Minix 2 Documentation modified: 7 Sept 2006

For MINIX 3 go to http://www.minix3.org. (Minix 3 released Oct 2005)

This is the Minix 2 Documentation Page.

• The primary source of documentation for Minix 2 is, of course, the book Operating Systems Design and Implementation, 2nd edition, by Tanenbaum and Woodhull, published in 1997 by Prentice-Hall. It includes a function-by-function commentary on the Minix source code.
  
  
• The 3rd edition of the Operating Systems Design and Implementation text was published in early 2006, and provides a similar discussion of the source code of Minix 3. Although some files in the source code have not changed much, overall Minix 3 and Minix 2 are quite different, and using the wrong book for the study of the source code will probably be a difficult exercise.
  
  
• Minix is POSIX compliant. There are several sources of information about POSIX.
  
  

• Several people have written substantial documents about aspects of Minix not described in the OSDI text:

  • Minix boot code documentation, by Andrew Swartzbaugh (5/2003).
    
    
  • Minix networking code documentation, by Charlie Tsz-Hong Wong (updated 12/2003).
    
    
  • Network suppport is also described here: Minix Network Service Documentation (Christos Karayiannis and Andrew Swartzbaugh).
    
    
  • PCI interface and 3c905 ethernet driver documentation by Alvin Beach (1/2003, link added 1/2005).
    
    
  
  
  

• Like most Unix-like systems, Minix provides manual pages that can be accessed from the command line by the man (1) command. They are installed with a standard Minix installation. On a running Minix system type

  man man

  to learn about using the man command. Postscript and web page (html) formatted versions are also available, so you can make nicely formatted hard copy or view man pages on line if you do not have a Minix installation available. There are several sections:

  • Section 1 describes standard Minix commands.
    
    
  • Section 2 is for programmers and describes Minix system calls.
    
    
  • Section 3 is also for programmers and describes the Minix C libraries.
    
    
  • Section 4 describes devices (special files).
    
    
  • Section 5 describes formats of files handled by various utilities and subroutines.
    
    
  • Section 6 describes games (it's not UNIX without an adventure game) .
    
    
  • Section 7 describes macro packages and miscellaneous tidbits .
    
    
  • Section 8 is for system administrators and describes Minix installation, configuration and operation.
    
    
  • Section 9 contains extended man pages, larger manuals explaining some commands in more detail.
    
    
  Note: The above links point to the Minix 2.0.4 man pages. Minix 2.0.4 is a work-in-progress, and not all of the documentation was fully updated at the time it was announced. It is expected that there will be further changes. Click on this link to view the Minix 2.0.4 man pages on the Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam) site
  
  

• Man pages for older Minix versions are also available:

  • Man pages for Minix 2.0.0.
    
    
  • Man pages for Minix 2.0.2.
    
    
  • Man pages for Minix 2.0.3.
    
    
  • The Minix-vmd Manual Pages may also be helpful.
    
    
  
  
  
• Various text files can be found in the info directory on this site.
  
  
• Many RFC (Request for Comments) documents relevant to networking Minix can be found here.
  
  
• If you are interested in Minix 1.5 on one of the platforms to which Minix 2.0 hasn't yet been ported, most of the old Minix 1.5 Reference Manual is available online. Some parts of this manual are still relevant to Minix 2.0.
  
  
• There is a bibliography of publications about Minix compiled by Nelson H. F. Beebe at http://www.math.utah.edu:8080/pub/tex/bib/minix.bib. The references are to books, articles in academic journals, proceedings of meetings, etc. -- serious work published as hard copy and probably not available on-line in most cases.
  
  
• Other areas on this site, for instance the Minix programming page and hardware support section of the Hints/FAQ page, have pointers to documents that may be useful in understanding Minix source code.
  
  

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