marke@richs118.cpg.trs.reuter.com (Mark Ellis) (04/26/91)
About a week or two ago, I posted questions regarding Minix vs. Coherent. (Trying to decide which to purchase.) I have received a lot of responses as well as many inquiries, so in this posting I'll try to summarize what I have learned. I will repeat the original questions within this text, followed by a summary of the responses I received. In some cases, I am quoting responses without giving credit where due, but please overlook this plagerism (but special note, Paul Allen's words are used within here frequently; thanks Paul). Thanks! (For those unaware, Coherent is similar to the Minix concept, but no source is included. Check out comp.os.coherent if you're interested. I decided for my purposes Coherent was the way to go & that is what I just purchased. Thus far, for $100 I am d*mn impressed with what you get. But if source code for the tools & kernel are vital to you, or you can't live without the 386 version immediately, then Minix is the way to go. Seems like porting things to Coherent should be a similar effort to porting things to Minix is my guess.) In article <1648@richsun.cpg.trs.reuter.com> you write: > >1. What shell is delivered with Minix? Is Korn Shell available (what cost?) Minix comes with the Bourne shell. No ksh, csh, or tcsh. On a 386, you can run bash, which has csh-like aliases and history. Coherent comes with the Bourne shell. >2. How much disk space is required for the complete system? 10 Meg is a good number to say as a minimum for both OS's. The difference is that space includes the source for Minix. Coherent takes that amount for the tools/etc. that comes with it (it doesn't include source.) If you want to do anything interesting (with Minix), like recompile the system or port GNU software, you need a lot more space. To recompile the system, you probably need to start with about 10Mb FREE space. "I ran quite nicely for a long time with a 40Mb Minix partition." >3. all development tools included (especially awk, lex, yacc)? A minimal awk clone comes with Minix. Flex works fine as a lex replacement. Berkeley yacc and bison work fine as yacc replacements. I've recently gotten GNU awk to compile with gcc, but it appears to have some sort of floating point trouble. Needs work. No debugger comes with Minix. (Note, not sure if these comments regarding gnu products apply only to the 386 version of Minix.) Coherent includes awk, lex, yacc (all of which are pretty good, but probably not as complete as the gnu counterparts.) Coherent comes with an assembly debugger (no 'C' source level debugger.) >4. How reliable is it on a 386 machine; I mean is it pretty stable/robust? Absolutely rock-solid. "I've been running in 32-bit mode for over a year and have never had a crash or lost a file." >5. Has anyone used both Coherent & Minix and have a preference? Why? I haven't used Coherent. It seems to me that Minix and Coherent are not really competitive products. If you want a turn-key Unix clone that you don't have to worry about, Coherent is probably great. The availability of sources for Minix makes for a very large and active user community. It's a lot of fun, I think. I wouldn't even consider Coherent unless they had a 386 version. (As far as I know, Coherent's still 16-bit small-model, but I don't try to keep up with it.) True. However, Mark Wms Company is working on 386 version of Coherent; possibly due out end of this year??? >6. I understand there is a 32 bit version; is that direct from Prentice/Hall >or is it a hack job? The 32-bit 386 version was done by Bruce Evans. All of the hooks for 32-bit mode are in the PH version. To actually go to 32-bit mode, you need Bruce's 386 compiler, it's associated library, and a few simple patches. SORRY FOR SAYING "HACK JOB", AS EVERYONE SEEMS TO AGREE THAT BRUCE'S 386 VERSION IS VERY, VERY SOLID! >7. Has anyone tried to get 'X' to run on it? This would be a definite selling >point for me! Someone just posted "Mini-X" to the Minix group. It required the 386 Minix. Don't know how much like "X" it is or is not. Nothing available for Coherent yet as far as "X" goes. "X" itself would definitely require a 386 version of the OS though. >8. Is the 'C' compiler ANSI compliant? RE: Minix -> The 1.5 compiler is K&R only. The 2.0 compiler will be ANSI, I understand. On a 386, you can run gcc, which is ANSI. New Minix will probably be out end of the year. Coherent's compiler is also non-ansi compliant, but has some ansi extensions. >9. Is there much public source available? If so, where is a popular >site to get >it from? There's more than I can keep up with. plains.nodak.edu seems to be the best Minix archive site, although there are several others listed in the Minix Information Sheet. You can wait until the first of the month when it'll be posted again. RE: Coherent. Unsure, but seems to be growing & porting from Minix public sources. Check out comp.os.coherent (just started a couple of weeks ago.) >10. What is the usual upgrade charge for a new OS release? It's free if you get the upgrade off the net and apply it yourself. I believe PH has offered upgrades for a nominal charge, but I don't remember what the cost was. New package prices: Coherent: $100 (update charge - ?) Minix: $169 or $179 (I'm not sure.) Hope this helped!