The difference between GNU Hurd and Minix 3

[Louis Hoefler]

Hello everyone.
I am looking for a documentation about minix and Hurd and especially their differences.

I completely do not like the Linux Kernel implementation and want to start developing device drivers.

I therefore have a old 700Mhz notebook where I wan't to install Hurd/Minix.

Hurd currently does not support Soundcards. Is this possible with Minix?

Where can I find good a good documentation about the supported features of booth operating systems/Kernels?
Where can I find free Documentation about device driver development/ACPI/USB/APIC/Microkernels?

I order Andrew S Tanenbaum book Operating Systems next month (~112$ it's a little expensive for me so I need to save money).
Are there other good books with the Topic kernel implementation/ACPI/USB/APIC/device driver development?

I'm not a Student but I visit shool right now (again), so I learned everything I know on my own. Do you recommend other books to understand Tanebaum's book?

Thank you, Louis Hoefler

[Vivek Prakash]

Hi,

> Hurd currently does not support Soundcards. Is this possible with Minix?

Yes, audio cards are supported.

> I'm not a Student but I visit shool right now (again), so I learned everything I know on my own. Do you recommend other books to understand Tanebaum's book?

I am currently a student too. Nevertheless, I found the 'Operating system Design and Implementation'  very useful in understanding the important concepts used in Minix. I think you can find its e-book somewhere.  In addition you can go through a paper published by AST. It covers some important concepts in brief, and there is a slight mention of GNU Hurd too.

> Where can I find good a good documentation about the supported features of booth operating systems/Kernels?

For GNU Hurd, I found this link http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html quite useful. Though i hadn't gone into much detail when i read it, so i don't know how much of your purpose will solved there.

> Where can I find free Documentation about device driver development/ACPI/USB/APIC/Microkernels?

For device drivers development, http://wiki.minix3.org/en/DevelopersGuide/DriverProgramming can be a good start. At least, it was for me. Though the contents there have become slightly outdated, so i request someone to update it.

> Are there other good books with the Topic kernel implementation/ACPI/USB/APIC/device driver development?

I would also like to know good books on this topic, where driver development is at least slightly covered considering minix.

~
Vivek Prakash

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[Althaf]

This would be a good start for the minix usb part, this was my major
project for my UG course in Computer science, the project page has the
design documents and the source code for the USB stack on minx (alpha
release) , currently project is stalled for few months.

http://code.google.com/p/minix3-usbsubsystem/

There are no specific documentation afaik that actually deals with the
development of USB
stack on certain platform, one hope is the the USB specs 2.0, the
already implemented stacks (linux, bsd, small OS projects etc) and few
USB stack implementation papers (check the reference part of my
report).

Good luck
--
Althaf K Backer
http://code.google.com/p/minix3-usbsubsystem/
http://mykeystrokes.blogspot.com

[freeasinfreedom]

On 12 Νοέ, 21:14, Louis Hoefler <louis.hoef...@gmx.de> wrote:
> Hello everyone.
> I am looking for a documentation about minix and Hurd and especially
> their differences.
>
> I completely do not like the Linux Kernel implementation and want to
> start developing device drivers.
>
> I therefore have a old 700Mhz notebook where I wan't to install Hurd/Minix.
>
> Hurd currently does not support Soundcards. Is this possible with Minix?
>
> Where can I find good a good documentation about the supported features
> of booth operating systems/Kernels?

Hurd uses the ancient Mach 3 microkernel, so the best papers to learn
about its architecture are here: http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/microkernel/mach/documentation.html.
However, note that the developers are considering of replacing Mach
with a modern microkernel (which should be GPL-compatible...).

> Where can I find free Documentation about device driver
> development/ACPI/USB/APIC/Microkernels?

For Hurd perhaps this can help: http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hacking-guide/hhg.html

>
> I order Andrew S Tanenbaum book Operating Systems next month (~112$ it's
> a little expensive for me so I need to save money).
> Are there other good books with the Topic kernel
> implementation/ACPI/USB/APIC/device driver development?
>
> I'm not a Student but I visit shool right now (again), so I learned
> everything I know on my own. Do you recommend other books to understand
> Tanebaum's book?

If you're planning to buy the MINIX book, the other book of Tanenbaum
"Modern Operating Systems" includes research topics regarding many
operating system parts (including I/O and device drivers)

Kind Regards,
Sakis

>
> Thank you, Louis Hoefler