MINIX

Website:	MINIX3.org
Company/ developer:	Andrew S. Tanenbaum
OS family:	Unix-like
Source model:	Open source
Latest stable release:	3.1.2a / 29 May 2006
Kernel type:	Microkernel
Default user interface:	ash
License:	BSD license
Working state:	Current

MINIX is a free/open source, Unix-like operating system (OS) based on a microkernel architecture. Andrew S. Tanenbaum wrote the operating system to be used for educational purposes; MINIX also inspired the creation of the Linux kernel. Its name derives from the words minimal and Unix. Image File history File links Minix3. ... A website (alternatively, Web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos and other digital assets that is hosted on a Web server, usually accessible via the Internet or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML, that is almost always accessible via HTTP, a... It has been suggested that software publisher be merged into this article or section. ... A software developer is a person who is concerned with one or more facets of the software development process, a somewhat broader scope of computer programming or a specialty of project managing. ... Dr. Andrew Stuart Andy Tanenbaum (born 1944) is a professor of Computer Science at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam in the Netherlands. ... Diagram of the relationships between several Unix-like systems A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... May 29 is the 149th day of the year (150th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... A kernel connects the application software to the hardware of a computer. ... Graphical overview of a microkernel A microkernel is a minimal computer operating system kernel providing only basic operating system services (system calls), while other services (commonly provided by kernels) are provided by user-space programs called servers. ... The user interface is the part of a system exposed to users. ... The Almquist shell (ash) is Kenneth Almquists clone of the Bourne shell. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... The BSD license is a permissive license and is one of the most widely used free software licenses. ... Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without... ... Diagram of the relationships between several Unix-like systems A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. ... An operating system (OS) is a set of computer programs that manage the hardware and software resources of a computer. ... Graphical overview of a microkernel A microkernel is a minimal computer operating system kernel providing only basic operating system services (system calls), while other services (commonly provided by kernels) are provided by user-space programs called servers. ... The software architecture of a program or computing system is the structure or structures of the system, which comprise software elements, the externally visible properties of those elements, and the relationships between them. ... Dr. Andrew Stuart Andy Tanenbaum (born 1944) is a professor of Computer Science at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam in the Netherlands. ... The Linux kernel is a Unix-like operating system kernel. ...

History

Andrew S. Tanenbaum created MINIX at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam to exemplify the principles conveyed in his textbook, Operating Systems: Design and Implementation (1987). An abridged 12,000 lines of the mainly C source code of the kernel, memory manager, and file system of MINIX 1.0 are printed in the book. Prentice-Hall also released MINIX source code and binaries on floppy disk with a reference manual. MINIX 1 was system-call compatible with Seventh Edition Unix. Dr. Andrew Stuart Andy Tanenbaum (born 1944) is a professor of Computer Science at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam in the Netherlands. ... The Vrije Universiteit is a university in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. ... Nickname: Motto: Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig (Valiant, Determined, Compassionate) Location of Amsterdam Coordinates: Country Netherlands Province North Holland Government  - Mayor Job Cohen (PvdA)  - Aldermen Lodewijk Asscher Hennah Buyne Carolien Gehrels Tjeerd Herrema Maarten van Poelgeest Marijke Vos  - Secretary Erik Gerritsen Area [1][2]  - City 219 km²  (84. ... For other uses, see Textbook (disambiguation). ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... C is a general-purpose, block structured, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system. ... Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ... A kernel connects the application software to the hardware of a computer. ... A memory manager is a part of a computer program which accepts requests from the program to allocate and deallocate chunks of memory. ... In computing, a file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. ... A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible (floppy) magnetic storage medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell. ... Seventh Edition Unix, also referred to as Version 7, was an important early release of the Unix operating system. ...

