README for minix204_32MB_1GB                   2006-06-03
This is a Minix 2.0.4 virtual machine for VMWare Player.

It was tested on VMWare Player 1.0.1 build 19317 running on Windows XP.
VMWare Player can be obtained from http://www.vmware.com/products/player/.

This virtual machine is configured with a 1 GB virtual disk and 32 MB
RAM, and needs 1 GB free disk space. 


Why Minix 2.0.4 on VMWare?  Although Minix 3 and the Operating Systems 
Design and Implementation 3rd edition text are now available, Minix 2 and the 
second edition of the OSDI book are still in widespread use. Many professors 
have course materials based on Minix 2 that they wish to use, and it may be 
several years before translations of the new edition of the text to languages 
other than English are available. 

A Minix 2 installation option that can be useful for teaching purposes is the 
DOSMinix method, which does not require creating a separate partition for Minix.
Unfortunately, this method requires MS-DOS or an MS-DOS-based version of 
Windows (that is, pre-Windows 2000) as well as a FAT file system. However, 
the availability of the free VMWare Player provides another easy way to install
Minix without repartitioning. As a bonus, the host can be Linux or Unix as well as
any version of Windows.


Usage: unzip the archive, creating a minix204_32MB_1GB directory.  If you are
reading this you have probably already done this. 


Additional documentation: In addition to this file, README.txt, several additional
files are included. The others can be found in the docs subdirectory.  All of these 
files are also readable from within the Minix guest OS; copies are in the /usr/local/docs directory.

1.  USAGE.TXT is a system administrator's guide to installing and running Minix.
The detailed installation information is not relevant to running Minix as a guest OS
on VMWare, but there is much information that is worthwhile here, especially if you
have no previous experience using a Unix-like OS or as a system administrator. 
The content of USAGE.txt is identical to the usage(8) manual page which you can
read from within a running Minix system. 

2.  changes.txt lists differences between Minix 2.0.0 and Minix 2.0.4. If you are
using the Operating Systems Design and Implemention, 2nd edition text (1997),
the changes document will help you to understand differences between Minix as
described in that text and Minix 2.0.4.


The above files describe the base Minix 2.0.4 system, as released in November
2003. There are also several files that describe changes and additions that
became available subsequent to the official Minix 2.0.4 release:

1.  204fixes.txt describes a number of patches and updates released since the
original release of Minix 2.0.4 in November 2003. These have all been applied to
the included Minix system.

2.  vmw-p01.txt describes a patch that enables Minix guests on VMware to print
the contents of the console screen to the host's clipboard by pressing the F4
key.  This is already compiled into the Minix 2.0.4 system on the virtual machine.

3.  vmw-01.txt describes a utility program, vmw, that can be used to transfer data
between a Minix guest OS and the host system using the clipboard.  This is
specific to use of Minix on VMWare. The vmw program is installed in /usr/local/bin.

4. 204ether.txt describes another applied patch which supports an AMD Lance
ethernet card. This makes networking Minix-on-VMWare possible, since VMWare
presents an emulated AMD Lance ethernet interface to a guest operating system.


Starting Minix on VMWare: If the VMWare Player is already installed, double-
clicking the dos.vmx file will start it.  As configured, the virtual machine has access
only to a virtual hard disk, but dos.vmx can be edited with a text editor such as
Notepad to add access to a physical floppy drive or a virtual CD-ROM (a .iso file).

Start Minix by pressing "=" when the boot menu appears.  The Minix system in
this virtual machine is compiled with support for an AMD Lance ethernet adapter,
and the system will try to get an IP address using DHCP.


Additional configuration: the emulated BIOS clock in the virtual machine is set for
the US Eastern time zone, as is the file /etc/rc.timezone.  The BIOS setting can
be altered by pressing F2 during startup.  The /etc/rc.timezone file should also be
edited.  See the TZ (5) man page.

If DHCP service is not available on your network, rename the file /etc/rc.net.disable
to /etc/rc.net and edit it to assign IP and gateway addresses appropriate for your
network.

By default the only network service enabled is telnet.  Commands to start other
network services are commented out, and can be enabled by editing the 
line for each service in /ust/etc/rc (if using DHCP) or in /etc/rc.net (if not using 
DHCP).


Manual pages: If you are new to Unix-like systems you may not be used to the "man"
command to read manual pages available as on-line documentation.  For example,
to read the usage(8) man page, at the command prompt type:
   # man usage
Type 
   # man man
for an explanation of the man(1) command, including the meaning of the section numbers,
and 
   # man whatis
for an explanation of the related useful whatis(1) and apropos(1) commands.


Extras: In addition to the vmw utility, a few other programs that are not part of the
original Minix 2.0.4 distribution are provided. Httpd (8) is the Minix web server; version
0.995 released in May 2006 is installed. Shmem (1) is a utility to display the current
memory allocation (stack + data) of a Minix binary. Hexd (1) is a byte-oriented
hexadecimal dump program, similar to the Unix standard od (1). All of these extras are
in /usr/local/bin with source in /usr/local/src, and all of them have man pages installed
in /usr/local/man.


- Al Woodhull asw@woodhull.com  2006-06-03