MINIX 3: a Modular, Self-Healing POSIX-compatible Operating System

[triplesquarednine]

Andrew says he would sacrifice 50% of performance, if the system would never crash?!? ~ For me, that is a REALLY hard sell. :\ 5-10% sure, but 50%?

As is, my computers rarely ever crash, and by rare i mean that 'off-hand' I can't actually remember the last crash, on either my Mac or my main desktop, which is running Archlinux.

I think I'm more interested in the Genode project (sort of the successor to L4).

Cool talk nonetheless

[HWGuyEG]

I know very little in programming, but I agree entirely with Andrew, I wish Minix had a lot more development power, I sooo want a simple reliable operating system for browsing and servers.

[TheIndustrialphreak]

My car is like that, usually it wants a new belt, fluid, or a new engine. of course its a FORD "Found On Road Dead" vehicle.

[ydkantor]

i clapped at 43:35

[dfr343]

What has the progress been on a "rethought file system"?

[ElectronikHeart]

A lot of theses technologies are in BeOS and Haiku if I've correctly understand !

But if one day Minix 3 can run firefox or another HTML5 capable browser, I think I will try it seriously on real Hardware. This OS seems to feel all the holes I hate on current OS models.

[WorBlux]

@Uknown231231231

Look up the l4 kernel for an example of a formally proven system. (the proof is over 20 times the length of the actual code). To be reliable without qualification you would still need hardware that was reliable without qualification, but run it with ECC and EM sheilding, you may get 6 or ever 7 nines of uptime. (The best linux systems get 4, the best unix systems get 5.)

[WorBlux]

@Uknown231231231

1. first such commands may be obfuscated or hidden in a very clever way that's not obvious on it's face.

2. Even lacking malicious system commands, software that is not formally proven will have bugs, and some of those bugs will be exploitable. There are several exploits that will let a local Linux user escalate their privileges to root.

[emeka1978]

We can tell who thumbed down this vid.

[Metal404Head]

@emeka1978 I think it was Linus..

[sakisnemkav]

respect

[WorBlux]

To get perfectly reliable software you need for formally prove the entirety of the code and use, though this seems to come closer.

[jonmasters]

Great video. One thing I disagree with is the notion that it's all about the OS never crashing. That's wonderful academics, but it fails to cover this little thing called utility. What good is an OS that never crashes if, without its network driver due to a locked PCI bus, it is dead in the water? IOW, sometimes it is far better to crash and reboot the OS and actually be useful once again.

[JordanTBoehm]

The current Intel lineup of processors run too hot. MacBook's and other laptops eventually heat up in your lap. Then the fans run at full speed, and then I have to turn up the speakers. Slower hardware is better.

[odinlinux]

SO basically Minix is a modular OS, with individual programs or drivers sectioned so they don't affect the whole OS if they fail? Makes a lot more sense than monolithic kernels, but I imagine it would run slightly slower because of the linking that needs to be done to make sure all these seperate modules? I suppose that that shouldn't really be that noticeable though, so I'm not surprised schools use Minix as a learning system. We just need to make it usable with a GUI and other programs.

[montaTheNuts]

zomg you are using windows and microsoft office for the presentation? ahahah your minix can't do that?

[videomavric]

@montaTheNuts they have to rewrite the wheel for creating the vga out for minix, so they used windows rather than spending days trying to make a vga out driver.

[metasjodiendo]

@videomavric He could have used Linux instead.

[catalintgjiu]

118 people appreciated ,Linus didn't :)

[evilunixuser1]

Ultimate hacking box - a pc rated as a DX4-100 running two systems - Windows for Workgroups 3.11, and on the other partition Minix 3.1.8. Dial-up modem, configure the CD-ROM drive, and a basic VGA PCI card/monitor

[MultiJamala]

Great talk

[vikraman2007]

You run `./configure' and it always fails. /Always/. You know? What happens? It was looking for, I dunno, Perl 5.2.3.26.9.4b, and if that wasn't there it gives up--even though the application you're trying to install doesn't use Perl at all.

