The sources to the library are contained in an archive to save disk space. Since MINIX uses a minimum of 1K for each file, no matter how small, the sources take up less space when packed together in an archive. To extract them, make sure there is at least 130K of free disk space, and type: ar xv libsrc.a Furthermore, please note that not all the library routines are contained in /usr/lib/libc.a in order to save disk space. If you have a hard disk, compare the contents of libsrc.a with libc.a, and compile the missing routines with cc -c -LIB file.c. Add these to libc.a. With a floppy disk system, you may not have room for the missing ones.