi Andy
I just got the uk.minix things form plains and now I got a question:
How much memory do I have to give the different parts of the gnu
C-Compiler. I only got 2 MB on my machine and that's not enough if
I use the supplied binaries. So perhaps you know the minimum memory
I have to allocate for the Compiler passes. Is it possible to get
it working with 2 MB on Minix ST 1.5.10#3, or should I stip down
the virtual consoles, the ram Disk and so on.
Thanks in advance for any answer
! f u cn rd ths,
Martin Sckopke (X913@DMAFHT1) ! u cn gt a gd jb
! n cmptr prgrmn.HBO043%DJUKFA11.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Christoph van Wuellen) (05/15/91)
For the GCC compiler on ST MINIX, 4MByte are much better than 2MByte. I think a recommended chmem value for gcc-cc1 is 2.5 MByte. C.v.W.
spa@fct.unl.pt (Salvador Pinto Abreu) (05/16/91)
on 15 May 91 08:16:33 GMT,
HBO043%DJUKFA11.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Christoph van Wuellen) said:
> I think a recommended chmem value for gcc-cc1 is 2.5 MByte.
OK, but most sources will compile w/o any problems with a much smaller
value, usually around 1M is enough. This is a must if you want to run
GNU Emacs as well, and enjoy the pleasures of M-x compile :-)
You can then temporarily raise this whenever there's trouble, which is
very infrequent in my experience.
--
-- Salvador Pinto Abreu spa@fct.unl.pt
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, PORTUGAL