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From: jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Bruce Evans' opus
Message-ID: <4275@crash.cts.com>
Date: 31 May 89 01:36:17 GMT
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Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA
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If you want Minix to be more than it already is, you are going to have to put
it in.  I commend author the 286 protect mode upgrade kit and its people like
that that make Minix more than what it was originally intended for.  I have no
qualms about Dr. Tanenbaum keeping Minix the way it is for educational
purposes, but for those of us that want to make Minix more than an educational
tool and experience with operating systems, we're going to have to pitch in to
make it a reality.  Rather than complaining about what Minix lacks, why not
put your head together with people on here on how to make it do what you want?
 
I have kicked around the idea of how to get beyond the 64K code/64K data
segment problem and have talked to others about how to get around this, and
here's what I have come up with (with help from others).  More memory can be
accomplished by the following;
 
1. Shared libraries
2. swapping code segments
3. full swapping
4. virtual memory

Each of these has its fruits and varying levels of difficulty to implement.
But needless to say that if you want to expand Minix to get beyond its current
limitation of programs, you're going to have to put it in.  And putting our
heads together is the whole idea why these Usenet conferences exist in the
first place.  I am more than happy to discuss with anybody (as time permits)
on ways to improve Minix.  But one thing I must say, don't expect Dr.
Tanenbaum to do it, he's most likely busy enough as an instructor and can't
maintain a wish list of what you want in Minix.  If you want something in
Minix (as I've been continually stressing in this article), YOU are going to
have to make an effort to add it yourself or with help from those of us here.
I see the reasoning behind why Minix is designed the way it is and have no
intention of defeating that purpose.
 
One last thing that I would like to add here, I would like to additionally
commend those who have made contributions to Minix, both Dr. Tanenbaum and
those who have written bug fixes, improvements, and/or ports to other
machines.
 
 JCA

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