transform minix smartphone operating system

[Patrick Correa]

Hi, I'm a minix enthusiast I would like to know if it is possible to turn minix into a smartphone operating system

[Peter Shkenev]

Hello,

Of course you can do it.

Before you start doing it, you may want to look at this: https://groups.google.com/g/minix3/c/nUG1NwxXXkg

Best regards,

Peter

среда, 13 октября 2021 г. в 23:44:13 UTC+3, patric...@gmail.com:

[stux...@gmail.com]

Hello and welcome to the Minix Distribution Group!

To answer your question: in the strictest sense, yes it's theoretically possible to turn Minix into a smartphone operating system.  However the more appropriate question to ask should be: How much work would it take to turn Minix into a smartphone OS?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is: lots. Here's a quick breakdown:

• To begin with, the Minix software stack needs to be brought up to handle the modern software stack.  This is a long term process that we're trying to get off the ground. More information can be found here: https://groups.google.com/g/minix3/c/nUG1NwxXXkg
• Next would be hardware support. Code must be written to support the intended target hardware (CPU, memory architecture and drivers).  Finding developers familiar with the target platform would  be a pre-requisite.
• After that drivers and driver infrastructure for smartphone-specific hardware devices must be written.  This is stuff that's not usually found in your regular PC such as GPS, phone radio system, accelerometer, compass, NFC, etc.
  
• Finally, once all that is built, you need to build your phone user space suite of tools.  This would be the set of software that lets the phone's user use the smartphone as a phone, text messaging device, camera, music player, etc.  The most prominent example of this would be Android.  You could adapt Android to run on top of Minix or you could build something else.  Care must be taken with allowing regular Minix programs to be run on the userspace because they can quickly drain the battery even while the phone is idle.
  

So, in a nutshell, I believe that's what it would take to bring the Minix stack up to the level where it can be run on a smartphone.  Unfortunately the project has nowhere near the amount of resources currently needed to build this, which is why few projects, except those backed by the largest corporations, succeed in writing a good smartphone OS.

Nevertheless, it would be a nice dream to accomplish this and maybe one day it might become a reality. 

-stux