MINIX 3.2.0 makes porting easier, introduces FUSE support

The developers of MINIX have announced (sign in required) the release of version 3.2.0 of their operating system. The first stable release of MINIX since 2010 comes with several improvements under the hood, some of which have been sourced from NetBSD.

MINIX 3.2 now uses NetBSD's C library as well as its boot loader. Several new features were added as part of Google's Summer of Code including support for FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace), the NetBSD password file format, new NetBSD userland utilities and support for GDB and core dumps. MINIX 3.2.0 also includes an asynchronous, multi-threaded virtual filesystem server and experimental SMP capabilities. Additionally, LLVM's Clang frontend is now the default compiler for MINIX, although GCC is still being supported. With these changes, the developers say that "it will be much easier to port software to MINIX 3, and you are encouraged to do so".

Another change is that the source code for the MINIX system is now managed using Linus Torvald's git version control system. Detailed information on all the changes since the last release can be found on the MINIX web site. There is also a live CD of the operating system available for download under the BSD Licence.

See also:

• Andrew Tanenbaum's Minix 3, a report from The H
  

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