Hello! Welcome to a new qoth. This qoth covers new and interesting GNU/Hurd developments in Q2 of 2024! Details.
Hello! Welcome to a new qoth. This qoth covers new and interesting GNU/Hurd developments in Q1 of 2024! Details.
Hello! Welcome to a new qoth. This qoth covers new and interesting GNU/Hurd developments in Q4 of 2023! Details.
Hello! Welcome to a new qoth. This qoth covers new and interesting GNU/Hurd developments in Q3 of 2023! Details.
Debian GNU/Hurd 2023 released! Details.
Debian GNU/Hurd 2021 released! Details.
Debian GNU/Hurd 2019 released! Details.
Hello! Welcome to a new qoth. This qoth covers new and interesting GNU/Hurd developments in Q4 of 2018! Details.
Debian GNU/Hurd 2017 released! Details.
GNU Hurd 0.9, GNU Mach 1.8, GNU MIG 1.8 released. Details.
GNU Hurd 0.8, GNU Mach 1.7, GNU MIG 1.7 released. Details.
The Google Summer of Code 2016 is on! If you're a student, consider applying for a GNU Hurd project -- details to be found on our GSoC and project ideas pages.
GNU Hurd 0.7, GNU Mach 1.6, GNU MIG 1.6 released. Details.
Debian GNU/Hurd 2015 released! Details.
GNU Hurd 0.6, GNU Mach 1.5, GNU MIG 1.5 released. Details.
The Google Summer of Code 2015 is on! If you're a student, consider applying for a GNU Hurd project -- details to be found on our GSoC and project ideas pages.
The Google Summer of Code 2014 is on! If you're a student, consider applying for a GNU Hurd project -- details to be found on our GSoC and project ideas pages.
Happy 30th birthday, GNU! GNU Hurd 0.5, GNU Mach 1.4, GNU MIG 1.4 released. Details.
Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released! Details.
Two quarters of the Hurd, Q3 and Q4 of 2012: libpthread conversion, installation CDs, hardware compatibility, porting. Details.
The Google Summer of Code 2013 is on! If you're a student, consider applying for a GNU Hurd project -- details to be found on our GSoC page.
Two quarters of the Hurd, Q1 and Q2 of 2012: Google Summer of Code, Barrier of Entry, Core, Porting. Details.
The Google Summer of Code 2012 is on! If you're a student, consider applying for a GNU Hurd project -- details to be found on our GSoC page.
A quarter of the Hurd, Q4 of 2011: Nix-based builds and bounty: slab allocator merged. Details.
A quarter of the Hurd, Q3 of 2011: Arch Hurd with DDE, Debian boxes, GHM talk and GSoC: Java. Details.
A quarter of the Hurd, Q2 of 2011, PS: GNU Hurd Truths and Myths. Details.
A quarter of the Hurd, Q2 of 2011: Graphical Installer, GSoC, and Debian. Details.
Hey, I have more money than time or programming skills, and I'd like to help GNU Hurd development specifically -- how can we arrange for this, where can I donate money for GNU Hurd development?
If you're dwelling on such thoughts, here is the answer; here you can donate money for GNU Hurd development. Read on.
We'd like to pass on these marvelous news from our Release Management Team, headed by Release Manager Samuel Thibault:
Hello,
There are rumors that Duke Nukem Forever will actually be released in Apr^WMa^WJune 2011, so there's no escape for the Hurd any more, we had to finish and release. There has been considerable progress lately, so it is with great pleasure that the Hurd maintainers team decided to release version 0.401 of the GNU/Hurd Operating System. As the version number and image size suggest, this is only a small preview of course, but we expect GNU/Hurd to be of production-quality within the third millenium, to be sure.
A LiveCD demo is available on http://people.debian.org/~sthibault/hurd-0.401/hurd-0.401.iso and can be trivially tried using
qemu -cdrom hurd-0.401.iso
We hope that you will appreciate its features and speed.
Are you interested in contributing to the GNU Hurd project? Just request an shell account on one of our servers and get started.
http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/public_hurd_boxen.html
It is also worth noting that like in previous years, GNU/Hurd runs for the GSoC program, details can be found on
The Google Summer of Code 2011 is on! If you're a student, consider applying for a GNU Hurd project -- details to be found on our GSoC page.
A month of the Hurd: Media Appearances, procfs, Arch Hurd. Details.
A month of the Hurd: Thanks, Phil!, Debian Installer, compatibility, and LWN article. Details.
A month of the Hurd: Debian Installer, clustered page-in, and a bunch of bug fixing. Details.
A month of the Hurd: DDE linux26, thread storms, patches, new live CD and IRC meetings. Details.
