<dl>
  <dt><a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2002/debian-hurd-200210/msg00035.html" target="_top">Welcome Note</a></dt>
  <dd> Introduction to GNU and the Hurd sent monthly to <nop>Help-Hurd@gnu.org. </nop></dd>
</dl>

Two canonical status lists are available from the CVS archive:

* [TODO file](http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/~checkout~/hurd/hurd/TODO?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/plain) - from Hurd repository
* [Task file](http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/~checkout~/hurd/hurd/tasks?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/plain) - from Hurd respository

<div align="right"> Related: <span style="background:"><font color="">Known Hurd Limits</font></span><a href="http://LOCATION/KnownHurdLimits">?</a>, <br /><span style="background:"><font color="">Seen Hurd</font></span><a href="http://LOCATION/SeenHurd">?</a>, <span style="background:"><font color="">Who Runs GNU</font></span><a href="http://LOCATIONMain/WhoRunsGNU">?</a></div>

----

Here are some notes taken from an [IRC discussion](http://web.walfield.org/~hird/%23hurd-200209027) September 28th, 2002. The part of the log at which I am summarizing starts with

`<marcus@18:26> wolfgang: I once made a list of things that are definitely to be done before a release. want me to write it here? (It's only on paper so far)`

This list is intended to apply to "just the CVS of the [Hurd itself](http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/hurd)." It is specifically not intended to apply to GNU/Hurd and definately not Debian GNU/Hurd.

* xkb driver for console (for international users)
* kbd leds in console (well, in general, Roland's new driver in oskit for that crap)
* fixing fakeroot (it's buggy)
* fixing tmpfs (it's buggy, Neal says it's Mach's fault)
* adding posix shared memory (requires the io\_close call to be implemented)
* adding posix file locking (requires the io\_close call to be implemented)
* testing
  * find + various filesystems (are inode numbers for . and .. sane?)
  * ext2fs with other block sizes than 4096
  * --help and --version and --usage in all programs
    * I have seen ^V in some --help output, might be argp bug
    * Verify that all options are documented clearly, and that no unimplemented options appear
    * Is the short and long description in the help output correct?
  * Is the return value of all programs correct (eg, does main() return a sane value)
  * Is the suid bit correctly set for all installed programs?
  * Translators
    * Does settrans -g work? -fg?
    * Does fsysopts work? Does setting options with fsysopts work?
    * Does stat() work on all translated nodes and give proper data?
    * What about chown, chmod (some translators should pass this through to the underlying node, esp in /dev!)
    * Does statfs give correct data?
    * Are all inode numbers and link counts correct?
* [one unreadable item on the paper]
* We also should have a "make check" test suite. We can add this once Jeff finished his automake patches
* pick up the other things
  * pthread, definitely. Now that we are so close
  * new console is basically done
    * needs integration of course
    * X switching support
* there is certainly more to do ...

--

This is the wrong place for this but I'll put it here for now. Here's an [email about pthreads direction](http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/hurd-devel/2002q3/000449.html) from hurd-devel mail list.

-- [[Main/GrantBow]] - 01 Oct 2002

Wolfgang also created a wonderful list of [Easy tasks](http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/help-hurd/2002-July/006413.html) on July 28, 2002 that I will quote here:

<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0">
  <tr>
    <th bgcolor="#99CCCC"><strong>Difficulty</strong></th>
    <th bgcolor="#99CCCC"><strong>Task</strong></th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 0 </td>
    <td> Check if all programs handle options (at least --help, --version and --usage; don't forget about the shell scripts) </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 1 </td>
    <td> Check if all translators handle fsysopts </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 1 </td>
    <td> Check if all translators respond to "settrans -g" </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 1 </td>
    <td> More tests of this kind </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 2 </td>
    <td> Fix those of the above who don't work as intended </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 2 </td>
    <td> Document (in doc/hurd.texi) all undocumented programs (translators as well as programs in utils/ and sutils/ and some others) </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 1 </td>
    <td> Find a POSIX test suite, run it on GNU/Hurd, report the results </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 1 </td>
    <td> Find more useful test suites to run </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 3 </td>
    <td> Update INSTALL-cross </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 2 </td>
    <td> Check if all the store classes in libstore work (we have many of them, look into the Makefile) </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 4 </td>
    <td> Fix those who don't work </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 2 </td>
    <td> Document all still undocumented store classes </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> 2 </td>
    <td> The console is pretty new code, it told me it wants to get tested </td>
  </tr>
</table>

Where difficulty 0 means trivial and 4 means tricky; the difficulty has nothing to do with the importance.

-- [[Main/GrantBow]] - 11 Oct 2002