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From: dan@sun.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: minix good and bad
Message-ID: <12329@sun.uucp>
Date: Thu, 29-Jan-87 13:21:20 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.12329
Posted: Thu Jan 29 13:21:20 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Jan-87 02:09:49 EST
Lines: 31
Keywords: minix compiler emacs

Last night I attended a talk that Andy Tanenbaum gave here in Silicon
Valley about Minix, and I bought the book.  It is an impressive effort
and I can hardly wait to get the system.  Unfortunately the floppies
won't be ready until March.

The other unfortunate thing is that minix is not quite what you might
think.  You can't really remake it from itself because of three problems
with the compiler.

1.  The compiler source is not included.  The compiler source is owned
by Unipress which charges lots of money for it.  Andy said that they
are considering a low-priced deal for individual use, but they would
only ship the compiler-compiler output.  Sort of like getting a un*x
compiler with YACC output, but not YACC or the YACC input.

2.  The compiler was not used to build minix.  Andy used the PC-IX
compiler which produces code that is 15% smaller and faster than the
minix C compiler, so if you recompile anything it will be bigger and
slower.

3.  The minix compiler can't do split I and D space.  Actually, I 
think the problem is in the minix assembler.  Whatever, this is a
problem since some of the programs need it.  For example, the minix
editor is like emacs but has lots of idiosyncratic key bindings that
long-time emacs users will find impossible to live with.  However,
if you change the code (there is no bind-to-key) and recompile, the
result will not be split I and D, so you will be constrained to edit
much smaller files. 

The bottom line is that minix is still an impressive system, but to
really remake it you have to get PC-IX.