Tanenbaum originally developed MINIX for compatibility with the IBM PC and IBM PC/AT microcomputers available at the time. MINIX 1.5, released in 1991, included support for MicroChannel IBM PS/2 systems and was also ported to the Motorola 68000 and SPARC architectures, supporting the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Apple Macintosh and Sun SPARCstation computer platforms. There were also unofficial ports to Intel 386 PC compatibles (in 32-bit protected mode), National Semiconductor NS32532, ARM and INMOS transputer processors. Meiko Scientific used an early version of MINIX as the basis for the MeikOS operating system for its transputer-based Computing Surface parallel computers. A version of MINIX running as a user process under SunOS was also available. IBM PC (IBM 5150) with keyboard and green screen monochrome monitor (IBM 5151), running MS-DOS 5. ... IBM PC (IBM 5150) with keyboard and green screen monochrome monitor (IBM 5151), running MS-DOS 5. ... The Commodore 64 was one of the most popular microcomputers of its era, and is the best selling home computer of all time. ... Micro Channel architecture (in practice almost always shortened to MCA) was a proprietary 16 or 32-bit parallel computer bus created by IBM in the 1980s for use on their new PS/2 computers. ... This article is about the Personal System/2 computer line made by IBM. There is another article on the PlayStation 2 made by Sony. ... In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed (e. ... The Motorola 68000 is a 32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector). ... Sun UltraSPARC II Microprocessor Sun UltraSPARC T1 (Niagara 8 Core) SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a RISC microprocessor instruction set architecture originally designed in 1985 by Sun Microsystems. ... The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially popular from 1985 to the early 1990s. ... Amiga is the name of a range of home/personal computers using the Motorola 68000 processor family, whose development started in 1982. ... The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, upgraded to a 512K Fat Mac. The Macintosh or Mac, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured, and marketed by Apple Computer. ... Sun Microsystems, Inc. ... Sun SPARCstation 1+ pizzabox, 25mhz RISC processor, early 1990s SPARCstation was the name given to a series of SPARC-based computer workstations developed and sold by Sun Microsystems. ... In computing, a platform describes some sort of framework, either in hardware or software, which allows software to run. ... The Intel 80386 is a microprocessor which was used as the central processing unit (CPU) of many personal computers from 1986 until 1994 and later. ... One of the first PCs from IBM - the IBM PC model 5150. ... 32-bit is a term applied to processors, and computer architectures which manipulate the address and data in 32-bit chunks. ... Protected mode is an operational mode of x86-compatible CPUs of the 80286 series or later. ... Categories: Electronics companies of the United States | Companies based in California | Corporation stubs ... The 320xx or NS32000 is a series of microprocessors from National Semiconductor (NS, Natsemi). They were likely the first 32-bit general-purpose microprocessors on the market, but due to a number of factors never managed to become a major player. ... ... INMOS Ltd. ... The INMOS Transputer was a pioneering parallel computing microprocessor design of the 1980s from INMOS, a small English company. ... Meiko Scientific Ltd. ... MeikOS (also written as Meikos or MEiKOS) was a Unix-like computer operating system developed by Meiko Scientific for their transputer-based Computing Surface massively parallel computers during the late 1980s. ... The Meiko Computing Surface (sometimes retrospectively referred to as the CS-1) was a massively parallel supercomputer produced by Meiko Scientific. ... Parallel computing is the simultaneous execution of the same task (split up and specially adapted) on multiple processors in order to obtain faster results. ... SunOS was the version of the UNIX operating system developed by Sun Microsystems for their workstations and server systems until the early 1990s. ...

Demand for the 68k-based architectures waned, however, and MINIX 2.0, released in 1997, was only available for the x86 and Solaris-hosted SPARC architectures. It was the subject of the second edition of Tanenbaum's textbook, co-written with Albert Woodhull and was distributed on a CD-ROM included with the book. MINIX 2.0 added POSIX.1 compliance, support for 386 and later processors in 32-bit mode and replaced the Amoeba network protocols included in MINIX 1.5 with a TCP/IP stack. Unofficial ports of MINIX 2.0.2 to the 68020-based ISICAD Prisma 700 workstation [1] and the Hitachi SH3-based HP Jornada 680/690 PDA [2] were also developed. x86 or 80x86 is the generic name of a microprocessor architecture first developed and manufactured by Intel. ... Solaris is a computer operating system developed by Sun Microsystems. ... The CD-ROM (an abbreviation for Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (ROM)) is a non-volatile optical data storage medium using the same physical format as audio compact discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive. ... POSIX or Portable Operating System Interface[1] is the collective name of a family of related standards specified by the IEEE to define the application programming interface (API) for software compatible with variants of the Unix operating system. ... The Amoeba distributed operating system is a microkernel-based research operating system written by Andrew S. Tanenbaum at Vrije Universiteit. ... The Internet protocol suite is the set of communications protocols that implement the protocol stack on which the Internet runs. ... The SuperHichem (or SH) is brandname of a certain microcontroller and microprocessor architecture. ... HP Jornada 560 Series The Jornada was a line of personal digital assistants or PDAs manufactured by HP computers. ... Personal digital assistants (PDAs) are handheld computers that were originally designed as personal organizers, but became much more versatile over the years. ...

