UNSIBSCRIBE
2014-05-22 19:41 GMT+06:00 Michael Banck <mba...@debian.org>: > This is an update to the last Debian GNU/Hurd bits from February > 2012[0]. The following has happened since then: > > 1. Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 release > > Back in May 2013, we released a version of the Debian GNU/Hurd sid > distribution[1]. Since that was a snapshot at about the same time as the > Wheezy release, this is mostly a Wheezy-like distribution. Both qemu and > a Debian-Installer images are available. > > 2. Archive coverage reaches 80% > > In late April, the hurd-i386 port has achieved the 80% mark of packages > built for the first time[2], an improvement of 10% since the last bits > in 2012. This is on the one hand due to improvements and better > compatibility in glibc, and on the other hand due to the work of many > porters, notably Svante Signell, Pino Toscano, Gabriele Giacone and > others. > > Currently, another 50 patches for FTBFS bugs are waiting in the BTS[3], > while over 500 have been applied so far. > > Regarding language support, GNU Ada (gnat) is now included in hurd-i386, > while GCC Go is being submitted currently. > > 3. Init system switch to SysVinit > > Thanks to the Google Summer of Code work by Justus Winter last year, and > further work by him, Petter Reinholdtsen and Samuel Thibault, the > hurd-i386 port is now using SysVinit and no longer the proof-of-concept > upstream shell scripts. This includes the following improvements: > > * Using the Debian way for network configuration, which includes static > and DHCP configuration > > * Using the Debian way for halt & shutdown commands, so services are > now properly stopped using their respective init scripts > > * Using the Debian way to mount filesystems at boot time > > 4. Improvements in upstream GNU Hurd and GNU Mach > > In the last two years, numerous advances in the upstream projects were > achieved, including: > > * Switch to pthreads. While an implementation of pthreads has been > provided for user-space programs for a long time, the Hurd codebase > itself was still using the Mach cthreads for threading. In late 2012, > the switch to pthreads finally happened[4]. This allows for Hurd > translators to be linked with libraries using pthreads and makes > libfuse more useful as FUSE modules using pthreads can be used as > well. This also opens the possibility to develop translators in > basically any language, bindings already exist for Perl and Lisp for > now. > > * Richard Braun has ported recent versions of Iceweasel to the Hurd, > along with some libc fixes[5]. We are happy to report that > Iceweasel 29 is now available for the Hurd[6] and that SSL works > properly now[5,7]. > > * Debian GNU/Hurd has migrated to userspace network drivers based on > the Device Driver Environment (DDE) framework. This code was > contributed by Zheng Da as part of his GSoC work in 2010 (see > also[1]). This permits the seamless use of the Linux network drivers, > encapsulated in a driver process, the same way the Linux TCP/IP stack > is encapsulated in a process. A very cool feature is that a stuck > driver can just be killed and restarted, all TCP/IP connections being > preserved. Work has begun to clean up the code to get it into shape > to be merged upstream. > > * Richard Braun's thread destruction work has been merged[6]. Threads > are now properly destroyed instead of being recycled. This allows > Hurd servers to recover after suffering from a thread storm (a > condition where many threads are spawn to service a burst of > requests), freeing precious system resources. In particular, thread > stacks are freed, which gives back large regions of virtual address > space to busy file system servers, allowing them to avoid allocation > errors caused by fragmentation. > > * Justus Winter did static analysis of the GNU Hurd (using clang's > check-build) and GNU Mach (clang & coverity) codebases. This brought > up a number of issues which have been subsequently patched by Justus. > > * Justus Winter contributed an implementation of /proc/mtab. This > allows common tools like df to now be able to get a list of mounted > filesystems. > > 5. Improved autobuilder stability and uptime > > We are happy to report that above mentioned thread destruction work[7] > has further improved the stability of the buildds. Typical uptimes of > the buildds are now two weeks or more, while mostly constantly compiling > packages. > > 6. Archive cleanup > > Michael Banck has periodically filed[8] removal bugs for packages which > no longer build on hurd-i386 due to build regressions. The reasons are > two-fold, (i) not to keep their source packages around just for the > hurd-i386 architecture and (ii) not to keep out-of-date packages around > on hurd-i386. > > 7. Up-to-date package count reaches 98% > > We recently reached the 98% mark of up-to-date packages[9]. Besides the > archive cleanup mentionend above, we also worked together with Andreas > Barth to investigate and resolve some bugs in the wanna-build statistics > up-to-date package count which reported a too low percentage of packages > being current. These bugs had affected the hurd-i386 port by a further > 1%. > > 8. Talks > > Samuel Thibault gave talks at last year's GNU Hacker's Meeting > (GHM2013)[10] > and this year's FOSDEM conference[11], including demos and details about > the current state. > > > For the Debian GNU/Hurd porters, > > Michael > > [0] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00002.html > [1] http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/ > [2] https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph.png > [3] > http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-h...@lists.debian.org;tag=hurd > [4] https://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2012/11/msg00025.html > [5] https://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2014/02/msg00134.html > [6] https://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2014/04/msg00026.html > [7] https://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2014/02/msg00120.html > [8] Debian bugs #673150 #736894 #744290 #744325 and #747409 > [9] https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph2-quarter-big.png > [10] https://www.gnu.org/ghm/2013/paris/ > [11] https://fosdem.org/2014/schedule/event/07_uk_dde_on_hurd/ >
