~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  This program is called procfs, the /proc translator. This 
program provides a GNU/Linux compatible /proc pseudo file-
system on GNU Hurd. This is called a translator since it
translates the process related information stored in the 
MACH Microkernel which is made available through the proc
server and the libps library into a virtual filesystem.

~~~~~~~
2. Goal
~~~~~~~

  The major goal of writing this translator was to make the
process related tools like pgrep, pkill, kill which are 
packaged in procps, killall, pstree which are packaged in
psmisc and various other process related tools that rely
on GNU/Linux's /proc filesystem to run out of the box on
Hurd.

~~~~~~~~~~
3. Install
~~~~~~~~~~

  To install this translator you can simply do the following.
Just cd to the top level directory of the hurd main source 
tree. Run the configure script with the following command.
(In BASH)

$ ./configure

(If your shell is something else run the equivalent command).
 
Now you can run make with procfs as a parameter if you want 
to build only procfs. 

$ make procfs

(This first builds all the dependencies of procfs and then
builds procfs as a part of Hurd main source tree.)

After building the translator, you get a binary named procfs.
You need to set it as a translator. To do so you can type the
following command from the top level directory of Hurd main
source tree directory from where you ran make.

$ settrans -fgap /proc procfs/procfs

Viola! You are done setting up the translator. 

~~~~~~~~~~
4. Testing
~~~~~~~~~~

  Now in case you want to use the debian hurd binaries to work 
with tools like pgrep, pkill, kill, htop etc, you can just 
download the binaries which I have uploaded here:

http://madhusudancs.info/procfs-testing-how-to-mini

The patches to the source packages will be made available soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5. Reporting Bugs and contacts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  I request all of you to help me in identifying the bugs in
procfs or in the procps or htop packages, so that I can fix 
them. You are also free to submit patches if you feel so. The
patches can be sent either to bug-hurd mailing list or to my 
e-mail adress. The e-mail IDs are as follows:

bug-hurd@gnu.org
madhusudancs@gmail.com
madhusudan@madhusudancs.info