rob@cs.mu.oz.au (Robert Wallen) (01/11/90)
The subject really sez it all. A while back, a message was posted about Macintosh Minix and how it would not be getting official support from P-H unless there was going to be a demand for it; a request was made for people to post there 'interest'. Having been away from the net for over a month, I was wondering if anything ever came of it? Are P-H going to distribute MacMinix? Thanx in advance, Rob -------------- "I meant," said Ipslore, bitterly, "what is there in this world that makes living worth while?" Death thought about it. CATS, he said eventually, CATS ARE NICE. -- Sourcery, Terry Pratchett
knapp@cs.utexas.edu (Edgar Knapp) (01/11/90)
In article <2931@murtoa.cs.mu.oz.au> rob@cs.mu.oz.au (Robert Wallen) writes:
[Question about existence of MacMINIX deleted]
Joe Pickert of ArcheType, Inc. implemented MacMINIX, the Mac version
of MINIX. It is in beta test right now, and as I am one of the
reviewers I have a few comments. I am, however, not an expert on
MINIX, but know a little about Macs and UNIX.
The version I am looking at is a rough port of MINIX 1.3. It bears the
strong flavor (or should I say odor) of MeSsDOS and the PC, the
integration into the Mac system and interface leaves much to be
desired.
What disturbed me most were the following:
- mined may be great on a PC, but without mouse support on the Mac it
feels utterly preposterous. Also there is no keyboard support for
scrolling, copying, and pasting. Being used to gnu-emacs, mined just
doesn't cut it. And the size restrictions Andy claims are the reason
behind mined don't apply to Macs in the first place.
- the link to the Mac file system is rudimentary. One has to manually
import and export single files, and then copy from and to /dev/efs
to introduce them to MINIX. Why not automatically mount the Mac
file system on /mac, say?
- so far there is no printing support short of manually exporting a
text file to the Mac file system and printing it from there.
- in case of crashes you even lose _SAVED_ MINIX workfiles, changes to
passwords, etc. I find this absolutely intolerable, but I don't
know whether this MINIX's fault or the Mac implementation's (does
the RAM disk have anything to do with that?).
- I haven't been able to test the C compiler because I was unable to
run it (what does an asterisk behind a file name mean, anyway?).
- Since I absolutely hate *roff, what am I going to do about MINIX
and text processing?
In short, I think MacMINIX in its current state may be a neat toy for
students of Operating Systems classes, but not much more (am I missing
the point here?).
Edgar
(knapp@cs.utexas.edu)MACFS@levels.sait.edu.au (Chris Steketee) (01/16/90)
In article <7550@cs.utexas.edu>, knapp@cs.utexas.edu (Edgar Knapp) writes a bad
review of MacMinix.
His comments disturb me, because:
1. He seems not to understand that the purpose of Minix is education about
Operating System design and construction. Minix is *not* intended as a
commercial operating system to compete with Xenix or Apple's A/UX or
whatever. This applies to MacMinix just as it does to PC Minix.
If P-H asked him to beta-test / review MacMinix without this basic
information, they are going to get a review based on a false premise. You
can't test or review something if you don't know what it's for.
2. This sort of attitude on the part of reviewers may lead to P-H deciding not
to publish MacMinix and/or Amiga Minix. Which would leave considerable
numbers of us disappointed, not to say hopping mad.
By and large, the details of the review sound like MacMinix is in at least as
good a state as PC Minix was in its early days. Less than perfect, certainly.
But this did not stop PC Minix being a great success for OS education (as well
as for hackers). And which gives lots of opportunity for setting student
exercises to add features.
The non-functioning of the C compiler *is* a problem that, if real, needs to be
fixed before P-H release.
Chris Steketee,
School of Maths and Computer Studies,
S.A. Institute of Technology, Adelaide, Australia
macfs@levels.sait.oz.au