A month of the Hurd: Arch Hurd, updated Debian GNU/Hurd QEMU image, and GSoC students. Details.
A month of the Hurd: some more bug squashing and Google Summer of Code 2010. Details.
A month of the Hurd: DDE driver, X.org / libpciaccess, FOSDEM, and Google Summer of Code 2010. Details.
A month of the Hurd: Arch Hurd, FOSDEM preparations and a thesis on mobile Hurd objects. Details.
A month of the Hurd: official Xen domU support, DDE, porting, and FOSDEM 2010. Details.
A month of the Hurd: initial work on network device drivers in user space, GRUB 2. Details.
A month of the Hurd: new installation CDs, further Git migration, porting. Details.
A month of the Hurd: Successful Google Summer of Code project: unionmount. Details.
A month of the Hurd: hurd Debian package, union mount translator, bug fixes, and a job opening. Details.
A month of the Hurd: Git migration, stand-alone libpthread and updated status. Details.
Sergiu Ivanov will be working on unionmount translators during the Google Summer of Code 2009.
The application phase for the Google Summer of Code 2009 has already started. Please see our page about the GSoC for details of how to apply for your favorite Hurd project.
Neal Walfield has submitted a paper to EuroSys 2009 describing how resource management is done in viengoos:
Viengoos: A Framework for Stakeholder-Directed Resource Allocation.
Samuel Thibault has implemented support for the PAE feature offered by modern x86 processors. This largely faciliates the deployment of GNU/Hurd systems running as a Xen domU on top of a standard Debian GNU/Linux Xen dom0, for example.
An interview with Marcus Brinkmann was published by Pro-Linux (the interview is in German).
The Toronto Hurd User Group meets: The University of Waterloo Computer Science Club will be hosting a talk on the Hurd and the Debian GNU/Hurd operating system. There will also be a gpg keysigning and installfest for GNU/Hurd following the talk. All are welcome, and gpg keys are not required.
Date: 26 Jan 2002
Time: 1400 (2pm EST)
Place: University of Waterloo, Math and Computers building, room 3001 (comfy lounge).
More information about this event at thug@gnu.org
Pro-Linux has published a GNU/Hurd status report (in German). They will infrequently publish updates in the future.
There is a new mailing list called Hurd-devel-readers. It is the read-only version of Hurd-devel.
Hurd-devel is a mailing list for detailed discussions of design and implementation issues in the GNU Hurd; it is an internal low-volume list restricted to the core developers of the Hurd. While the web-based archive of Hurd-devel has always been public, the new mailing list Hurd-devel-readers provides a convenient way to follow the discussion of the Hurd experts.
If you are a recipient of Hurd-devel-readers and want to follow up on the discussion, please reply to the Bug-hurd mailing list.
We are pleased to announce version 1.3 of the GNU distribution of the Mach 3.0 interface generator `MIG'. It may be found in the file http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mig/mig-1.3.tar.gz (about 145 KB compressed).
Diffs from version 1.2 are in http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mig/mig-1.2-1.3.diff.gz (about 6 KB compressed, 15 KB uncompressed). Relative to version 1.2, version 1.3 contains only some minor fixes.
You need this tool to compile the GNU Mach and Hurd distributions, and to compile GNU libc for the Hurd.
Bug reports relating to this distribution should be sent to bug-hurd@gnu.org. Requests for assistance should be made on help-hurd@gnu.org.
The md5sum checksum for this distibution is:
45c2b7456727d81dbd75f7152f8136fd mig-1.3.tar.gz
Added the Hurd Hacking Guide to the documentation section. Thanks to Wolfgang Jährling for providing this introduction into GNU/Hurd and Mach programming!
We are currently finishing the transition from a stdio-based GNU C Library (glibc) to a libio-based one. This is the result of about five months of work we put into getting the system ready and, of course, the work that the glibc developers did to make glibc what it is.
This change will have various advantages, for example libio has been tested more extensively, as it is also used by most GNU/Linux systems for some time now. However, it also means a change in the Application Binary Interface (ABI) of glibc, thus you will need to reinstall an existing Debian GNU/Hurd system. Upgrading has not been tested at all, so better do not expect it to work. Also note that you will need to get some of the Debian packages from alpha.gnu.org. Please read the recent mailing list archives for details.
Important Note: As another temporary complication, the current installation tarball is available at a different place than usual.
The "Linux and Unix User Group Heilbronn" (in Germany) is organizing a Debian GNU/Hurd installation party at 25 May 2002. In addition to that, Wolfgang Jährling will give a talk about usage of GNU/Hurd, common problems found in porting programs to GNU/Hurd and programming of extensions for the Hurd. It is a public event, so everyone is free to show up and participate.
