Minix
Shares rank 35 of 87 operating systems by recommenders
Free microkernel Unix-like system praised for isolated drivers and teaching OS design; critics call it a toy that lacks parts for a working system.
Free microkernel Unix-like system praised for isolated drivers and teaching OS design; critics call it a toy that lacks parts for a working system.
24 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 9
- approval share
- 63%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 35 years
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Teaching operating system design
“Minix is still used at universities as an educational tool for teaching operating system design”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: I built a tiny LLM to demystify how language models work” “It worked very well for the goal of teaching student the basics of operating systems.”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Amsterdam Compiler Kit” “I strongly suspect an undergraduate minix course taught at VU would be very good.”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Amsterdam Compiler Kit” - Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Two Thousand Line educational operating system released by Cornell University”
- Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Two Thousand Line educational operating system released by Cornell University”
Fault isolation and driver recovery
“The point is that when failures do occur, they can be isolated and recovered from without compromising system stability.”
Comment from 2 Nov 2025 in “CharlotteOS – An Experimental Modern Operating System” “Minix had a smaller attack surface and isolation provided by its microkernel vs. Linux's monolithic kernel.”
Comment from 20 Apr 2026 in “OpenClaw isn't fooling me. I remember MS-DOS” “the microkernel architecture. If a driver dies, it gets "resurrected", and so forth.”
Comment from 2 Nov 2025 in “CharlotteOS – An Experimental Modern Operating System” Unix-compatible microkernel design
“At least MINIX is nominally UNIX/POSIX/C more or less and is somewhat related to ye olde UNIX design”
Comment from 14 May 2026 in “Two Thousand Line educational operating system released by Cornell University” “Minix 3 is a true microkernel Unix-compatible: it can run most of the NetBSD userland”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Costly and restricted distribution
“his chosen strategy would make Minix effectively unaffordable to me in spite of his stated goal”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Amsterdam Compiler Kit” “you had to pay a fairly ridiculous amount of money for if you were a student there”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Amsterdam Compiler Kit” “The book publisher is blamed for preventing Minix from being freely distributed”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Amsterdam Compiler Kit” - Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Amsterdam Compiler Kit”
Toy, not for real work
“to purposefully use a toy when the real thing is freely available”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Amsterdam Compiler Kit” “a toy for students, not for real work”
Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Living my best Sun Microsystems ecosystem life in 2025” “a toy OS for university teachings”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “macOS Container Machines” Missing parts of a working system
“It turned out that this version only covers a fraction of the relevant parts necessary to build a working system.”
Comment from 27 Jul 2026 in “Maybe we should revisit microkernels” “it is not as lean as presented in the book but actually depends on hundereds of assembler files”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Amsterdam Compiler Kit” “a lot of interesting stuff was left out”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Amsterdam Compiler Kit” Broke compatibility and weak performance
“MINIX3 just broken all backward compatibility by increasing the size of directory entries”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Amsterdam Compiler Kit” “It had to make a copy of the whole address space on fork.”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “Modernizing swapping: virtual swap spaces” “But you couldn't do shit with it, on most hardware.”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “NetBSD and my life (2005)”
Other operating systems people recommend
The four most recommended other operating systems, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 87 operating systems, rankedWhat people said
35 of the 37 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Hurd and Minix might have technical merit that'd make them "better" than Linux”
“But you couldn't do shit with it, on most hardware.”
“It turned out that this version only covers a fraction of the relevant parts necessary to build a working system.”
“Probably the most widely deployed microkernel ever: it's inside every Intel CPU for the last ~20 years.”
“It was shaping up quite well until Andy Tanenbaum retired. Since then, nothing.”
“Minix 3 is a true microkernel Unix-compatible: it can run most of the NetBSD userland”
“The exploit surface of these kernels is wild.”
“a toy OS for university teachings”
“At least MINIX is nominally UNIX/POSIX/C more or less and is somewhat related to ye olde UNIX design”
“plus 1 for Minix. that's how Linus learned OS, from Tanenbaum”
“It's a superior OS for teaching UNIX philosophy and OS concepts”
“That was a fun learning experience!”
“Minix had a smaller attack surface and isolation provided by its microkernel vs. Linux's monolithic kernel.”
“Minix is still used at universities as an educational tool for teaching operating system design”
“It had to make a copy of the whole address space on fork.”
“MINIX3 just broken all backward compatibility by increasing the size of directory entries”
“MINIX3 generated lots of papers with a best paper award, so that can hardly be seen as wasted from an academic point of view”
“a lot of interesting stuff was left out”
“wasting a couple of years on Tanenbaum's pet project”
“to purposefully use a toy when the real thing is freely available”
“I strongly suspect an undergraduate minix course taught at VU would be very good.”
“It worked very well for the goal of teaching student the basics of operating systems.”
“his chosen strategy would make Minix effectively unaffordable to me in spite of his stated goal”
“AST wanted to make sure that everybody could obtain MINIX”
“students were forced to work on Minix long after that that made any sense at all”
“The book publisher is blamed for preventing Minix from being freely distributed”
“it is not as lean as presented in the book but actually depends on hundereds of assembler files”
“you had to pay a fairly ridiculous amount of money for if you were a student there”
“was very annoyed to find that the compiler source was not included”
“You already have what you wish for.”
“already was so-so in usability”
“a toy for students, not for real work”
“The point is that when failures do occur, they can be isolated and recovered from without compromising system stability.”
“the microkernel architecture. If a driver dies, it gets "resurrected", and so forth.”
“they're all still Unix clones”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.