Experiencing minix as a didactical aid for operating systems courses

ABSTRACT

Minix is a Unix clone Operating Systems to be run on IBM PCs and compatibles, designed by Tanembaum [10] for courses in the area.Accepting the Tanembaum's proposal, this document describes the results of some extensions on the internal work of Minix as an exercise on Operating Systems Design and Implementation that attempts to transfer that experience to other groups of interest.The paper intends to be interpreted as a report remarking what kind of work was done having at our disposal an extensively documented copy of the source code of an operating system, taking into account that the developers are undergraduates in Computer Science.Further details on implementations will be available in future publications [1], [4], [6].

REFERENCES

• 1: [1] Aguirre G., Errecalde M., Gallard R., - Extensions to the servers of the Minix Operating Ststem, Internal Report under revision, Universidad Nacional de San Luis, 1991.
• 2: Maurice J. Bach, The design of the UNIX operating system, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1986
• 3: Douglas Comer, Operating system design: the XINU approach, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1984
• 4: [4] Guerrero R., Leguizamon G., Gallard R., - Design, Implementation and Evaluation of Alternative Process Schedulers in Minix, Internal Report, Universidad Nacional de San Luis, 1991.
• 5: [5] Introduction to AMOS, DWN-00100-65. Rev. A00, Alpha Micro Ststems, Santa Ana, CA 92799, 1985.
• 6: [6] Kavka C., Printista M, Gallard R., - Extending Device Management in Minix, Internal Report, Universidad Nacional de San Luis, 1991.
• 7: John R Nicol , Gordon S Blair , Jonathan Walpole, Operating system design: towards a holistic approach?, ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, v.21 n.1, p.11-19, Jan. 1987 [doi>10.1145/24592.24595]
• 8: James L. Peterson , Abraham Silberschatz, Operating system concepts (2nd ed.), Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1985
• 9: [9] Puckett D. L. and Dible P. - The Complete Rainbow Guide to OS-9, Falsoft Inc., P.O. Box 385, Kentucky 40059, 1985.
• 10: Andrew S Tanenbaum, A UNIX clone with source code for operating systems courses, ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, v.21 n.1, p.20-29, Jan. 1987 [doi>10.1145/24592.24596]
• 11: Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Operating systems: design and implementation, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1987

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Curriculum

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Management, Theory