jnall%FSU.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (John Nall 904-644-5241) (10/03/88)
Reading the different pieces of correspondence with regard to MINIX, it is apparent that there is a broad spectrum of expertise interested in this system. These appear to range from rank novices to professional system programmers (who must do this for relaxation -- kind of a busman's holiday). The point being (after that tangential introduction) that there are many who are quite capable of following all the twists and turns of upgrading from 1.2 (or 1.1) to a working 1.3. Some will never be capable of it, even if it is handed to them on a silver platter. And most of us (I modestly include myself in this category!) can do the busy work, and correct some of the more obvious errors, but because of either level-of-expertise, or time constraints, or both, find it difficult to do everything and wind up with a working system. Therefore, (finally, he gets to the bottom line!!) if there is someone who has gone through 3+ upgrades (1.2-->1.3a-->1.3b-->1.3c-->glitches) and wants to make available to the vast majority of us a single package (preferably on floppy disk(s)) I suspect there are more people than me who would be willing to shell out a few bucks to get it. Since we are only talking about an UPDATE rather than original source code, there should not be any objections (other than on idealistic grounds). In case anyone is interested, I teach an Operating Systems course, and use MINIX for lab. I the Spring, I intend to teach a Computer Networking course, using Andy's Second Edition of Computer Networking. (Sorry Zenith keyboard... that should have read "In the Spring...") and would like to have 1.3 available to the students. But I'm scared of depending on PH for January!!!). JOHN NALL COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (10/04/88)
In article <4364@louie.udel.EDU> jnall%FSU.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (John Nall 904-644-5241) writes: > if there is someone who >has gone through 3+ upgrades (1.2-->1.3a-->1.3b-->1.3c-->glitches) and wants >to make available to the vast majority of us a single package (preferably on >floppy disk(s)) I suspect there are more people than me who would be willing >to shell out a few bucks to get it. I am not sure how many people are confused by all the updates. With some prodding, I could conceivably make up a directory-by-directory cdiff listing of the definitive 1.2==>1.3 update. This will no doubt be huge, and the net gods will rain their wrath upon me if I posted it, but I could send it to the archives to allow people who haven't succeeded in upgrading to do so. As to selling floppy disks, I don't think that is a good idea. Suppose 1000 people asked you for the upgrade it, which I reckon is about 5 disks worth. You might wear out your disk drive, and besides, P-H might not like the idea much. In any event, I have made up an upgrade kit which P-H will sell around the end of the year (if all goes well). It has the full 1.3 sources, and some important binaries (C compiler, ELLE, patch). It is 6 full 360K disks, and will sell for substantially less than the $80 for the original. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
limes@ouroborous (Greg Limes) (10/19/88)
Greetings -- I just acquired a copy of Minix, unfortuantely version 1.2 for the IBM PC. Is there any easy way to get the most current revisions for the AT, for instance by anonymous FTP? -- Greg Limes [limes@sun.com] semper ubi, sub ubi