veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de (du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de) (10/11/90)
From veit Thu Oct 11 09:51:49 1990 Return-Path: <veit> Received: by du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA02131; Thu, 11 Oct 90 09:51:48 +0100 Date: Thu, 11 Oct 90 09:51:48 +0100 From: veit (du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de) Message-Id: <9010110851.AA02131@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de> To: veit Subject: post failed Status: R Remote error: 441 User usenet does not exist! Can't post. /usr/local/bin/inews failed Your response has been saved in ~/dead.letter Your article/letter follows: Probably another candidate for the list of FAQ, but I need a clear yes- or no-statement. We do use Minix in our computer science lessons for demonstrating some properties of UNIX and UNIX-like file systems (you know, inodes and such stuff). Unfortunately, unlike MSDOS, it is still impossible to install and therefore protect Minix on a Novell-Net Server. Some questions have come up whether it is possible to give a copy of the PC-MINIX 1.2 discs to students for their own studies. It it obvious that this will lead to a wide spread of Minix. We think that this would not cause very much harm since the official release is 1.5.whatever; so 1.2 is far out of date. 1. Is it allowed to sell (price of the floppies about 5$) the nine 360k discs of Minix 1.2 to students for their studies? 2. If not, may we at least copy the binaries disks (Boot, Ramdisk, /usr) excluding the sources? (In our lessons we examine the file system with DOS programs like SUPERZAP and do not have a close look at the C sources). Thanks in advance Holger Veit Faculty of EE Dept. for Dataprocessing University of Duisburg
cccbrian@pollux (Brian C Hill) (10/15/90)
> We do use Minix in our computer science lessons for demonstrating some > properties of UNIX and UNIX-like file systems (you know, inodes and such > stuff). So do we. > Some questions have come up whether it is possible to give a copy of > the PC-MINIX 1.2 discs to students for their own studies. It it obvious that > this will lead to a wide spread of Minix. We think that this would not > cause very much harm since the official release is 1.5.whatever; so 1.2 > is far out of date. > > 1. Is it allowed to sell (price of the floppies about 5$) the nine 360k > discs of Minix 1.2 to students for their studies? > > 2. If not, may we at least copy the binaries disks (Boot, Ramdisk, /usr) > excluding the sources? (In our lessons we examine the file system with > DOS programs like SUPERZAP and do not have a close look at the C sources). I didn't really see an answer to this which brings up my problem. We have plenty of computing facilities on campus but just a few atuhentic IBM AT's that have been set up to run minix for our OS class (ecs150), in which about 60 students are enrolled this quarter. As a result, many of us have attempted to run minix on our own PC's.. We have discovered that Minix 1.2 will not boot completely from clones. We get the error ass soon as we type '='. Sometimes we get a diagnostic like this one: Unexpected trap: vector < 16 pc = 0x13E text+data+bss = 0x9A00 Does someone know how to get an boot image (to be de-imaged with the appropriate disk/media image program) for minix 1.2 that will work with clones? It seems to me that if you have problems with minix once it boots, ftp text patch code is no problem to dosread and doswrite but if you can't even get the thing to boot, your stuck. I have a "Gene-II" 386/20 (Ok, ok, so it's not a PS2/80), if that helps anyone. I have no intention of using minix for commercial or other non-educational purposes (doubtful that anyone else in my class does either), so I am wondering if it is also *legal* get such a boot image without having to pay a lot for it. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. This effort is on behalf of the Computer Science Dept here, so the motives should be thought of as strictly educational. Possibly, the department might consider buying 1.5 at some point. > Holger Veit > Faculty of EE > Dept. for Dataprocessing > University of Duisburg +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Brian C. Hill INTERNET: cccbrian@pollux.ucdavis.edu | | * VMS/Ultrix/Sun OS Consultant BITNET: bchill@ucdavis | | * /etc/news Administrator UUCP: ucdavis!bchill | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Computing Services PHONE: (916) 752-3217 | | University of California, Davis FAX: (916) 752-9154 | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \ "...and they want me to program with pipes - Do I look like a plumber?" / +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+