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diff --git a/news/2012-q2.mdwn b/news/2012-q2.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 00000000..31d504e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/news/2012-q2.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,173 @@ +[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2012 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]]."]]"""]] + +<!-- Date when the news item is (to be) pulished (important for RSS feeds). +Will be set by tschwinge when publishing. +[[!meta date="YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM UTC"]] +--> + +<!-- This is just a skeleton. Use it to create a new QotH. --> + +A quarter of the Hurd, Q2 of 2012: *GSoC*, *barrier of entry*, *core* and *porting*. +[[!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=""" + +### GSoC + +The last two quarters Jeremie Koenig released the final [report](http://www.bddebian.com/~hurd-web/user/jkoenig/java/report) +on his GSoC project Java on Hurd along with a summary of his changes +and the +[challenges](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-01/msg00062.html) +he bested. In a similar track, Samuel Thibault +[merged the slab branch](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-02/msg00010.html), +finishing Maksym Planetas GSoC work on a better memory allocator. + +Also Pino Toscano improved the Hurd implementations +of [nanosleep](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00130.html) +[ptsname_r](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00122.html), +[getlogin_r](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00121.html), +[getgroups](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00120.html) +and +[sendto](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-06/msg00009.html), +making it easier to port POSIX programs, and Samuel Thibault +[added Thread Local support (TLS)](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-05/msg00046.html), +further improving the standards conformance of the Hurd and paving the +way for C++11x. + +### Barrier of Entry + +Samuel Thibault, Ludovic Courtès and Thomas Schwinge reduced the +barrier of entry into hacking the Hurd. + +As part of this, Samuel prepared +[dde in incubator](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-02/msg00037.html), +making about half the Linux network drivers compile on the Hurd. Also +he added the +[netdde debian package and testing notes](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-02/msg00038.html). + +Ludovic added +[a continuous testing framework](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00019.html) +using a Nix-based GNU QEMU image. Since Hurd can now be built using +„Nix“ (german for nothing), how about asking a colleague to revise his +image of the Hurd as vaporware and showing him vapor chugging away on +a compile of your favorite free program? If you don’t want to install +the Hurd yourself, you can also check the +[automatic tests on hydra](http://hydra.nixos.org/jobset/gnu/hurd-master) +([background](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00104.html)). + +Thomas on the other hand +[moved](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00063.html) +the translators +[cvsfs](http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/incubator.git/log/?h=cvsfs/master) +and +[smbfs](http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/incubator.git/log/?h=smbfs/master) +into the incubator git repository, as well as +[libfuse](http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/incubator.git/log/?h=libfuse/master), +reducing the barrier of entry to improving them, so integrating cvs +and samba in the filesystem and using FUSE translators can be +stabilized more easily. Also he +[improved the Hurd build system](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00087.html), +making it easier to get in: + + “running autoreconf is all you need” + +Additionally Roland McGrath +[merged many libc changes](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-05/msg00033.html) +for upstream inclusion, reducing the maintenance load for getting +recent improvements of libc. + +### The Core of the Hurd + +Ludovic Courtes, Maksym Planeta, Samuel Thibault and Richard Braun +took a dive into the core of the Hurd. Ludovic +[fixed invalid port deallocation in `symlink'](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00013.html) +and +[made console-run resilient against missing /dev/console](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00002.html). Maksym +[tested the performance of tmpfs](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00040.html), +showing a speedup from 22s with ramfs and ext2fs to 16s with tmpfs for +apt-get calls, showing the possible wins due to going deep. An obvious +usecase for tmpfs are +[faster Hurd LiveCDs](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00050.html). Samuel +made it easier to dive in by +[improving debugging in GNU Mach](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00032.html). The +debugger is now aware of the difference between kernel space and user +space. This should substantially reduce the development time for +features in Mach by giving +[nicer stack traces](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00047.html). And +in the deepest core of the Mach, Richard improved memory mapping +[with a red-black tree](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00109.html), +which should speed up memory access. + +### Porting + +As in the previous quarters, we also saw lots of ported packages, +including Richards work on +[libpcap](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-01/msg00059.html) +which brought wireshark and +[pcap_inject](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00000.html) +for easier network testing, +[libtool](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-02/msg00023.html) +thanks to Samuel Thibault and Peter O'Gorman, +[gnat](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00060.html) +by Svante Signell for Ada support (a language used in many +mission-critical applications such as automotive and aerospace, +offering features like strong typing, modularity, run-time checking +and parallel processing), and +[iconx](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-06/msg00004.html) +thanks to Samuel Thibault, which fullfills a requirement of tests for +many packages, among them glib - and allowed Svante Signell to port +the literate programming language noweb and ifupdown. Also Thomas +DiModica +[merged](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-06/msg00018.html) +the cthreads to pthreads patch and +[added a branch for it](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-07/msg00087.html) +to make it easier to work on getting Hurd to use the more current +pthreads. For details, see Richards report about running +[Hurd without dependency on cthreads](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-08/msg00062.html). + +And now, as a final note, we want to share a story about real-life +debugging with the Hurd; IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2012-03-02: + + <youpi> yay GNU/Hurd + <youpi> I have added i_translator check in e2fsck, it was missing + <youpi> I had a volume that was keeping making ext2fs crash + <youpi> with a reproductible scenario + <youpi> could easily work out it was i_translator, then add a + check to e2fsck, run it, which indeed fixed, them, and voilà, + ext2fs was working again + <youpi> all that on the same machine with *no* system reboot + <youpi> just ext2fs restart :) + + +So if you want to experience enjoyable debugging of code deep in the core of your system, +please [[get in contact|contact_us]] -- and maybe already grab the [[source +code|source_repositories]]. + +--- + +The **GNU Hurd** is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a +collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file +systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are +implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux). [[More +detailed|hurd/documentation]]. + +**GNU Mach** is the microkernel upon which a GNU Hurd system is based. It +provides an Inter Process Communication (IPC) mechanism that the Hurd uses to +define interfaces for implementing in a distributed multi-server fashion the +services a traditional operating system kernel provides. [[More +detailed|microkernel/mach/gnumach]]. + +<!--see [[contributing/web_pages/news/writing_the_qoth]] for additional information on writing the QotH.--> + +"""]] |