Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au!chook.ua.oz!cagney
From: cagney@chook.ua.oz (Andrew Cagney - aka Noid)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Getting MINIX for 386 PC
Message-ID: <1082@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au>
Date: 28 Jun 90 23:48:23 GMT
Sender: news@ucs.adelaide.edu.au
Reply-To: cagney@chook.ua.oz (Andrew Cagney - aka Noid)
Organization: Comp Sci, Uni of Adelaide, Australia
Lines: 28


I got mailed the following question, I think the answer may be of interest
to others.

> Need a brief answer from you. I have a 386 PC clone, running DOS, wanna
> switch to Minix World. Can I do this from scratch given what's available
> on 129.127.40.3?

The answer to that is a simple *No*. MINIX is copyright PH so I can't have
the entire MINIX sources, ftp'able on ftp.adelaide, just like no one else can.
What is made available is patches against the PH versions of minix. (*) So once
you've purchased the IBM version (which runs on a 386 in 16 bit mode) from PH
you can apply patches and get the 32 bit 386 version. 

> If yes, can build everything using MicroSoft C and Assembler?
> If no, what would I have to do? Pointers to relevant info. would be good.
> Thank you very much.

MINIX comes with a C compiler which tends to be SLOW on a 8086 PC. But on a
386 it's usable.

There's a monthly posting that gives more information.

						Andrew Cagney

PH = Prentice Hall Publishing.
* They really are patches, if there is an old version of the file *any*where*
  then I used it to produce a diff.