Is there a way to run Minix alongside Windows XP similar to the CoLinux approach?

I've tried a few searches to see if anyone has done a "CoMinix" port.
I've used CoLinux off and on over the last few years and have found
that to be very useful for my own Linux needs. I'd like to be able to
do something similar with Minix, which is to run Minix not in an
emulator or VMWare, etc but instead in a manner like what CoLinux does.
I prefer the CoLinux approach because it was my experience that
solutions like Bochs or VMWare tended to hog the CPU, which made the
Windows portion of my computer essentially useless whereas CoLinux
works quite well alongside Windows. Perhaps this is no longer the
case, but I haven't been inclined to go bother installing another trial
version of VMWare ( or similar ) to find out if it still hogs the cpu.
[color=blue]
>From what I recall about the way CoLinux was implemented, it seems to[/color]
me that it would be possible to do this. I wish I had more time to
dig further into this myself, but have to settle for seeing if anyone
else is out there with either an already working solution, or the
desire to do this.

Thanks!

- les

Hello,
[color=blue]
> I've tried a few searches to see if anyone has done a "CoMinix" port.[/color]

There is DosMinix, which runs the Minix boot monitor as a DOS program. Minix
provides then a file system driver which uses a file on a FAT partition as
hard disk.

Don't know if this still applies to the new Minix 3, though.
[color=blue]
> I've used CoLinux off and on over the last few years and have found
> that to be very useful for my own Linux needs.[/color]

I use it myself quite often.
[color=blue]
> Perhaps this is no longer the
> case, but I haven't been inclined to go bother installing another trial
> version of VMWare ( or similar ) to find out if it still hogs the cpu.[/color]

It does. I tried last days, but it isn't the same as coLinux.

Regards,
Sebastian

I just recently loaded VMware player on my XP laptop and am happily
running Minix 3.1.2a inside it. I was concerned it would be a CPU hog
but it isn't. As I type this, I've got VMware running and it might be
taking a percent or two, that's about it.

It is worth trying, in my opinion. Maybe it's not exactly what you're
looking for, but it works well for me.


les wrote:[color=blue]
> I've tried a few searches to see if anyone has done a "CoMinix" port.
> I've used CoLinux off and on over the last few years and have found
> that to be very useful for my own Linux needs. I'd like to be able to
> do something similar with Minix, which is to run Minix not in an
> emulator or VMWare, etc but instead in a manner like what CoLinux does.
> I prefer the CoLinux approach because it was my experience that
> solutions like Bochs or VMWare tended to hog the CPU, which made the
> Windows portion of my computer essentially useless whereas CoLinux
> works quite well alongside Windows. Perhaps this is no longer the
> case, but I haven't been inclined to go bother installing another trial
> version of VMWare ( or similar ) to find out if it still hogs the cpu.
>[color=green]
> >From what I recall about the way CoLinux was implemented, it seems to[/color]
> me that it would be possible to do this. I wish I had more time to
> dig further into this myself, but have to settle for seeing if anyone
> else is out there with either an already working solution, or the
> desire to do this.
>
> Thanks!
>
> - les[/color]

Bill Marcum wrote:[color=blue]
> On Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:37:29 +0100, Sebastian <bastisoft@arcor.de> wrote:[/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
> > There is DosMinix, which runs the Minix boot monitor as a DOS program. Minix
> > provides then a file system driver which uses a file on a FAT partition as
> > hard disk.[/color]
>
> Not many people use DOS anymore, and this almost certainly won't work
> with Windows XP. Might work with Windows 9x booted into DOS mode.[/color]

DOSMinix uses special drivers which have not been ported to Minix 3.
For Minix 2 it worked quite well with Windows 9x systems, but it won't
work with later Windows versions, even if you install Windows on a FAT
file system. I set up one Windows XP system to dual boot Windows 98
mainly so I could run Minix 2 in DOSMinix mode on that system. Too
bad, it was a nice solution, but I think one reason it wasn't
considered important to port the DOSMinix drivers to Minix 3 is that
university teaching labs for OS courses are not likely to be running
Windows 98 or earlier now.

With regard to another part of the query, you ought to try VMWare. I
don't think you'll be disappointed -- when a Minix guest OS is not
doing anything the performance of a Windows host seems to
negligibly affected, and when the Windows host is not doing
anything I don't see any significant difference in performance of a
Minix guest from the performance of Minix running on bare hardware.
Of course, if you start CPU-intensive jobs simultaneously on
VMWare host and guest systems they will each take a share of CPU time.

Disclaimer for the last statement: I haven't tried to quantify this,
and I haven't experimented with Minix running X as a guest OS on
VMWare.

- Al