Minix Operating System

179 words [ 3 Screenshots ] [ 10 Versions ] [ 1 Weblinks ] - Last update: 2021-10-06 Page created: 2004-04-03 [SB]

 


Minix

Minix was programmed by the computer scientist Andrew Tanenbaum as a teaching operating system for x86 computer. It is related to the AT&T UNIX, however it does not contain any licence requiring source code of UNIX so that it is free of charge to be used and sold. In January 1987 Minix was made public for the first time and the users discussed about it in newsgroups in the Usenet. Minix 3.1 was downloaded 75.000 times as an ISO image of interested users in the first 2 months after the release.

MINIX 3. x can be used for embedded devices also and for further applications where the GPL is too strict. The operating system offers very high reliability. The porting to the ARM7 and PPC architecture are in development. On the porting of the X Window Server is also worked.

Structure information
- MINIX 2.0 for 16bit/32bit systems
- supports multi-threading

System environment
- about 200 console programs
- up to 3 simultaneous user
- can use 16 mbyte RAM on Intel 286 and up to 4 gbyte RAM with 386 CPUs or better


 


Screenshots

Minix Operating System screenshot 1Minix Operating System screenshot 2Minix Operating System screenshot 3
Minix 1.5 - 5 1/4 floppies from 1991Minix 3.1.1 - boot menuMinix 3.1.1 - Shell login prompt

Versions

Date - Version
1984 - Minix 0.?
1987 - Minix 1.0
1992 Oct. - Minix 1.5 was installed from 12x 720 kbyte floppy disks for Intel, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari or SPARC computers
1993 April - Minix 1.6.25
1995 June - Minix 1.7.0 with 32-bit ACK (Amsterdam Compiler Kit)
1996 Feb. - Minix 1.7.2
1996 Oct. - Minix 2.0.0 for Intel CPUs from 8088 up to Pentium class
1998 Dec. - Minix 2.0.2
2005 Oct. - Minix 3.1, about 300 programs available
2006 April - MINIX 3.1.2

Weblinks

[ Minix ]