almquist@cis.udel.edu (Michael Almquist) (10/14/90)
In article <4936@crash.cts.com> jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) writes: >pezely@cis.udel.edu (Daniel Pezely) writes: [lots of good ideas from R+D Cowboy deleted . . .] >I started to see Andy's point about small being beautiful when I got ahold of >SunOS 4.1. Starting with SunOS 4.1, you can't put the entire OS on a Quantum >Quantum P-105S. It just won't fit. In fact, there's a rumor floating around >that Sun is going to start shipping their SPARCstations with a 200 Mb 3.5" >SCSI drive over the 105 Mb (maybe a P-210S). Gawd, I didn't think Sun could >blow up that kernel anymore, but they did. Rumor has it that the SunOS 4.1 can be stripped down to 19.5 Mb BUT, you wouldn't catch me running it like that (-: [lots of good info/thoughts from John deleted . . .] >I don't mind a good OS that does a lot, but it wouldn't surprise me if the >kernel gets to the point where it'll have a device driver for a Maytag >dishwasher. :) HAHAHAHAHA! I love it! But, seriously, where is Minix heading? I've just recently become a Minix beleiver. I had Xenix but, too big, too bulky and NO SOURCE! SunOS, a possibility, but short on cash. SO, Dr. T., where is Minix heading? I think that soon, P.H. and Dr. T. are going to have to realize that Minix is gaining more support and popularity. Perhaps, Xenix could be put out of business?!?!?!! (-: Seriously, what will P.H. and Dr. T. let us get away with? Minix is fun but Minix could certainly be upgraded to be an awesome development CHEAP platform. People have been talking for sometime about upgrading the FS - will P.H. and Dr. T. support it if someone hacks it out? How about getting a threadded FS, virtual memory, total 80X27 and Weitek math coprocessor support, NFS, a windowing system, swapping, etc. implemented? There has been rumors of sybolic link work, ANSI C compiler work, swapping completed, coprocessor support almost working, etc. This news group is funny, things disappear - its sort of like a black hole. You hear about great ideas/concepts/etc and then, it disappears never to be mentioned again. I'd love to be able to use COM1-COM4 and allow multi-users and I'd love to be able to use a windowing system without the FS bottleneck. I'm interested in starting to implement a windowing system based on MGR and other small windowing system but, the FS bottleneck is very restrictive. SO, what's going on? Where are we headed? Can WE help? On another side, what is TRUELY available for Minix? Do we have available either BETA or real versions of: o an improved FS? o virtual memory? o swapping? (there were rumors but I never saw anything more about it) o coprocessor support? o ANSI C compiler? o multiple COM1-4+ support? o any type of remote abilities? (rsh, rlogin, telnet, ftp, etc.) o a windowing system? How does one obtain beta stuff? I would be interested in being a test rat. Is anyone working on some of this stuff? Will we be able to get P.H. and or Dr. T. approval/support? Thanks for Minix, thanks for the 16/32 bit stuff, thanks for Virtual Console package, thanks! - Mike -- Michael Almquist <almquist@udel.edu> 70 Ethan Allen Ct., Newark, DE 19711 Comp Sci Lab, 102 Smith Hall, Univ of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716 (302)451-6339 "Don't believe me, I'm only a student"
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (10/14/90)
In article <33393@nigel.ee.udel.edu> almquist@cis.udel.edu (Michael Almquist) writes: > "Don't believe me, I'm only a student" Fair enough. What I'm working on now is POSIX. I am not terribly interested in adding new features to the kernel, FS, or MM, although I am less hostile to utility programs since they don't get in the way at least. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
tim%maths.tcd.ie@pucc.princeton.edu (Timothy Murphy) (10/15/90)
Would it be unduly optimistic to hope that Minix and GNU might marry? The aims and ideals seem so similar -- and it appears that GNU's Unix-lookalike is just a dream. Timothy Murphy e-mail: tim@maths.tcd.ie tel: +353-1-772941 x 1507 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
rcpieter@svin02.info.win.tue.nl (Tiggr) (10/15/90)
tim%maths.tcd.ie@pucc.princeton.edu (Timothy Murphy) writes: >Would it be unduly optimistic >to hope that Minix and GNU might marry? >The aims and ideals seem so similar -- They don't; you *pay* for minix. Tiggr
deo@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Steven Furber) (10/29/90)
In article <33393@nigel.ee.udel.edu> almquist@cis.udel.edu (Michael Almquist) writes: > >HAHAHAHAHA! I love it! But, seriously, where is Minix heading? I've [stuff removed] You posted quite a bit of ideas of possible additions (note: I do not use "improvements") for Minix. What needs to be kept in mind is that not all of us use the PC version of Minix. If things are going to be added to Minix, perhaps something that should be asked is what is it about Minix that makes people decide to use it? One of my major reasons was to get away from the severe restrictions of APPLE and their bloody Macintosh operating system (which is excellent-- if you love GUIs) and get into something that was portable. Most of the additions that you suggested are for the PC version of Minix. What about the rest of us out here that are not using PC's? Minix, from what Dr. T has written, was created as a learning tool. It looks like the learning may be more than just operating systems. Now it looks like people will get to learn about making the wonderful decisions of who they wish to support and who they wish to not. Hopefully people will decide that their additions to Minix will not be for any particular machine, and will (hopefully) apply to the majority of the Minix family. My more than two bits worth.
