Matthew Dillon has posted his 5th VFS patch; included is some backstory on just how the old and new APIs work.
Update: and it begins. This is going to be unique to DragonFly, probably.
Month: September 2004
09/29/2004
Scary VFS work, stable update
Matthew Dillon wrote that the DragonFly_Stable tag is being moved up to the current code, as his potentially destabilizing VFS work is going to be going into the tree, starting tomorrow.
The moral: if you have production or near-production machines, stick with the stable tag, for now.
Failing on authpf?
If your buildworld chokes on a nonexistent authpf group, read this note from Matthew Dillon.
Patch pauses ports
The recent move to non-GNU patch(1) can cause some trouble building ports. Andreas Hauser has a patch to bsd.port.mk that will fix it until the change can be added “upstream” in the FreeBSD ports collection.
Similar patch(1), different license
Joerg Sonnenberger has switched the DragonFly version of patch(1) from the GNU version to the BSD-licensed version.
09/28/2004
Temporarily tricky
Matthew Dillon warned that the namecache work (stage 6 is committed) may destabilize the system somewhat while it is in flux; crashes may happen, though data should be generally safe. Use the DragonFly_Stable tag in your supfile if this is a problem and you’d like to upgrade…
09/27/2004
Timer, explained
Matthew Dillon gave an answer on the kernel@ list to Magnus Eriksson’s timer question; explaining in the process why DragonFly uses a different timer process than FreeBSD.
09/26/2004
NVIDIA video driver change
Emiel Kollof has posted a patch fixing the NVIDIA binary video driver override; this still does not provide Linuxulator support, but it should otherwise work.
09/25/2004
Namespace start
Matthew Dillon’s started work on the new namespace/lookup API – he lists this as “step 5/99″.
What’s in dragonflybsd.org?
Matthew Dillon gave an interesting description of the machines powering the various parts of dragonflybsd.org.
09/24/2004
Warning about WARNS
Joerg Sonnenberger posted a note that code added to the project should meet a certain level of WARNS cleanness.
Roasted Backups
Matthew Dillon cooked a dragonflybsd.org computer recently. It was a backup machine, so no public data was lost.
09/21/2004
Another vendor
BSD-Systems.co.uk has been added to the Commercial links section of the dragonflybsd.org download page.
Superspeed change
Joerg Sonnenberger has added a new timer method, for those who are seeing the “high-speed clock” problem:
“Add a new option “TIMER_USE_1″, which allows switching the primary heartbeat from i8254 timer 2 to timer 1. This also reactivates the console beep if TIMER_USE_1 is active.”
It’s “OPTIONS TIMER_USE_1″ in your kernel config, if you want to build a kernel that uses this.
LinuxInsider article
This LinuxInsider article about alternative operating systems namechecks DragonFly, though it doesn’t do much more.
better bc, dc
Matthew Dillon has committed BSD-licensed versions of bc and dc, ported from OpenBSD by Sascha Wildner.
Callout Cleanup
Matt Dillon and Joerg Sonnenberger have been making about a zillion commits over the last while; cleaning up the old callout_* implementation. It’s been split into so many commits so that folks from other systems can easily import them.
Stable supfile
There is now a “stable” cvs config file at /usr/share/examples/cvsup/DragonFly-stable-supfile for tracking the known stable point in DragonFly code. Added by Matthew Dillon.
Site updates
dragonflybsd.org now has a new latest known stable ISO mentioned on the download page, and a new entry on Matthew Dillon’s diary page.
09/18/2004
Callout causes rebuild
Joerg Sonnenberger warned that a full buildworld will be needed when next upgrading your system. You will also want to recompile any ports that use cam/libcam, like many CD-reading tools.
09/17/2004
More KDE 3
The aforementioned bug in compiling KDE 3.3 on DragonFly seems to be getting straightened out.
09/16/2004
Installing elsewhere
Matthew Dillon, on users@, gave a short outline of how to buildworld/kernel on a different, faster computer, and then move to another machine to install.
X 6.8 patch
Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert has a patch for libc that makes it possible to run multithreaded programs under xorg 6.8. If you really like testing out the bleeding edge, try it out.
09/15/2004
SPDIF support
Joe Love posted on the new users@ list a question about having the SPDIF output on his sound card recognized, instead of the analog out. Jonas Trollvik mentioned that the Open Sound System (which supports DragonFly) made his sound card work, including SPDIF.
Another PF test
Joerg Sonnenberger’s got the latest test version of PF available. This will hopefully be the last before it goes in.
