From 79857b28c744ad8570c53b0e2014b5af45971b4e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Thomas Schwinge Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2011 12:44:15 +0100 Subject: news/2010: Markdown-ify. Publish. Ideally, we would have used the original texinfo code, and filtered it through [[!format text """[...]"""]], but that doesn't work, as there apparently is some interference between pre-processing hooks of different plugins, and thus the result doesn't look like it should. --- news/2010.mdwn | 125 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 125 insertions(+) create mode 100644 news/2010.mdwn (limited to 'news/2010.mdwn') diff --git a/news/2010.mdwn b/news/2010.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f6a86052 --- /dev/null +++ b/news/2010.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,125 @@ +[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]] + +[[!meta license="""[[!toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[!toggleable +id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this +document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or +any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant +Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license +is included in the section entitled [[GNU Free Documentation +License|/fdl]]."]]"""]] + +[[!meta date="2011-02-05 12:00 UTC"]] + +A year of the Hurd: *2010*. +[[!if test="included()" then="""[[!toggle id=full_news +text="Details."]][[!toggleable id=full_news text="[[!paste id=full_news]]"]]""" +else=" +[[!paste id=full_news]]"]] + +[[!cut id="full_news" text=""" + +Originally published in {{$gnu#gnustatus-2011-01}}. + +From Olaf Buddenhagen, Arne Babenhauserheide, Thomas Schwinge: Yeah, +that's quite right: the GNU Hurd project is still alive! + +According to our mission statement, the goal is creating *a +general-purpose kernel suitable for the GNU operating system, which is +viable for everyday use, and gives users and programs as much control +over their computing environment as possible*. It has a unique +multi-server microkernel-based architecture---bringing advanced +operating system research to the mainstream. More concretely, it's a +collection of user-space server processes that run on the GNU Mach +microkernel. + +The Hurd doesn't fully deliver on the *everyday usability* goal +yet, but it is seeing continuous improvement---and 2010 has been no +exception. Let's take a look at the progress throughout the year. + + * +Apart from having done a lot of other work, Samuel Thibault, our Jack +of all trades, merged his development branch that added Xen domU +support to GNU Mach, which makes it possible to run a GNU/Hurd system +as a Xen guest. Development of this started in 2007, and since then +it has been heavily tested by using it for the Debian GNU/Hurd build +servers, most of our public GNU/Hurd systems, +, and the +Hurd project's wiki web server. + + * +We had Zheng Da work on a new hardware device driver framework, which +is based on the Dresden L4 (Fiasco) group's DDE project, and allows +running modern Linux kernel drivers as user-space server processes. +Many network cards already work perfectly with this new framework. +(It has not yet been integrated into the mainstream Hurd code base, so +it needs to be compiled and set up by hand.) Other driver classes, +such as hard disk controllers, will require further work. + + * +As in the previous years, we again participated in the Google Summer +of Code 2010. Olaf Buddenhagen is our main guy for organizing this. + + Jérémie Koenig ported the modern Debian Installer to Debian +GNU/Hurd. Installation images using the new installer are replacing +the previous CD images, which were using an installer based on the old +Debian boot floppies (and running under the Linux kernel)---Philip +Charles has been maintaining these single-handedly for almost ten +years! The new installer images are available from +. + + Emilio Pozuelo Monfort was investigating specific compatibility +problems exposed by the extensive test suites coming with some +software packages. Emilio's analysis uncovered a number of +programming errors in the Hurd code, and he fixed several of them. As +these typically affected other programs too, this improved stability +and compatibility in general. + + * +Jérémie Koenig created a new implementation of a `procfs` +translator, which is considerably more robust and efficient than the +previous one. Tools such as `top` can now be used without +problems. + + Some other translators (`gopherfs`, `netio`, +`tarfs`) which have been created by external contributors in +the past have been fixed up by Manuel Menal, and packaged in Debian. +Thus, some of the results of Hurd's extensible architecture are now +easier to access, and these updated translators can serve as examples +for other developers to implement their own ideas. + + * +In addition to various general stability, compatibility, and +portability fixes, several people (Samuel Thibault, Pino Toscano, +Emilio Pozuelo Monfort, and others) have been working on fixing issues +with specific Debian packages. So far, about 68% of all Debian +packages are also available for Debian GNU/Hurd. + + * +Michael Walker started the Arch Hurd distribution, and together with +other enthusiastic Arch developers (Allan McRae, Matthias Lanzinger, +Alexander Preisinger, Stephen Gilles, Diego Nieto Cid) they got it +working in an amazingly short amount of time, both as an installable +system, and a live CD. So now there is a choice between two +well-featured distributions for the Hurd. These new people of course +also help forwarding Hurd development in general---Diego in particular +contributed various patches to the Hurd console and other components. + + * +Carl Fredrik Hammar finished and presented his thesis, *Generalizing +mobility for the Hurd*, +, +and passed with distinction. + +This is a very short digest of what happened in the last year. You +can read our regular *Month of the Hurd* at +, or by subscribing to +our RSS feed at . + +If you are interested, for example, in doing a university project on a +multi-server microkernel-based operating system, or if you are +interested in contributing to Hurd development in general, please see +. Or just +talk to us at or the `#hurd` IRC +channel on freenode. + +"""]] -- cgit v1.2.3