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Professor Andrew S. Tanenbaum from the Department of Computer Science at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam wrote "An Open Letter to Intel" regarding Intel's use of MINIX 3 to run the Intel Management Engine (video) built into their processors:
Thanks for putting a version of MINIX 3 inside the ME-11 management engine chip used on almost all recent desktop and laptop computers in the world. I guess that makes MINIX the most widely used computer operating system in the world, even more than Windows, Linux, or MacOS. And I didn't even know until I read a press report about it. Also here and here and here and here and here (in Dutch), and a bunch of other places.
[...] Note added later: Some people have pointed out online that if MINIX had a GPL license, Intel might not have used it since then it would have had to publish the modifications to the code. Maybe yes, maybe no, but the modifications were no doubt technical issues involving which mode processes run in, etc. My understanding, however, is that the small size and modular microkernel structure were the primary attractions. Many people (including me) don't like the idea of an all-powerful management engine in there at all (since it is a possible security hole and a dangerous idea in the first place), but that is Intel's business decision and a separate issue from the code it runs. A company as big as Intel could obviously write its own OS if it had to. My point is that big companies with lots of resources and expertise sometimes use microkernels, especially in embedded systems. The L4 microkernel has been running inside smartphone chips for years.
Professor Tanenbaum did the initial design and development of MINIX, a microkernel used primarily for teaching. He has helped guide it through the years as a small community around it has grown. Lately it has adopted much of the NetBSD userspace. The IME is a full operating system system running inside x86 computers. It gets run before whatever system on the actual hard disk even starts booting.
Related: Intel Management Engine Partially Defeated
EFF: Intel's Management Engine is a Security Hazard
Disabling Intel ME 11 Via Undocumented Mode
How-To: Disabling the Intel Management Engine
Positive Technologies - Learn and Secure : Intel ME: The Way of Static Analysis (takyon: I marked this one to not display at the time since it was a blog post from April and ran within hours of the preceding IME story.)
Purism Disables Intel Management Engine on Librem Laptops
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @04:35PM (7 children)
Not only is it the year of MINIX on the desktop, it's almost a decade. Mua ha ha!
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @04:59PM (4 children)
It may be running MINIX, but the users aren't using MINIX ...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday November 08 2017, @05:17PM (3 children)
I must uncomfortably admit, while I love to point out how two billion Android smartphones run Linux, what you say could apply in some sense to Android.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Informative) by RamiK on Wednesday November 08 2017, @06:14PM (2 children)
And each one of those phones is running a baseband with QNX, L4, or some other microkernel proving Andy's position.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @04:13PM (1 child)
But are are those using MINIX? If not then Android is the most widely used OS and Andy is wrong about "MINIX the most widely used computer operating system in the world".
There are two billion ACTIVE android devices. There maybe about 2 billion PCs+servers but not all are Intel. And I'm not sure how many of the 2 billion are active on a monthly basis.
I see lots of poor people around with low end smartphones who most likely don't have a PC. They are probably on Android and unlikely to be using an iPhone. I'm not sure if they use an internet dataplan regularly enough to be counted under Google's 2 billion active android devices.
In my house there are far more phones than PCs.
Many workplaces supply PCs and servers so the figures get close but I think the Android phones have got the edge over Intel computers in numbers nowadays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @09:20PM
Andy argued for microkernels in favor of monolithic kernels. Not for Minix in favor of Linux.
And another thing, most, if not all, micro-controllers (and DSPs big enough to run an OS as opposed to a simple loop) are running microkernels. That's harddrives, network controllers, north\south bridges, audio chips, USB and SATA controllers, etc...
Mind you, like CISC vs. RISC, the "argument" between microkernels and monolithic kernels is antiquated. Modern hardware designs start with capability-based RISC hardware that completely negates any performance advantages a monolithic kernel hold on such legacy designs as the x86 and ARM. It's just that the commercial desktop & server software world hasn't successfully kept up with the times due to Intel sitting on several key patents since the early 90s and artificially holding back progress.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Thursday November 09 2017, @12:02AM (1 child)
So, the future will hail Tanenbaum as the most successful OS author and Torvalds as the guy who wrote git because he did not follow a bearded guy advice who, after falling in trance, had told him to avoid bitkeeper.
William gates III will be probably known as the guy whose foundation starts wwIII by issuing the wrong kind of vaccine which morphs people in Burundi into foaming mad right wingers building the IV reich, and apple as the maker of the finest telescreens.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @12:29AM
Pretty sure that sums it up :)