DosMinix and Windows XP
Jim Howatt
If that's true, will DosMinix run on XP?
Thanks,
Jim "Microsoft-ignorant" Howatt
Martijn van Buul
> I've heard rumors that "you can't get to DOS" in Windows XP.
Dunno, but it wouldn't strike me as odd.
> If that's true, will DosMinix run on XP?
Nope. At least not the way you'd expect it to. It may still be possible to
create something like XPMinix, similiar to the way the MacMinix and
SunOS Minix used to work.
--
Martijn van Buul - Pi...@dohd.org - http://www.stack.nl/~martijnb/
Geek code: G-- - Visit OuterSpace: mud.stack.nl 3333
Kees J. Bot: The sum of CPU power and user brain power is a constant.
Kees J Bot
Martijn van Buul <pino+comp...@dohd.org> wrote:
>It occurred to me that Jim Howatt wrote in comp.os.minix:
>> I've heard rumors that "you can't get to DOS" in Windows XP.
>
>Dunno, but it wouldn't strike me as odd.
There is probably a DOS box just like under NT and 2000. (I say
"probably", because I haven't seen XP yet.)
A DOS box only allows Minix to run in 8086 mode. That's not nice. The
only way around this is using a FAT partition and a DOS boot floppy.
One doesn't want FAT partitions under NT, of course.
DosMinix is only really useful under Windows 95 and 98. It will be
obsolete when 98 is. (95 is already marked obsolete by Microsoft.)
>> If that's true, will DosMinix run on XP?
>
>Nope. At least not the way you'd expect it to. It may still be possible to
>create something like XPMinix, similiar to the way the MacMinix and
>SunOS Minix used to work.
Possible indeed. Just a small matter of programming.
Another possibility is a Minix driver that is just smart enough to find
the blocks of a big file on an NTFS partition, just like the fatfile
driver. You then have to jumpstart Minix from a floppy. This doesn't
sound very attractive.
--
Kees J. Bot, Systems Programmer, Sciences dept., Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Matt Bonyak
> "probably", because I haven't seen XP yet.)
Supposedly, there isn't, because WinXP is supposed to be the first Windows
not built on top of DOS (although M$ says that about every version of
Windows they put out). To run DOS applications, it has a built-in
emulator. Whether or not MINIX will work on that is far beyond me. My
assumption would definitely be no.
Klaus von der Heyde
> Supposedly, there isn't, because WinXP is supposed to be the first Windows
> not built on top of DOS (although M$ says that about every version of
> Windows they put out). To run DOS applications, it has a built-in
> emulator. Whether or not MINIX will work on that is far beyond me. My
> assumption would definitely be no.
For all I know, WindowsXP is built upon the NT kernel. So, all you
eventually get is an NT command line (cmd.exe). Is "Bochs" available for
NT?
Imvho, running Minix as a real OS from its own partition is the best way
...
Klaus
Jim Howatt
>
> For all I know, WindowsXP is built upon the NT kernel. So, all you
> eventually get is an NT command line (cmd.exe). Is "Bochs" available for
> NT?
>
> Imvho, running Minix as a real OS from its own partition is the best way
> ...
>
> Klaus
I agree fully with your second statement. However, many of my students
are very reluctant to partition their hard drives to install Minix, so
I'm looking for easy, viable alternatives.
Speaking of Bochs, has anyone run Minix 2.0.2 under Bochs 1.2.1?
I got it to boot, but after I pressed "=", the screen filled with @ signs
and, although Minix loaded and the message asking me to complete the
"fd0c" device appeared, I could not type anything. Every keypress
caused ^@ to appear.
Here's the .bochsrc file that I used (most are default values):
romimage: file=BIOS-bochs-latest, address=0xf0000
megs: 32
vgaromimage: VGABIOS-elpin-2.40
floppya: 1_44=floppya.img, status=inserted
floppyb: 1_44=floppyb.img, status=inserted
diskc: file="4minix.img", cyl=101, heads=16, spt=63 # 50MB
boot: c
log: bochsout.txt
panic: action=fatal
error: action=report
info: action=report
debug: action=ignore
vga_update_interval: 300000
keyboard_serial_delay: 250
floppy_command_delay: 50000
ips: 1000000
mouse: enabled=0
private_colormap: enabled=0
i440fxsupport: enabled=0
Thanks,
Jim
Kees J Bot
Jim Howatt <jho...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>Klaus von der Heyde <kl...@nero.uni-bonn.de> wrote in message news:<3BC40BF4...@nero.uni-bonn.de>...
>
>I got it to boot, but after I pressed "=", the screen filled with @ signs
>and, although Minix loaded and the message asking me to complete the
>"fd0c" device appeared, I could not type anything. Every keypress
>caused ^@ to appear.
The @ signs are bugs in Bochs that were removed for the version of Bochs
that is found on the Minix CD in
<http://www.cs.vu.nl/pub/minix/CD-ROM-2.0/BOCHS/>.
For some reason these fixes never made it back into the other copies
found on the net.
Nicholas Knight
news:5CKw7.639475$EF2.90...@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com...
WindowsXP is a new version of win2k, win2k is a new version of NT4, NT4 is a
new version of NT 3.51 (actually a bit more than just a "new version" of
3.51, there were EXTENSIVE changes, but it's still NT).
NT doesn't TOUCH DOS, it is a completely independant kernel and
architecture, it has no relation to DOS whatsoever besides supporting legacy
DOS apps on a limited bases via its DOS box VM (and, of course, it too is
from Microsoft).
16-bit DOSMINIX for the 8086 will run fine in NT4, Win2k, and WinXP, in
their dos emulation systems. As for 3.51, I have no idea, never played with
it.
Max F Lang
>
> In article <slrn9s42b7...@mud.stack.nl>,
> Martijn van Buul <pino+comp...@dohd.org> wrote:
> >> I've heard rumors that "you can't get to DOS" in Windows XP.
> "probably", because I haven't seen XP yet.)
In WinXP, on the Start menu, isn't there a "Run" option? If so, what
happens when you type "command" or "cmd" at that field? Don't you get a
DOS command line? I don't know about XP, but I use this a lot with 98
and 2K. It's the only way to keep a little Unix sanity when using
Windows.
But as another poster said, the only way to run Minix for real is to
give it its own partition. Or better, get an old 386 or 486 with four
megs and a 100M hard drive and dedicate the whole deal to Minix.
--
All parts should go together without forcing...
By all means, do not use a hammer.
-- IBM maintenance manual, 1925.
Rolf Henze
> give it its own partition. Or better, get an old 386 or 486 with four
> megs and a 100M hard drive and dedicate the whole deal to Minix.
I prefer the way mentioned above. DOSMINIX under Windows-95-DOS does
exactly the same job, but is more flexible if you´re working on more
than one machine. Just with 16-bit-DOSMINIX under NT I got problems,
could not compile sourcecode which is compiling and running well under
32-bit-Minix.
Rolf Henze