sgerakin@hawk.ulowell.edu (Steve Gerakines) (10/30/90)
> [stuff snipped] > If things are going to be added to Minix, >perhaps something that should be asked is what is it about Minix that makes >people decide to use it? One of my major reasons was to get away from the >severe restrictions of APPLE and their bloody Macintosh operating system (which >is excellent-- if you love GUIs) and get into something that was portable. From what I hear from a few of my Mac developer friends, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the popular reason for picking it up. However, I think there is more to it than that. Minix gives you the opportunity to shape your own personalized operating system. I love programming, so what was most appealing to me about Minix was that I could change whatever I wanted. If something doesn't work the way I like it, I change it. Someone previously mentioned a "black hole" where things are talked about but aren't written. As I said, I believe a lot of changes made to Minix are considered personal or system specific, which is why many "great new enhancements" never reach the net. This newsgroup helps dispense ideas for the Minix community. There are many more Minix users than creators, and I doubt there are many people that devote full-time to Minix, so it makes sense that there's some time delay between ideas and finished products. >Most of the additions that you suggested are for the PC version of Minix. What >about the rest of us out here that are not using PC's? Generally Minix upgrades and revisions are all applied to the IBM version of Minix, and changes for the rest of us usually follow. Other than system specific stuff, there's a great effort to keep the non-IBM community up to snuff with the latest IBM version. The respective people should be commended for their efforts. When I first started reading this newsgroup, I too thought a lot of people were IBM biased, but after all, that is what Minix was originally written for. Even if people present their ideas in IBM form, I know the rest of us are not forgotten. >Hopefully people will decide that their additions to Minix will not be for any >particular machine, and will (hopefully) apply to the majority of the Minix >family. For the most part that's usually how it is. But just because Minix is supposed to be considered a general operating system and not machine specific, I would hope no one would feel apprehensive about writing things to take advantage of one machine's abilities. It's silly to believe that everything posted here will be for the entire community. Operating Systems that are designed with the philosophy "to be everything to everyone" are doomed to failure. Personally I like Minix and its' "small is simple" philosophy. It gives people a building block to go from, and expand as they see fit. I'm sure Dr. Tanenbaum is well aware that Minix is growing beyond the classroom. I just hope that a POSIX compliant Minix doesn't forget its more simple ancestors. >My more than two bits worth. My three bits + checksum. :-) -Steve Gerakines ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Usenet: sgerakin@hawk.ulowell.edu | SteveNet: GENESIS:Steve2 | | UUCP: ...!harvard!swan!sgerakin@hawk | "My kingdom for a smoke!!!" | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
deo@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Steven Furber) (10/30/90)
In article <1391@ul-cs.ulowell.edu> sgerakin@hawk.ulowell.edu (Steve Gerakines) writes: > >Personally I like Minix and its' "small is simple" philosophy. It gives >people a building block to go from, and expand as they see fit. I'm >sure Dr. Tanenbaum is well aware that Minix is growing beyond the >classroom. I just hope that a POSIX compliant Minix doesn't forget >its more simple ancestors. What I am mainly worried about is that people are talking about an "Internet Minix Kernel" or "Extended Kernel" (the first name was probably due to a great deal of us reading the news on the Internet) that would be a superset of the current kernel. What I'm worried about is that if such a beast ever comes into being a lot of us will be left further behind than we are; the documentation-- as should be expected since it was written for the PC to begin with --is pretty much focused on the PC version. The main reasons that I bought Minix had to do with me not wanting to have to prgram Mac applications for all of the text manipulation programs I do, my preference for UNIX being what operating system I develop things under, and the rather open nature for the operating system itself. If my previous post sounded like I was screaming "Don't develop any machine specific stuff!" then I didn't write very clearly.