Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!botter!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.xinu
Subject: Re: 68k Minix
Message-ID: <720@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 13 May 88 11:15:43 GMT
References: <8805101934.AA04927@merlin.cs.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 45

I can't resist the temptation to respond.  In return, Doug gets 1 free posting
to comp.os.minix.  I won't comment much about Xinu since that is well known to
readers of this group.  I would just like to clear up some misconceptions about
MINIX.

In article <8805101934.AA04927@merlin.cs.purdue.edu> comer@PURDUE.EDU (Douglas Comer) writes:
>
>Briefly, Minix is a minature version 7 (circa 1978) UNIX system; Xinu is an
>entirely new, hierarchically structures operating system with only small
>resemblence to UNIX internally.  They don't even attempt to do the same
>things.  Minix tries to provide a small UNIX environment; Xinu tries to
>illustrate new operating system concepts including networking protocols.
>Minix looks to the past; Xinu looks to the future.  Minix runs on PCs;
>Xinu runs on PCs, Vaxen, PDP11s, SUNs, National 32000s, etc.  

MINIX is an attempt to provide a UNIX-like system to owners of small machines.
It currently runs on most Intel 8088/286/386 machines.  It has been ported to
the NS32016, and this summer Prentice-Hall will start distributing the 68000
version.

Internally, MINIX is not like UNIX either.  It is structured in a highly
modular way.  For example, the file system runs as a user-level server
process, outside the kernel.  Nearly all modern distributed systems work this
way.  This allows you do modify the file system without touching the
kernel at all.  In this respect, I think MINIX is at least as modern as Xinu
if not more so.

MINIX is definitely intended for education.  It is widely used at universities
all over the world, and is being translated into several foreign languages.
The book discusses the theory of operating systems in detail, and then shows
how these principles are applied in MINIX (and by implication, in UNIX).

Starting with V1.3, MINIX also supports networking.  Unlike Xinu, which looks
back to the old days of stream protocols (X.25, TCP, OSI), MINIX networking
(for Ethernet) is based on remote procedure call.  Again, virtually all modern
distributed operating systems use this as the base.

Like Xinu, there is a newsgroup for MINIX.  There are over 10,000 readers
worldwide, and more than 3000 messages have been posted to it in the past
year, many with new software.  If you want more information about MINIX, send
me email; I have a short blurb that I can send to you by email.  The blurb
tells you how to join the newsgroup (comp.os.minix) if you are not on USENET,
and also tells you how to access all the old messages, which are being archived.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)