1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
|
GNU Hurd Task List Version 1.17. Last updated 3 September 1996.
If you would like to work on one of these, please contact
thomas@gnu.ai.mit.edu. It's important that you let me know what's being
worked on, because someone else might also be interested, and you
should coordinate work.
Items that we want done with more priority are marked with !!!.
General system work
* Compile all the free programs you can find to help us fix bugs in
the system, and to submit necessary ports to the maintainers of
those programs. A good place to start is the list in SOURCES under
the heading `Give up'.
* See how much of X compiles.
* Do whatever magic is necessary for Perl to take advantage of all
the nifty Hurd features that Unix doesn't have.
Mach 3.0 Work
If you plan to work on the microkernel, you should be on the mailing list
for the University of Utah's Mach4 distribution; that is the microkernel
distribution that GNU will use. To get on the mailing list, send mail to
mach4-users-request@schirf.cs.utah.edu. You should discuss proposed
microkernel work there as well as with mib@gnu.ai.mit.edu.
!!!
* Mach 3.0 needs many new device drivers for popular PC devices.
Shantanu Goel at Utah is doing work in this area; coordinate with him.
!!!
* A replacement for MiG that understood C .h files.
Utah is working on a new IDL compiler; coordinate with them.
* Bootstrap tools and documentation to help people set up Mach 3.0
machines if they already have Linux; if they already have Net BSD;
if they don't have anything. (See Utah Lites dist.)
!!!
* Mach 3.0 needs to provide support for task virtual timers similar
in functionality to the Unix ITIMER_PROF and ITIMER_VIRTUAL timers.
!!!
* Mach 3.0 needs to make switches from MEMORY_OBJECT_COPY_DELAY to
MEMORY_OBJECT_COPY_NONE have the effect of immediately completing any
delayed copies.
* Mach 3.0 needs a facility to automatically send task and thread
status on task/thread exit to a port that can only be changed by
a privileged user; this would be used to implement process
accounting.
* Mach 3.0 needs a facility to find out what task is the parent of
a given task.
* Mach 3.0 needs a facility to find out which pages of a task's
address space are in core to implement Unix's mincore call.
* Mach 3.0 needs a facility to do msync.
* Utah Mach needs the OSF vm_remap call.
* Mach 3.0 needs a replacement for MEMORY_OBJECT_COPY_CALL that
works at least for the cases needed in ordinary files. (Write mib if
you want to know what the problem is and some ideas about how to
solve it.)
!!!
* Mach 3.0 needs proxy memory objects. (mib can tell you what these
are and why they are important.)
* Mach 3.0 needs a way to do per-task resource counters that are
accessible to servers called by the task.
* Mach 3.0 should keep a timestamp of the creation of each task.
* Mach 3.0 needs facilities to implement resource limits of various sorts.
* Mach 3.0 needs a way to have a thread's CPU time statistics
include time spent by servers on its behalf. [This has been done
for the migrating-threads version of Mach; talk to mib before starting
work on it.]
* Of course, free ports are always necessary to machines that don't
already have free ports.
* Much work can be done doing research in how to improve Mach VM
performance and timesharing scheduling policy.
!!!
* We need a good malloc for multi-threaded programs that uses
vm_allocate. It should probably be based on the current GNU malloc,
as well as merge the mmalloc interfaces used by some existing GNU
packages.
* Mach 3.0 needs facilities to get a list of all the devices which
can be device_open'd, as well as to get the type of a device.
* A way to have the kernel send a message on some designated port
everytime a new task is started.
* OSF has enhanced the exception_raise protocol to include thread_state
information. This code should be merged into the kernel; OSF people
have said their could could be released to the public (but it has not
appeared).
* Implement TASK_EVENTS_INFO.
* Add a timestamp for task and thread creation to the relevant info
structures (and make sure it works for the kernel task and threads).
* Add an anonymous swap allocation statistic to the task info structure.
Hurd work (these are brief descriptions; mib can give more information):
!!!
* An RPC trace program to aid debugging. Ask roland for more info.
* Programs that use utmp need to be changed to use /utmp and utmp.defs.
* We need some standard translators for /utmp nodes; most importantly
one for ordinary terminals (set up by login) and one for X displays
(set up by xdm).
!!!
* We need some existing shell programs changed to do Hurd things:
like id, su, ls, tar, cpio, etc.
* Handy shell programs to send msgport msgs, and change default init
ports and ints.
* Shadow directory translators.
* A system for write, send, talkd and so forth to bleep users;
this should be integrated with the utmp replacement above.
* X. (Porting XFree86 should not be hard.)
* A filesystem for /tmp that uses virtual memory instead of disk.
(Roland has some ideas about this.)
* Filesystem implementations (using libdiskfs) for other popular
formats. Importantly, MSDOS FAT format.
* Transparent FTP translator.
* A fancy terminal driver that uses readline and supports detach/attach.
* A notepad program to hold and keep track of ports for shell scripts.
C library work. See roland@gnu.ai.mit.edu if you are interested in working
on anything in the C library.
* Useful response to SIGINFO.
* Better integration with cthreads.
|