Installer mailing list
There is now a mailing list specific to the Installer program. Email discussion-subscribe@bsdinstaller.com – subject: subscribe
KDE Bug prominence
Emiel Kollof has posted bug 89544 for KDE 3.3.3, for getting KDE to compile on DragonFly. It may be worthwhile to register on KDE’s Bugzilla and vote for that bug, so that it gets “on the radar”.
Update: There’s related bug 89577 too.
Update update: Joerg Sonnenberger noted (see bug report linked above) that the DragonFly code can be changed to make this work, though the Single Unix Specification implies that the problem is with where KDE is looking. Quote below:
More…
Axe(4) grinding
Joerg Sonnenberger has commited a whole pile of updates to various network drivers, among them axe(4). He warns that anyone with a axe(4) device should give it a whirl, as the driver is untested at this point.
09/14/2004
New, but not that new, users
I’ve added a new article for experienced users new to DragonFly; it’s available in final form at forknibbler.com.
Finding the BGL
ps (from Matthew Dillon’s recent change) is now able to show which processes are and are not holding the “Big Giant Lock”, a symptom of multiprocessor use inherited from FreeBSD.
If you aren’t familiar with the BGL, Greg Lehey wrote a good explanation in Daemonnews. (look for the section labeled “The SMP Problem”)
New users list archived
The list archives now are tracking messages on the new users@dragonflybsd.org list.
Vinum, VFS conversations
In an ongoing conversation about Vinum on kernel@, Matthew Dillon notes what he’d like to see, Greg Lehey says Vinum should, generally, still work on DragonFly. As an outgrowth of this conversation, Matthew Dillon described what he plans next for VFS.
09/13/2004
Commercial product rename
Crescent Anchor’s operating system based on DragonFly, originally called “Silver OS”, has been renamed “FireFly“. Thanks Jeremy Almey.
‘Users’ list now available
“Users”, a new list/newsgroup for “general, non-kernel postings” is available.
Mail “subscribe” to users-request@lists.dragonflybsd.[excised to spamprotect] to sign up.
09/11/2004
Learning C
This thread started by Joshua Coombs names some good resources to start with if you plan to learn programming in C.
09/10/2004
bsdinstaller CVS records
Apparently, a history of CVS commits to the Installer is available. There’s some mentions of the installer and OpenBSD in recent commits…
X11R6.8 almost out
The next release of X is almost out; it’s not released yet contrary to some reports. When it is out, or if you are running a release candidate, there’s a note here about how to enable some of the new features. Hopefully a port will be available.
Unix history, GameBoy
Someone got 5th edition Unix running on a Game Boy Advance, in a demo loop of sorts. I’m linking to this not because it has any real use, but because the page also contains a nice history of very early Unix.
09/07/2004
apr Approved
Jeroen Ruigrok/asmodai has added a dfport override for devel/apr, the APache Portable Runtime, which happens to recognize DragonFly.
09/06/2004
It’s ips
Joerg Sonnenberger’s committed YONETANI Tomokazu’s changes to the ips driver, for RAID devices such as ServeRAID. Among other benefits, it now supports more recent Adaptec hardware.
Scheduler alternatives
‘walt’ posted in kernel@ a note about the new Linux staircase scheduler, available here, and how it may be useful for DragonFly.
New wi(4)
Joerg Sonnenberger has imported a new wi(4) driver for 802.11, taken from FreeBSD. Update: if this new driver doesn’t work for you, use owi(4), which is the older version.
VFS, then 64
Matthew Dillon noted in this post to kernel@ that he anticipates 64-bit work in perhaps 6 months, after VFS is completed.
KDE 3.3 port overrides
‘Rum’ has started work on dfport overrides for KDE 3.3.0. (The link he supplies appears not to work yet, however.)
See you, Tip.
The cu program has been out of the system for a long time; Matthew Dillon has committed
cu emulation in tip.
09/03/2004
Sanity for me
Spam was being placed in the comments for various entries on this page at the rate of 1 every 10 minutes or so; I’ve changed the setup to block most of it. If you post a comment and it doesn’t appear immediately, it may be waiting for approval.
Sanity for other OS developers
Matthew Dillon pointed out that when comitting functional changes to the DragonFly source, keep them separate from other modifications. That way, when other BSDs/projects use these modifications, it will be much easier for them to review and use.
Finite state request
Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert is looking for more information on finite state automatons, since a number of them appear in the DragonFly source.
Another small project
Porting SMBUS support from FreeBSD would be a good small project for anyone to try, though Jeroen Ruigrok/asmodai may beat you to it.
09/02/2004
Docs listing
forknibbler.com now lists the DragonFly docs that are located there, including a PDF version of the Handbook.
09/01/2004
Some SATA support started
Jeroen Ruigrok/asmodai has committed initial work to support Silicon Image 3112 and 3124 SATA controllers.
