Improvements Since MINIX 2

MINIX 3 has many improvements over MINIX 2, too many to list. We will just list a few of them here.

New Features

• Installation (based on a live CD) is much simpler
• X Window System
• Memory sizes up to 4 GB are supported
• Disk blocks can be 1-, 2-, 4-, or 8-KB
• The select system call has been added
• Many new programs including gcc, g++, emacs, nvi, vim, bison, python, perl, GNU utilities
• An information server has been added for debugging and other purposes
• A reincarnation server automatically kills and replaces faulty device drivers on the fly

Better System structure

• The kernel has been heavily rewritten, cleaned up, and reduced to under 4000 lines of code
• Each device driver (except the clock) is now a separate user process
• Many new reliability features have been added
• A new nonblocking notification mechanism for IPC has been added
• Timer management has been improved and simplified
• Scheduling has been made more general
• A bit map controls which destinations a process can send to
• A bit map controls which kernel calls drivers and servers can make
• Control of 'superuser-like' powers for kernel calls have been modularized
• Interrupt notification and messages have been integrated