2015-10-31-releases

Sat, 31 Oct 2015 15:15:00 +0000

GNU Hurd 0.7, GNU Mach 1.6, GNU MIG 1.6 released. Details.

We're pleased to announce new releases!

GNU Hurd 0.7, NEWS:

Version 0.7 (2015-10-31)


The node cache in ext2fs has been improved, generalized, and moved to
libdiskfs.  It is now also used by isofs and fatfs.


The native fakeroot tool has been greatly improved.  It now handles
named sockets, and multiple corner cases related to permissions were
identified and fixed.


A new utility `rpcscan' has been introduced.  It scans Mach servers
and displays the RPCs handled by the associated demuxer.


A long-standing synchronization issue involving the filesystem
translators, libdiskfs, and libpager has been identified and fixed.


The code has been updated to work with newer versions of the compiler
and libc, and numerous bugs have been fixed throughout the code.

Release tarballs may be downloaded from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/hurd/, http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/hurd/, or checked out of Git, http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/hurd.git. SHA1 checksums:

a735a07687f7996face3bd310af2254192a02f40  hurd-0.7.tar.bz2
d10b3c1de191ac88425aa30a03c4130e2a883b14  hurd-0.7.tar.bz2.sig
62032e04bf6b22e4c874772f1f77d5678d916054  hurd-0.7.tar.gz
7fafd66e0003ea3768f76bd597e617bdc202e312  hurd-0.7.tar.gz.sig

The GNU Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux). More detailed: documentation, what is the GNU Hurd.

GNU Mach 1.6, NEWS:

Version 1.6 (2015-10-31)


The code has been updated to work with newer versions of the compiler,
and numerous bugs have been fixed throughout the code.


The lock debugging infrastructure has been revived and improved, and
many locking issues have been fixed.


The IPC tables and the hash table mapping objects to IPC entries have
been replaced by radix trees.  This addresses a scalability issue, as
IPC tables required huge amounts of continuous virtual kernel memory.


The kernel now allows non-privileged users to wire a small amount of
memory.


A bug hindering the eviction of inactive pages by the pageout daemon
has been identified and fixed.


The kernel now keeps timestamps relative to the system boot time.
Among other things this fixes bogus uptime readings if the system time
is altered.


A reference leak in the exception handling mechanism has been
identified and fixed.


ANSI escape sequences are now handled when using `printf'.  This fixes
the formatting of messages printed by various Linux drivers.

Release tarballs may be downloaded from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnumach/, http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnumach/, or checked out of Git, http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/gnumach.git. SHA1 checksums:

73e09c43955ef2e3459b2877b5e6d6bbe517b8c3  gnumach-1.6.tar.bz2
96ff426b3b94acf327a88f25c80ab5b5f26ed94a  gnumach-1.6.tar.bz2.sig
448cd88974a5264736c900691c9ab62a810aff28  gnumach-1.6.tar.gz
e06e733ad11f2e048dd9ad3348c2d3100be26078  gnumach-1.6.tar.gz.sig

GNU Mach is the GNU distribution of the Mach microkernel, upon which a GNU Hurd system is based. The microkernel provides an Inter Process Communication (IPC) mechanism that the Hurd uses to define interfaces for implementing in a distributed multi-server fashion the services a traditional operating system kernel provides. More detailed: documentation.

GNU MIG 1.6, NEWS:

Version 1.6 (2015-10-31)


MIG now emits RPC lookup functions that are declared `static inline'
improving compatibility with newer dialects of C.

Release tarballs may be downloaded from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mig/, http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mig/, or checked out of Git, http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/mig.git. SHA1 checksums:

a9a4b5666834afe8fb861453c5b3ef324201f1d3  mig-1.6.tar.bz2
93562c45bbda40ad31f74f6f2fd0c064ef8f0ec5  mig-1.6.tar.bz2.sig
6e937a35229da02e9e739d75a03020e24a1b5297  mig-1.6.tar.gz
fc25bb9652406675fed63c4581493a6fc39d9690  mig-1.6.tar.gz.sig

GNU MIG is the GNU distribution of the Mach 3.0 Interface Generator (MIG). This tool translates Remote Procedure Call (RPC) definition files to C code, and is required to compile any packages that are receiving or invoking RPCs, such as GNU Mach, GNU Hurd, and the GNU C Library (glibc) when compiled for the Hurd. More detailed: documentation.

glibc-2.19-hurd+libpthread-20151031

Snapshot tarballs may be downloaded from ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/hurd/, http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/hurd/, or checked out of Git, http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/glibc.git and http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/libpthread.git. SHA1 checksums:

5b709297f8622444695f13723f77dfc8754b8ed9  glibc-2.19-hurd+libpthread-20151031.tar.bz2
b970e604368fd80420ef029bb1c86fc2f7b2c382  glibc-2.19-hurd+libpthread-20151031.tar.bz2.sig
68f02cd3890654588183539428253a12ff98ea0d  glibc-2.19-hurd+libpthread-20151031.tar.gz
da8b38a9a9914a2dedba82a0cf353a4ce0ea30e7  glibc-2.19-hurd+libpthread-20151031.tar.gz.sig

The GNU C Library (glibc) implements a system's standard library functions (as described by ISO C, and POSIX, for example). An important part of the Hurd actually resides in glibc: here, the system interfaces are implemented on top of the Hurd IPC protocols. This is different to the Linux port, where most simple system interfaces are in fact simply forwarded to/implemented as system calls.

Many thanks to all the people who are helping!

If you want to give the Hurd a try, you may easily do so with Debian GNU/Hurd.

The GNU Hurd system currently runs on 32-bit x86 machines. To compile the Hurd, you need a toolchain configured to target i?86-gnu; you cannot use a toolchain targeting GNU/Linux.