Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!ogicse!plains!overby From: overby@plains.NoDak.edu (Glen Overby) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Minix Information Sheet (Last Changed: 1990) Summary: Everything you ever wanted to know about Minix on the networks, but never dared to ask! Keywords: info answers Message-ID: Date: 1 Sep 90 07:00:23 GMT Expires: 1 Oct 90 00:00:00 GMT Reply-To: overby@plains.nodak.edu (Glen Overby) Followup-To: comp.os.minix Organization: North Dakota State University, Fargo ND, USA Lines: 603 Supersedes: Send Compatability Report updates to: Craig McLaughlin Send all other updates to Glen Overby [Most recent change: 26 Aug 1990 by overby@Plains.nodak.edu (Glen Overby)] [Original From ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum ) 88/02/23] MINIX INFORMATION SHEET 1. WHAT IS MINIX? MINIX is an operating system that is a subset of UNIX Version 7. It con- tains nearly all the V7 system calls, and these calls are identical to the corresponding V7 calls. It also includes a Bourne-compatible shell, and close to 100 utility programs, including cc, grep, ls, make, etc. To the average user, it is effectively V7 UNIX. If you dig deep enough, you will, however, find some differences. The MINIX kernel has been written from scratch by Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl). It does not contain ANY AT&T code at all. The utility programs have been written by Andy Tanenbaum, his students, and a number of other people, including people on USENET. None of the utilities contain any AT&T code either. The shell, the Pascal and C compilers, make, etc. have all been completely redone. As a result, this code is not covered by the ATT UNIX license, and it can be made available. 2. IS MINIX PUBLIC DOMAIN? No. MINIX has been copyrighted by Prentice-Hall. Prentice-Hall has decid- ed to permit a limited amount of copying of the sources and binaries for educational use. Professors may make copies for students in their operat- ing systems classes. Academic researchers may use it for their new experi- mental machines, and things like that. A small amount of private copying of diskettes for the use of personal friends is ok, but please do not make more than 3 copies from each original. Prentice-Hall is trying to be more reasonable than most software publishers. Please do not abuse this. On- line repositories of the full source code distribution are not permitted. All commercial uses of MINIX require written permission from Prentice-Hall; for the most part, they are willing to grant such permission in return for a royalty on sales. 3. HOW CAN I FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MINIX? MINIX is described in detail in the following book: Title: Operating Systems: Design and Implementation Author: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Publisher: Prentice-Hall ISBN: 0-13-637406-9 (Hardcover) 0-13-637331-3 (Paperback, outside of U.S. and Canada) 0-13-584400-2 (Reference Manual) There are also French, German, Italian and Spanish translations of the book available or due out soon. The paperback MINIX Reference Manual is a sub- set of the book; It contains only the MINIX specific information, not the general background stuff on operating systems that the book contains. The software package does not contain a manual; this is contained in the appen- dices to the book, which also contain a complete source code listing (in C) of the version 1.1 MINIX kernel. 4. HOW CAN I GET MINIX? Minix is copyrighted by Prentice-Hall, and is available ONLY from Prentice-Hall and it's distributors. The following versions of Minix are available (as of 8/90): MINIX 1.3 for 640K IBM PC $79.95 (0-13-583444-9) MINIX 1.3 for 512K IBM PC/AT $79.95 (0-13-583303-5) MINIX 1.1 sources on mag tape $79.95 MINIX 1.3 code + reference manual (PC) $116 (0-13-584426-6) MINIX 1.3 code + reference manual (AT) $116 (0-13-584418-5) MINIX-PC upgrade (1.2 to 1.3) $29.95 (0-13-584723-0) (Sources *ONLY* -- you will need to already have a working PC-Minix system to use this). MINIX 1.1 for the Atari ST $79.95 (0-13-584392-8) The only disks that come with ANY documentation are the ones listed as "code + reference manual". If you do not get a reference manual, you will need the book. MINIX is being sold by: In USA: Prentice-Hall Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 1-800-223-1360 