Index: report-2009-04-2009-09.xml =================================================================== RCS file: /home/dcvs/www/en/news/status/report-2009-04-2009-09.xml,v retrieving revision 1.9 diff -u -r1.9 report-2009-04-2009-09.xml --- report-2009-04-2009-09.xml 8 Oct 2009 16:22:13 -0000 1.9 +++ report-2009-04-2009-09.xml 8 Oct 2009 19:04:18 -0000 @@ -16,10 +16,11 @@

This report covers FreeBSD related projects between April and September 2009. During that time a lot of work has been done on wide variety of projects, including the Google Summer of Code - projects. The BSDCan and EuroBSDCon conferences were held in Ottawa, - CA, and Cambridge, UK which were both very successful. + projects. The BSDCan conference was held in Ottawa, CA, in May 2009. + The EuroBSDCon conference was held in Cambridge, UK, in September. + Both events were very successful. A new major version of FreeBSD, 8.0 is to be released soon. - If you are wondering what's new in this long awaited release, read + If you are wondering what's new in this long-awaited release, read Ivan Voras' excellent summary.

@@ -68,12 +69,6 @@ - bin - - Userland Programs - - - arch Architectures @@ -249,9 +244,9 @@ - Test mono ports and send feedback (a special attention to - environments where NOPORTDOCS / WITH_DEBUG is set has to be - taken). + Test mono ports and send feedback (we are especially + interested in tests where NOPORTDOCS / WITH_DEBUG is + enabled). Port the mono-debugger to FreeBSD. @@ -339,12 +334,14 @@ be used to retrieve information about running processes and open files in the uniform and platform-independent way both from a running system or from core files. This will facilitate the - implementation of file or process monitoring applications like - lsof, fstat, fuser, etc. The libprocstat repository contains the - preliminary version of the library, as well as fstat and fuser - utilities ported to use this library instead of retriving all - the required information by hand via kvm(3) interface, which - makes them ABI independent as the result.

+ implementation of file- or process-monitoring applications like + lsof(1), fstat(1), fuser, etc. The libprocstat repository contains a + preliminary version of the library. It also includes rewrites + of the fstat and the fuser + utilities ported to use this library instead of retrieving all + the required information via the kvm(3) interface; one of the + important advantages of the versions that use libprocstat is + that these utilities are ABI independent.

@@ -424,24 +421,25 @@

All other platforms are untested.

-

A lot has happened over the spring/summer - amd64 got proper +

A lot has happened over the spring/summer: amd64 got proper mcmodel=kernel support, compiler-rt has been introduced (paving the way - for libgcc replacement), we have run two experimental ports build to see + for libgcc replacement), we have run two experimental port builds to see how clang does there. The C++ support is able to parse devd.cc without warnings. We have got the kernel working with -O2. FreeBSD has been promoted to be an officially supported plaform in LLVM. As a result of all this - work, many parts of FreeBSD that did not compile before compiles + work, many parts of FreeBSD that did not compile before now build without problems.

- ClangBSD branch of FreeBSD got a little stale and has not + The "ClangBSD" branch of FreeBSD got a little stale and has not been updated for a while. + We also need to get some important fixes into LLVM to get libc compiling and some other smaller issues. - We - can still appreciate more testers on minor platforms (mostly arm, ppc - and mips). + + We can still appreciate more testers on minor platforms (mostly on + ARM, PPC and MIPS, but testing on other platforms is also welcome). @@ -565,11 +563,11 @@ -

VirtualBox has been committed to the Ports tree and synced - with the latest trunk version from SuN. A lot of known - problems are already fixed and some new features have been +

VirtualBox has been committed to the Ports tree and synchronized + with the latest trunk version from Sun. Several known + problems are already fixed and some new features have been added:

- +
  • VT-x support
  • Bridging support (Big Thanks to Fredrik Lindberg)
    • @@ -578,9 +576,11 @@
  • Host DVD/CD access
  • SMP Support
- -

We would like to say thanks to all helpers and reporters and of course, - to the VirtualBox developers.

+ +

We would like to say thanks to all the people who helped us by + reporting bugs and submitting fixes. We also thank the VirtualBox + developers for their help with the ongoing effort to port + VirtualBox on FreeBSD.

@@ -680,8 +680,8 @@ the other translation teams could incorporate them, as well.

Christoph Sold has put his time in translating the wiki pages of - the BSD Certification Group into the German language. This is a - great help for German people, who want to take the exam and like to read + the BSD Certification Group into the German language. This is very + helpful for all German people who want to take the exam and like to read the information about it in their native language. Daniel Seuffert has sent valuable corrections and bugfixes. Thanks to both of them for their time and efforts!

