Hi, I finished the draft for the qoth-2011-q4. Please tell me what’s missing - and what needs fixing!
→ http://www.bddebian.com/~hurd-web/contributing/web_pages/news/moth_next/ And remember: It’s a wiki, so feel free to hack it to make it better! ------ A quarter of the Hurd: *Nix-based builds*, *slab allocator*, and *life filesystem debugging*. This quarter Ludovic Courtès added a [Continuously-built Nix-based QEMU image](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00047.html), raising the count of Hurd distributions to 3: Debian, Arch and now Nix. His build is still pretty basic, but continuous integration is a great feature for testing images. Also he added a [modern Autoconf initialization](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00068.html), [allowed /hurd/init to be a symlink](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00032.html) and made the Hurd [build with Savannah’s libc (2.14+)](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00025.html), getting the Nix distribution even more towards the cutting edge. Samuel Thibault followed up with a [new debian disk set](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/12/msg00095.html) as christmas gift, turned /dev/urandom into a [native translator](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/11/msg00092.html) and [identified](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/11/msg00095.html) three easy porting cases with solutions: - undefined reference to dl_foo: add -ldl for building - undefined reference to `main': missing gnu* case in the linking part of configure.ac or .in (pd-* packages are already being handled by their maintainer) - undefined reference to clock_gettime or crypt: add -lrt or -lcrypt These should help all those who want to help [[porting_packages|hurd/porting/]]. Maksym Planeta and Richard Braun committed [the last patches](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-12/msg00046.html) for integration of the slab allocator, making the memory allocator of GNU Mach SMP ready again. From IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2011-11-14: <braunr> there shouldn't be any noticeable difference with the master branch <braunr> a bit less fragmentation <braunr> more memory can be reclaimed by the VM system <braunr> there are debugging features <braunr> it's SMP ready <braunr> and overall cleaner than the zone allocator <braunr> although a bit slower on the free path (because of what's performed to reduce fragmentation) <braunr> but even "slower" here is completely negligible Also Richard Braun added Exodar (exodar.debian.net), a new porter box. It is faster and more reliable, which facilitates testing and bug hunting. Additionally [[documentation_of_the_I/O_Path|hurd/io_path/]] was improved and Sergio Lopez documented his work on [[Better_Memory_Management_and_memfs|user/Sergio_Lopez/]] to make it easier for other hackers to work on the Hurd. Our hackers also used the quarter for porting a good number of packages. Sergio Lopez took care of [webkitgtk+](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/10/msg00025.html), while Svante Signell from [Arch Hurd](http://archhurd.org) went on a porting rampage with [pax](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/10/msg00105.html), [abiword](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/11/msg00035.html), [syslog-ng](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/11/msg00060.html), [ecl](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/11/msg00058.html), [fakeroot](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/12/msg00022.html), [daemon](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/12/msg00025.html) and [procps](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/12/msg00046.html) and Samuel Thibault from [Debian GNU/Hurd](http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/) added [packagekit](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/10/msg00071.html), [evolution](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/10/msg00070.html), [emacs23 ](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/12/msg00018.html), [gcc-4.7](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/12/msg00065.html) and [iceweasel (firefox)](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/12/msg00080.html). Also Bouju Alain [submitted](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00079.html) [patches](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00084.html) to support cpuinfo in the /proc interface. Additionally many bugs were found and squashed, by Pino Toscano ([recvfrom() with null](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00161.html)), Maksym Planeta ([tmpfs](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00118.html)), Samuel Thibault ([libtool](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00073.html), [mknod](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00070.html), [Fix POSIX 2008 visibility](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-12/msg00004.html), [sudo setresuid](http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=645285)), Jim Meyering ([gnu tools with user id 4294967295](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00094.html)), Paul Eggert ([Add error-checking on GNU](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00130.html)), Pino Toscano and Thomas Schwinge ([improved pthread](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2011-11/msg00013.html)) and Svante Signell ([e2fsprogs quota](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/10/msg00015.html)) to list only the ones who posted their fixes on the mailing list. Also Guillem Jover [fixed Mach's int vs long discrepancy](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2011/10/msg00053.html), which takes us the first step towards porting the Hurd to x64. And there are now social network sites for GNU Hurd on [Google+](https://plus.google.com/114942488385711891227#114942488385711891227/posts) and the AGPL licensed [identi.ca](http://identi.ca/group/hurd), to make it easier to stay in touch. As a final note, we want to share a story about real-life debugging with the Hurd: <youpi> yay GNU/Hurd <youpi> I have added i_translator check in e2fsck, it was missing <youpi> I had a volume that was keeping making ext2fs crash <youpi> with a reproductible scenario <youpi> could easily work out it was i_translator, then add a check to e2fsck, run it, which indeed fixed, them, and voilà, ext2fs was working again <youpi> all that on the same machine with *no* system reboot <youpi> just ext2fs restart :) So if you want to join us in our journey to realize more of the promises of the architecture of the Hurd, please [[get_in_contact|contact_us]] -- and maybe already grab the [[source_code|source_repositories]] and have fun hacking on free software! ------ Best wishes, Arne
