Re: Hurd questions

[Shams]

Thanks much for the info.

When you are saying that Debian uses the "current cvs tree". Do you mean 
that
this is the offical GNU Hurd CVS repository that is maintained by the GNU
project?

Can you please explain what you mean by "user friendly"?
- Do you mean that Debian includes some extra packages with the official GNU
Hurd distribution, such as?

Thanks
Shams

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Arguri" <larguri_2006@gmx.net>
Newsgroups: gmane.os.hurd.general
Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 11:18 PM
Subject: Re: Hurd questions


> Hi,
>
> first of all: I am not really involved in this process and I am not a 
> native english speaker, but I hope I can give some answers (as far as I 
> know, or think to know).
>
> 2) The difference is just that there is a "useable" installer based on a 
> debian (linux) distro. There is no real difference in the base code of the 
> hurd apart from the fact that several patches are included which are not 
> (maybe not yet) in the current cvs tree. The main purpose of this 
> debian/hurd distro is to have an installer and to have the ability to port 
> some packages to the hurd and see what happens. So no, they do not release 
> a separate Version of the Hurd but a more "user friendly" version (no 
> cross compiling or cross installation) So this might also tend to an 
> answer to 1):
> 1) The current status of the Hurd and Mach is unknown to me, but I think 
> that there is really much to do. As far as I know there are several 
> decisions currently made regarding the future of the Hurd.
> 3) As far as I know the current thing is this: Mach is not the final 
> kernel for the Hurd. There were things done to make the L4 the kernel for 
> the hurd (Marcus Brinkmann was able to start one program running the hurd 
> on top of the l4 microkernel). What I heard recently (2 minutes ago) is 
> that those things are stopped for now until certain technical questions 
> are answered. I suppose the focus is still on making mach more stable. You 
> got 2 opportunities: using mach 1.9 from the cvs tree or using oskit-mach 
> from... somewhere else ;)
> 4) Well... It was released as 0.2 in 1996 ;) But if you mean when there 
> might be a stable version for working (X working correctly, nice 
> installer, and so on), I really have no idea. The community still is alive 
> and there are contributions made, but the problem in my eyes is, that it 
> is too unstable to work with it, so contributors come and go, which might 
> be good too, so new ideas come.
> 5) The really interesting point. If you want to try to install the hurd on 
> your system, the "easiest" way, in my eyes is using the debian package 
> (http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-cd). On the other way, there is a 
> problem: not all hardware is supported (in fact, I think hurd/mach are far 
> away from that) and so, you surely can install the OS on your system, but 
> if it will run is another question, so you should think about installing 
> it on a virtual machine (ie qemu).
> some useful links:
>
>
> http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/hurd/ (some "older" information)
> http://hurd.gnufans.org/ (wiki)
> http://wiki.debian.org/TheHurd (maybe one of the links there will suit 
> you)
>
> Greetings
> Arguri
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have a few questions about GNU Hurd and Mach.
> >
> > 1. What is the current development status of Hurd?
> >
> > 2. What is the difference between Debian Hurd and just the "Hurd".
> > - Are they maintained separate cvs branches, totally different code base 
> > etc?
> > - Does this mean that Debian is releasing their own version of Hurd?
> >
> > 3. Is Mach the "final" microkernel for Hurd and is Hurd using Mach 4 or 
> > Mach 1?
> > - Has the microkernel been decided?
> > - What about L4, is this a candidate?
> >
> > 4. What is the overall status of the entire project?
> > - Is it going to be released soon?
> > - Is there much contribution from the community being made?
> >
> > 5. I would like to install and develop/for Mach and Hurd
> > - Is there any documentation somewhere on how to set it up?
> >
> > Thanks
> > Shams