To:	rmh AT interlaced DOT net
Cc:	mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca, jfudge AT adams DOT berk DOT net,
	opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net
Subject:	Re: [opendos] BAD Filesystems
Message-ID:	<19970225.192150.6447.0.editor@juno.com>
References:	<Pine DOT LNX DOT 3 DOT 95 DOT 970225123248 DOT 597I-100000 AT capslock DOT com>
	<m320a4mst7 DOT fsf AT sorites DOT net>
From:	editor AT juno DOT com (Bruce Morgen)
Date:	Tue, 25 Feb 1997 19:22:24 EST
Sender:	owner-opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net

On 25 Feb 1997 17:20:20 -0500 Richard Hoskins <rmh AT interlaced DOT net>
writes:
>mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca writes:
>
>> Minix is a UNIX operating system that would run on 286's and
>> possibly even 8088's if I'm not mistaken.  It had its own filesystem
>> as well. Linux was originally designed (in Linus's own words) to "be
>> a better Minix than Minix".
>
>The free Minix (2.0) requires IDE drives and an AT bus, given that,
>an 8088 will run it.
>
This is what the FAQ seems to imply.  It 
apparently isn't true.

>If you have an XT, you need an earlier version (1.5), which is still
>hoarded by Prentice-Hall.
>
I have gotten 2.0 up and running on two 
XT architecture machines, the biggest 
problems I ran into were the 360K floppy 
drives (I had to use the special "tiny" 
disk images).  Minix seems to interact 
with hard drives at the BIOS level, so 
any hard drive support that is BIOS-
intrinsic appears to be detected just 
dandy.  My preliminary surmise is that 
Minix 2.0 doesn't really need an IDE 
drive (MFM, RLL, ESDI, and even some 
SCSI controllers "look" the same when 
accessed via BIOS) or an AT bus.

For the record, the two XTish systems 
I used were an Ampro Little Board PC 
with built-in SCSI and an ancient 
full-height 80 MB CDC SCSI drive and a 
Leading Edge Model D with a Perstor 
ARLL controller and a Seagate ST-138 
MFM drive.  Both systems had the 
aforementioned single 360K floppy 
drive, PC-convention serial and 
parallel ports, and Hercules video.

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