Minix development has been abandoned? • Hacker News Board

Re: Minix development has been abandoned?

#61

Post by chasil » Thu, May 25, 2023, 1:53 AM UTC

csdreamer7 wrote: post #38

Gigachad wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then no one would be using it at all and Intel would pick the next OS project to use.

That is what enterprises said about Linux. But the network effects are too strong and the GPL requiring the source code for drivers to be released increases the network effects. Unlike permissive licenses. Busybox is still overwhelmed suing companies repeatably ignoring the GPL.

The Software Freedom Conservancy is filing the lawsuits, IIRC.

Android's toybox emerged when Rob Landley, the main busybox developer, left the busybox project because of the lawsuits.

Toybox uses a BSD license.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toybox

Re: Minix development has been abandoned?

#62

Post by aidenn0 » Thu, May 25, 2023, 2:03 AM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #60

chasil wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Xenix also supported the 286. The Korn shell's source code was an ugly mess in an effort to fit the text segment in the 64k address space on this platform. The POSIX shell removed many Korn shell features to reach clear and maintainable code with the same size limits. I'm able to compile Debian dash to a bit over 80k on 32-bit Linux without much effort. I've heard that it's 4x faster and 10x smaller than ba…

I definitely notice a speed improvement with Dash. Most shell scripts are too small to notice a difference, but it made a big difference back before the switch to systemd, back when init was a bunch of clunky shell scripts.

Check your locale before benchmarking; setting it to "C" negates a lot of the dash performance advantage.

Re: Minix development has been abandoned?

#63

Post by asperous » Thu, May 25, 2023, 2:03 AM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #34

tambourine_man wrote: post #4

Can’t software be done? No known bugs, all features in a proposed scope written. Done and done.

> No known bugs This is the part that I doubt will ever be achieved by any system or structure of moderate complexity or above. Everything that exists in the real world has problems with it. If it's a building or a machine, then it's done once it's built unless there are major safety issues. The cost of fixing non-critical issues in a physical product is too high to justify. The problem with software is that the marg…

There's a bit of irony with this thread I think but this was Minix's creator's viewpoint as well:

https://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/Publications/Papers/computer-2006a...

Re: Minix development has been abandoned?

#64

Post by kazinator » Thu, May 25, 2023, 2:07 AM UTC

"No new bugs have been introduced into Minix in five years, and it hasn't gotten any more bloated!"

Re: Minix development has been abandoned?

#65

Post by MuffinFlavored » Thu, May 25, 2023, 2:12 AM UTC

js2 wrote: post #47

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it required 386 specific features like task switching i thought this was a kernel/OS level concept, could you expand more?

x86 has hardware support for context switching, which is basically saving all the registers and jumping to a new address. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_state_segment

does x86_64 use this?

Re: Minix development has been abandoned?

#66

Post by mensetmanusman » Thu, May 25, 2023, 2:14 AM UTC

msla wrote: post #8

tambourine_man wrote: post #4

Can’t software be done? No known bugs, all features in a proposed scope written. Done and done.

No, software can't be done, because the hardware platform it runs on continues to change.

One exciting thing about Moore’s law being finished would be that the hardware stops changing :)

Re: Minix development has been abandoned?

#67

Post by chasil » Thu, May 25, 2023, 2:18 AM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #62

klodolph wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely notice a speed improvement with Dash. Most shell scripts are too small to notice a difference, but it made a big difference back before the switch to systemd, back when init was a bunch of clunky shell scripts.

Check your locale before benchmarking; setting it to "C" negates a lot of the dash performance advantage.

Dunno, the linked article looks like a conclusive performance advantage to me.

Bash's own manual page concludes that "it's too big and too slow" in the BUGS section.

https://www.baeldung.com/linux/dash-vs-bash-performance

Re: Minix development has been abandoned?

#68

Post by tomxor » Thu, May 25, 2023, 2:44 AM UTC

asperous wrote: post #30

I always saw Minix3 was as a companion to the "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation 3/e by Andrew S" book which was in 2006. Probably you were only ever going to run it in a virtual machine. More of an "educational" kernel.

> More of an "educational" kernel.

If you are writing this on an intel CPU, you are likely running minix3 right now.

It's not not educational, but it's not the primary goal compared to earlier versions.

Re: Minix development has been abandoned?

#69

Post by KyleSanderson » Thu, May 25, 2023, 2:48 AM UTC

Yeah, it's gone. Worked with a guy pre-Intel. The current tree has loads of bugs from a couple students tinkering for their projects (it even working is in question).

Like others have mentioned, Intel is the only (large) organisation actively developing it, but their work is not shared back.

Re: Minix development has been abandoned?

#70

Post by Zuider » Thu, May 25, 2023, 2:51 AM UTC

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #44

wkat4242 wrote: post #39

Technically intel is keeping it alive. Just not feeding back code. It's sad though. Minix was the first ever Unix I played with! Because Linux only worked on the 386 (it required 386 specific features like task switching) and I still had a 286 at the time. Minix worked fine on that. But it was mainly good for academic purposes (as it's intended to). I never really ran it as an OS. It was hard to find software and it…

> it required 386 specific features like task switching i thought this was a kernel/OS level concept, could you expand more?

It is a kernel/OS level concept (though it was also used in games.)

Historically, task-switching had hardware support to some degree even in 8-bit microprocessors such as the Z80, M6809, and 6502 and in 16-bit microprocessors prior to the 386, using interrupts to push all the registers onto a stack, and setting the program counter to start executing instructions at a new address.

The vital innovation introduced with the 386 was to add memory protection, so that the different tasks could not corrupt each other's allocated memory. Hitherto, multitasking was too unstable for serious commercial use.