I am trying to clean up the anatomy of a hurd system webpage.

2 files changed, 41 insertions, 29 deletions

diff --git a/contributing.mdwn b/contributing.mdwn
index 45460f6f..77d0f9a5 100644
--- a/contributing.mdwn
+++ b/contributing.mdwn
@@ -158,10 +158,7 @@ reports to open-ended research questions.
 <a name="insta-dev-env"></a>
 ## Instant Development Environment
 
-<!-- I don't like this being here.  At least not in this form.  This just
-duplicates information that is available in other places.  (Or should be
-available in other places, in more elaborate form.)
-
+<!--
 The idea of a one-stop development environment is not bad (I like that), but
 I'd do this differently.  For example, we should add some Git submodules to the
 master hurd.git repository (which is currently empty), to branches that are
diff --git a/open_issues/anatomy_of_a_hurd_system.mdwn b/open_issues/anatomy_of_a_hurd_system.mdwn
index 7429abce..966331ce 100644
--- a/open_issues/anatomy_of_a_hurd_system.mdwn
+++ b/open_issues/anatomy_of_a_hurd_system.mdwn
@@ -17,37 +17,52 @@ like Bushnell's Hurd paper.  All this should be unfied and streamlined.
 [[!toc]]
 
 
-# IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2011-03-08
-
-    <foocraft> I've a question on what are the "units" in the hurd project, if
-      you were to divide them into units if they aren't, and what are the
-      dependency relations between those units(roughly, nothing too pedantic
-      for now)
-    <antrik> there is GNU Mach (the microkernel); there are the server
-      libraries in the Hurd package; there are the actual servers in the same;
-      and there is the POSIX implementation layer in glibc
-    <antrik> relations are a bit tricky
-    <antrik> Mach is the base layer which implements IPC and memory management
-    <foocraft> hmm I'll probably allocate time for dependency graph generation,
-      in the worst case
-    <antrik> on top of this, the Hurd servers, using the server libraries,
-      implement various aspects of the system functionality
-    <antrik> client programs use libc calls to use the servers
-    <antrik> (servers also use libc to communicate with other servers and/or
-      Mach though)
-    <foocraft> so every server depends solely on mach, and no other server?
-    <foocraft> s/mach/mach and/or libc/
-    <antrik> I think these things should be pretty clear one you are somewhat
-      familiar with the Hurd architecture... nothing really tricky there
-    <antrik> no
-    <antrik> servers often depend on other servers for certain functionality
+# Introduction to the Hurd System
+
+The lowest base of the GNU/Hurd system is GNU Mach.  GNU Mach is a microkernel,
+which provides interprocess communication (IPC), memory management, and a scheduler.
+The Hurd servers runs on top of GNU Mach to implement various userspace servers that
+would ordinarily reside in the kernel, including the filesystem, device drivers,
+TCP/IP stack, and others.  The GNU/Hurd system implements POSIX with glibc.  Almost all
+POSIX calls to glibc are re-routed to the Hurd servers.  Some of the Hurd servers
+depend on GNU Mach, while other Hurd servers depend on other Hurd servers.
+
+                                  The Hurd
+
+                        ---------------------------
+                        |         glibc           |
+                        |                         |
+                        | read                    |
+                        ---------------------------
+                           \
+                            \
+                             \
+                              \
+                        ---------------------------------------
+                        |      \     Hurd Servers             |
+                        |     ext2fs   auth --- other servers |
+                        |       \                             |
+                        --------------------------------------
+                                  \
+                              libdiskfs
+                                   \    /
+                                    \  /
+                                     \/
+                                   GNU Mach
 
 
 # Bootstrap
 
 ## [[hurd_init]]
 
-## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2011-03-12
+## Hurd Booting Process
+
+When grub starts running, it loads the root filesystem, the exec server, and
+starts GNU Mach.  GNU Mach then starts the servers in turn according to the
+multiboot information grub gave it.  Additionally the rootfs server
+does some bootstrapping work to bring the start the other servers.
+
+### IRC, freenode, #hurd booting process, 2011-03-12
 
     <dEhiN> when mach first starts up, does it have some basic i/o or fs
       functionality built into it to start up the initial hurd translators?