HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mpierce@ewu.UUCP (Mathew Pierce)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Minix and the Amiga
Date: 30 Mar 92 22:31:53 GMT
Followup-To: comp.os.minix
Organization: Eastern Washington Univ. Cheny WA

I have several questions about MINIX on the Amiga.  First of all, is MINIX 1.3 (not the most current version)
available for the Amiga?  If not, has anyone tried running MINIX under IBeM? Has anyone run MINIX from a 
bridgeboard?  

I need this OS for my opsys class, and I am being provided the DOS version through the class, but not the 
Amiga version.  Can anyone help me?  

Thanks a bunch,

Matt Pierce

From UUCP:	...uunet!isc-br!ewu!mpierce
From Internet:	mpierce%ewu@uunet.uu.net
From Bitnet:	bitnet%"isc-br!ewu!mpierce@uunet.uu.net"
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: AST's New Book...
Date: 8 Apr 92 11:01:44 GMT
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

In article <3666@tuegate.tue.nl> tgcpwd@urc.tue.nl writes:

>It sounds interesting enough, but what about price, ISBN number, # of pages, 
>availability? Perhaps the 'contents' could be given here, or perhaps an
>abstract or summary? 

I already posted that information.  If you missed it, you can get it by FTP
from ftp.cs.vu.nl as ast/modern_op_sys (or I can email it to you upon request).

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
From: waltje@minixug.mugnet.org (Fred 'The Rebel' van Kempen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: unresolved references
Date: 30 Mar 92 01:58:40 GMT
Organization: MINIX User Group Holland (NLMUG)   -  MUGNET  -

gs53@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gong  Su) wrote:
> Hi *,
> 	I have this strange thing.
> 	I write a small C library routine which involves using 'sbrk'.
> After I compile it with 'cc -c -LIB filename.c' and put it into 'libc.a'
> with 'ar q libc.a filename.s', I write another test program invoking the
> library routine. But when I compile the test program, I keep getting the
> message
> 	unresolved references:
> 		_sbrk
> I check out 'libc.a' and there IS a module 'brk.s' containing code of
> both '_brk' and '_sbrk'. So how could this happen? Any idea?
> Thanks in advance.

In your case, "sbrk.s" is probably located _before_ the "brk.s" and/or
"malloc.s" modules. Because ACK "asld" has a one-pass linker, care must
be taken with the _order_ in which library modules are located in the
library archive file.

In general: if module 'a' references a symbol in module 'b', you should
place 'b' _after_ 'a'. In the malloc case:

malloc.s
sbrk.s
brk.s    ---> this is the actual system call BRK

Fred.
From: rizec@sun.pcl.ac.uk (Luis Ruiz)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Is Minix Useful?
Date: 6 Apr 92 09:54:49 GMT
Organization: Polytechnic of Central London

Hello
 
I'm helping to prepare a presentation on minix, as part of this I would like to
discuse what uses minix is put to other than teaching operating systems. If you
use minix in an usual / useful way please reply to the net or directly to me.

Also I would interested to hear about the minix's benefits / disadvantages when
compared with other unix like operating systems.

All replys are welcome considered comments or subjective personal views. 

If there is enough interest I will prepair a summary and post it to the net.

Luis M Ruiz
rizec@uk.ac.pcl.sun
The Polytechnic Of Central London 
The School of Computer Science
115 New Cavandish St
London W1A
From: clam@cup.portal.com (cario h lam)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: MINIX in a test environment......
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 21:19:47 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: na

Has anyone had experience using MINIX in the hardware prototyping environment
Any pros and cons about using it as an alternative operating system to UNIX?

Thanks in advance
-clam
From: csf281@cch.coventry.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re : Exception Handler
Date: 16 Apr 92 11:59:02 GMT
Organization: Coventry Polytechnic, Coventry, UK

Hi Bruce,

Thanks a lot for your reply! In the meantime I've got an idea how it might
work.
You write :
>Perhaps you should just not allow nested exceptions.  Keep big tables
>in memory.
This is one approach. The other one I wanted to try was to use
dynamically allocated data to keep track of the mapping (virt_addr ->fileptr).
The data itself certainly needs more space (currently 13 bytes per page
descriptor, should be less with the ANSI compiler),but it doesnt need to
be in memory. I've organised in a sort of hash table with collision lists
and locked the table in memory, although a bitmap of 4k could already 
map 128MB. So my approach is interesting but not the most efficient one
for this system. 
>.....
>I have been running a paging version of Minix-386 written by Philip
>Homburg for almost a year now.
>.....
>Almost everything is done in the exception handler.  This allows it to work
>well with tasks (e.g., when a driver gets a pagefault copying to an
>allocated but unmapped user buffer) but makes it hard to call as task
>to do i/o for swapping.
>
>Bruce
Is there any way to get the source of this page fault handler? I would be
interested in the way Phil handles al the i/o without using the OS.
If that means to program the hardware directly it certainly increases
the codesize. But with a size of MINIX of only ~250k as a virtual system
that hardly matters. 