Finally, the transition from the stdio-based GLibC Application Binary Interface (ABI) to the libio-based GLibC ABI has been completed. The Debian GNU/Hurd binary distribution has resumed building packages again, and everything should be back to normal. Note that we have also switched to GCC 3.1 as our default compiler. Thanks to everyone who helped in making all this possible, and our apologize for any inconvenience we have caused you.
We are pleased to announce version 1.3 of the GNU distribution of the Mach kernel, featuring advanced boot script support, support for large disks (>= 10GB) and an improved console.
This distribution is only for x86 PC machines. Volunteers interested in ports to other architectures are eagerly sought.
More information about GNU Mach 1.3 is available on the GNU Mach web page.
Various developers of the Hurd and people interested in it will meet at the Libre Software Meeting in Bordeaux on July 9-13. Neal Walfield, who is working on porting the Hurd to the L4 microkernel, will give a presentation about L4, the people from HurdFr will give an introduction to the Hurd, and another presentation about the Hurd will be given by Marcus Brinkmann. There might be additional talks about the Hurd and related topics.
The Hurd sources have stabilized again after a short period in which some of the interfaces were changed to prepare support of long files. All relevant filesystem and I/O interfaces have been modified to use 64 bit even on 32 bit systems.
In light of the small and patient user base, we decided to drop backwards compatibility and replace the interfaces instead extending them. This means that the binaries of the Hurd, the C library, and some other programs need to be replaced manually, all at the same time, followed by a reboot.
A detailed step-by-step procedure how to upgrade Debian GNU/Hurd is available on the Debian web site.
People not using a binary distribution need to do a full manual bootstrap. It is recommended to treat this as a cross-compilation case.
A new article about the authentication server has been added to the web pages. It resembles the talk about the same topic which was given at the Libre Software Meeting, therefore the target audience is mostly programmers which want to learn about the details of authentication in the Hurd.
Marcus Brinkmann speaks about the GNU Hurd at "Reflections | Projections 2002", the National Student ACM Conference at the University of Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. The conference is held on October 18-20.
The Toronto Hurd Users Group meets again: The University of Waterloo Computer Science Club will be hosting talks on the GNU Hurd on October 26 by Marcus Brinkmann and Neal Walfield. There will also be a GnuPG keysigning before Marcus's talk. Please email Ryan Golbeck your GnuPG key so he can get everyone setup.
Marcus will talk about the Hurd interfaces. Neal will talk about about A GNU Approach to Virtual Memory Management in a Multiserver Operating System
Date: 26 Oct 2002
Time: 1330 (1:30pm EST) and 1500 (3:00pm EST)
Place: University of Waterloo, Math and Computers building, room MC 2066
More information can be found at UW CS Club website and at thug@gnu.org
For one month now, the pthread implementation by Neal Walfield is part of the Hurd CVS source tree, and has been used to compile more software for the Debian GNU/Hurd archive. The lack of a POSIX compatible thread library (the Hurd was based on the cthread implementation that originally accompanied Mach) was a show stopper, and we are happy about the possibility to not only compile more applications, but also to start the work on migrating the Hurd source code to pthreads.
Gaël Le Mignot, president of HurdFr, presented the GNU Hurd on 22 November 2002 at EpX in Paris. English slides and French slides of the talk are also available.
The GNU/Hurd User's Guide is now accessible through the Documentation section of the Hurd web pages.
The tarball for Debian GNU/Hurd that Marcus Brinkmann made over the years has been discontinued in favour of Jeff Bailey's crosshurd package. To install Debian GNU/Hurd from now on, this package should be used. Another Debian system is required to be installed on the same machine. The GNU/Hurd installation guide has not been updated yet.
GNU/LinuxTag 2003 is now over and since there was a talk given about the Hurd, a demo GNU/Hurd machine running and the sale of Hurd t-shirts, Wolfgang Jährling decided to write a short summary of what happened there. Many thanks to Wolfgang Jährling, Volker Dormeyer and Michael Banck!
Added a link to Patrick Strasser's the Hurd Source Code Cross Reference in all the "Source code" sections.
Marcus Brinkmann added a small web page describing the ongoing developments on the Hurd-to-L4 port.
Material from the Operating System topic during the Libre Software Meeting which took place this summer is available online. Included are slides and recordings of talks by Marcus Brinkmann and Neal Walfield about the Hurd/L4 port.
The GNU Hurd project will participate in this year's Google Summer of Code, under the aegis of the GNU project.
