rtregn@immd3.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Robert Regn) (02/02/89)
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum): > Sort of out of the blue, a got a letter from a student in Eindhoven (in Holland) > named Adrie Koolen who has had MINIX running on a PS/2 model 60 for a year. > He is not on any net and knows nothing about all our discussions. He also has > implemented a large number of 1.3 features on his own, including extended > memory for the AT, bad block handling, softscrolling, RS232, LED control, > foreign keyboard support, bad block handling, and other things. He also > built a distributed system for diskless MINIX workstations. Furthermore > he documented all of this in great detail (in Dutch). When he turned it > in, his teachers said it was dumb and a waste of time. They felt he ought > to go back to something important (like learning how to solder wires together?). Most of Adrie's features minix 1.3 has now, too. But what about diskless MINIX workstations ?? How is it implemented ? Is a remote mount possible ? This could be great for a teaching net of cheap PC's in an university. Can we (=people on the net) see this code and also the dutch documentation ?? Robert Regn rtregn@faui32.uucp rtregn@immd3.informatik.uni-erlangen.de
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (02/04/89)
In article <824@faui10.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> rtregn@immd3.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Robert Regn) writes: > >But what about diskless MINIX workstations ?? How is it implemented ? The networking uses RS232 not a LAN, making it somewhat unattractive. Also, it is based on a very hacked up 1.2 kernel. He sort of assumed that everyone has a PS/2 Model 50/60, and removed code not relevant to that configuration. I am not about to translate and type in 50 pages of report. I think a much better approach to diskless workstations is to start from 1.3. After all, that has complete Ethernet support and working RPC in it. MINIX is already meassage based, so what you have to do is make messages from users to the local FS to go to the global FS. For example, turn FS into a dummy process that simply catches messages sent to it, and forward them via RPC to a remote file server. I don't think that is a lot of work, and it fits with the current software much better than a PS/2 version of 1.2. For another approach, look at example 3 in the Amoeba directory included in 1.3. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)