HOW TO GET AND INSTALL MINIX 2.0.3

Important note: Version 2.0.3 will not run on a system with only 640K! The
halfbaked swapping code does not fully compensate for the increased memory
use of other parts of the system, most notably the shell. The documentation
has not been updated to reflect this, because the next version will again
run on the XT. So whenever you see "XT" below, read it as "286 with only
1M".
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This directory and subdirectories contains Minix version 2.0.3, a small
educational UNIX-like system for IBM PC's and compatibles.

Before installing Minix, do the unthinkable and read the installation manual
usage(8). It and the possibly useful boot(8) are in the following files in
two forms:

  usage.ps   boot.ps    - PostScript
  usage.txt  boot.txt   - Flat ASCII text

Alternatively, with a web browser you can view the whole manual page set.
The page to start with is usage(8).
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These files may also be of interest:

  md5list               - MD5 checksums of the files here
  crclist               - Checksums using Minix crc command
  crc.c                 - Command to make CRC checksums
  changes.txt           - List of changes between 2.0.0 and 2.0.3
  psman/                - All manuals in PostScript form

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Minix for the Intel architecture comes in four 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)
  - Running under DOS/Windows.  (Recommended; trivial to install.)

The bits and pieces of each flavor are distributed over the i386, i86, xt,
and src directories, depending on architecture (386+ or 8086/286), size
(XT), or source files (src). (Take a peek in those directories if you want
to know the file sizes.) You need the following files, and only those files,
for each flavor:

386, 486, Pentium

  i386/ROOT.MNX         - Installation root floppy image
  i386/USR.MNX          - Installation /usr floppy image
  i386/NET.TAZ          - Network install files (optional!)
  i386/USR.TAZ          - Binary /usr files (386 executables)
  src/SYS.TAZ           - Operating system sources (libary, kernel, etc.)
  src/CMD.TAZ           - Commands sources (cp, ls, mkdir, etc.)

286 with 2M+ memory
286 with a 1.44M floppy drive
8086/286 with two 720K floppy drives

  i86/ROOT.MNX          - Installation root floppy image
  i86/USR.MNX           - Installation /usr floppy image
  i86/NET.TAZ           - Network install files (optional!)
  i86/USR.TAZ           - Binary /usr files (8086 executables)
  src/SYS.TAZ           - Operating system sources (libary, kernel, etc.)
  src/CMD.TAZ           - Commands sources (cp, ls, mkdir, etc.)
  xt/XTBOOT.MNX         - Boot this first if you get "read error 04"

8086/286 with little memory and a 720K floppy drive

  All of the above and:
  xt/README             - Tips for installation on PCs with little memory
  xt/TINYROOT.MNX       - Tiny installation root floppy image
  xt/XTBOOT.MNX         - Boot this first if you get "read error 04"

8086/286 with little memory and a 360K floppy drive

  All files in the two sections above and:
  xt/TINYUSR1.MNX       - Tiny installation /usr floppy part 1
  xt/TINYUSR2.MNX       - Tiny installation /usr floppy part 2

Running under DOS in 386 mode

  dosminix.txt          - README (also present in ZIP file)
  i386/DOSMINIX.ZIP     - Bootstrap and 50M "disk"

Running under DOS in 8086/286 mode
Running under Windows in a DOS box in 8086 mode (experimental)

  dosminix.txt          - README (also present in ZIP file)
  i86/DOSMINIX.ZIP      - Bootstrap and 50M "disk"

The files with names ending in .MNX are sector-by-sector copies of Minix
floppies or disks. The .TAZ files are compressed UNIX tar archives. The .ZIP
files are archives that can be unpacked by the Windows utilities PKZIP or
WinZip.

Notes

The two installation floppies ROOT.MNX and USR.MNX 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.MNX USR.MNX >/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! (The DosMinix version, however, is
relatively safe.)

Kernel configurations

The three special kernel images present in these directories, the small XT
kernel, and the two i86 and i386 kernels in the NET.TAZ collection differ as
follows in the <minix/config.h> include file:

                                XT      i86     i386
        NR_PROCS                         40       64
        NR_BUFS                 32              2048
        NR_BUF_HASH                             4096
        NR_CTRLRS                1
        ENABLE_CACHE2            0                 0
        ENABLE_AT_WINI           0
        ENABLE_ATAPI             0        0
        ENABLE_ESDI_WINI         0
        ENABLE_AHA1540_SCSI      0
        ENABLE_FATFILE           0        0
        ENABLE_DOSFILE           0
        ENABLE_USERBIOS                            1
        DMA_SECTORS                      16       64
        ENABLE_DP8390                     1        1
        NR_RS_LINES                       2        2
        NR_PTYS                           4        8
