Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uxc!deimos.cis.ksu.edu!cveg!cseg!dws
From: dws@cseg.uucp (David W. Summers)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Protected Mode MINIX & Boot Question
Keywords: MINIX  Protected Mode   Boot program
Message-ID: <2179@cveg.uucp>
Date: 6 Apr 89 03:58:42 GMT
Sender: netnews@cveg.uucp
Organization: College of Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Lines: 21


I have a couple of questions for MINIX users at large:

1) I would be interested in hearing discussion of using MINIX in a protected
mode  environment on either the 286 or the 386.  Has anyone done it?  What were
the problems?  Does it work OK?  How compatible with "standard" MINIX is it?

   Please forgive me if this has been discussed before, but I must have missed
   it.

2) It seems to be quite a job to come up with a recompilation of the KERNEL
everytime something is changed.  Wouldn't it be better to have a simple boot
program on the first disk sector that calls a 'boot' program in the root
directory which gives you several choices (maybe boot DOS or MINIX?) and does
nice things like that?  Then to recompile the KERNAL, all that would be needed
would be to regenerate the /minix file (kind of like /unix or /xenix) instead
of (re)creating the whole boot-up procedure everytime.  Has anyone already done
this?  What are the PRO's and CON's of doing something like this?

   Thank you.
   - David Summers  (dws@cseg.uucp)