Minix-vmd is a variant of MINIX 2 for Intel IA-32-compatible processors, created by two Vrije Universiteit researchers, which adds virtual memory and support for the X Window System. Minix-vmd is an open source operating system which was created from Minix, and adds some additional features such as virtual memory and X Window System support. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with X86 assembly language. ... Virtual memory is an addressing scheme implemented in hardware and software that allows non-contiguous memory to be addressed as if it is contiguous. ... KDE 3. ...

MINIX 3

Main article: MINIX 3

MINIX 3 was publicly announced on 24 October 2005 by Andrew Tanenbaum during his keynote speech on top of the ACM Symposium Operating Systems Principles conference. Although it still serves as an example for the new edition of Tanenbaum and Woodhull's textbook, it is comprehensively redesigned to be "usable as a serious system on resource-limited and embedded computers and for applications requiring high reliability." MINIX 3 currently supports only IA-32 architecture PC compatible systems. It is available in a LiveCD format that allows it to be used on a computer without installing it on the hard drive, and in versions compatible with hardware emulation/virtualization systems, including Bochs, Qemu, VMware, and Virtual PC. MINIX 3 is a project with the aim to create a small, basic, yet reliable and functional operating system. ... October 24 is the 297th day of the year (298th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Association for Computing Machinery, or ACM, was founded in 1947 as the worlds first scientific and educational computing society. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with X86 assembly language. ... Gnoppix 0. ... Bochs for Windows displaying HAL91 (Linux) Bochs is a portable open source x86 and AMD64 PCs emulator mostly written in C++ and distributed under GNU Lesser General Public License. ... It has been suggested that Qemu-Launcher be merged into this article or section. ... VMware Inc. ... Virtual PC is a virtualization suite for Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems, originally created by Connectix, subsequently acquired by Microsoft. ...

Version 3.1.2 was released 8 May 2006. It contains X11, emacs, vi, cc, gcc, perl, python, ash, bash, zsh, ftp, ssh, telnet, pine, and over 400 other common UNIX utility programs. With the addition of X11, this version marks the transition away from a text-only system. Another feature of this version, which will be improved in future ones, is the ability of the system to withstand device driver crashes, and in many cases having them automatically replaced without affecting running processes. In this way, MINIX is self-healing and can be used in applications demanding high reliability. May 8 is the 128th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (129th in leap years). ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... In computing, the X Window System (commonly X11 or X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays. ... Emacs is a class of text editors, possessing an extensive set of features, that are popular with computer programmers and other technically proficient computer users. ... The correct title of this article is vi. ... The GNU Compiler Collection (usually shortened to GCC) is a set of programming language compilers produced by the GNU Project. ... Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Perl Programming Perl is a dynamic programming language created by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. ... Python is a high-level programming language first released by Guido van Rossum in 1991. ... The Almquist shell (ash) is Kenneth Almquists clone of the Bourne shell. ... This article is about the Unix shell. ... The Z shell (zsh) is a Unix shell written by Paul Falstad when he was a student at Princeton University. ... The abbreviation FTP can refer to: The File Transfer Protocol used on the Internet. ... In computing, Secure shell, or SSH, is both a computer program and an associated network protocol designed for logging into and executing commands on a remote computer. ... For the packet switched network, see Telenet. ... Pine is a powerful freeware text-based e-mail client: the University of Washingtons mail user agent (Email client) its name being an acronym for: Program for Internet News & Email (or PINE Is Nolonger Elm if you so prefer. ... Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ... Self-healing is a phrase applied to the process of recovery (generally from psychological disturbances, trauma, etc. ...

