Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!decwrl!cimbad.dec.com!powers
From: powers@cimbad.dec.com (Bill Powers)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: A few novice questions
Message-ID: <8811081753.AA18094@decwrl.dec.com>
Date: 8 Nov 88 17:53:39 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 58


     I had sent this msg, last week, but I don't think it made it to the
  outside world, If this is the second time you have seen this msg from me,
  please ignore it.

     I have been using/playing with Minix for the ST for a couple of weeks
  now, I think that it beats gemdos by a mile, even though it, at this point,
  does not support all of the st's hardware.  I have a few questions I hope
  some of you might be able to answer for me.

  1) I have a 1040ST, with a hard disk, and would like to abolish the ram
     disk.  It seems the main purpose of the ram disk was to make it usable
     for floppy based systems.  I have set my system up for now such that
     the root file system is on partition 3, and /usr is on partition 4
     partition 3 is formatted at 1 meg, and partition 4 is 10 meg.  How
     easy would it be to remove the ramdisk, and what areas/routines would
     need to be modified?

  2) I guess this next question is more generic in nature towards UNIX
     in general.  Are there standard system calls in most unix systems
     for doing graphics/windowing functions, which something like X-Windows
     relies on using, or how is their functionality usually achieved?

  3) If I spawn a couple of processes from a program, is their a mechanism
     for one process to send stuff to another process, like mailboxes in
     VMS.

  4) In the atari implementation, are the processes protected from blasting
     one another, or the kernel?  I believe there are fence registers which
     can be set in one of the atari custom chips, to generate a trap, if
     you try to access outside your space.  I believe this is how Atari
     protects the first couple of K of ram where they store system vars
     for gemdos.  You can't blast the os, it's in rom, but thats ok, Atari
     pre-blasted it for us, it's so full of bugs ;^)

  5) Are there any particular reasons why the minix couldn't keep the 
     heep, and processes can take as much of it as is available, instead
     of each process having a separate stack/heap area, which is I believe
     how it works now.


     Also, does anyone elses grep function generate a memory error when
     it finds an occurance of the expression, in the file you are searching?
     This is what happens on my st, and I haven't touched the code for
     any of the commands yet.

   Bill Powers

#include disclaimer.h
/*******************************************************************************
* If you had a VAXstation like me, you would be able to see the incredible 3d  *
* graphics I've inserted at this point, but you don't, so you can't!!!         *
*------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
* all flames to NL: not /dev/null since I use VMS on my VAXstation not U*IX    *
*------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
* The opinions expressed herein are mine, and mine alone, but they can be made *
* yours if you send $19.95 plus $2.50 S&H to POWERS%DEVCIM.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM  *
*******************************************************************************/