@@ -708,7 +708,7 @@ The FreeBSD Foundation Status Report - + @@ -736,7 +736,7 @@ We continued funding a project that is making improvements to the FreeBSD TCP Stack by Lawrence Stewart. The project that made removing disk devices with mounted filesystems on them safe, by - Edward Napierala, completed.

+ Edward Napierala, is now complete.

We recognized the following FreeBSD developers at EuroBSDCon 2009: Poul-Henning Kamp, Bjoern Zeeb, and Simon Nielsen. These @@ -806,7 +806,7 @@

A full list of all the automatically generated reports is also available at one of the cited URLs. Any recommendations for - reports, which do not currently exist but which would be + reports which not currently exist but which would be beneficial are welcomed.

Gavin Atkinson gave a presentation on "The PR Collection @@ -817,10 +817,10 @@ Discussions also took place on how it may be possible to automatically classify non-ports PRs with a view towards notifying interested parties, although investigations into this - has not yet begun.

+ have not yet begun.

Mark Linimon also continues attempting to define the general - problem and investigating possible new work flow models, and + problem and investigating possible new workflow models, and presented work on this at BSDCan 2009.

Since the last status report, the number of open bugs has @@ -838,12 +838,12 @@ - Work on suggestions from developers, who were at the EuroBSDCon - Devsummit. + Work on suggestions from developers who were at the EuroBSDCon + DevSummit. Try to find ways to get more committers helping us with closing - PRs that the team has already analyzed. + the PRs that the team has already analyzed. @@ -938,7 +938,7 @@ -

Around 70 FreeBSD developers and guests attended the FreeBSD +

Around 70 FreeBSD developers and guests attended the FreeBSD developer summit prior to EuroBSDCon 2009 in Cambridge, UK. Hosted at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, the workshop-style event consisted of prepared presentations, as well @@ -991,9 +991,8 @@ on the website for those who could not make it to Cambridge. Next year's event in 2010 will take place in Karlsruhe from 8 to 10 October 2010. If you are interested in what you missed in 2009, or to join - the mailing list so you do not miss out next year, visit - - http://2009.eurosbsdcon.org. + the mailing list so you do not miss out next year, visit + http://2009.eurosbsdcon.org.

@@ -1031,7 +1030,7 @@

Since their public launch in November 2008, the FreeBSD Forums (the most recent addition to the user community and support - channels for the FreeBSD Operating System), have witnessed a + channels for the FreeBSD Operating System) have witnessed a healthy and steady growth.

The user population is now at over 8,000 registered users, who @@ -1046,7 +1045,7 @@ more and more often, making it a valuable and very accessible source of information for the FreeBSD community.

-

One of the contributing factors to the Forum's success is its +

One of the contributing factors to the Forums' success is their 'BSD-style' approach when it comes to administration and moderation. The Forums have a strong and unified identity, they are neatly divided into sub-forums (like 'Networking', 'Installing @@ -1055,7 +1054,7 @@ many combined decades' worth of knowledge to starting, intermediate and professional users of FreeBSD.

-

We expect the Forums te be, and to remain, a central hub in +

We expect the Forums to be, and to remain, a central hub in FreeBSD's community and support efforts.

 @@ -1097,20 +1096,24 @@ (share/colldef, share/monetdef, share/msgdef, share/numericdef, share/timedef) has accumulated a total of 165 definitions (language - country-code - character-set triplets). The contents of the files - is for Western European languages often low-ASCII but for Eastern + for Western European languages are often low-ASCII but for Eastern European and Asian languages partly or fully high-ASCII. Without knowing how to display or interpret the character-sets, it is difficult to make sure by the general audience that the local - languages (language - country-code) definitions is displayed - properly in various character-sets. Suggested approach: With the - combination of the data in the Unicode project (which goal is to + language (language - country-code) definitions are displayed + properly in various character-sets.

+ +

Suggested approach: With the + combination of the data in the Unicode project (whose goal is to define all the possible written characters and symbols on this - planet) and the Common Locale Data Repository (which goal is to + planet) and the Common Locale Data Repository (whose goal is to document all the different data and definitions needed for the locale database), we can easily keep track of the data, without the need of being able to display the data in the required - charactersets or understand them fully when updates are submitted - by third parties. Current status: Conversion of share/monetdef, + character sets or understand them fully when updates are submitted + by third parties.

