A Look at MINIX (version 3.1.4)

“I believe it was Paul Gauguin who famously questioned: “Where
do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” (D’où
venons nous ? Que sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ?) While it
may be impossible to say for sure, I think he was expressing the
idea that we can’t really know what we are or where we’re headed
unless we also know where we originated. Bearing that thought in
mind, I decided to take a look at MINIX, the operating system which
helped to inspire the creation of Linux.

“MINIX has traditionally been an operating system with an eye
toward education. Both versions 1 and 2 of the MINIX system were
designed to be useful for students learning about operating
systems. The code behind MINIX was small and clean, making it a
practical study tool in this complex field. The latest offering of
MINIX, version 3, attempts to keep the same principles as the
previous versions, but also strives to be more practical as a
modern, UNIX-like, operating system.

“The MINIX web site is an example in clean, easy to read
documentation. The site covers a good deal of the project’s
history, current development goals and benefits of the MINIX
design. The most interesting point of the design, perhaps, is that
the MINIX hardware drivers run as user processes. This means if a
driver crashes, the kernel does not become unstable. Instead, the
kernel simply restarts the failed driver and continues on as
before. This makes MINIX somewhat self-healing. The web site also
contains a good deal of information on how to install and use the
operating system, including disk partitioning, multi-booting and
setting up user accounts.”

Complete
Story