The following is a list of items you might want to work on. If you want to modify or extend these tasks or have your own ideas what to work on, please feel invited to contact us on the bug-hurd mailing list or the #hurd IRC channel.
- Make GNU Mach use more up to date device drivers.
- Work on GNU Mach's IPC / VM system.
- Design and implement a sound system.
- Transition the Hurd libraries and servers from cthreads to pthreads.
- Find and implement a reasonable way to make the Hurd servers use syslog.
- Design and implement libchannel, a library for streams.
- Rewrite pfinet, our interface to the IPv4 world.
- Implement and make the Hurd properly use extended attributes.
- Design / implement / enhance support for the...
Please see the page GNU guidelines for Summer of Code projects about how to make an application and Summer of Code project ideas list for a list of tasks for various GNU projects and information about about how to submit your own ideas for tasks.
A number of GNU Hurd developers will again (as already in the previous years) meet at the time of the FOSDEM 2007, which will take place from 2007-02-24 to 25 in Brussels, Belgium. This wiki page has some details. Contact us if you are interested in meeting with us.
Neal Walfield and Marcus Brinkmann have written and submitted for publication A Critique of the GNU Hurd Multi-server Operating System and a position paper Improving Usability via Access Decomposition and Policy Refinement. Please follow the two preceding links to see the complete announcements. The authors welcome comments and discussion which may be directed to the <bug-hurd@gnu.org> mailing list for the Critique and to the <l4-hurd@gnu.org> mailing list for the position paper.
The abstract of the Critique:
The GNU Hurd's design was motivated by a desire to rectify a number of observed shortcomings in Unix. Foremost among these is that many policies that limit users exist simply as remnants of the design of the system's mechanisms and their implementation. To increase extensibility and integration, the Hurd adopts an object-based architecture and defines interfaces, which, in particular those for the composition of and access to name spaces, are virtualizable.
This paper is first a presentation of the Hurd's design goals and a characterization of its architecture primarily as it represents a departure from Unix's. We then critique the architecture and assess it in terms of the user environment of today focusing on security. Then follows an evaluation of Mach, the microkernel on which the Hurd is built, emphasizing the design constraints which Mach imposes as well as a number of deficiencies its design presents for multi-server like systems. Finally, we reflect on the properties such a system appears to require.
The abstract of the position paper:
Commodity operating systems fail to meet the security, resource management and integration expectations of users. We propose a unified solution based on a capability framework as it supports fine grained objects, straightforward access propagation and virtualizable interfaces and explore how to improve resource use via access decomposition and policy refinement with minimum interposition. We argue that only a small static number of scheduling policies are needed in practice and advocate hierarchical policy specification and central realization.
The GNU Hurd project will participate in this year's Google Summer of Code, under the aegis of the GNU project.
The following is a list of items you might want to work on. If you want to modify these task proposals or have your own ideas on what to work, then please don't hesitate to contact us on the bug-hurd mailing list or the #hurd IRC channel.
- Design and implement libchannel, a library for streams.
- Rewrite pfinet, our interface to the IPv4 world; create a pfinet6 to interface to the IPv6 world.
- Make GNU Mach use more up to date device drivers.
- Design and implement a sound system.
- Introduce the world of the Andrew File System (AFS) to the Hurd.
- Work on enhancing our NFS client and NFSd.
- Implement support for Logical Volume Management (LVM).
Please see the page GNU guidelines for Summer of Code projects about how to make an application and Summer of Code project ideas list for a list of tasks for various GNU projects and information about about how to submit your own ideas for tasks.
This year the GNU Hurd had again been assigned one slot within the Google Summer of Code program, which was assigned to the task design and implement libchannel, a library for streams. Carl Fredrik Hammar has been working on this task and recently posted a summary about the successful work he had been doing, but also gave an outline about how he intends to continue improving and extending it.
Stefan Siegl added support for IPv6 networking to the pfinet translator.
A number of GNU Hurd developers will again (as already in the previous years) meet at the time of the FOSDEM 2008, which will take place from 2008-02-23 to 24 in Brussels, Belgium.
The page about FOSDEM 2008 has some details. Contact us if you are interested in meeting with us.
The GNU Hurd project has been accepted as a mentoring organisation for the Google Summer of Code 2008! If you are a student and looking for a job during the summer, take a look at our project ideas list--here's your chance to help improving the GNU Hurd including mentoring from our side and being paid compensation from Google's!
The application deadline has been extended to Monday, 2008-04-07, so there's more time for you students to hand in your Hurd applications.
All five students who worked on the Hurd during the Google Summer of Code 2008 succeeded in their projects. For more information please see 2008 GSoC page. Congratulations to both students and mentors!