From:     mib@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell)
To:       hurd-ann@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Date:     Mon, 8 Aug 94 16:01:23 -0400
Subject:  New Hurd Snapshot
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A new Hurd snapshot has been placed on alpha.gnu.ai.mit.edu in
/pub/gnu/hurd-snap.tar.gz.

It is expected that the next snapshot after this one will have signals
basically working and thus be usable for a self-hosting system.  In
addition, the next snapshot will probably have the current state of
our networking code (which has been proceeding, but has been absent
from the snapshots).

Here is the NEWS about this current snapshot, however.  Because some
big changes were made to the makefile and directory structure, things
might have gotten inadvertently ommitted from the snapshot.  If this
happened, please let me know ASAP and I'll fix it and make a new
snapshot.

	-mib


August 8, 1994:

Structural changes:

Makefiles have been vastly improved and are simpler.  The programs
`su', `ps', and `sh' have been moved from separate dirs into `utils';
the programs `symlink' and `ifsock' have been moved into `trans'.

Several changes were made to GCC use.  You should definitely get GCC
version 2.6.0 now.  Version 2.6.1 will have distributed the proper
`specs' file for the i386-gnu target, but it isn't quite ready yet, so
you still have to copy hurd/gcc-specs into
gcc-lib/i386-gnu/2.6.0/specs.


Interface changes:

The tioctl.defs suite is complete now.

INTR RPC's have been changed; individual RPC's are no longer marked
INTR.  Rather, entire interfaces are marked `INTR_INTERFACE' if they
conform to the library's signalling/interruption expectations.

There is a new magical retry type (for dir_pathtrans and fsys_getroot)
called `machtype' and a new one `/'; the former is for @sys tweaks and
the latter cleans up the retry of root-based symlinks a bit.

There is a new interface `login.defs'.

The "dotdot node" is no longer passed at fsys_startup time; instead,
it is passed by fsys_getroot.


Library changes:

The ports library now does death-timeouts for multi-threaded servers;
it doesn't actually work right yet, however.  Also the ports library
has new features (soft vs. hard ports; no outstanding ports
notifications) that enable server-death to be done cleanly.  (I hope;
libdiskfs and ufs haven't yet been changed to use it, so libports
might not actually have the right facilities yet.)

The translator startup routines in libfshelp have been vastly improved
(so that they can actually be used).

Numerous bugfixes in libdiskfs, particularly relating to translator
usage.  Use new magical retry type `/' when appropriate.  Use new
dotdot node protocol.  O_FSYNC and O_NOATIME are now honored properly.
Alternative methods of storing symlinks are now supported through new
hooks.  

The new dotdot protocol is now used by libtrivfs.  Also, users of the
library are now able to set the atime and mtime when necessary.

The special threads version of malloc has been placed back in
libthreads now that the C library uses a Mach-safe version on its own.


Program changes:

The `boot' program no longer implements the tioctl interface now that
the terminal driver works.

A bug was fixed in the handling of pgrps in `proc'.

Many bugfixes in term.  The tioctl interface is now implemented.  EOF
processing is fixed; break characters now work right.  Signals and
interruption are now done correctly.  VDISCARD works.  

Ufs has Some bigs fixed in dir.c.  Filesystem upgraded to BSD 4.4.
There are now some compatibility flags.  

New program dev.trim does a very minimal /dev (but doesn't work yet).
New program dev is an initial (but poor) attempt at a real /dev.