Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!crash!pnet01!cwr From: cwr@pnet01.cts.com (Will Rose) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Minimal PC Minix hardware Message-ID: <6985@crash.cts.com> Date: 17 Jan 91 01:16:04 GMT Sender: root@crash.cts.com Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA Lines: 62 frost@chado.fidonet.org (Thomas Frost) writes: > Recently my trusty backup computer, a PC/XT clone, lost its 20 >meg hard disk. It still has the secondary 10 meg drive (when I get >around to making it DOS bootable), and everything else seems in >working order. > My question: is it worth the time and effort to put Minix >onto this beast? It's got 640 K RAM, generic CGA graphics, and (as I >mentioned) the 10 meg drive. I have no plans to replace the 20 meg at >present, so anything I do will have to fit on the 10 meg or on 360 K >floppies. I've run Minix on a 10MHz XT clone with 640K of memory and a 40mS hard disk for a couple of years now; it's quite effective (at least, version 1.5 is). You will need 20MB of disk space, tho', to do anything useful (15MB is the bare minimum) and you will need a 1.2MB or (better) 1.44MB drive for backup. While you can *run* Minix on a PC with just one floppy (and I have), there's not a lot you can do with it once you've booted it up. On my XT, rebuilding the whole system (library and kernel and commands) takes 8-10 hours; this isn't a handicap, since I just run a script file overnight. But if you were doing a lot of kernel rebuilding, without some short-cut like shoelace, you might find it slow. For general work it's acceptably fast. Below is the source tree of my HD - since it's in a 19MB partition, which has ~500K of free space, I assume the minix binaries and libraries and so on take up around 6MB. Blocks Directory (1KB) Name 13835 /usr/src 3596 /usr/src/commands - official commands 26 /usr/src/fs 35 /usr/src/include 1515 /usr/src/lib - official stuff plus maths libraries minus dictionary 2942 /usr/src/minix - official kernel plus shoelace 115 /usr/src/patches 0 /usr/src/tmp 657 /usr/src/upd15 4827 /usr/src/utils - things I find interesting Actually getting Minix running shouldn't be a problem (he lied fluently); if Minix will talk to your HD controller then there is no problem, if it will not then the fix could take minutes or days. It's a lot easier if you have another machine running Minix on which to reompile the kernel - I would hate to try rebuilding 1.5 on floppies. But it could be done. The 'killer application' that makes Minix useable is Steve Kirkendell's vi, which is rock solid, full-featured, and quick. Don't leave home without it. Good luck - Will ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "If heaven too had passions | Will Rose even heaven would | UUCP: {nosc ucsd hplabs!hp-sdd}!crash!pnet01!cw grow old." - Li Ho. | ARPA: crash!pnet01!cwr@nosc.mil | INET: cwr@pnet01.cts.com UUCP: {nosc ucsd hplabs!hp-sdd}!crash!pnet01!cwr ARPA: crash!pnet01!cwr@nosc.mil INET: cwr@pnet01.cts.com