Minix 3.1.2 beta 2 available

Ben Gras

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Mar 28, 2006, 11:48:19 AM3/28/06

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Dear All,

There is a beta version of 3.1.2 out, called 3.1.2-B2, available
from www.minix3.org. For more information and the download link,
please see:
http://www.minix3.org/experimental.html

Comments and bug reports are most welcome to bu...@minix3.org or
this newsgroup.

BIOS-driver (for USB CD drives and such) and USB stick images
are forthcoming.

Enjoy!

=Ben

Segin

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Mar 28, 2006, 2:31:57 PM3/28/06

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Is there an "upgrade" option in the installer?

Ben Gras

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Mar 28, 2006, 2:46:12 PM3/28/06

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All,

> Is there an "upgrade" option in the installer?

Not really. There is the option to leave any existing /home filesystem
intact and only overwrite / and /usr though. That was the idea of /home
in the first place.

If you're feeling adventurous, it should be no problem to copy the new
sources onto and 'old' system and upgrade like that with a little
manual labour.

=Ben

Drew

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Mar 29, 2006, 6:54:14 AM3/29/06

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I installed the beta and all binary and source packages.
How does one configure XFree86 for minix?

Ben Gras

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Mar 29, 2006, 10:03:55 AM3/29/06

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All,

> I installed the beta and all binary and source packages.
> How does one configure XFree86 for minix?

To see the default config is ok, e.g. run xdm.
If it isn't, it's configured like any other X install.

A good starting point is probably 'X -configure', which writes an
xorg.conf for you.

If the config works, place it in e.g. /etc/X11/xorg.conf ..

=Ben

Steve Murray

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Mar 31, 2006, 5:45:03 AM3/31/06

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The installation procedure is quite slick, I was impressed with that.
However, I was wondering how the X11 port had been accomplished without
hardware MM support. Sure enough, my trusty old pentium notebook which
has 40 MB RAM installed says ...

xdm error (pid xxxx): daemon fork failed, Not enough core

... and that about explains it.
How much memory is required to get the Xserver and a window manager up I
wonder?

Steve

Ben Gras

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Mar 31, 2006, 3:56:20 PM3/31/06

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All,

> The installation procedure is quite slick, I was impressed with that.

Good!

> However, I was wondering how the X11 port had been accomplished without
> hardware MM support. Sure enough, my trusty old pentium notebook which
> has 40 MB RAM installed says ...
>
> xdm error (pid xxxx): daemon fork failed, Not enough core
>
> ... and that about explains it.
> How much memory is required to get the Xserver and a window manager up I
> wonder?

Basic paging is enabled to map video memory into the X address space,
but this sacrifices the real memory that used to be there, which can
waste quite a bit, especially on 40MB. So the amount of real memory
needed also depends on how much video memory you have. You can see this
by the size of your X binary.

By the looks of it, even xdm failed to fork. You could try to start X
by itself with startx..

=Ben

Wouter Labeeuw

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Apr 5, 2006, 6:45:15 AM4/5/06

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Hello,

Installed Minix on an old PC.
I've got the same error like Ben. startx doesn't work either...
I used to run Linux on it using Xserver. It worked then so I don't
think it's the hardware...

Wouter

Steve Murray

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Apr 6, 2006, 1:09:06 AM4/6/06

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No, it's not the hardware, it's the amount of memory that X wants when
it starts up. Try running the server on it's own and see what you get ...

X -configure

... or whatever might be a good start. You'll at least get some
informative messages as the server tries to get going.
Good luck with it,
Steve