The solution(?? - isn't working yet) I've found now is to lock all the
OS pages in main memory (defined an available bit in the page table
entries as lock attribute and modified klib_2hook() ).
I relied on the assumption that there is no dynamic allocation happening 
in the kernel. Hope I'm not wrong. So if I generate all possible (nested)
exceptions within the handler and then call the fs to do the i/o it
should work.

The only thing is that the handler has to be programmed re-entrant,i.e
without any static stuff. I'm not completely sure about this as the
_save called after each exception could get in the way.

	Have a nice Easter altogether!!
			Frank.

============================================================================
	Frank Roeser	JANET	E-Mail	: csf281@cck.coventry.ac.uk
============================================================================
Organization: Comp & Comm - Computer Operations, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 14:20:05 -0400 
From: "Wayne P. Myers" <wm0i+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: X11 sources - Minix

I'll be getting minix in about a week, I hope. I know that minix does
not currently support any GUI's but does anyone know where I might be
able to get the X11 sources. I would like to attempt a rewrite, and
compile it under minix on a 386sx 25mhz box. I know that MIT holds the
copyright to it, but everything I've read suggests that it is free for
the asking, but I haven't found anything related to this at
tsx-11.mit.edu. Does anyone know where I should look, or who I should
ask.
Thanks in advance

Wayne P. Myers
(Computer Operator II)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: bjones@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (William A Jones)
Subject: optopt??
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 12:40:35 GMT

When trying to port a minix program to linux, I received an error message
that the linker was trying to find _optopt.  I checked around and this
does not appear to be POSIX standard (though I could very easily be wrong)
and I'm not sure what it does.  Could someone please explain what it
is intended to be and, since it is an integer value, what values it might
take on in uucp?  Thanks.

Bill

========================================================================
bjones@cambria.UUCP
bjones@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
bjones@geo1s.mps.ohio-state.edu
========================================================================

Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: ykim@cs.columbia.edu (Yong Su Kim)
Subject: MINIX debuggers
Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 02:33:42 GMT

Are there any debuggers out there for MINIX v1.5 for the PC?

Also, a program to trace system calls would be very helpful.  I would
be grateful if people could send me mail describing how they debug,
and what kind of tools they use to debug under MINIX.

So far, I've used postmort which has been a great tool, but it would
be nice to have other tools.



-- 
===============================================================================
Yong Su Kim, Class of 1993		|  Internet: yk4@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
Columbia College, Columbia University   |        or  ykim@cs.columbia.edu
			
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: osynw@giac1.oscs.montana.edu (Nate Williams)
Subject: Re: MINIX debuggers
Keywords: n
Organization: Montana State University, Bozeman  MT
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 03:29:32 GMT

In article <1992Apr12.023342.19283@cs.columbia.edu> ykim@cs.columbia.edu (Yong Su Kim) writes:
>Are there any debuggers out there for MINIX v1.5 for the PC?
>

Yep, there is.  The PC people probably want to check out db.tar.Z on 
plains.nodak.edu ~Minix/oz.  This package contains db, Bruce Evan's
kernel debugger and mdb, the standalone debugger for user programs.

It only works if you leave the symbols in, but it does a pretty darn good
job (not source level).  I think Bruce Evans hacked the ST version of mdb
to do PC debugging, but I am not sure of that.  

Anyway, check it out.  It has saved my bacon a couple times already.

Nate
-- 
:-):-):-):-):-):-):-):_):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-)
:-)Inet: osynw@giac1.oscs.montana.edu  :-) Sys. Mgr. - GIS lab : Earth Sci.:-)
:-)Bnet: osynw@MTSUNIX (Painfully slow):-) The guy blamed for everything   :-)
:-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-)
From: tyrone@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (tyrone.shiu)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Minix 1.5?
Date: 8 Apr 92 19:19:06 GMT
Organization: AT&T

Hi:

I am new to the minix newsgroup.  I recently received an ad from
Prentice Hall about Minix 1.5 is on sale for about $125.  But I read
some articles in this news group saying Minix 1.6.x is in used.
My question is 1.6.x available for purchase or I have to apply many
patches before I can get a decent version.  Also, is there an FAQ
for this news group? Thanks for all the help!