1-800-624-0023 (Software Department) 1-201-767-5937 In England: Prentice-Hall Int'l 66 Wood Lane End, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP2 4RG England +44 442 231555 The Minix Centre Forncett End Norwich Norfolk NR16 1HT England 0953-89345 In Germany: Steve Steinkrauf Feldtorweg 24 D3406 Bovenden 1 FRG In Holland: Prentice-Hall Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg and p/a Fred van Kempen France) Postbus 184 2100 AD Heemtede Holland Tel.: (+31) (0) 23 287935 Fax.: (+31) (0) 23 294229 MicroWalt Corporation Hoefbladhof 27 2215 DV Voorhout Holland Tel.: (+31) (0) 252 230 205 In Scandinavia: Frank O'Donell P.O. Box 88 1371 Asker Norway In Spain Deborah Worth and Portugal: Appartado Numero 50672 Madrid Spain In Italy: Jim Blaho Via Manzani 50 50018 Scandicci Florence Italy In Greece: Vassilis Zahos Kriconas 57 GR11634 Athens Greece In Turkey: Attilla Gullu Millinudafaa Cad 14/7 Kizilay Ankara Turkey The C compiler used on Minix is derived from the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (ACK). The sources are available from the following companies; contact them for pricing and other information. UniPress Software Transmediair Utrecht BV 2025 Lincoln Highway Melkweg 3 Edison, NJ 08817 3721 RG Bilthoven USA Holland Tel: (201) 985-8000 Tel: +31 (30) 281820 As this compiler belongs to the Vrije Universiteit, and the royalties the sales generate are used to allow graduate students to travel to confer- ences, you should not to copy or further distribute the software from UniPress and Transmediair. These ground rules are different than for MINIX itself. 5. HOW MANY VERSIONS OF MINIX ARE THERE AND HOW DO THEY DIFFER? MINIX was originally written for the IBM PC, XT, and AT. It has since been ported to the NS32000, 68000 and SPARC. At present there are four versions for the IBM PC line: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.5.10. Each version contains many bug fixes and other improvements over previous versions. The differences between the XT and AT versions are the distribution media (360K and 1.2M, respectively) and which hard disk driver the boot disk is compiled for. In both cases, you get full sources for all available hard disk drivers. Version 1.5 includes drivers for the serial ports, and several hard disk controlers, including XT, AT, PS/2 and ROM BIOS. It will run in Protected mode on 80286 and greater processors, using all available memory, but will still run in REAL mode on the 8088. Initial work to make Minix compliant with the IEEE Portable Operating System standard (POSIX) is present in v1.5, but is incomplete. A list of clones on which MINIX has been tested is available in the "Minix Compatibility Report". This report is periodically posted to the Usenet group comp.os.minix, and is available from several archive sites. It is maintained by Craig McLaughlin . Both V1.1 and V1.2 are obsolete and are no longer available from Prentice- Hall. Version 1.5 is not yet available. There is one version for the Atari ST line, V1.1 which is equivalent to PC-Minix V1.3. A version equivalent to PC-Minix 1.5 is due out within a year. Watch the net for a formal announcement. Ports to the Macintosh and Amiga are due out within a year. Watch the net for a formal announcement. The current development path for Minix is to make it fully POSIX compliant, and will be accompanied by a new edition of the book. This is not a trivi- al project, and as such will not be available for several years. There are ports of Minix for the SPARC and NS 32000 processors, allthough there are no announced plans for distributing them as of yet. The NS 32000 group has had active discussions about Minix on comp.sys.ns32k. 6. WHAT PROGRAMS COME WITH MINIX The list below gives the programs that are distributed with Version 1.3 for the IBM PC: animals ar ascii asld ast at atrun badblocks banner basename cal cat cc cdiff chgrp chmem chmod chown clr cmp comm compress cp cpdir crc cron date dd df diff diskcheck dosdir dosread doswrite du echo ed elle ellec expr factor fdisk fgrep file find fix fsck getlf grep gres head help kill libpack libupack ln login lorder lpr ls make mined mkdir mkfs mknod more mount mv nm od passwd paste patch pr prep printenv pwd rcp readall readclock readfs rev rm rmdir roff sed sh shar size sleep sort spell split strings strip stty su sum sync tail tar tee term termcap test time touch tr