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Diffstat (limited to 'NEWS')
| -rw-r--r-- | NEWS | 595 |
1 files changed, 45 insertions, 550 deletions
@@ -1,575 +1,70 @@ -*- Text -*- -April 15, 1995 +5 September 1996 +Version 0.1. -It's hard to summarize, so much has happened. +Summary of important externally visible changes since version 0.0: -We have NFS, a network, and jillions of stuff. Basically things just -work. Except for a jillion little nits, this is very nearly an alpha -release. Not quite, but nearly. +Many miscellaneous bugs have been fixed. +Missing source files in 0.0 have been correctly added to the +distribution. +Configuration now knows that various 386 equivalents use the same +assembly files. - -The `boot' program now accepts an option ``-D DIR'' which specifies a -directory prefix for the file names given in the boot script (hurd.boot). -So the way to boot is now: - $ boot.a -D .../hurd-image hurd.boot sd0a - - -October 5, 1995 - -The Hurd distribution now uses a `configure' script in the standard GNU -style. As with other GNU packages, you can configure in the source -directory or in a separate build directory (though not both with the same -source directory); all you should need to do is `configure i386-gnu'. The -Hurd does not compile in any file names using $(prefix), so you can specify -the prefix where you will install things with the `--prefix' option; e.g., -`configure --prefix=/gd4/hurdinst i386-gnu'. You should no longer need to -edit any makefiles. You can choose the tool names by setting variables in -the environment when running configure (CC, LD, AR, RANLIB, OBJCOPY, MIG); -the default is to search your $PATH for HOST-TOOL (e.g. i386-gnu-gcc), and -failing that just TOOL (e.g. gcc), so you will win automagically if you -simply use the same host alias in the `configure' command line as you used -for the target alias to configure gcc and binutils (i.e. i386-gnu). - -The file_truncate RPC (in fs.defs) has been renamed file_set_size and -now is expected to extend files as well as truncate them, in the -manner of recent BSD releases' ftruncate. file_pathconf has been -moved from fs.defs to io.defs and renamed io_pathconf. The `core' -interface has been renamed `crash'. - -We are now using a new terminal driver that is multi-threaded. It is -also much more simple internally than the older version, but otherwise -supports no new features. - -Everything is now dynamically linked except the bootstrap filesystem. Any -old statically linked binaries should be replaced. WARNING: In the next -snapshot changes in the exec server may prevent older statically linked -binaries from running. - -The exec server by default now only supports ELF; if you have older -a.out binaries you want to run, you need to reenable BFD support in -the exec Makefile. (Old a.out binaries should be replaced anyhow, -with dynamically linked ELF binaries, for the reasons in described in -the warning above.) - -The bootstrap hack in the directory boot now understands boot scripts; -this kind of boot script will also be used by an upcoming release of -Mach4. Also, because the exec server is now dynamically linked, it is -necessary to install the exec server itself on the Hurd partition (in -/hurd/exec); that was not necessary before, so it is possible that old -working Hurd partitions might not have it. - -Some problems and trivial bugs in fsck are fixed. - -A few bugs in libdiskfs, libpipe, pflocal, and trans were fixed of no -particular consequence. - -Shutdown of filesystems now works reliably and safely. - -Libports now provides stubs to do the normal thing for the interrupt and -notify interfaces. Because of the interruption semantic, cthreads -multiplexing of multiple cthreads onto fewer kernel threads can no longer -be used; this means that ports_manage_port_operations_multithread no longer -pays attention to the WIRE_CTHREADS flag. - -Cthreads now supports an implication semantic for conditions; this -enables a condition variable to be created which is the disjunction of -other condition variables. - -Trivfs now supports errors and blocking on open much better. - -A rare but serious bug in the pager has been fixed; along with this, -another minor deficiency in the kernel has become apparent. - -The Makefiles are more generic and deal with shared libraries better. - -A serious bug has been fixed in ext2fs. - - - -July 23, 1995 - -Shared libraries now work; use -static to link programs and avoid the -shared libraries. The Hurd programs are normally built static; this -will probably change soon. - -The ext2fs server now works, as do the tools to manipulate ext2fs -filesystems. A snapshot of the tools will be made soon under separate -cover. Many thanks to Ted Ts'o for his valuable work on the tools. - -Readers of the Makefiles will notice that we now generate dependencies -automatically. - -The old netserv library is gone. - -The `boot' hack has been modified slightly to avoid the normalq libc startup -files, because they no longer work with UX. - -Some small bugs have been fixed in the devio server. - -The ports library has been totally rewritten; new features permit -servers to have greater control over thread RPC's and port creation. - -The fshelp library now does most of the work for translator -interaction; it's simpler now too. Filesystems have much less work to -do; the relevant code in libdiskfs is now understanble instead of -unparseable chaos. - -The ports library provides for timeouts; the diskfs library almost -uses it, but because of a bug, it's disabled for now. - -Filesystems are now expected to sync themselves if necessary; the new -fsys_set_options RPC provides for changeing (or cancelling) the sync -intervale. The diskfs library does this for you. The update program -is no longer necessary. - -A small bug in the proc server has been hacked around; the real fix -will come later. - -Many important bugs in the C library have been fixed since the last -snapshot; perhaps all of them. ;-) - - - -June 6, 1995 - -The Hurd has switched to using the ELF object file format instead of a.out. -You will need a very recent snapshot of GCC and binutils (we are using the -950606 versions); the `i386-gnu' configuration now uses ELF, we are dumping -a.out entirely. - -The exec server now understands the ELF format directly (not through BFD), -because BFD has some deficiencies in its treatment of ELF. The direct -support for a.out has been ripped out completely. The exec server can -still support BFD as an optional addition, if compiled with -DBFD; this is -now the only way to run a.out executables. But if you only want to run new -ELF binaries, then you can omit -DBFD and needn't bother building the BFD -library to build the Hurd. The support for gzip'd executables is now -conditional on -DGZIP; it adds a pretty small amount of code. Our -makefiles use both -DGZIP and -DBFD by default; edit exec/Makefile if you -wnat to omit BFD or gzip support. (Probably soon we will omit -DBFD by -default because it will make the exec server much smaller, but we just -switched and still have run a.out binaries lying around we'd like to -continue being able to run.) - -Because everything is now in ELF, the procedure to create an executable of -the `boot' program that can run on UX is rather hairy. Do `make boot.a' in -the boot directory and run `boot/boot.a', which is an a.out executable. -`boot/boot' is a weirdo ELF executable that UX cannot understand. - -The startup sequence has changed; the exec server image is no longer -embedded in the filesystem image. The `boot' program loads both the -filesystem and the exec server into separate tasks and runs the filesystem, -passing it the task port of the exec server, which it starts running when -it's ready for it. This closey approximates the eventual plan for booting -the system, wherein the boot loader will load the multiple program files as -well as the kernel, and the kernel will set up the two tasks. However, -changes are needed in the Mach bootstrap process to read ELF binaries and -to start multiple servers, so for the moment native booting is broken. - -April 12, 1995 - -Many bugfixes and changes. Now includes a fancy ps, settrans, and -showtrans; separate translators for all the programs in /dev (and a -MAKEDEV script). Also the provisional source for network servers and -some other snippets of code are now being distributed. The trivfs -library is now multithreaded. - -The old dev.trim is still being distributed, but you shouldn't use it. - -A serious bug that broke the filesystem's state after enough exec -failures (of the bad format sort) happen. A deadlock or two was also -found and fixed. - -December 13, 1994 - -The exec server now recognizes gzip'd binaries and uncompresses them into -memory to execute them. (This has allowed a useful number of binaries to -fit on a 1.44MB floppy.) - -November 24, 1994: - -Program changes: - -term could hang in delivery of terminal signals; fixed. - -pipes now handles io_select. - -These fixes allow GNU Emacs to work under the Hurd, with subprocesses. - -November 11, 1994: - -Structural changes: - -Our sources are now under RCS. That shouldn't affect you at all, -except that the file in the distribution will now be mostly mode 0444 -by default. - - -Interface changes: - -`dealloc' flags have been added to many MiG interfaces broadly to fix -a class of bugs. - - -Library changes: - -Synchronous locks were hanging in some cases; to avoid it for now, -they are never done at all. (Of course, this is really a bug that -needs fixed; the current change is purely for the sake of running the -system.) - -Some bugs in translator startup in libfshelp have been fixed. - -Bootstrapping in libdiskfs is cleared up. A bug in io_read that cause -a crash if you gave an offset past the file size has been fixed. -Non-root filesystems can now contact the execserver. - - -Program changes: - -The `boot' hack can now start the first task in one of three ways: the -way it was before, which is pretty Hurd-ish; just like the kernel -starts the first task; and just like CMU's `boostrap' user program -starts the CMU multiserver. Also, `boot' always passes a -f flag so -that other programs can no we aren't really running native. - -The execserver now registers itself properly on /servers/exec and can -thus be used by non-bootstrap filesystems. - -Init uses symbolic names for /bin/sh and /dev/console rather than -hardcoded strings. The STANDALONE macro is gone; the behavior is the -same but depends on the presence or absence of -f in the boot flags. - -Some minor bugs in proc have been fixed. - -The terminal driver now sends SIGWINCH properly. Changing to and from -ICANON now moves the terminal input queues around properly. - -The filesystem now uses one pager to map the disk and little pagers to -map files. Some hair is new to keep data from showing up in both -pagers; generally the code is much simpler and cleaner now. (Faster, -too.) The DT_* type information is currently unused due to an -implementation difficulty. Some workarounds have been installed to -avoid some kernel bugs. - -Large writes to the pipes server used to crash it; they don't any -longer. - -The /dev server now has hardcoded into it more disks and it's easier -to add more yourself. Also work around a kernel bug. - -New utilities: clri, sync, halt, reboot. The output of ps has been -cleaned up a little. - -Fsck has been rewritten; there are still bugs in creating directories. -(That code is only used if /lost+found is absent, so it's still -useful.) The old version is renamed to bsdfsck. - - - - -September 8, 1994: - -Structural changes: - -No significant structural changes have been made. - - -Interface changes: - -term.defs has a new RPC `termctty_open_terminal', necessary for -implementing /dev/tty. - -The filesystem lookup retry mechanism has been altered slightly. -FS_RETRY_NONE is gone. If the retry pathname is empty, then no retry -is necessary, and the returned port should be used, after -reauthenticating it if FS_RETRY_REAUTH was set. Uniformly Hurd -servers attach no special meaning to leading / in filenames, the -result is that leading / (to Hurd servers) is a NOP. - -The authentication protocol now passes a second port for rendezvous -rather than an int; this cleans up a slight security hole. The I/O -and proc protocols have been changed accordingly. - -The args to file_set_translator have been cleaned up. - -All routines that used to say `path' no longer do; in GNU we always -call these filenames. - - -Library changes: - -libdiskfs and libfshelp now do passive translator startup properly. - -Setuid execution is now done by libdiskfs. - -A little work has been done in libpager towards implementing a default -pager, bit it's not complete yet. - - -Program changes: - -A braino in the auth server was fixed, and it uses the new auth -protocol. - -The boot program no longer spins; it uses multiple threads. It also -takes nice command line args. ufs and init only pause for debugger -attach if you give boot the -d flag. Init now expects passive -translators to be set for /dev and it looks prettier. - -The kludgy dev server now also works for (1) disk. - -Some exec server bugs in EXEC_NEWTASK were fixed. - -There is now a port of fsck, and two new programs: settrans and -opendisk. - -The proc server now has a better prime number generator, and some -small bugs have been fixed. - -The terminal driver now does job control and other signals correctly. - -Some minor improvements have been made in ufs. - - - - -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 now an nfsd; it has not be well-tested. It would be nice if +some people would run it and try things out. It does not yet support +Hurd-specific features. -There is a new interface `login.defs'. +Exec now compiles correctly even when you don't have BFD installed. -The "dotdot node" is no longer passed at fsys_startup time; instead, -it is passed by fsys_getroot. +Ext2fs format interpretation problems have been fixed. This means it +can be suitably used to boot with. +init now properly understands SIGHUP and