-- Tyrone
From: csg203@cch.coventry.ac.uk (Bluebeard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: dosread woes
Date: 8 Apr 92 15:09:50 GMT
Organization: Elf Bashers Anonymous


Could someone mail me the source for a copy of dosread that will read >32 meg
hard discs ?

I recently installed a second hard disc on my 286 system and encountered a few
problems. After a mere half day or so, I smoothed out the problem and 
installed my new 60 meg hard disc as drive C and my old hard disc as drive D.

Unfortunately I had to low level format my old drive. I did a backup before 
hand, but somehow part of my source directory was missed and some of my
original v1.3 disks have also become corrupted.

I've recovered most of the source that I've lost from the various upgrade 
kits, but the one that I desperately need is the source for dosread.


So, to recap, if someone could mail me the source for v1.5 dosread, or more
preferably a version that will read large hard discs, plus 720K/1.44M 3.5"
discs, then I will be extremely grateful.

-- 
***********************************************************************
* FLESH: Charlie Freckleton * JANET: csg203@uk.ac.cov.cck             * 
* ALIAS: Bluebeard          * or   : stliaise@uk.ac.cov.cck           * 
***********************************************************************
From: bls@cis.ksu.edu (Bryan L. See)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: symbolic links
Date: 16 Apr 92 23:41:53 GMT
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: harry.cis.ksu.edu

I at one time tinkered with this but gave up for awhile.  I now have one
of the packaged diffs applied, compiled and for the most part working.  I
was wondering if anyone had been working to improve this.
Two problems  I've noticed so far:

ls doesn't compile.  Source has errors.

Have to be in the directory where the link resides in order to make use
of it.  I.E , I can cd test_link but can't cd /tmp/test_link.

Any comments or ideas?  I'd love to see symlinks improved to the point
ast might include it in 2.0.
-- 
   Bryan L. See                bls@cis.ksu.edu
From: abgrall@aurora.unice.fr (Jean-Paul Abgrall)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: lharc enhanced part 1 of 2
Keywords: lharc, minix1.5, pc
Date: 6 Apr 92 08:02:19 GMT
Organization: Maitrise Informartique, Nice
Originator: abgrall@aurora.unice.fr




  It's a pity R.R.Hall did'nt wait for the latest update as mentioned in the
READ*1st file. 
The posted version (which is 1.30) handles short name identifiers (needed for
asld on Minix1.5/PC) in a very slow and ugly way (gres). Version 1.31 uses
#define as inspired by the previous port of lharc (done few years ago, which
 I did'nt notice in time for my first posting. That version is 1.2).

 I will not post lharc131 because I mistakenly reinvented the wheel which is
available on most good ftp sites that do Minix/ibm. 
(mail if you want it any way).


----
abgrall@aurora.unice.fr
abgrall@taloa.unice.fr
From: adrie@ica.philips.nl (Adrie Koolen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: whereis.c
Date: 16 Apr 92 06:45:20 GMT
Organization: Philips Consumer Electronics, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

In article <6719@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU> chinkao@boole.seas.ucla.edu (Chin C. Kao) writes:
>We use Minix 1.5 on IBM ATs here at UCLA for an Operating Systems course.
>I'm trying to write a program that is functionally similar to the whereis
>program that comes with Minix 1.5.  I thought I could take a look at the
>source for whereis but apparently, it is not in /usr/src/commands in a
>archive or compressed.  I was wondering if Minix had the source for whereis
>and if it is public domain, if someone could mail it to me.  Thanks.

It's a shell script and therefore is its own source. You can study it via
"cat /usr/bin/whereis" or "vi /usr/bin/whereis". Of course you can write
a C program which does the same and would be noticeably faster, but also it
would take a lot more code.

Adrie Koolen (adrie@ica.philips.nl)
Philips Consumer Electronics, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
From: meulenbr@cst.prl.philips.nl (Frans Meulenbroeks)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: vfork
Date: 9 Apr 92 14:36:42 GMT
Distribution: comp

meggin@epas.utoronto.ca (David Megginson) writes:

>In article <13710@star.cs.vu.nl> kjb@cs.vu.nl (Kees J. Bot) writes:

>   >Did anything ever come of this project, getting vfork to work with either
>   >68k or PC minix?

Forgot to react on the previous postings.
But: there is a vfork for minix ST. It was posted nov 1991 by
jens kaemmerer (jens@dtro.e-technik.th-darmstadt.de)
Check the archives for a copy. 
I haven't looked at it so I cannot comment on the quality.

