Minix 2 Port To Modern Intel and AMD Processors

[Joel Charbonnet]

I’m new here (and to Google Groups) and would like to know if Minix 1 or Minix 2 run on modern processors (Intel i7 / AMD Ryzen 7)?

If not what would I need to do to make that happen?

Thanks

[Michael Cheponis]

This answer from ChatGPT 5.3 Pro may be of help:

MINIX 1/2 are very old PC operating systems (early BIOS-era assumptions, old disk/NIC drivers, etc.). On modern i7 / Ryzen machines, the lowest-effort way to run them is to emulate/virtualize an old PC with QEMU (or VirtualBox). Trying to install them directly on bare metal is usually more work than it’s worth.

Minimal-effort route (recommended): QEMU + prebuilt MINIX 1/2 disk image

1) Install QEMU

Use whatever matches your host OS:

• Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install qemu-system

• Fedora: sudo dnf install @virtualization

• Arch: sudo pacman -S qemu

• macOS (Homebrew): brew install qemu

• Windows: QEMU installers are linked from the QEMU download page (and there are MSYS2 pacman options too).

2) Download a ready-to-boot MINIX 1 or MINIX 2 image

The quickest “no install required” option I’ve found is davidgiven/minix2 “Quick and Dirty” release images:

• MINIX 1: minix-1.7-hd-64MB.img.gz

• MINIX 2: minix-2.0-hd-64MB.img.gz

(Those “hd-64MB” images are specifically meant to be bootable hard disk images, i.e., good for VMs.)

3) Decompress the image

On Linux/macOS:

gunzip minix-2.0-hd-64MB.img.gz
# or:
gunzip minix-1.7-hd-64MB.img.gz

On Windows: use 7-Zip (or any gzip-capable tool) to extract the .img.

4) Boot it with QEMU

MINIX 2:

qemu-system-i386 -m 64 -hda minix-2.0-hd-64MB.img -boot c

MINIX 1:

qemu-system-i386 -m 16 -hda minix-1.7-hd-64MB.img -boot c

Why those memory sizes: that distribution notes MINIX 1 supports up to ~16MB RAM and MINIX 2 up to ~64MB.

Tip (safer “try it without modifying the image”):

qemu-system-i386 -m 64 -hda minix-2.0-hd-64MB.img -boot c -snapshot

-snapshot makes writes temporary (great if you just want to poke around).

If QEMU complains about acceleration: force pure emulation (works everywhere, just slower):

qemu-system-i386 -accel tcg -m 64 -hda minix-2.0-hd-64MB.img -boot c

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Even more “one-command” (Linux-centric): minixfromscratch’s MINIX 2 image + script

If you’re on Linux and want something that’s already packaged with helper scripts, the minixfromscratch project publishes a MINIX 2 “book version” VM image:

• Download minix2.img.zip, unzip it, and run ./qemuminix2.sh (per their release notes).

They also explicitly warn to reboot cleanly (e.g., Ctrl+Alt+Del in QEMU) before closing QEMU to reduce filesystem corruption risk. 

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[Joel Charbonnet]

Thank you for the detailed reply, now I have a jumping off point. Thanks again.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/minix3/CAOaX04MwhKFE0mQ7iMCwxh1EGco%3Dt4L6n_pXYhNZYWYABHgeFA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Terry McConnell]

Windows centric answer: I've run minix 2 under VMware (don't ask me why.) You could probably also use HyperV but I find VMware to be a lot less flaky than HyperV. VMware is free for non-commercial use. 

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[Joel Charbonnet]

I was planning on running Minix in Virtualbox to get a feel for how it runs. My main goal is to see if I can get it to run natively on modern hardware. I am retiring soon and I am debating between porting Minix to modern hardware or contribute on the Linux Kernel as an ongoing project.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/minix3/CAOj4pU37MkQAiGWBpzKouQ6MWtWHb4OD6YotAVNcr8PSs13GSw%40mail.gmail.com.