Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!udel!mmdf
From: HELMER%SDNET.BITNET@vm1.nodak.edu (Guy Helmer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Method for applying patches to upgrade MINIX
Message-ID: <16496@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 30 May 89 13:50:55 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 32

I have a few comments about Rich's comments on upgrading MINIX.  Over the past
five months, I have upgraded from Minix 1.1 to Minix 1.3.  The upgrade from
Minix 1.1 to Minix 1.2 is the worst software nightmare I have ever had.  The
1.1 shell couldn't handle the shar files and patch (binary from NDSUVM1)
couldn't handle the diff files.  I spent many hours with BRIEF under PC-DOS
extracting files from the shars by hand, and I spent even more quality time
changing the diff files so patch could handle them without choking.  I don't
even remember how I got around the problem of space on the root file system.
I do know that after I finally had 1.2 source on my machine, I spent
plenty of time watching every little thing compile just in case the 1.1
compiler would abort and leave my file systems in a mess.  The neat thing
was I had 1.2 up and running, and then I trashed the hard disk and hard to
start over from Minix 1.1 on floppies.

The upgrade from 1.2 to 1.3 wasn't nearly as painful, and in fact hurt
less than a final exam in an upper-level Electrical Engineering course :-).
Even though sh would choke with "can't create pipe" after running into the
11th file in a shar and I still had to modify the patch files, the upgrade
went much better than the previous upgrade.  With the new compiler binaries
(again, from NDSUVM1), I now have a working 1.3 system.

Good luck to those that are still upgrading.  Many thanks go to those
who assembled Dr. Tannenbaum's postings into nice "little :-)" packages
and put these packages out on the net for the rest of us.

Now, to put in Bruce's patches and get a protected, fast-interrupting Minix...

-- Guy Helmer                              BITNET: HELMER@SDNET
   Dakota State College                    AT&T:   (605) 256-5315
   Technical Services, Development Group           (605) 256-6411
   Madison, SD  57042
   Opinions are mine, all mine.