HOW TO GET AND INSTALL MINIX 1.7.2

This directory and subdirectories contains Minix version 1.7.2, a small
educational UNIX-like system for IBM PC's and compatibles. 

Before installing Minix, do the unthinkable and read the installation
manual in the file usage.8. On a UNIX machine you can unpack 
man.tar.Z and use a reasonably smart pager (one that understands
backspace overstrikes) to read the man pages. The same manual pages
can be found in man.zip as flat text for use under MS-DOS. Note that the
ZIP file contains subdirectories that you may or may not want to keep
intact. 

  man.tar.Z             - Installation manual pages (UNIX)
  man.zip               - Installation manual pages (MS-DOS)

Alternatively, by WWW 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-1.7.2         - List of changes between 1.7.1 and 1.7.2
  upgrade-1.7.2         - How to upgrade from 1.7.x to 1.7.2
  bugs                  - List of bugs in 1.7.2
  fixes/                - Fixes to bugs in 1.7.2


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 the 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). 

Two versions of the distribution have been prepared. If you are
reasonably experienced in dealing with UNIX or Minix and are
downloading to a UNIX or Minix system with 10MB of free disk space,
and a connection that can transfer megabyte files without loss (even if
this is not the target system), just fetch whichever of the following you
need: 

  i386.tar      - 386 binaries
  i86.tar       - 8086/286 binaries
  xt.tar        - Replacement files for tiny systems
  src.tar       - Full sources and manual pages for all versions

Under all other circumstances, use the second distribution, which
consists of many 720K floppy disk images (you can also use bigger
diskettes, but remember that the size of the images is still 720K). 

  i386:         ROOT USR USR.01 USR.02 ... USR.06
  i86:          ROOT USR USR.01 USR.02 ... USR.06
  xt:           README TINYROOT TINYUSR1 TINYUSR2 (360K images)
  src:          SRC.01 SRC.02 ... SRC.08

The USR.nn and SRC.nn series of diskette images were created by
commands like this one, so they are just a compressed tar file cut to
pieces: 

        tar cf - * | compress | vol 720 /dev/fd0

The two installation floppies can be combined on a 1.2 Mb or 1.44 Mb
diskette, the other images can be combined on 1.44 Mb floppies, turning
them into 1440K images: 

        cat ROOT USR >/dev/fd0
        cat USR.01 USR.02 >/dev/fd0              (odd/even pairs)
        cat USR.03 USR.04 >/dev/fd0
        ...
        cat SRC.01 SRC.02 >/dev/fd0
        ...

/dev/fd0 is a random floppy device name. You have to find out what your
Operating System names it today. Under MS-DOS you can use the 
WrtDsk command 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)