MINIX and Linux

The design principles Tanenbaum applied to MINIX famously influenced the design decisions Linus Torvalds applied in the creation of the Linux kernel. Torvalds used and appreciated MINIX, but his design deviated from the MINIX architecture in significant ways, most notably by employing a monolithic kernel instead of a microkernel. This was famously disapproved by Tanenbaum in the Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate. Recently, Tanenbaum explained again his rationale for using a microkernel in May 2006. Early Linux kernel development was done on a MINIX host system, which led to Linux inheriting various features from MINIX, such as the MINIX disk filesystem format. Linus Benedict Torvalds  ; born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish software engineer best known for initiating the development of the Linux kernel. ... The Linux kernel is a Unix-like operating system kernel. ... Graphical overview of a monolithic kernel A monolithic kernel defines a high-level virtual interface over the hardware, with a set of primitives or system calls to implement operating system services such as process management, concurrency, and memory management in several modules that run in supervisor mode. ... Graphical overview of a microkernel A microkernel is a minimal computer operating system kernel providing only basic operating system services (system calls), while other services (commonly provided by kernels) are provided by user-space programs called servers. ... The Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate is a famous debate started in 1992 by Andrew S. Tanenbaum with Linus Torvalds regarding Linux and kernel architecture in general on Usenet discussion group comp. ... See Filing system for this term as it is used in libraries and offices In computing, a file system is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. ...

Accusations of Linux being stolen from MINIX

In May 2004 Kenneth Brown of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution raised the accusation ^[1] that major parts of the Linux kernel have been stolen from the MINIX codebase. The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (not institute; abbreviated AdTI) is a Washington, D.C.-based commercial think-tank and consultancy that produces reports at the behest of its sponsors. ...

These accusations were rebutted universally and in particular by Andrew Tanenbaum. ^[2][3]

Licensing

At the time of its original development, the license for MINIX was considered to be rather liberal. Its licensing fee was very small ($69) compared to those of other operating systems. Although Tanenbaum wished for MINIX to be as accessible as possible to students, his publisher was not prepared to offer material (such as the source code) that could be copied freely, so a restrictive license requiring a nominal fee (included in the price of Tanenbaum's book) was applied as a compromise. This prevented the use of MINIX as the basis for a freely distributed software system. A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... The word student is etymologically derived through Middle English from the Latin second-type conjugation verb stŭdērĕ, meaning to direct ones zeal at; hence a student is one who directs zeal at a subject. ...

When free/open source Unix-like operating systems such as GNU/Linux and 386BSD became available in the early 1990s many volunteer software developers abandoned MINIX in favour of these. In April 2000, MINIX became free/open source software under a permissive free software licence^[4], but by this time other operating systems had surpassed its capabilities, and it remained primarily an operating system for students and hobbyists. Unix systems filiation. ... 386BSD, also known as JOLIX, is a free BSD operating system for the Intel 80386. ... This article or section cites very few or no references or sources. ... A software developer is a person who is concerned with one or more facets of the software development process, a somewhat broader scope of computer programming or a specialty of project managing. ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Permissive free software licences are software licences for a copyrighted work that offer many of the same freedoms as releasing a work to the public domain. ... This article is about pastimes. ...

See also

• MINIX file system
• MINIX-vmd

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... The Minix file system is the native file system of the Minix operating system. ... Minix-vmd is an open source operating system which was created from Minix, and adds some additional features such as virtual memory and X Window System support. ...

References

1. ^ Alexis de Tocqueville Institution/Kenneth Brown, 'Samizdat's critics... Brown replies', http://www.adti.net/samizdat/brown.reply.june.04.html
2. ^ Tanenbaum, Andrew S. 'Some Notes on the "Who wrote Linux" Kerfuffle', http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/
3. ^ Tanenbaum, Andrew S. 'MINIX 3 FAQ', http://www.MINIX3.org/doc/faq.html#legal
4. ^ The Minix licence.

External links

• Official MINIX 3 Operating System site
• MINIX1.woodhull.com (formerly MINIX1.hampshire.edu)
• The MINIX category at the Open Directory Project
• History of MINIX from Andrew Tanenbaum
• Linus Torvalds and Andrew Tanenbaum argue about technologies in MINIX and Linux
• MINIX under the BSD License
• Source code for the MINIX system compiler
• MINIX in Russia
• Minix on Xen
• Minix 3.1.1 kernel source code on the FreeBSD/Linux Kernel Cross Reference Site
• Minix Cross Reference Minix source code cross reference Site

Wikibooks has more about this subject:

Minix 3