Learn Operating System Development using Minix 2 or 3? [closed]

Question

I took a class this spring about generic operating system theories and principles, and now I'd like to spend the summer working through Tanenbaum's Operating Systems book, looking through Minix source, and getting a general idea of actual OS implementation.

There are two OS professors at school and I went to them to ask about borrow Tanenbaum's book. Interestingly, one said I should use the older, second version of the book, and focus on Minix 2 because it's overall simpler and has less source to understand (and thus would be easier to learn from without information overload). The other prof said she didn't think this would be a problem, and that I should go with Minix 3 and the newest edition of his book so that I get to see a more modern implementation.

What does Stack Overflow think? Anyone here have experiences with both versions of Minix? I would like to learn the principles of making an actual OS, but I also don't want massive information overload that will keep me from actually understanding what the code as a whole is up to.

Posey

Answer 1

If you want to go deep into sources of microkernel-based OS I would suggest you to have a look on HelenOS, a newer but still relatively simple operating system not burdened with UNIX semantics and API. Alas, there is no book (as the Tanenbaum) about it yet, but the sources are well documented.

Trilateral

Answer 2

I took Minix 2 way. It was understandable and paved way for Minix 3.

About HelenOS - they take unrealistic goals - bug free and formal description. Both are not achievable.

HtH

Ballista

I'm not sure I understand the second part of your answer. Can you clarify the part about HelenOS? – Voiceless

Yep, I second a clarification. I'd also like to know if you were able to compile and run minix 2 and if so how (virtual machine ?) – Townley

Answer 3

Interesting I just come across this old post so sorry for what seems to be a bump.

When I was at university, sometime ago, we had an operating systems lab we used PC's with Linux for the development and 68000 based machines with boot roms for the testing I believe they were VMS based.

The software environment was either Modula2 (the first and second year language) or C/C++ (second and third year language) everything was cross complied and loaded via script ready for the test machine to be reset to boot the new OS.

Anyway to cut this short, we used some sort of educational framework which was using the Minix2 sources so you could write parts of the OS for a project without having to write the whole lot.

I have been trying to find the official sources and documentation for this environment for sometime, I am sure it's on the web somewhere and possibly updated/maintained.

Carlenacarlene