SIGTERM, and does the right +thing correctly. -Library changes: +Much code has been written in nfs towards supporting version 3 of the +protocol, but it's not done yet. Don't try and turn it on. -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.) +Version information in uname is now calculated differently. -The translator startup routines in libfshelp have been vastly improved -(so that they can actually be used). +Some improvements have been made in the SETUP script. -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. +sync, reboot and halt now do argument parsing and understand --help and +--version. -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 new `e2os' program has been added to change the "creator OS" field +on an ext2fs filesystem. -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. +Bugs in term and libtrivfs have been fixed, allowing emacs shell mode +to work cleanly. Other minor bugs have also been fixed. +ufs and ext2fs now do directory search rotoring to speed repeated and +sequential directory lookups. -Program changes: +ufs now notes correctly if a disk cannot be written to and turns on +the readonly flag automatically in this case. (Useful for floppies.) -The `boot' program no longer implements the tioctl interface now that -the terminal driver works. +ufs statfs information (printed by df) should now be correct. -A bug was fixed in the handling of pgrps in `proc'. +A serious bug in ufs fsck when dealing with large directories has been +fixed. -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. +A new program `vminfo' prints the virtual memory map of task. -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. - - - - - -July 5, 1994: - -The Hurd now runs all the programs in the GNU fileutils, textutils, -and shellutils distributions, with the exception of who. Most -importantly it runs GNU Hello. Also, emacs works (with the kludgy -`boot' terminal driver) and bash works. - -The simple pipes server works; it will be replaced eventually by the -pflocal server (which isn't done yet). The terminal driver is limping -but working. It doesn't support terminal ioctls yet. A minor bug in -auth has been fixed. boot interprets more Hurd protocols; this was -done to get emacs functioning. Some more-or-less serious bugs in exec -were fixed; they were found by running emacs (a quite large executable -indeed). At bootstrap time, init starts pipes and term itself; -eventually these will be passive translators, but we don't want to -write the new disk format until we're self-hosting or fsck and UX will -get confused. The file proc/primes.c has been documented; thanks go -to Jim Blandy. Some bugs in proc dealing with pgrp and wait were -fixed; a nasty hash table bug was also fixed. The simple shell can do -pipes. Several serious bugs in ufs were fixed dealing with extension -of large files and writes of data not aligned on block boundaries. -The ufs pager was over-serialized; that's been fixed. Directory -lookups and modifications now use mapped I/O directly; this is an -important speed-up. The structure of the pager lockes has been -changed significantly. UFS now supports Mach copying mode -MEMORY_OBJECT_COPY_DELAY; this significantly improves process startup -time. - -Some minor changes have been made to several interfaces. The -interface for fs.defs:dir_readdir has been totally changed. There are -some new fs.defs interfaces: file_check_access, file_notice_changes, -dir_notice_changes. The fsys.defs:fsys_getroot interface was changed -to work correctly. process.defs:proc_setprocargs is renamed, and a -fetch function proc_get_arg_locations is added. The ifsock.defs -interface was simplified. - -Several bugs were fixed in libdiskfs. The new dir_readdir interface -requires new support from format-specific code. Some race conditions -have been fixed. dir-pathtrans.c now deals correctly with multiple -slashes in a row. A new concept called "light references" allows -pagers to remain active without preventing truncate-on-nolinks from -working right. New interfaces in fs.defs are implemented (except -file_notice_changes). Active translator usage has been fixed to work -correctly, but passive translators are still untested. libdiskfs now -thinks it supports S_IFSOCK nodes, but that's untested (of course) -because pflocal isn't done yet. - -The passive translator startup interface in libfshelp has been -radically simplified. The pager library now lets other code set and -changee the attributes on objects, synchronously if desired. An -init/terminate race condition was fixed. The ports library now -allows single-threaded users to work right (they didn't before). The -trivfs library works; see the ifsock server