ROFLMAO

[terminal2004]

I was a student of you though your book, AST.

[Darr1066]

Isn't it weird that Minix has what? 6000 lines of kernal code? And Linux has 13million? Hmm...

[reinux]

@Darr1066 Minix is a microkernel whereas Linux is a monolithic kernel. It's sort of apples to oranges.

[YoLninYo]

I thought Andy Tannenbaum was a dutch guy... I always imagined him having this dutch accent... lol ... nice talk.

[pulnimar]

@YoLninYo

Me too, but apparently he's an American who moved to the Netherlands.

[ArhkXi]

I remember the time before HD TV or color phones like it was yesterday.... Hmmm... or Maybe it was yesterday.

~

[HWGuyEG]

Trying out MINIX 3, i see great potential.

[bamdadkhan]

'you run ./configure, and it _always_ fails'..

yeah, i can relate to that. :D i love this guy. makes me believe again in unix. too bad it's always the underdog that takes things seriously.. remember when apple used to make straightforward things instead of shiny ones? remember when linux used to run on 10 year old hardware? remember when.. ah, never mind, i'm getting old. tanenbaum ftw. ;)

[TheFri13]

At 45:00, the Chrome question is little wierd because the Chrome OS use Linux kernel as the OS. Different name for the system but the OS is well know but hided from wide public.

[z0ltanz0ltan]

What's with the super-gay British? (Aussie?) accent at 44:49? He should try and tone the gayness and lispiness if he wants to make himself understood. Bejasus these limey bastards can't speak their own language for nuts.

[z0ltanz0ltan]

The ./configure example (39:10) is spot on for Linux. Any version of Linux. This is the sole reason for the existence of the Linux sysadmin. Heh.

[roopeshvaddepally]

irony: minix 3 creater using windows

[ShinNoNoir85]

@roopeshvaddepally

Keep in mind that Minix is lacking drivers. That means you cannot run it on any random laptop, until you have ported all the necessary hardware drivers to Minix.

[dgphi]

@roopeshvaddepally, I'm pretty sure that doesn't count as irony.

[sookoll23]

@roopeshvaddepally Perhaps he needs software that hasn't been developed for Minix yet?

[ungamedplayer]

Cute presentation but..

Cars do crash for "random" reasons.

Aircraft carriers don't have dependant systems, software does.

[z0ltanz0ltan]

@ungamedplayer And your OS is?

[ungamedplayer]

@z0ltanz0ltan This is not a game of "what OS do you run",I was simply stating that the hardware equivalents are bad examples due to their limited complexity and system dependencies.

[z0ltanz0ltan]

@ungamedplayer See what gets missed out without good context? I had intended it as a sarcastic jab at you by asking which OS you might have recently created. Anyway it is infinitely more difficult to try and explain to an audience the raison d'etre of a new OS and I believe that Andy was merely trying to juice up his presentation than expecting anyone to sue him for perjury! Fairly speaking though, I doubt this will be successful as a General Purpose OS, it's too niche, even for grandma. Heh.

[ungamedplayer]

@z0ltanz0ltan Subtleness is lost in a text only medium. I like his ideas and understand where he's coming from.

Any new operating system will need to

a) have massive financial backing behind it to push it over the adoption curve (Then compete with MS and OS X)

or

b) be open source ( then compete with Linux).

I don't think that there is much point competing with Linux, and I don't have the cash capital to do the first.

[z0ltanz0ltan]

@ungamedplayer Agreed on both counts. The way Linux is going though, I doubt Minix would be a threat even in the reliability sphere as Andy wants to portray Minix' core strength. Linux is infinitely more configurable with over 19 years of solid fine-tuning. Let's see how it churns out. Meanwhile I have got a copy of his source and it seems pretty straightforward till now. Probably we could contribute if only to learn from the experience.

[amiteshprashar]

It's really great for all the os developer as well for com.sc. students.