--
Frans Meulenbroeks        (meulenbr@prl.philips.nl)
	Philips Research Laboratories
From: carlb@hardy.u.washington.edu (Carl Boernecke)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Booting from the Universal disk
Date: 7 Apr 92 15:48:44 GMT
Organization: University of Washington

An odd question here.  Why does my 286 system only boot from the AT
disk.  Why can't it use the Universal Boot diskette?  I also noticed
this problem when trying to use the demo disk.

Is it just an incompatibility problem with my system?  I must admit
that I'm not worried about it (I'd rather use protected mode, anyway),
but it seems somewhat odd.  Also, I have the demo disks available on
my BBS and listserver, and don't want a bunch of unhappy users sending
me mail saying that the disk rebooted with a "Kernel panic:" message.

-- Carl Boernecke (carlb@u.washington.edu)
From: klamer@mi.el.utwente.nl (Klamer Schutte)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: X11 sources - Minix
Date: 13 Apr 92 08:06:56 GMT
Organization: University of Twente, BSC-El

In <8du7xJy00WDGIB8UNl@andrew.cmu.edu> wm0i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Wayne P. Myers) writes:

->I'll be getting minix in about a week, I hope. I know that minix does
->not currently support any GUI's but does anyone know where I might be
->able to get the X11 sources. I would like to attempt a rewrite, and
->compile it under minix on a 386sx 25mhz box. I know that MIT holds the
->copyright to it, but everything I've read suggests that it is free for
->the asking, but I haven't found anything related to this at
->tsx-11.mit.edu. Does anyone know where I should look, or who I should
->ask.
->Thanks in advance

->Wayne P. Myers
->(Computer Operator II)

Hmmm. The problem won't be on the X11 side, but rather on the minix side.
Porting X11 to minix will involve LOTS of work. To mention a view:

1) Writing a select call, and have all character devices (mouse, keyboard)
   work with this.
2) Have a proper interproces communication setup, preferably like sockets.
3) Upgrade your standard minix to the 386 version -- the easiest step ;-)
4) Make either minix swap (not easy), or buy lots of memory (say 16-32 Meg).

And please, please make it available when you have it running...

Klamer

PS A easier approach will be using the recent (ftp available) BSD386
   distribution. Also more support will be available.
--
Klamer Schutte			Tel: +31-53-892778	Fax: +31-53-340045
Faculty of electrical engineering -- University of Twente, The Netherlands
preferred: klamer@mi.el.utwente.nl     SMTP: klamer@utelmi01.el.utwente.nl
From: miquels@maestro.htsa.aha.nl (Miquel van Smoorenburg)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: A question...
Date: 6 Apr 92 09:30:52 GMT
Organization: Algemene Hogeschool Amsterdam, Polytechnical Institute, The Netherlands

In article <1992Apr5.083752.27669@u.washington.edu> carlb@hardy.u.washington.edu (Carl Boernecke) writes:
>I have a question for all of the MINIX users who have UUCP connections
>established for their sites -- what software are you using as the
>remote mailing agent?  I have the w-mail/u-mail/uucp setup running on
>my system (caladan!seanews!inex!carlb@sumax.seattleu.edu <- Ugg, LONG
>path...), but even as the docs mention, w-mail is only "half-brained"
>(semi-intelligent).

Which version are you using? Anyway, wmail is not responsible for the
routing; umail is. I know that the author of umail, Fred van Kempen,
is trying to get a new release together (I heard that it can even run on
'real' Unices, supporting SMTP and the like). But I also know that he's
a very busy man..

>Is there a port of smail out for MINIX; rather, does smail even need to
>be ported or can it be compiled directly?

I use smail; the only changes I made are to the system and domain name
lookup of the local system, it now looks into /usr/lib/smail/uucpname
for this info instead of being hardcoded into the executable. It should
really look into /usr/lib/uucp/SYSTEMNAME...

The problem with smail is that I haven't found a copy of pathalias (yet)
that runs on a 16 bit system, so I have to generate the pathalias
output by hand (what's a hacker to do?)

Anyway, when the problems with umail are solved, I think I'll go back to
umail. It's configuration is much simpler.. what's easier than saying
*.htsa.aha.nl --> htsa
*.whatever ---> whatever host
. ---> default smart host

>The reason I ask is that I am looking into applying for a domain (as
>I will be feeding news and mail to a large number of sites by summer),
>and need a mailer that can handle most paths (expecially stuff like
>user%system@site.dom), that I don't really want to pass-on to a larger
>site if I can route it via my "paths" file locally.  After all, UUNET
>connections aren't cheap... ;)
>
>Thanks much for any replies.  BTW, who says that MINIX can't be used
>for "real" UNIX work (news feeds and mail)... sheesh. ;)

Yeah!