+ +

Current status: Conversion of share/monetdef, share/msgdef, share/numericdef, share/timedef to the new design is completed. The Makefile infrastructure is converted. Regression checks are done. Most of the tools are in place, waiting on the @@ -1121,9 +1124,9 @@ At this moment the system is not self-hosted yet, because of the lack of an iconv-kind of program in the base operating system. Gabor@ is working on bsdiconv as a GSoC project and once that has been - imported we will be able to clean install from the definitions in + imported we will be able to perform a clean install from the definitions in Unicode text format to the required formats and - charactersets. + character sets. @@ -1154,9 +1157,9 @@ (foo -> UTF-32) are compatible with GNU but the reverse ones are not so accurate because of GNU's advanced transliteration. Some extra encodings have also been added. There are two modules, - which segfault, they need some debugging. I can keep working on this + which segfault; they need some debugging. I can keep working on this project as part of my BSc thesis, so I hope to be able to solve - the remaining issues. An improved GNU compatibility is also very + the remaining issues. Improved GNU compatibility is also very desired (extra command line options for iconv(1), iconvctl(), private interfaces, etc.).

@@ -1177,7 +1180,7 @@ - Ext2fs Status report (Summer of Code 2009) + Ext2fs Status report (Summer of Code 2009) @@ -1257,7 +1260,7 @@

In the last months, we have not added new translations, although we have been working on the existing ones to have them updated. We need more translators and volunteers to keep the amount of the translated - documentation growing, so feel free to contribute, every line of + documentation growing, so feel free to contribute. Every line of submission or feedback is appreciated and highly welcome.

If you want to join our work, please read the - @@ -1350,12 +1352,13 @@

This project was started as part of Google Summer of Code 2008 but - there is still an ongoing work to complete some missing parts. + there is still a bit of work to complete some missing parts. The BSD-licensed grep implementation is feature-complete and - has a good level of GNU compatibility. The only concern is the + has a good level of GNU compatibility. Our only current concern about + the BSD-licensed version is to improve its performance. The GNU variant is much more complex, has about 8 KSLOC, while BSD grep is tiny, has only 1.5 KSLOC. GNU uses - some shortcuts and optimizations to trick out the regex library, + some shortcuts and optimizations to speed-up calls to the regex library; that is why it is significantly faster. My point of view is that such optimizations must be implemented in the regex library, keeping the dependent utilities clean and easy to read. BSD @@ -1382,7 +1385,6 @@

The bc/dc utilities have been ported from OpenBSD. They pass OpenBSD's and GNU's regression tests but they arrived too late to catch 8.X, so they will go to HEAD after the release.

- @@ -1445,22 +1447,22 @@

During the FreeBSD Developer Summit that took place at EuroBSDCon 2009 in Cambridge, UK, people virtualized more code. As a result SCTP and another accept filter were virtualized and - more people went along getting familiar with the concepts. + more people became familiar with the design of VImage and the underlying concepts. Finally getting more hands involved was a crucial first step for the long term success of kernel virtualization.

The next steps will be to finish the network stack virtualization, generalize the allocator framework before - thinking of virtualizing further subsystems and to update + thinking of virtualizing further subsystems and to update the related documentation. Along with that a proper jail management framework will be worked on. Long term goals, amongst others, will be to virtualize more subsystems like SYS-V IPC, better - privilege handling and resource limits.

+ privilege handling, and resource limits.

In the upcoming FreeBSD 8.0 Release, vnets are treated as an - experimental feature, which is not yet recommended for use in + experimental feature. As a result, they are not yet recommended for use in production environments. There was lots of time spent to - finalize infrastructure for vnets though, so that further + finalize the infrastructure for vnets though, so that further changes can be merged and we are aiming to have things production ready for 8.2.

@@ -1494,12 +1496,12 @@

TCP appropriate byte counting (RFC 3465) support has been merged into the FreeBSD 8 branch and will ship in FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE.

- -

The reassembly queue autotuning and SIFTR work was not ready in + +

The reassembly queue auto-tuning and SIFTR work was not ready in time to safely integrate for 8.0-RELEASE. Padding has been added to necessary TCP structs to facilitate MFCing features back to the 8-STABLE branch after 8.0 is released.

- +

Candidate patches against FreeBSD-CURRENT will be ready for wider testing in the coming weeks. The freebsd-net mailing list @@ -1516,11 +1518,11 @@ FreeBSD-CURRENT. - Complete dynamic reassembly queue autotuning patch for FreeBSD-CURRENT. + Complete dynamic reassembly queue auto-tuning patch for FreeBSD-CURRENT. Fix an identified bug in the SACK implementation's fast retransmit/fast - recovery behaviour. + recovery behavior. Profit! @@ -1552,7 +1554,7 @@ Additionally, I completed an implementation of the CUBIC congestion control algorithm to complement the existing NewReno and H-TCP algorithm implementations already available.

