Frequently Asked Questions

General

  • What editors are available? Elle (emacs), vi and mined are available under standard minix.

  • What other applications, tools, ... are available under minix? See http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/minix.html for a list of applications and other information about minix.

  • Where do you add new system calls? System calls can only be added to the memory manager (mm) or to the file system (fs). For system calls that need kernel action, add a system call either to mm or to fs, which further communicates with the kernel, using message passing.

  • Ps doesn't work. What is the problem? Sometimes when you've changed header-files in /usr/include or /usr/src/[kernel|fs|mm], you have to recompile ps. Run 'make ps' in /usr/src/tools, and make a symbolic link to /usr/src/tools/ps in /usr/bin (remove the original ps binary).

  • Can I do the assignment at home? Generally, you can. However, we do not particularly encourage this or provide help with your own installation. Your implementation should be compilable and tested on the minix 2.0.0 system at the VU (note that a number of source-code files differ between, e.g., minix 2.0.3 and minix 2.0.0). In addition, you need to use the mnx_backup and mnx_diff scripts that are installed at the VU to create the compressed tar-file you need to submit. Also see the note on minix configuration and submission tar-files.

    • Exercise 1

  • Are the PROFILE / GETPROF calls in any way protected? I.e., can any user-process make these system calls in any order? PROFILE / GETPROF are unprotected, except for the fact that a PROFILE round should be explicitly reset by calling PROFILE with PID 0, before a new process can be profiled.

    • General note:

    It is generally a good idea to make a tar-file of your changes (using mnx_diff) and store this file on your unix-account as a backup, as floppies can be unreliable.