China DOS Union

Minix is a teaching operating system widely used around the world. Students in our country who study the principles of computer operating systems will not find it unfamiliar either; probably at least quite a few people have read MINIX author Professor Tanenbaum's "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation" (one revised edition is called "Modern Operating Systems".

Minix is small and its structure is clear, and both the system and its code can be obtained free of charge, making it one of the best choices for teaching use. But to really install it, it needs to occupy the hard disk's MBR, and compared with mainstream operating systems Minix lacks practicality (Professor Tanenbaum deliberately limited it so it would not become bloated and chaotic), so generally people do not use a real installation unless they have a dedicated machine or hard disk for experiments. The Minix-2.0-CD comes with the Bochs emulator, which can be used to run Minix under Linux through emulation; the Bochs emulator also has a Windows version, and there are also ready-made Minix hard disk image files to use with it. There are already quite a few articles introducing these methods.

Actually, Minix also provides a way to use it on the DOS platform, without any third-party emulator, and it is very simple and convenient to use. It is just that this method has not been widely introduced. Below is an introduction to this method:

First go to www.cs.vu.nl/pub/minix/2.0.4/ and download the i386/DOSMINIX.ZIP file. This archive contains all the files needed to use Minix on the DOS platform. After extracting it you will get: BOOT.COM (the program that starts Minix from DOS), MINIX.MNX (the main file), minix.bxrc, MKFILE.COM, MINIX.ICO, and two documentation files.

Put these files in the C:MINIX directory, enter the DOS environment (Win9x is also fine; reboot into DOS mode), and do not load EMM.386. This may require you to edit the CONFIG.SYS file. Then enter the C:MINIX directory and run BOOT.COM, as follows:

BOOT MINIX.MNX

When the screen prompts = Start Minix, please press = . OK, now you have entered the world of Minix.

noname login, no problem, we are root. Type root and press Enter. Don't worry, no password is needed.

Since you are root, of course you can do whatever you like...

One more point should be explained: when you shut down Minix with halt, you will return to the d0p0> prompt. At this time you only need to type EXIT, no different from exiting an ordinary DOS program.