Mirror: NL AU

HOW TO GET AND INSTALL MINIX 2.0.0

This directory and subdirectories contains Minix version 2.0.0, a small educational UNIX-like system for IBM PC's and compatibles.

Note: The files here are the same as found on the MINIX 2.0 CDROM in the MINIX directory, except that the surrounding fluff, README's and such, is more suited to FTP or WWW users.

Before installing Minix, do the unthinkable and read the installation manual usage(8). It is in the following files in various forms: 

  install.ps		- Postscript
  install.t		- Troff -man source
  install.txt		- Flat ASCII text

  manuals/		- All other Minix manual pages
Alternatively, with a web browser you can view the whole manual page set. The page to start with is usage(8).
Before fetching Minix, you should get the checksum list (to verify correct transmission and unpacking). If you do not already have it, you will need the program to compute the checksums on your machine, crc.c: 
  crclist		- CRC's of all the files here
  crc.c			- Command to make CRC checksums
Eventually, you may also want these files: 
  changes-2.0.0		- List of changes between 1.7.4 and 2.0.0
  upgrade-2.0.0		- How to upgrade from 1.7.4 to 2.0.0
  bugs			- List of bugs in 2.0.0
  fixes/		- Fixes to bugs in 2.0.0
  misc/			- Additional documents: installation example,
			  network config, XT installation.
  ack/			- ACK Modula-2 and Pascal compilers
Minix for the Intel architecture comes in three flavors: 
   - Regular (for 386, 486, and Pentium machines)
   - Small (for 8086 and 286 machines)
   - Tiny (for 8086 and 286 machines with small memories and/or 360K
     diskette drives)
For the regular distribution, use the i386 directory. For the small distribution, use the i86 directory. For the tiny distribution, use both the i86 and xt directories. All these directories contain the executable programs of Minix. In addition, the src directory contains the full Minix source code, which is identical for all three flavors (the code contains #ifdef's where the difference matters). The following files can be found in these directories: 
  i386:		ROOT USR USR.TAZ
  i86:		ROOT USR USR.TAZ
  xt:		README TINYROOT TINYUSR1 TINYUSR2 (360K images)
  src:		SYS.TAZ CMD.TAZ
The files with names ending in .TAZ are compressed tar archives, the other files are diskette images of the installation boot floppies.

The two installation floppies ROOT and USR can be combined on a 1.2 Mb or 1.44 Mb diskette. The .TAZ files must be distributed over several floppies. Example for UNIX: 

	cat ROOT USR >/dev/floppy
	dd if=USR.TAZ of=/dev/floppy bs=1440k count=1 skip=0
	dd if=USR.TAZ of=/dev/floppy bs=1440k count=1 skip=1
	dd if=USR.TAZ of=/dev/floppy bs=1440k count=1 skip=2
Increase the "skip" count until dd writes a diskette partially. /dev/floppy should be the name of the floppy device. You have to find out what your Operating System names it today. Under MS-DOS you can use the FDVOL command found in the ../dosutil directory to write the floppy images.

Be careful when you install Minix, many of the commands are potentionally dangerous in a way that a simple typing mistake may destroy all other data on your system. So make backups first! 

						Kees J. Bot (kjb@cs.vu.nl)