>-- Carl Boernecke (carlb@u.washington.edu)
>-- Send mail if you would like to receive news or mail in the Northwest
>   of the U.S.A. (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and some part of Canada),
>   connections provided at no charge (for mail), 9600 bps required for
>   news.

Oh, if you don't like wmail, look in ftp.uu.net:/packages/bsd-sources/
ucb/mail (or whatever), I have UCB mail (==mailx) running on my
PC Minix system.. The port took a few days, and you'll need bcc to compile
it, but it *can* be done!

Mike.
%     Miquel van Smoorenburg, Baljuwstraat 20, 2461SL Langeraar, Holland.     %
% miquels@maestro.htsa.aha.nl,miquels@drinkel.htsa.aha.nl (home,experimental) %
% A horse is a horse, ofcourse, ofcourse, He follows a lifestyle we don't en- %
% dorse, He drinks the blood of a sheep by force, The vampire horse Count Ed! %
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: al@escom.com (Al Donaldson)
Subject: src/lib/ansi/strtoul.c (1.5)
Organization: ESCOM Corporation
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 04:34:14 GMT

The 1.5 strtoul() function doesn't seem to work right on my (IBM) system.  
As best I can determine (I'm not an ANSI expert), it is supposed to convert 
a numeric string into an unsigned long -- but it overflows after a single 
character conversion.  Casting limit to an unsigned long seems to help; 
I also like to have errno set if it sees an error during conversion.

A cdif is enclosed for your convenience.  See the man page for patch()
if you need help.

BTW, strtoul() doesn't seem to be used anywhere in MINIX source, but I 
found it real helpful for handling hex representations for bitmaps.
I was getting tired of rolling my own atoi functions for other bases.

Al

*** strtoul.OLD	Mon May 21 00:12:44 1990
--- strtoul.c	Mon Apr  6 15:55:36 1992
***************
*** 55,61 ****
  		++nptr;
    }
  
!   limit = ULONG_MAX / base;		/* ensure no overflow */
  
    --nptr;				/* convert the number */
    while ((c = *++nptr) != 0) {
--- 55,61 ----
  		++nptr;
    }
  
!   limit = (unsigned long) ULONG_MAX / base;	/* ensure no overflow */
  
    --nptr;				/* convert the number */
    while ((c = *++nptr) != 0) {
***************
*** 63,70 ****
  		c -= '0';
  	else
  		c -= isupper(c) ? ('A' - 10) : ('a' - 10);
! 	if (c < 0 || c >= base)
  		break;
  	saw_a_digit = 1;
  	if (result > limit)
  		overflow = 1;
--- 63,72 ----
  		c -= '0';
  	else
  		c -= isupper(c) ? ('A' - 10) : ('a' - 10);
! 	if (c < 0 || c >= base) {
! 		errno = EINVAL;
  		break;
+ 	}
  	saw_a_digit = 1;
  	if (result > limit)
  		overflow = 1;
From: tim@maths.tcd.ie (Timothy Murphy)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Booting from the Universal disk
Date: 8 Apr 92 11:22:39 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

In <1992Apr7.154844.2206@u.washington.edu> carlb@hardy.u.washington.edu (Carl Boernecke) writes:

>An odd question here.  Why does my 286 system only boot from the AT
>disk.  Why can't it use the Universal Boot diskette?  I also noticed
>this problem when trying to use the demo disk.

In my experience the universal boot diskette works less often
than the AT diskette.
Is that the general experience?

--
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: tim@maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
From: uad1146@dircon.co.uk (Stuart Millington)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Minix on PC notebooks
Date: 12 Apr 92 10:28:10 GMT

>john@minster.york.ac.uk writes:

>>I've just read the recent posting of the FAQ-list. Is there
>>any reason which makes it difficult to find a PC notebook
>>machine on which Minix will run? 

   I didn't read the FAQ-list, sorry if this is already on there.
But, I am currently running P-H 1.5 PC-MINIX on an Amstrad ALT286 
with no problems at all. (I see no reason why the ALT386SX wouldn't 
run it also, but I haven't been able to test this.)

-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Stuart Millington                  = "A mind is a terrible thing,
     uad1146@dircon.UUCP           =  remember that."
     ...!uknet!dircon!uad1146      = David Bryan, Bon Jovi