Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!think.com!mintaka!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aipna!awb From: awb@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Alan W Black) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: Where is MINIX going? Keywords: MINIX Message-ID: <3620@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Date: 6 Dec 90 16:33:29 GMT References: <61262@bbn.BBN.COM> Sender: news@aipna.ed.ac.uk Reply-To: awb@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Alan W Black) Distribution: comp Organization: Dept AI, Edinburgh University, UK Lines: 107 In article <61262@bbn.BBN.COM> saustin@bbn.com (Steve Austin) writes: >1) Why is Prentice-Hall jacking the price up and who is getting the money? > While I realize that MINIX 1.5 is an improvement on earlier > versions, it seems to me that it is partially improved by the users > group. So who is getting the extra money? I would hope that it is the > programmers who contribute to MINIX, but if (as I suspect) > Prenitce-Hall is trying to milk what it thinks is a cash cow, they > can take a walk. There are other, cheaper, versions of UNIX for the > PC. > The way I understand it is that the 80$ was for the base 1.3 system on 11 floppies while Minix 1.5 is on 20 floppies and includes a full manual (~700 pages). Thus as far as I see it the extra money goes on actual physical objects rather than as profit. I don't suggest that Prentice hall does not make a profit from this but the increase in price is due mostly to it consisting of more disks and a manual. >2) What is going to happen to the price when MINIX gets virtual memory? > It seems to me that various dedicated souls are working on > implementing VM for free. Can I expect to see another price hike > when this happens. If so, who gets the money? > If Minix grows again, say at version 2.0 I suspect that it will need more disks. I would personally suggest it should be distributed on greater density disks to save some money. However the important thing to me about Minix is that it comes with source. As yet there is *no* alternative anywhere near the price range of Minix that also offers source (without a AT&T source lincece). Also I would like to add that Andy Tanenbaum has indicated that he is not too happy about "big" extensions being added to Minix as he sees the system as a Teaching system for OS courses. It is possible that things like VM will never be included in the standard distribution and only be available as diffs which interested people can add. I also think that some of the pressure among Minix hackers to make Minix into a bigger unix (** I think it is already a *real* unix **) by adding VM, streams, graphics will die down when other "free" unix systems come out. GNU (the FSF) intend to bring out a free unix based on CMU's Mach, and Berkeley are working on a 4.4 "Detox" which will contain no AT&T code and hence be "free" for anyone. This I think wont happen for at least a year but should happen in under two. Also note that I say "free" in that the software will be free but it will still cost money for media and manuals. I doubt these will cost less than $200. (Though they should be ftp'able). >3) On a less emotional note, what is the max size of program you can > run on MINIX for a 386. If it runs in the same mode as an 8086, > I suppose the answer is 640k. Since Glen's information sheet > mentionned that people are working on 32bit MINIX for the 386, > I suppose that means that the 386 operates in brain-dead mode. > The major 386 patch that is used is Bruce Evans port (There is another recently announced too.) Both these do not restrict the size of processes (well they do actually but to somewhere around 4Gigabytes). I run processes of over 2Megabyte on my machine with no problems (except I need more physical memory :-) >4) I notice that a ANSI C compiler is being developed. However, > somebody has recently announced that GNU's gcc works for > 386 MINIX. Also, gcc has been producing 68k code for a long time. > Wouldn't it be easier to work with GNU to get gcc, gdb, g++ etc > integrated into the MINIX environment. > GNU as a project has very little money but depends largely on the support of people on the net. When ports are done for Minix of GNU software, information does go back to the FSF. The GNU sofwtare has not yet been POSIX'ified but probably will be with help from Minix people (Bruce Evans has already done this). As for other ports like my own gcc and gas, we did find bugs in gas that have since been corrected and communicated with Richard Stallman about how best to do floating point in gcc. Most of our port was in the problems of boot strapping a gcc. The diffs included are pretty minimal. I have had to change more in gnu software to get it run on some so-called supported systems (or perhaps I should say so-called unix systems :-) than is required for some things under Minix. I see the porting of GNU stuff to Minix as directly helping GNU. As for ANSI C compilers, I think Minix can have its own and need not require gcc. Gcc is very big, and needs lots of memory to run and if we are already worried about the cost of distribution it is cheaper to have a smaller ANSI C compiler. >Again, no offence to MINIX intended, I am basically wondering whether >history is repeating itself with MINIX. > > Steve Austin No offense taken, as for history repeating itself, I thought that was the whole point :-) hope this helps to explain Alan Alan W Black 80 South Bridge, Edinburgh, UK Dept of Artificial Intelligence tel: (+44) -31 225 7774 x228 or x223 University of Edinburgh email: awb@ed.ac.uk