MINIX
MINIX (from "mini-Unix") is a POSIX-compliant, Unix-like computer operating system based on a microkernel architecture.
Early versions of MINIX were created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum for educational purposes. Starting with MINIX 3, the primary aim of development shifted from education to the creation of a highly reliable and self-healing microkernel OS. MINIX is now developed as open-source software.
MINIX was first released in 1987, with its complete source code made available to universities for study in courses and research. It has been free and open source software since it was re-licensed under the BSD license in April 2000.
Implementation
MINIX 1.0
Andrew S. Tanenbaum created MINIX at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam to exemplify the principles conveyed in his textbook, Operating Systems: Design and Implementation (1987).
An abridged 12,000 lines of the C source code of the kernel, memory manager, and file system of MINIX 1.0 are printed in the book. Prentice-Hall also released MINIX source code and binaries on floppy disk with a reference manual. MINIX 1 was system-call compatible with Seventh Edition Unix.
MINIX 3
MINIX 3 is a project to create a small, highly reliable, and functional Unix-like operating system. It is published under a BSD license and is a successor project to the earlier MINIX 1 and MINIX 2 operating systems.
The main goal of the project is for the system to be fault-tolerant by detecting and repairing its own faults on the fly, without user intervention. The main uses of the operating system are envisaged to be embedded systems and education.
MINIX 3 currently supports IA-32 and ARM Architecture systems. It is also possible to run MINIX under emulators or virtual machines, such as Bochs,VMware Workstation,Microsoft Virtual PC, Oracle VirtualBox, and QEMU. Ports to the ARM and PowerPC architectures are in development.
The distribution comes on a live CD and also can be downloaded as a USB stick image.
Goals of the project
Reflecting on the nature of monolithic kernel based systems, where a driver (which has, according to MINIX creator Tanenbaum, approximately 3–7 times as many bugs as a usual program) can bring down the whole system, MINIX 3 aims to create an operating system that is a "reliable, self-healing, multiserver UNIX clone".
