Best way to learn and use minix3.

[zertsekel]

Hi all,
I am looking for the best way to learn minix3 and its particulars and
of course to use it (what may be called at a whole - to get involved),
taking into account that i'm graduate with some year of real time
embeeded programming experience. I'm working at these day with ARM
processors.
Presently, my primer interest in minix3 is micro kernel approach along
with ARM porting.
Please provide some tips / guide for the leaning (and usage) ramp up.
10x.

[Bianco Zandbergen]

A good start will be reading the book "Operating Systems Design and
Implementation, Third Edition".

[whatpig]

Although the book is very detailed minix3
But only at the macro level about the
Apart from this basic knowledge is to know the
For example: c compilation of such data structures

[Konstantin Zertsekel]

Man, your mail agent garbles your emails.

Every line is cut abruptly.

Can you please resend the below email?]

10x.

--
Regards, Konstantin.

[joey]

Actually,minix3 is not meant to be a teaching tool. If you really want
to learn I suggest you study minix 2 first because that is more
straighforward. minix3 is complex and you need the understanding of
minix 2 before you can make progress with it.

[Konstantin Zertsekel]

I hope to grasp minix 3 without preliminary knowledge about minix 2,

_but_ with wise use of Operation System Design and Implementation 3rd.

Otherwise, there is definitely no time to learn and understand the both of them.

--
Regards, Konstantin.

[joey]

On 12 Mar, 20:21, Konstantin Zertsekel <zertse...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I hope to grasp minix 3 without preliminary knowledge about minix 2,_but_
> with wise use of Operation System Design and Implementation 3rd.
> Otherwise, there is definitely no time to learn and understand the both of
> them.

> --
> Regards, Konstantin.

Hi, you can certainly grasp minix 3 without preliminary knowledge of
minix 2. What i was trying to say was that the earlier minix was
specially designed to be used as a operating system to teach people
how unix like operating is implemented. I think I am correct in saying
that in terms of how it works, minix 2 is probably easier to
understand because it has only basic features. eg there are fewer
system calls to learn in minix 2 than minix 3.

Minix 3 has different goals to the earlier version. Someone
knowledgeable will correct me if i am wrong - but I do not think it is
meant to be grasped by people who want to learn about operating system
implementation. It is way more complex than minix 2 in many ways and
they will continue to add new features which will make it even more
complex.

On the other hand minix 2 was 'there' there was no continuos
development like this new minix. It was probably easier to study it.
The professor that wrote minix even resisted calls to add features
because the primary purpose of it was to teach - that was all.

Minix 3 is a complex entity. It is meant to be amongst other things a
usable serious operating system. I think that this development drive
has potential to make the system so complex that it may not be
possible to grasp it at all. For example, it would be really hard to
study operating systems by looking at linux which is really really
complex in comparison even to minix 3.

But dont let me put you off. I am not a expert in anything. Like you i
am just wanting to learn and understand some new things.

Regards
Joey.

[Rilson Nascimento]

On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 6:32 PM, joey <gnu...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

On 12 Mar, 20:21, Konstantin Zertsekel <zertse...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I hope to grasp minix 3 without preliminary knowledge about minix 2,_but_
> with wise use of Operation System Design and Implementation 3rd.
> Otherwise, there is definitely no time to learn and understand the both of
> them.

> --
> Regards, Konstantin.

Hi, you can certainly grasp minix 3 without preliminary knowledge of
minix 2. What i was trying to say was that the earlier minix was
specially designed to be used as a operating system to teach people
how unix like operating is implemented. I think I am correct in saying
that in terms of how it works, minix 2 is probably easier to
understand because it has only basic features. eg there are fewer
system calls to learn in minix 2 than minix 3.

Minix 3 has different goals to the earlier version. Someone
knowledgeable will correct me if i am wrong - but I do not think it is
meant to be grasped by people who want to learn about operating system
implementation.

 

 

I'm not someone knowledgeable, but I beg to disagree. I believe the "Operating Systems Design and Implementation (3rd Edition)" book was written exactly with this intent in mind, i.e., to help people learn about OS design and implementation, and the book is based on Minix 3.

 

-Rilson

[Jens de Smit]

>  I'm not someone knowledgeable, but I beg to disagree. I believe the "Operating
> Systems Design and Implementation (3rd Edition)" book was written exactly
> with this intent in mind, i.e., to help people learn about OS design and
> implementation, and the book is based on Minix 3.

Correct. The primary distinction between Minix 2 and Minix 3 is the
intention of what to _do_ with it rather than how complex it will be.
Moreover, Minix 3's microkernel design makes it possible to build a
powerful system without making the core overly complex. I think that
the base of Minix 3 (the version shipped with and discussed in the
book) may be _simpler_ than Minix 2 because it has a more consistent
design. In Minix 2, some system parts such as the memory manager were
running as sort-of separate processes but still in kernel space to get
elevated privileges (if I'm not mistaken). Minix 3 has migrated these
processes to user space and the kernel handles the elevated privileges
on behalf of these processes. I think the statement "I think that this

development drive
has potential to make the system so complex that it may not be

possible to grasp it at all" is simply not true.

If you want some practice hacking Minix, take a look at this site:
http://www.few.vu.nl/~bs/
This is the Operating System practical at the Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam (where Andrew Tanenbaum works). It lets you do some stuff to
the kernel which will give you great insight in how stuff works under
the hood. Take a special look at the bottom of the site for
instructions how to run this practical inside a VM, because you won't
have access to our lab rooms.

Regards,

Jens

[Konstantin Zertsekel]

 

 

Besides all previously said, it is better to learn minix3 because it is a real stuff, not university toy for learning. Meaning you may add your features or port it to some architecture and merge your patch into main source code tree.

What I'm trying to say, is that the feature you are going to develop will not evaporate in vain, but will go (fortunately) into the main line, will be reviewed, tested and fixed by a lot other people - will continue to live, will contibute to the growing community.

Moreover, the knowledge of minix3 is useful and practical stuff considering the minix3's stride towards the mature and ubiquity OS.
--
Regards, Konstantin.