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From: mcvoy@rsch.WISC.EDU (Lawrence W. McVoy)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: MINIX VS XINU
Message-ID: <3138@rsch.WISC.EDU>
Date: Tue, 20-Jan-87 23:25:24 EST
Article-I.D.: rsch.3138
Posted: Tue Jan 20 23:25:24 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Jan-87 21:52:43 EST
References: <3862@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcvoy@rsch.WISC.EDU (Lawrence W. McVoy)
Distribution: world
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 37

In article <3862@sdcrdcf.UUCP> davem@sdcrdcf.UUCP (David Melman) writes:
>
>I'm curious how the goals and purpose of Comer's Xinu operating system
>(Operating System Design, the Xinu Approach) differ from Tanenbaum's Minix.
>
>A few things they do have in common are:
>	1) They both run on micros

I guess, if you call an LSI-11 a micro.

>	2) They both are a rewritten simplification of Unix

Nope.  Xinu stands for "Xinu Is Not Unix".  Did you read the book?  Hmm...
A long time ago, maybe?  Oh, well.

>	3) They both are intended to be educational

I disagree.  Let me take a stab at the answer to your first question.

I think that Xinu is educational.  It may not have been intended as such,
but because of the lack of supporting software & hardware it will never 
amount much more than an intellectual exercise.  (Don't get me wrong --
I got a lot out of the Xinu book).

Minix is an attempt to remove all those footnotes from journal articles
that say "Unix is a trademark of Ma Bell".  It is also an attempt to 
standardize a Unix so that software developers have something to
shoot for.  It's also a replacement for DOS, no small item when you
consider there are probably (note the clause) more IBM-PC's & clones
out there than any other single CPU.  A large potential market.  Last
but not least, Tanenbaum stands to make a fair bit off his OS book.
He already has a pretty good reputation for cranking out readable texts.
-- 
Larry McVoy 	        mcvoy@rsch.wisc.edu, 
      		        {seismo, topaz, harvard, ihnp4, etc}!uwvax!mcvoy

"They're coming soon!  Quad-stated guru-gates!"