Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!botter!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Problems modifying the kernel - creates nonbootable system.
Message-ID: <718@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 13 May 88 09:48:54 GMT
References: <12189@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 13

In article <12189@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> korfhage@CS.UCLA.EDU (Willard Korfhage) writes:
>
>   As part of a class I am teaching, the students are modifying the
>MINIX kernel. However, quite a number of have found that at some point,
>trivial changes to the kernel create a system that will not boot. 

It is hard to give a general answer to why kernels won't boot, but one thing
to be careful about is trying to print in tasks at funny times, especially
before all the tasks have been fully initialized.  I have also used MINIX in
a course, and have not run across this sort of problem, so I am not
quite sure what the problem is.  Maybe other people have ideas.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)