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

By Andrew Tanenbaum

MINIX started in 1987 and led to several offshoots, the best known being Linux. MINIX 3 is the third major version of MINIX and is now focused on very high-reliability and security.

MINIX started in 1987 and led to several offshoots, the best known being Linux. MINIX 3 is the third major version of MINIX and is now focused on very high-reliability and security. When you buy a TV set, you just plug it in and it works perfectly for the next 10 year. We are trying to make operating systems as good as that. The current version of MINIX 3 can detect device driver crashes and some server crashes and automatically replace the failed component without user intervention and without affecting running processes. The talk will discuss these aspects as well as new work.



FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Development European Meeting) is a European event centered around Free and Open Source software development. It is aimed at developers and all interested in the Free and Open Source news in the world. Its goals are to enable developers to meet and to promote the awareness and use of free and open source software. More info at http://fosdem.org

Category:

Education

Tags:

• FOSDEM
• FOSDEM2010
• 2010
• maintracks

[amiteshprashar]

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

[catalintgjiu]

118 people appreciated ,Linus didn't :)

[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"?

[metasjodiendo]

@videomavric He could have used Linux instead.

[Metal404Head]

@emeka1978 I think it was Linus..

[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.