jnall%FSU.BITNET@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu (John Nall 904-644-5241) (06/01/89)
As both a teacher and a semi-hacker, I've followed the recent discussion about whether Minix should stay at the PC-level or go on to bigger and better things (actually, I guess it is a question of whether or not ast blesses it or not, since Minix is obviously moving that way by way of contributions). Anyway, for my own personal use, I would like to see it go the 386 etc. route and use all of the capabilities of the hardware. BUT....for classroom use and student comprehension, I have to side with ast. Keep it simple. These students have a lot of material to cover in a one-semester course, and a lot of midnight oil gets burned just getting some understanding of the PRESENT source. Also, in spite of what anyone says, the average student does not have access to any system larger than a clone PC with floppies. John Nall Computer Science Department Florida State University Tallahassee, FL 32316
jk0@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Jason Coughlin,,,) (06/02/89)
From article <16606@louie.udel.EDU>, by jnall%FSU.BITNET@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu (John Nall 904-644-5241): > Anyway, for my own personal use, I would like to see it go the 386 etc. route > and use all of the capabilities of the hardware. BUT....for classroom use > and student comprehension, I have to side with ast. Keep it simple. These > students have a lot of material to cover in a one-semester course, and a > lot of midnight oil gets burned just getting some understanding of the > PRESENT source. Also, in spite of what anyone says, the average student > does not have access to any system larger than a clone PC with floppies. I second the opinion. I just took the OS course with Minix, and I was the ONLY person who had Minix installed on a hard-disk. Everyone else was bi---ing about swapping floppies, etc. The original goal was a teaching OS - and we have it. Minix 1.2 is wonderful for a teaching OS (fixes bugs, but it's small and easy to move around), but KEEP it! Adding too much complicates the work of a student who has to figure out how processes are fork()ed, etc... If people want to build Minix into something bigger, great. But, call it something different and keep the two separate.