dtynan@sultra.UUCP (Dermot Tynan) (08/27/88)
Firstly: I don't have a newsfeed, so I haven't been monitoring this newsgroup. Please don't bitch to me about '... already posted', etc, and please use `mail' to reply to this message. I want to modify the Minix (Version 1.2) kernel to add a device driver for an IBM-PC COM port. It seems to me, that in *this* environment, this has probably been done already. If so, does anyone have a `diff' or similar, of the changes? Because the tty.c file is so large (mined refuses to touch it), I split it into three files; i) tty.c - The supposed `machine-independant' stuff. ii) cons.c - The machine-dependant console driver. iii) serial.c - A file to (hopefully) house the serial stuff. Why is it, that the `machine-independant' portion of the driver is concerned with MAKE-BREAK interrupts? Comments anyone?? Another pet project is to make several `virtual terminals' with the console, so that it looks like many terminals. (Use an ALT-KEY type deal to flip between each 'tty' - thanks to the people at Sritek and Motorola for that idea). Anyone tried anything like that? Yet a third thing I'd like to do, is scrap the idea of /dev/ram, and use my hard disk instead. I can never seem to execute stuff because either /dev/ram fills up, or I run out of memory. I'm willing to pay a speed penalty for this (I can run compiles in the background, finally). Has anyone tried this?? Is there something I'm missing, that says this can't be done?? Also, another peeve, is having to copy the root file system back out to floppy, if I change anything (like a password), which I always forget to do. As a final comment, I am surprised at some of the `bugs' that are still in the system. I tried to rebuild the library, using the script thar Art Zemon (@ filenet??) wrote, only to discover that whoever had pulled it off the net left the .signature file at the end (/bin/sh really loved that one :-) If someone had actually tried the script (which is a neat piece of code), they would have spotted this. Overall, the packaging was worse (much worse) than most of the stuff that is passed (freely!) over the net. Again, comments anyone?? For example, I decided I didn't need another book telling me how an operating system works, so I just bought the code from Prentice-Hall. Imagine my surprise, when; a) Absolutely zero - nada - zip - documentation. Not even a photocopy of something. b) I boot the system up, and get prompted for a password. Now what! I eventually loaded the *whole* disk into MS-DOS, scanned until I found the /etc/passwd file, and extracted the :password: field. I mean, really! OK, so besides that, it's great. If this is *old* news to most people, I apologize. As I've mentioned, I can't get this newsgroup. Also, this may not be the place for this submission, but until someone tells me different, it's the only minix newsgroup I know. Thanks for the patience... - Der -- ME: dtynan@sultra.UUCP (Dermot Tynan) postmaster@sultra.UUCP or: pyramid!sultra!dtynan or: Dermot Tynan, Ultrasystems DSI, Sunnyvale, CA 94089