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Diffstat (limited to 'NEWS')
| -rw-r--r-- | NEWS | 157 |
1 files changed, 157 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,157 @@ +-*- Text -*- + +XXX this needs much work, trolling through ChangeLogs. + +* 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. + + +9 June 1997 +Version 0.2 + +Summary of important externally visible changes since version 0.1: + +Many, many bugs have been fixed, including some resource consumption +problems. The system can now compile itself, and stay running the +whole time. It is quite reliable, and is used here for regular +computing tasks now. + +New programs addauth, rmauth, unsu, su, and setauth modify the uid +sets of running programs. Using addauth you can add root to your +emacs, write a file, and then use rmauth to take the uid back. (Of +course, passwords are required when necessary.) New program `ids' +will tell you what all the user ids are that a program has. Note that +in the Hurd a program can have several user ids all at once, just like +Unix supports having several group ids. Now that you can dynamically +change the ids of running programs, system administration (among other +things) becomes much easier. + +Two new programs, ftpcp and ftpdir, can be used to fetch files using +FTP with a simple command line interface. + +We have moved the `serverboot' bootstrapper and default pager from +Mach into the Hurd source distribution, so that Mach can avoid +distributing user programs. We hope to phase out use of serverboot +entirely at some point. Along with this, we made serverboot much +quieter. + +We now build profiling versions of the Hurd libraries, and the +makefiles have targets to build profiling executables as desired. + +We have added `lmail', a /bin/mail replacement for use with sendmail +to do local mail delivery. + +The idle threads of the kernel no longer count in `ps' towards the +total run time of the kernel process. This means that the kernel will +now sort into the right location for `u' format output. + +Several oddities in NFS client behavior have been fixed to produce +more sensible results. + +The "loopback" device is now supported (automatically) inside pfinet. +It should now be possible to use pfinet with no ethernet at all. + +Filesystems now use `store' library; the contents of the filesystem +can be nearly anywhere (including another file somewhere). + +Some annoying bugs in tty behavior have been fixed. Some still +remain, unfortunately. + +New translator `firmlink' is like a cross between a symlink and a hard +link. + + +Programmer visible changes: + +Filesystems support a new "reparenting" feature. This makes `..' from +the "reparented" node return whatever the user wishes, for a given +`open' regime. This enables the "firmlink" translator to work, and +will also be important in implementing shadow filesystems. + +The fshelp library now managed UID sets itself, and contains functions +to do permission checks in the usual way. Now it's much easier to be +sure every filesystem implements the same permission checks. + +The trivfs library has had its static initializations replaced with +spiffy dynamic ones. + +New library `libftpconn' is used to manage FTP connections. We are +already using this library for some local system administration tasks, +and are making it the basis of the (as yet unfinished) ftpfs +filesystem for the Hurd. + + + +6 September 1996 +Version 0.1. + +Summary of important externally visible changes since version 0.0: + +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. + +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. + +Exec now compiles correctly even when you don't have BFD installed. + +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. + +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. + +Version information in uname is now calculated differently. + +Some improvements have been made in the SETUP script. + +sync, reboot, and halt now do argument parsing and understand --help +and --version. + +The new `e2os' program has been added to change the "creator OS" field +on an ext2fs filesystem. + +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. + +ufs now notes correctly if a disk cannot be written to and turns on +the readonly flag automatically in this case. (Useful for floppies.) + +ufs statfs information (printed by df) should now be correct. + +A serious bug in ufs fsck when dealing with large directories has been +fixed. + +A new program `vminfo' prints the virtual memory map of task. + +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. + + +6 August 1996 +Version 0.0 +Initial release |