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Diffstat (limited to 'hurd/status.mdwn')
| -rw-r--r-- | hurd/status.mdwn | 59 |
1 files changed, 52 insertions, 7 deletions
diff --git a/hurd/status.mdwn b/hurd/status.mdwn index b4ece046..721cdeda 100644 --- a/hurd/status.mdwn +++ b/hurd/status.mdwn @@ -1,13 +1,13 @@ -[[meta copyright="Copyright © 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, -Inc."]] +[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software +Foundation, Inc."]] -[[meta license="""[[toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[toggleable +[[!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]]."]]"""]] +[[GNU Free Documentation License|/fdl]]."]]"""]] The Hurd, together with the GNU Mach microkernel, the GNU C Library and the other GNU and non-GNU programs in the GNU system, provide a @@ -16,13 +16,19 @@ for production use, as there are still many bugs and missing features. However, it should be a good base for further development and non-critical application usage. -The GNU system (also called GNU/Hurd) is completely self-contained +[[!img hurd-fvwm-screenshot-2009-11-12.png size=300x +alt="FVWM and Gnumeric running on GNU/Hurd" +title="FVWM and Gnumeric running on GNU/Hurd" +align="right" + +]] The GNU system (also called GNU/Hurd) is completely self-contained (you can compile all parts of it using GNU itself). You can run several instances of the Hurd in parallel, and debug even critical servers in one Hurd instance with gdb running on another Hurd instance. You can run the X window system, applications that use it, and advanced server applications like the Apache webserver. + On the negative side, the support for character devices (like sound cards) and other hardware is mostly missing. Although the POSIX interface is provided, some additional interfaces like POSIX shared @@ -43,10 +49,10 @@ so little would be gained by creating an official pure Hurd release. The Debian GNU/Hurd [[distribution|running/debian]] offers *LiveCDs and QEMU images* to test-drive the Hurd in a real life system with access to about -50% of the Debian software archive. +65% of the Debian software archive. The most recent version of the Debian port at the time of writing -is *Debian GNU/Hurd K16*. +is *Debian GNU/Hurd L1*. That said, the last official release of the Hurd @@ -61,3 +67,42 @@ well would be unfortunate. Moreover, it would lessen the possibility that they would want to try the Hurd again in the future. +## Usability Reports + +### Olaf Buddenhagen, 2009-06-09 + +> I have been using the Hurd for most of my everyday work for some two +> years now. Most of the time it's pretty OK, but occasionally programs +> crash, or the screen session dies, or even the whole system. Also, +> various programs simply don't work at all, or don't work in certain +> situations. +> +> While I have learned to work around many of these issues, I don't +> believe I would be able to use it as my primary system, without having a +> GNU/Linux system running in parallel, as a fallback for all the stuff +> that doesn't work on the Hurd. +> +> My everyday work includes reading/writing email and other texts, preparing and giving +> presentations, text-mode web browsing, viewing pictures, IRC, reading +> PDF documents, programming, and various other random stuff... +> +> [...] +> +> One particular problem for desktop use is the fact that while X does +> work, it works very poorly -- it's not only slow and jerky all the time, +> but also tends to lock up completely. (At least with the local socket +> transport... Haven't tried whether forcing TCP works better.) +> +> Note that while many of the stability problems are simply bugs to fix, +> the system will still be very fragile in the absence of these -- a +> simple port leak is sufficient to kill it within seconds. This is +> something that can't be easily solved. Properly fixing this will require +> a sound resource accounting framework, i.e. very fundamental changes to +> the system... Though I tend to believe that it could be improved at +> least partially, at the expense of flexibility, by enforcing certain +> fixed limits on users, processes etc. like other UNIX systems do. +> +> [...] +> +> [But] unlike a few years back [...] the system is stable enough under +> load nowadays [...]. |