traverse treecmp true tset tsort tty umount uncompress uniq update uudecode uuencode vol wc whereis which who whoami zcat 7. HOW DO I KEEP UP TO DATE ABOUT MINIX. If you are on USENET, subscribe to newsgroup comp.os.minix. There are about 26,000 people in this group, and new software, bug fixes, and general discussion about MINIX take place here. If you are on BITNET or ARPANET, you can get this newsgroup via a mailing list, info-minix. To subcribe to the list, send a message to listserv@vm1.nodak.edu (Internet) or listserv@ndsuvm1 (Bitnet) saying: signup minix-l Your_Full_Name If you have trouble, contact the list maintainer at info-minix- request@udel.edu. 8. WHERE CAN I GET PAST POSTINGS AND PROGRAMS? Many sites keep archives of MINIX-related material, ranging from archives of articles posted to more organized repositories of programs. List Archives bugs.nosc.mil Current louie.udel.edu July '87 - Dec '89 (?) vm1.nodak.edu Current year wsmr-simtel20.army.mil July '87 - Dec '89 (?) Formal Archives All the known sites with archives of Minix sources are: aerospace.aero.org doc.ic.ac.uk dsrgsun.ces.cwru.edu en.ecn.purdue.edu funet.fi hobbes.cs.umd.edu hub.cs.jmu.edu The Mars Hotel BBS NL-MUG plains.nodak.edu sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au terminator.cc.umich.edu 8.1. File Transfer on the Internet If you are on the Internet, you can get files from many places with the file transfer protocol ("FTP"). When connecting to the host system, use the user-name "anonymous" and any password. Most systems will ask for your "ident" as a password. It is considered good ettiquite to use either your login name or mail address when asked. Once connected, look for a "README" file which should give further informa- tion about the archive. Consult your local documentation on the use of your FTP application program (generally called "ftp"). Please be nice to the FTP sites by restricting your use to non-business hours. The following sites provide Anonymous FTP aerospace.aero.org [130.221.192.10] bugs.nosc.mil [128.49.16.1] directory pub/Minix comp.os.minix archives, PC, ST upgrade kits, MINIX-PC programs dsrgsun.ces.cwru.edu [129.22.16.2] directory pub/minix MINIX-ST programs (many GNU tools) en.ecn.purdue.edu [128.46.129.59] UUCP, 8088 Floading Point funet.fi [128.214.1.1] hobbes.cs.umd.edu [128.8.128.41] directory pub/minix copies of oz-utils: MINIX-PC hub.cs.jmu.edu [134.126.20.10] directory pub/minix MINIX-PC hd-boot package louie.udel.edu [128.175.1.3, 128.175.2.33] directory info-minix comp.os.minix archives (July '87 - Dec '89) plains.nodak.edu [134.129.111.64] directory pub/Minix PC, ST upgrade kits, MINIX-PC & ST programs also has a mail server, archive-server@plains.nodak.edu. sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.40.3] directory pub/minix PC upgrade kits, MINIX-PC programs (oz-utils) terminator.cc.umich.edu [35.1.33.8] directory pub/atari/Minix and pub/gnustuff ST upgrade kits, ST programs (GNU tools) This site may have a mail server. vm1.nodak.edu [134.129.111.1] directory minix-l this site has a mail server, listserv@vm1.noak.edu comp.os.minix archives (current and past year) wsmr-simtel20.army.mil [26.2.0.74] directory pd3: comp.os.minix archives (not current) 8.2. Mail Servers Some archive sites provide access to their archives with a server program that responds to commands mailed to it. 8.2.1. doc.ic.ac.uk An archive of the worthwhile postings from the comp.os.minix newsgroup is available from uk.ac.ic.doc either via mail or by GUEST niftp. For details about how to access this service send a mail message with NO Subject: field to: info-server@uk.ac.ic.doc and a message body of: request catalogue topic minix request end This will mail you back details of the various ways to obtain the files. This service is only available inside the UK. We have no funds to send such mail internationally. This archive service is run by Lee McLoughlin. Janet: lmcl@uk.ac.ukc, lmjm@uk.ac.ic.doc DARPA: lmjm%uk.ac.ic.doc@ucl-cs Uucp: lmjm@icdoc.UUCP, ukc!icdoc!lmjm 8.2.2. NL-MUG The MINIX User Group Holland (abbreviated to NLMUG) maintains an archive of interesting documents, sources, binaries and patches for the MINIX operating system. In the future, an archive of all USENET (comp.os.minix) articles will be kept as well. The archive can be used by sending e-mail messages to one of the follow- ing addresses. To