State of Graphics in Minix 3

[Martyn Bliss]

Can anyone explain what the current state of a GUI is?

Thanks,

Martyn

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

Hi,

Can anyone explain what the current state of a GUI is?

 
There's X11 with twm working out of the box. It's quite a throwback to the 1980s, but it works. If you want to test it, the easiest way would be the development snapshot CD temporarily available at http://www.few.vu.nl/%7Elsc300/minix_x86.iso which has everything needed : install it, reboot, log in as root and then run "startx".

I don't think we have a desktop environment for the time being, so you can cross out things like GNOME, KDE or Xfce for now.

[Lux]

Hi, how do i run "startx" i have the minix_x86.iso running on oracle vm.

i am logged in as root. when i ls i see  .cshrc .klogin .login .profile .shrc

I am not sure how to locate "startx"

I assume the cat file command would launch "startx" but i cannot find "startx"

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

You need to perform an installation first. X11 isn't available in this live CD environment as it is stored compressed for installation.

Once installed and rebooted in the freshly installed Minix environment, log in as root and then launch startx. X11 should start and a bunch of xterm windows should appear.

[Lux]

ok so i installed with ethernet. everything seems to be setup well.

 this is what i get when i run startx after freshly installing and connecting to internet through the vm

it seems it is setup to connect to internet; but it cant get connected for some reason. 

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

it seems it is setup to connect to internet; but it cant get connected for some reason. 

startx doesn't connect to internet, it just launches the graphic interface. If you want to check network connectivity try :

ping google.fr

X11 doesn't start because it can't find the driver for the VirtualBox video card during auto-detection. To circumvent the problem, you'll need to create a configuration file called xorg.conf to force another driver.

To automatically create one, type :

Xorg -configure

Then, move the file to /etc/X11 with :

mv xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

At this point, running startx should start the X server with the VESA driver.

If you want to quit X11, type exit in the login window. You'll be back to the console prompt.

[Lux]

Thanks bud that did the trick!! I hope to learn this OS from the inside out so that one day when it is fully developed and widespread I will be sufficient in knowledge of minix to be like you and help newcomers!