for a simple example of -its use. See term or pipes for more complex examples. - -There is a task list in the file `tasks'; let me know if you are -interested in working on one of these. - - -May 17, 1994: - -The Hurd now runs all the programs in the GNU fileutils and textutils -distributions. All the programs in shellutils run normally except -who, false, groups, nohup, true, and nice. We can't tell if tty is -working right because the necessary support isn't set up (so it just -prints `not a tty'. Some minor filesystem bugs have been fixed, -including several brainos in disk allocation and total lossage in -symlink interpretation. No bugs are now known. - -The library now supports signals; the program `timertest' is one test -program we've used. - -All the core servers register their version with proc and register -themselves as essential tasks with init. This enables proc to compute -proper uname version strings and enables init to crash the system if -one of the core servers dies. - -Boot is set up with a special hack to detect the RPC's that emacs uses -to go into and out of raw mode; this will hopefully enable us to run -emacs soon. - -There is a kludgy server called `pipes' (not yet completed) which -implements just those parts of the local-domain socket server that the -library uses in implementing the `pipe' function. This will enable us -to have a real shell somewhat before needing the local domain socket -server. - -More work on trivfs has happened; this will be needed by pipes. - -Cthreads is now in the Hurd distribution; this will make it much -easier to install. The GNU C library depends on some changes we have -made to this version of C threads and will not work with other -versions you might have. (Several files in other versions of CMU -Cthreads are not in this distibution [notably spin locks]; those are -now in the GNU C library.) - -The installation hints in README have changed considerably; read them -again. - -I'm now keeping ChangeLogs; you can examine them for more detailed -information. - - - -April 5, 1994: - -The Hurd now bootstraps. Auth and proc start successfully; init -prints "Init has completed" where it would run the shell. - -There are the beginnings of some documentation in the new doc -directory. +All disk filesystems (ufs and ext2fs) now do directory name caching of +`..' which was not previously done. In addition, you can now set the +cache size to be large, and then do experiments and see what the cache +hit rate would have been for various smaller sizes. This should help +in optimizing the size of the cache. +A port leak in the pager library has been fixed; previously ufs leaked +two ports per file used until the kernel's limit (about 30,000) was +reached. -March 25, 1994: - -The Makefiles now are set up for cross-compilation; see README and the -comments in Makeconf and Maketools for more information. - -The new diskfs library is complete. The filesystem using it runs as -well as the previous version. Interested folk: please examine the -diskfs interface, and see if it can be used for your favorite -filesystem; I'd like it to be as general as possible. - -The proc server and auth servers link completely but have not been -tested. The init.trim directory holds a lightweight version of init -suitable for use before the C library support for file descriptors, -exec, and so forth works; this version of init compiles and links. -The primary effort right now is booting init, proc, and auth. - -Work has been suspended on tmpfs for the time being, it not being -necessary for a running system. Some new FS calls have been added, -notably dir_mkfile. - - -Feb 1, 1994: - -Much filesystem code has been split out into new libraries, most -notably, libpager, which now contains the implementation of the -complex multi-threaded pager previously in the filesystem. - -libdiskfs will continue this process, with everything related to -filesystems based on disks (or other real substrates), but format -independent. libfshelp will have routines for starting translators, -keeping track of flock, and so forth; it will be useful for any -implementor of the fs protocol. ufs currently does not use either of -these, but will when they are done. - -tmpfs and init.trim are in progress. tmpfs will be memory-only for -things like /tmp, and is currently waiting for the fshelp library to -be finished. init.trim will be a scaled down init, useful for testing -bootstrapping before there is enough library support to run the real -init. Currently this is waiting on fixing some crucial ld bugs. -(When those are fixed, work will begin in earnest on bootstrapping -auth, proc, and init.) - - +6 August 1996 +Version 0.0 +Initial release |