FAQ about Minix FAQs

Q: Is there a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions document) for comp.os.minix?

A: As of December 2002 the Minix Hints/FAQ page on this site is the official FAQ for PC Minix. It is not in the conventional FAQ form, but it should be considered an evolving FAQ-in-progress. Some documents may not be indexed on the main Hints/FAQ page. ... if you are a real masochist, you can look at the raw index of the FAQ directory. Some of these files are preliminary notes, some (especially in the nonhtml directory) are nothing more than text versions of e-mail messages, but there might be information here that isn't referenced by links elsewhere on the site.

Previously there were two "official" Minix documents, an Information Sheet and a FAQ. Their status is a bit confusing:

• The official Minix Information Sheet is http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/minix.html. In some places this document is also referred to as the Minix 2.0 FAQ, but Minix Information Sheet is a more accurate title.
• The last official FAQ in conventional FAQ form was posted at http://harmless.rrnet.com/Minix/FAQ-17.html. That site could not be found as of November 2002, but a slightly modified version is available at http://www.disi.unige.it/person/DoderoG/minix/faq-17.htm. The document is somewhat out of date. It is basically the old Minix 1.5 FAQ updated shortly before the final release of Minix 2.0.

FAQs for other Minix versions:

• ASW's Minix1.* sites are primarily concerned with standard Minix for the PC (Intel i86 and i386) platform. There is also a "super-Minix" called Minix-vmd. There are versions of Minix 2.0 for other hardware, such as Sun Solaris, and Minix 2.0 can run on other Unix systems using the Bochs emulator. Older versions of Minix run on Apple MacIntosh, various Atari machines, and other platforms. There have also been projects to port Minix to PDAs and miscellaneous other specialized Minix projects. Information about some of these can be found on this site in various places, and on the Links page can be found references to other sites, some of which have FAQ documents.

Archives:

• There are several archive sites for the comp.os.minix newsgroup and the Minix-l mailing list. See the Minix Archives on WWW page on this site for more information. In the past, many items posted to the newgroup were also forwarded to the mailing list, but the site that used to provide that service is no longer available. For anything after about 1996 searches of both the newsgroup and the mailing list archives are advisable.

There are quite a few sites around the world with Minix information. One that specifically tries to maintain links to other known Minix sites is http://www.disi.unige.it/person/DoderoG/minix/links.htm.

Search engines can also help you find Minix information. I've found Google seems to return a lot of good links when I look for Minix info.