join the archive send a message to: Internet: arch-adm@minixug.hobby.nl Uucp: ..!hp4nl!hgatenl!minixug!arch-adm For sending requests, send a message to: Internet: archive@minixug.hobby.nl Uucp : ..!hp4nl!hgatenl!minixug!archive The "Uucp" address should be used ONLY if your mailer cannot handle internet-style addresses, or if the message bounced back to you. Since the NLMUG Archive is a (more or less) private archive, we cannot afford ourselves to make it an open archive. In Europe, we must pay a quarter for every Kbyte of mail being sent out. This means, of course, that we want to know who use the archive. It is our goal, to only LOG the usage. We don't intend to BILL people for using the archive... Because of all this, the server looks at the requester's name, and sees if it may access the archive. Usually this is OK, but if people start misbehaving, they might get locked out. This is mainly the case when people have downloaded tuns of stuff, without a single introduction first. We do NOT appreciate anonymous file transfers! Therfore, send a short message introducing yourself to the Archive Administrator to keep him happy. The Archive Service is actually a program running on a MINIX system. It is started once a day by cron(1) to have a look at its mailbox. To use the archive, you should first send a request to the archive adminis- trator (arch-adm) requesting access to the archive. After you have re- ceived an acknowledgement of your request, get the server's help file by sending a message to the server (archive) saying: HELP and you will be sent details on using the server. This server is maintained by Fred van Kempen 8.2.3. plains.nodak.edu An archive of Minix upgrades and other interesting files are kept in a manually-maintained archive on Plains.NoDak.edu [134.129.111.64]. For those not fortunate enough to be on the Internet itself, we run the Clarkson server to process mail requests. This is an extremely versatile program, that allows various encoding formats (btoa, uuencode), compression (compress, arc, zoo) and splitting of large files. The server has been customized to send HELP and Index files at any time, and all other files between 23:00 and 08:00 local time. If you submit a request that contains *any* file that is not a Help or Index file, the entire request is queued until late night (currently 23:00 local time, but that may be moved to ear- lier hours of the morning if it proves to be a large load on the system). The addresses for the server are: archive-server@plains.nodak.edu {umn-cs, ogicse, uunet}!plains!archive-server (UUCP) fileserv@plains (Bitnet) Note to Bitnet people: this server is not 'logged on' to the machine, so you cannot send it interactive messages. The 'fileserv' alias was added for those of you who do not run the Croswell mailer, but you must still use something that is detectable as mail (such as a NOTE). Bitnet files will drop into our bit bucket, unprocessed, since there is no real user by ei- ther of these names. To obtain a list of the files, the INDEX command is used: index [ ] where is a directory under our ~ftp/pub login (empty for the main directory). There are several other directories of programs for Mi- crocomputers, current volumes for comp.sources.* and some of the Free Software Foundation's products. The SEND command is used for having files sent to you, such as in: send Minix/doc/Info_Sheet That file is a copy of the monthly "Minix Information Sheet" posting. The Minix Compatibility Report is available in the file "Minix/doc/Compatibility". There are many more options for having your files compressed (note: most files in these directories already have been compressed with 13-bit compression), uuencoded, split, and so on. To obtain more information on the server, send the command: help and you will be enlightened. The server accepts commands in mixed case, but all directory/file names are case significant (just like Minix). This archive is maintained by Glen Overby, , at North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND USA (46 52 N / 96 48 W city) 8.2.4. vm1.nodak.edu North Dakota State University is the host site for distribution of the info-minix mailing list (also known as minix-l), which is bidirectionally gatewayed to the Usenet group Comp.os.minix. We maintain archives of all list traffic from within the past year or so (depending on space