[logo]     MINIX 3 - Download [logo]
HOME DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE DOCUMENTATION NEWS

Downloading MINIX 3

Trying MINIX 3 is easy. You just download the compressed CD image file, decompress it, and burn it to a CD-ROM. This CD is a live CD. You can boot your computer from it and a few seconds later you log in as root. You do not have to install MINIX 3 to the hard disk to test it. If you decide you want to install it, you then have to create a hard disk partition for it (100 MB to 1000 MB will do) start the live CD again and run setup. Proceed as follows:

  • Read the installation guide.
  • If you do not know how to partition a hard disk, print and read this short tutorial on disk partitions.
  • Download a MINIX 3 distribution from the table below.

    • Version
    IDE CD-ROM
    MD5 Checksum
        3.1.6 (current release)   minix_R3.1.6-r6084.iso.bz2   (465 MB)
    		9217535e8f65c060a388545ccc36c7a6
        3.1.5 (previous release)   minix_R3.1.5-r5612.iso.bz2   (462 MB)
    		451f07379a30537a73824cca45e8a858

  • Decompress the downloaded file to get a .iso file and the Installation guide (same as above)
  • Burn this bootable CD-image file to a CD-ROM.
  • Reboot the computer with the CD-ROM device and follow the instructions in the installation guide

Previous Versions

For older versions of MINIX, please see the previous versions page.

Known bugs

For a list of known bugs in releases, see the known bugs list.

Decompressing the Image

The best known lossless compression algorithm is implemented in the bzip2 program. It also has extremely fast decompression. The popular 7zip archiver for Windows supports it too.

If you do not have the compression (bzip2) and decompression (bunzip2) software, here it is for Windows, Linux, and Solaris. Here is the source tarball. Bzip2 is also contained in the MINIX 3 distribution. The zip versions are provided as emergency backup in case you cannot get bzip2 running.

Booting MINIX 3 on Old Computers

Some older computers have a CD-ROM drive but are not able to boot from it. To boot MINIX 3 on them, download bootflop.img. It is a floppy disk image file. Copy it to a blank formatted floppy byte for byte using RawWrite. Then insert the CD-ROM in the drive and boot the computer using the floppy. This procedure is equivalent to booting from the CD-ROM itself.