MINIX 3 is a free and open source operating system (released under BSD-type license), designed for high reliability, flexibility and security. It is based on a small (only 10k lines of code) and lightweight microkernel, that runs in kernel mode. so MINIX 3 is a good choice for you if you’re going for an embedded system project (it doesn’t matter where it’s a research project or a commercial one).
Features of MINIX 3
MINIX 3 is well suitable for Microkernel market but you can install on your computer or laptop or using Vmware. It will run fine with very low resource consumption, so if you’ve a very old computer or Netbook then MINIX may be a good choice for you. It has XWindow system, i.e Graphical User Interface for easy use of the operating system, TCP/IP networking. You can write programs for MINIX in many programming language such as Python, Perl, C etc. It is a POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface, it’s basically a IEEE standard for maintaining compatibility between operating system) complaint with a NetBSD Userland.
Download MINIX 3 (latest version : 3.2, is around 360MB)
Recommended Reading(s)
- Minix3.org – visit Official site for information about MINIX OS.
- Installation Guide – Checkout the official manual if you’re going to try MINIX 3