availabil- ity). Archives are available via Anonymous FTP on the Internet, and LIST- SERV file requests from other networks. Our server is: Internet: listserv@vm1.NoDak.EDU [134.129.111.1] Bitnet: listserv@ndsuvm1 UUCP: psuvax1!ndsuvm1.bitnet!listserv uunet!plains!vm1.nodak.edu!listserv If you do not have Internet access, you may request files be sent to you by our LISTSERV file server by sending it commands in the body of a mail mes- sage. To obtain a list of the files, the INDEX command is used: INDEX MINIX-L The GET command will instruct LISTSERV to send you a file, such as: get minix-l LOG9005A minix-l to get the file "MINIX-L LOG9005A" from the directory "MINIX-L". The filename tells what year, month, and week it is from: MINIX-L LOGyymmw where "yy" is the year, "mm" is the numeric month and "w" is an alphabetic character from A to E indicating what week of the month. Several months of log files are kept on-line, the number depending on disk space availabili- ty. Due to the 80-character per line (punched card) limit on Bitnet mail, many of the files will be shipped using an encoding scheme that allows logical lines to be split up into many physical lines. On Bitnet, this is normally the IBM "DISK DUMP" or "NETDATA" format, and for ther networks it is "List- serv Punch". Listserv Punch was designed by Listserv's author and is designed to send files with lines longer than 80 characters thru the Bitnet gateways. A special program to decode the file once it has arrived at your site. In- formation on obtaining a program to decode listserv punch format is sent with each encoded file. If you would rather have a file sent to you uuencoded, you may specify that in your GET command: get minix info minix f=uuencode please note that the file, once decoded, will be in EBCDIC! SEARCHING THE MAILING LIST LOGS WITH LISTSERV If you are looking for a specific article, or set of articles, you can per- form searches on this directory using the Database functions of Listserv. For example, to obtain a "Subject" index of the MINIX-L archives, send the listserv a file or mail with the following "job" in the message body: // JOB Echo=No Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * search * in minix-l since 90/04/01 index and you will be sent a file containing all of the 'Subject:' lines sent to the mailing list since December 1, 1989. If you wish to request one or more items, replace the 'index' line in the above job with "print [ref- num]", where "refnum" is the reference number from the index listing. Do- cumentation on this and other database functions is available by sending the command "INFO DATABASE" to the listserv. To obtain more information on the listserv, send the command: INFO ? and you will be enlightened with a list of available documentation on using LISTSERV. This archive is automatically maintained by the list server. If you have questions, contact Glen Overby, , at North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND USA (46 52 N / 96 48 W city) 8.3. Publicly accessable Bulletin Boards For people without a network connection, there is a PC-based Electronic Bulletin Board System (BBS) that has carried the traffic of Usenet's Comp.os.minix steadily since August, 1987 as well as a formal Minix ar- chive. The BBS is not a true gateway to Usenet, like some Fidonet nodes are; rath- er it is a "delivery service" whereby new comp.os.minix articles are gath- ered daily and posted as messages on the BBS. Long articles are automati- cally ARC'ed and posted to the file area for downloading. Raw traffic is kept for about 2 months. Once a month the articles of lasting interest from the previous month are saved into several ARC files, all less than 100k, to make downloading easier. For any given month, the index of articles is in MNXyymmA.ARC, and the actual articles start in MNXyymmB.ARC. You can just download the in- dex, then download the ARC files that contain articles of interest to you. A complete index is always in MNXINDEX.ARC. Call: The Mars Hotel BBS, (301)277-9408 (PC-Pursuitable) 300,1200,2400 baud, 8,n,1. No registration required, no donations accepted. Everyone gets 60 minutes/day. No upload/download ratios (but don't be a jerk!) Spread the word to those without net access. This BBS is run by James da Silva. UUCP: uunet!mimsy!jds Internet: jds@mimsy.umd.edu -- Glen Overby uunet!plains!overby (UUCP) overby@plains (Bitnet)