Adding some of the user visible changes that have been made. It turns out

that there have been a lot of them!  This only documents changes made until
Jan 2001, and only changes to the applications, not to the libraries.
It still holds that this needs more work, trolling through ChangeLogs.

1 files changed, 76 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 2d416dab..ff542e78 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -2,13 +2,88 @@
 
 XXX this needs much work, trolling through ChangeLogs.
 
+Many, many, many bugs have been fixed, including some resource
+consumption problems and race conditions.  The system can compile
+itself as well as most external applications.  The amount of stress
+the system can tolerate has increased a lot.
+
+The new ftpfs translator can be used to transparently access FTP
+servers through the filesystem.  Together with the new hostmux
+translator, which can invoke host-specific translators like ftpfs,
+this leads to a very comfortable way to use FTP archives on the Hurd.
+
+A new translator usermux can invoke user specific translators. It can
+be used to provide a symlink to all users home directories in a single
+place (similar to amd/automount).
+
+The tmpfs translator can be used to store files and directories in RAM
+without any overhead of a real filesystem.  The amount of memory
+allocated equals the amount of space occupied, and an upper limit can
+be defined.
+
+Shadow passwords are now supported.  If the password field in
+/etc/passwd contains the string "x", the crypted password is looked up
+in /etc/shadow instead.  A new password server distributes auth ports
+after password verification.
+
+The pfinet server uses the Linux 2.2.12 IP stack now.  It supports the
+new interface types dummy and tun which provide a bottomless sink and
+IP tunnel interface respectively.  It also supports all common network
+ioctls now.
+
+The Hurd can now access CD-ROMs containing an ISO9660 file format with
+the new isofs translator. Rock Ridge extensions are supported, as well
+as some GNU extensions to store GNU specific file system attributes in
+such filesystems.
+
+Two new translators, hello and hello-mt, illustrate how to implement
+simple trivfs based filesystems in the Hurd.
+
+A new utility `rpctrace' aids in debugging the Hurd by listing all
+invoked RPCs with message id and port right information.
+
+The Hurd does no longer contain the utility `su', which is included in
+the GNU shellutils package. `setauth --save' can also be used as a
+replacement.
+
+The init script mechanism became more flexible, as it was splitted
+into several files.  This allows to plug in different styles of init
+procedures by just hooking them into /libexec/runsystem.
+
+The ext2fs server understands the sparse_super filesystem option, and
+can deal with the filetype option (but won't make use of this itself).
+
+Several utilities have new options.  All store based filesystems can
+be configured with --no-suid, --no-exec, --bootflags, --boot-command
+and --no-cache. The null translator also can be full now (--full).
+The magic translator can provide an empty directory.
+
+The crash server supports several modes of operation, it can suspend
+or kill a crashing task. Core dumping is planned for but not
+implemented yet.  Users can set their own crash server using an
+environment variable.
+
+The proc server can show the start time of processes.
+
 * sync -> syncfs, takes args
 
 * Default pager (serverboot) understands Linux (mkswap) signature pages.
   New boot script function $(add-raw-paging-file) inhibits looking for the
   signature page.  New function $(add-linux-paging-file) checks for the
   page and refuses to use the swap partition or paging file if there is no
-  valid Linux signature page.
+  valid Linux signature page.  A stand-alone default pager `mach-defpager'
+  is implemented which supports the same features.  With
+  "die $(serverboot)"
+  in the boot script, serverboot doesn't become the default pager.
+
+* libstore uses off64_t internally, allowing large stores to be
+  handled properly.  The zero store supports suffix b, k/K, m/M, g/G
+  for blocks, kilo-, mega- and gigabytes resp. when specifying the
+  store size.  The remap store understands N+ as the end of the store
+  starting from block N.  A new store type `bunzip2' uncompresses
+  stores in the bzip2 format into memory.
+
+* msgport, ping
 
 
 9 June 1997