Minix: System tasks

Minix comes close to Linux and oter (recent) Unixes, but there are some minute differences. When I find these differences I will publish them in this section on Fruttenboel.

Installing new software is as easy as with Debian Sarge. It is carried out completely automatic by the 'packman' program. You either need a CD-ROM disk with the software, or your network needs to be running. Or both. The 'packman' will first show a list of available packages on screen and next you choose which one you want by entering it's ordinal number (from the list).

The command to enter:

      
   packman

and then just follow the guide lines on screen.

As with Linux, this is a task for root. But the task is much easier since Minix does not require a lot of red tape like phone numbers and suchlike archaic data. The syntax is as follows:

      
   adduser jan operator /home/jan

This will create a new user 'jan' and he will have his home directory in '/home/jan'. 'jan' is of the group 'operator'. There are other groups, but I guess 'operator' is intended to be used for what with Slackware is related to as 'users'.

As far as I know, there is no way to change groups in Minix.

As far as I know, Minix 3 does not use backgrounding commands. So it has no use to press Ctrl-Z when doing something inside a program (like the 'vim' editor) to be able to do something else in between.
I pressed Ctrl-Z a few times by accident. In all cases, I was bombarded out of the program AND the shell. In fact, I was logged out by one keystroke and the changes I made were lost. So be careful with familiar Linux keystrokes.

   Ctrl-Z         kicks you out of your session
   Ctrl-Tab       does funny tricks when inside Bash

By far the easiest way of transfering files between the Minix system and a running Linux computer is through FTP. Beryllium does not have a floppy disk drive anymore. And it's too expensive and time consuming to burn a CD-ROM for each and every file. Plus: Lithium does have a CD -Writer, but I haven't figured out yet how to run it with Minix. So the network comes in handy.

   $ ncftp
   ncftp> open -u jan beryllium.fruttenboel
   Connecting to 192.168.56.4..
   ProFTPD 1.2.10 Server (Debian) [192.168.56.4]
   Logging in...
   Password requested by 192.168.56.4 for user "jan".
   
        Password requested for jan.
   
   Password : **********
   
   User jan logged in.
   Logged in to beryllium.fruttenboel
   ncftp /home/jan>

From this moment on you can exchange files and data to your hearts content. Fast and flexible.

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