Right ho, the subject says it all ...  Linux could definitely do with a

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions for all you who haven't been on the net

all your life :-).  And as I'm sure anybody who has read my "help-files"

would agree, I'm not the best possible person to write it.  Thus a new

project: getting a FAQ done with help from the linux-activists.
I've talked (yes, you can try to talk with me if I'm logged in) with

Robert Blum, and he's promised to help. Our idea was to get as many of

the linux users/would be users to ask questions they think ought to be

in the FAQ, and hopefully you could try to answer them too (and don't be

shy just because you aren't certain you get it right - I'll go through

the FAQ for techical soundness anyway, but your answers will make

editing much easier).
I'm especially interested in some tutorials/"true stories" from people

who installed linux without the help of minix.  Not only will they help

make the FAQ, but I could try to make things easier for the next

version.  The FAQ should also contain some pointer to what people are

doing, and what has been done (like init/login, the bison port, g++,

etc).
I guess the easiest way to organize this thing is to mail me with a

subject containing "FAQ".  I'll then compile it to one big thing and

send it out to whoever wants to edit on it.  If you want to be one of

the people working on it, please mail and say so.  I'll be happier the

less I have to do with this thing :-), and even if you just think you

could try to check for things you find incomprehensible, mail me and

tell me you'd like to help with it.  Alternatively, you can mail Robert

Blum (whom I happily let take over the main responsibility for this

thing if he wants it) at "blum@messua.informatik.rwth-aachen.de". 
If you can get your grubby little hands on the minix FAQ, you could try

to make a skeleton one for linux, trying to answer the questions

yourself first, and adding/removing questions of your own.  Also, please

resend the questions you'v...
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I, too, I have managed to bring up Linux without the need of Minux.  I

have a 40 MhZ AMD 386 with a 200 Meg clone.  A couple of notes:
N1) The Minix demo disk which you can get from plains.novak.edu only

works for 5.25" disks --- this isn't documented anywhere, but I spent a

lot of time trying to get it to boot on my 3.5" A drive.  It would print

the first message about "loading Minix system", but it would hang before

printing the menu.  I finally had to give up, recable my drives so that

my 5" drive was my A drive to get Minix to come up.
N2)  The numbering convestion for partition in Minix and Linux are

different!!!  The way I dealt with it is to use a disk editor to write a

message "This is the Linux parittion" in the first sector of the

partition, and then use "head -3 /dev/hd[014]" to find the right

partition number on both Minix and Linux.
N3)  I have MS-DOS 5.0, and the mtools worked just fine on my hard disk.

All of my partitions are less than 32 MEG, so I'm still using the FAT-16

filesystem.  It would be nice if Linux understood the DOS extended

partitions, though.  This would allow mtools could read my other DOS

partitions.  In addition, it would mean that I could use one of the DOS

extended partitions as Linux partitions, so I could avoid chewing up

the 4 primary partitions available on my 200 meg drive.
[ Note: whoever decided that IBM hard disks only needed 4 partitions

should be condemned to recabling machine room floors; CP/M on

Heath/Zenith machines had 8 partitions available, and much more friendly

tools to modify said table! ]
N4)  I have also experienced the panic which Patrick L. McGillan has

described.  I suspect DOS setting some cruft which isn't getting cleaned

up.  The panic happens happens right after the "Loading system" and

before the system has a chance to print the "Partition tables ok" message.
N5)  I have managed to build the Linux kernel under Linux, using the 16

bit binaries which Linus provided.  One little gotcha is that it is

necessary ...
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It should work on 720K disks. The Minix /dev/fd0 does not support 1.44M,
The Minix hard disk drivers sort the partition table :-(. This problem

goes back to DOS 3.0 (3.2?) and before, which have a different idea

about the partition order than 3.3 (but I think it is just a straight

reversal, not a sort).
Kai Uwe Rommel says that extended partitions have worked to solve this
Since Linux uses the Minix file system, the shoelace binaries should work

immediately. The sources probably require changing because of different
This file was copied from the Minix fsck.c so it is presumably copyright.

Most of the rest of shoelace could be used by Linux without copyright

problems.
Bruce