- +

I have one further intrusive change to make, which will allow congestion control modules to be shared between the TCP and SCTP stacks. Once this is complete, I will be soliciting for @@ -1588,15 +1590,15 @@ working and playing together. This goal was accomplished with the help of bz@, my new mentee tuexen@ and myself working together at the FreeBSD DevSummit in Cambridge, UK. Also the - non-renegable sack feature contributed by the university of + non-renegable SACK feature contributed by the university of Delaware was fixed so that now its safe to turn on (its - syscontrol). If you are using SCTP with CMT (Conncurrent + sysctl). If you are using SCTP with CMT (Conncurrent Multipath Transfer) you will want to enable this option - (CMT is also a sysctl). With CMT enabled you will use all - destinations of a peer to send data to.

+ (CMT is also a sysctl). With CMT enabled you will be able to + send data to all the destinations of an SCTP peer.

-

We welcomed a new mentee (soon to be commitor) to FreeBSD. - Michael Tuexen is now mentee of rrs@. Michael has been +

We welcomed a new mentee (soon to be a commiter) to FreeBSD. + Michael Tuexen is now a mentee of rrs@. Michael has been contributing to the SCTP work for quite some time and also moonlights as a Professor at the University of Muenster in Germany (when not doing SCTP coding).

@@ -1617,10 +1619,10 @@ -

We believe, that the ZFS file system is now production-ready in +

We believe that the ZFS file system is now production-ready in FreeBSD 8.0. Most (if not all) reported bugs were fixed and ZFS is no longer tagged as experimental. There is also ongoing work - in perforce to bring the latest ZFS version (v19) to FreeBSD.

+ in Perforce to bring the latest ZFS version (v19) to FreeBSD.

@@ -1656,7 +1658,7 @@ for how MIPS provides performance counters and will begin adding code soon.

- + FreeBSD Gecko Project @@ -1690,9 +1692,10 @@ -

Andreas Tobler made a mistake of sending us a lot of powerpc and - sparc64 related patches, for which we have punished him with the - commit bit to the Gecko repository.

+

Andreas Tobler made the clasic mistake of sending us a lot of + powerpc and sparc64 related patches. The usual punishment, of + giving him a commit bit to the Gecko repository, has been + applied.

We currently have some old ports in the ports tree:

@@ -1703,7 +1706,7 @@
  • www/xulrunner is superseeded by www/libxul.
    • - +

    A patch that includes the following changes has been tested on pointyhat and is ready for commit:

    @@ -1725,8 +1728,8 @@ Remove mozilla, xulrunner and firefox2 from the ports tree. The www/firefox35 port should be moved to www/firefox. - Gecko providers mozilla, nvu, xulrunner, flock and firefox also - need to be removed. + The old (and somewhat stale) Gecko providers mozilla, nvu, + xulrunner, flock and firefox also need to be removed.     @@ -1788,8 +1791,8 @@ -

    Valgrind suite in the FreeBSD ports collection has been updated to - the version 3.5.0 (the latest available). Most of the issues of +

    The Valgrind suite in the FreeBSD ports collection has been updated to + version 3.5.0 (the latest available version). Most of the issues of the previous version should be resolved now: we expect memcheck, callgrind and cachegrind to be fully functional on both i386 and amd64 platforms as well as for i386 binaries running on amd64 @@ -1839,8 +1842,8 @@ committed and thus will be part of FreeBSD beginning with 8.0-RELEASE and 7.3-RELEASE, respectively. This means that the on-board NICs found in Fire V440, as well as the add-on - cards based on these chips are now supported, including on - non-sparc64 machines. Unfortunately, it triggers, what + cards based on these chips, are now supported, including on + non-sparc64 machines. Unfortunately, the cas(4) driver triggers what seem to be secondary problems with the on-board NICs found in B100 blades and Fire V480, which due to lack of access to such systems could not be fixed so far. @@ -1878,7 +1881,7 @@

  • A proper and machine-independent fix for the old problem that the loader leaves the NIC opened by the firmware, which could lead to panics during boot when netbooting, - has been developped but not committed yet.
    • + has been developed but not committed yet. @@ -1909,7 +1912,7 @@ for NFSv4 ACLs for both ZFS and UFS. Most of the code has already been merged to CURRENT. NFSv4 ACLs are unconditionally enabled in ZFS and the usual tools, like getfacl(1) and setfacl(1) can be used to view and - change them. I plan to merge remaining bits (UFS support) this month. + change them. I plan to merge the remaining bits (UFS support) this month. It should be possible to MFC it in order to ship in FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE.

    @@ -1967,7 +1970,7 @@ in the Google Summer of Code. We had a total of 17 successful projects. Some GSoC code will be shipping with FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE and others will be integrated into future releases.

    - +

    The FreeBSD GSoC admin team would like to thank Google and our students and mentors of another great year!

    @@ -2070,6 +2073,6 @@ we are shooting for two more public test builds (RC2 and RC3) followed by the release late October or early November.

    - +