qoth 2012 q1/q2, preliminary

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Hi,

I finally got around to drafting a qoth the week before last week.

I only checked bug-hurd for that, so it would be great if you could have a
look at it and add any info I missed.

I still need to convert this draft to prose and add a title, but I thought I’d
send it now instead of stalling till it’s perfect-ly out of date again…


* Jeremie Koenig released the final report on his GSoC project Java on Hurd
http://www.bddebian.com/~hurd-web/user/jkoenig/java/report along with a
summary of his changes and the challenges he bested
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-01/msg00062.html .

* Richard Braun [libpcap](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-01/msg00059.html) bringing wireshark and [pcap_inject]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00000.html) for easier
network testing.

* Samuel Thibault prepared dde in incubator, making about half the Linux
network drivers compile on the Hurd http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-02/msg00037.html . Also he added the netdde debian package and
testing notes http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-02/msg00038.html
.

* Peter O'Gorman pushed the fix from Samuel Thibault to fix libtool on the
Hurd. http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-02/msg00023.html

* Samuel Thibault merged the slab branch, finishing Maksym Planetas GSoC work
on a better memory allocator http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-02/msg00010.html .

* Thomas Schwinge [moved](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-03/msg00063.html) the translators [cvsfs]
(http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/incubator.git/log/?h=cvsfs/master),
[libfuse]
(http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/incubator.git/log/?h=libfuse/master)
and [smbfs]
(http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/incubator.git/log/?h=smbfs/master) into
the incubator git repository, reducing the barrier of entry to improving them,
so integrating cvs and samba in the filesystem and using FUSE translators can
be stabilized more easily.

* Svante Signell [added](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-03/msg00060.html) the basics of ADA support by making gnat build.
This gives us the option to use provable programs optimized for embedded
systems with the Hurd.

* Maksym Planeta published some [performance tests of tmpfs]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00040.html), showing a
speedup from 22s with ramfs and ext2fs to 16s with tmpfs for apt-get calls. An
obvious usecase for tmpfs are [faster Hurd LiveCDs]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00050.html).

* Samuel Thibault [improved debugging in GNU Mach]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00032.html) by making
the debugger aware of the difference between kernel space and user space. This
should substantially reduce the development time for features in Mach by
giving [nicer stack traces](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-03/msg00047.html).

* Ludovic Courtès added [a continuous testing framework]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00019.html) using a
Nix-based GNU QEMU image. Since Hurd can now be built using „Nix“ (german for
nothing), how about asking a colleague to revise his image of the Hurd as
vaporware and showing him vapor chugging away on a compile of your favorite
free program? If you don’t want to install it yourself, you can also check the
[automatic tests on hydra](http://hydra.nixos.org/jobset/gnu/hurd-master)
([background](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-04/msg00104.html)).

* Ludovic Courtes [fixed invalid port deallocation in `symlink']
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00013.html) and [made
console-run resilient against missing /dev/console]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-03/msg00002.html), improving
the overall reliability of the system.

* Pino Toscano  improved the POSIX compliance of the Hurd [for nanosleep]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00130.html) [ptsname_r]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00122.html),
[getlogin_r](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-04/msg00121.html), [getgroups]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00120.html) and
[sendto](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-06/msg00009.html),
making it easier to port POSIX programs.

* Richard brown improved memory mapping [with a red-black tree]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00109.html), which
should speed up memory access.

* Thomas Schwinge [improved the Hurd build system]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-04/msg00087.html), making it
easier to get in: „running autoreconf is all you need“.

* Thomas DiModica [merged](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-06/msg00018.html) the cthreads to pthreads patch to Hurd master and
[added a branch for it](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-07/msg00087.html) to make it easier to work on getting Hurd to use
the more current pthreads.

* Samuel Thibault [added TLS support](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-05/msg00046.html) to Hurd, getting us up to date with the standard
of secure networking.

* Roland McGrath [merged many libc changes]
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2012-05/msg00033.html) for
upstream inclusion, reducing the maintenance load for getting recent
improvements of libc.

* Samuel Thibault [made iconx build](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-
hurd/2012-06/msg00004.html), which fullfills a requirement for FTBFS.


Best wishes,
Arne

PS: And yes, that’s quite some stuff. Congrats to you all for some great
hacking!
--
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein,
ohne es zu merken.
- Arne (http://draketo.de)

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