This hasn’t been as clearly noted as it could be: there’s a DragonFly channel on IRC: #dragonflybsd on EFNet, with a steady population of users and developers. Please drop in.
SoC 2009 application is in
I just finished the application for DragonFly to participate in Summer of Code 2009:
http://socghop.appspot.com/org_app/show/google/gsoc2009/dragonflybsd
We did well last year, so I’m hoping we will get in again. Check the website for this year’s details.
Less BGL in the network
Big news: Sepherosa Ziehau has managed to remove the Big Giant Lock from the ip and bridge forwarding path. This includes ipfw, though not yet pf. It is in fact possible to make the whole TCP/UDP code path BGL-free. Sepeherosa helpfully posted some benchmarks to show just how significant the improvements can be.
Recent website changes
- ‘alexh’ put in a new page on dragonflybsd.org, describing how you can contribute to DragonFly.
- ‘jth’ has been making a huge number of fixes for the Handbook pages, for links I missed in conversion.
- If you have projects for Google Summer of Code 2009, or can work as a student or mentor, put it on the SoC 2009 page, as a number of people have been doing.
A new, graphical bootloader
Oliver Fromme has a new bootloader for FreeBSD and DragonFly. He’s added the DragonFly logo, and it looks neat. Can someone test this on physical hardware?
Old wiki is now read-only
wiki.dragonflybsd.org has been set to be read-only, since the content has been moved to www.dragonflybsd.org. The site hasn’t been turned off yet, because I may have missed something in the move…
Port of tmpfs underway
Have you patched Qemu lately?
With the new 0.10.0 release of Qemu, it’s a bit easier to get it running on DragonFly. Hasso Tepper asks that anyone who patched Qemu to run it on a DragonFly system send him the patches. He can get them into pkgsrc, and upstream.
Another man page
Stathis Kamperis has written up a man page for objcache. Stathis is looking for feedback, though Sascha Wildner and Samuel J. Greear have already commented. More is welcome before it goes in.
(I’m especially happy about the concept of complete man pages, having been frustrated today by a newly installed Linux system that lacked man pages to match the installed drivers or utilities for the intended hardware. Yeah, I’m talking AsteriskNOW.)
Extra logo versions
If you were looking to create a very large or very small version of the DragonFly logo, I’ve added .eps and .ai versions of the logo to the images page on the DragonFly website.
iwi(4) update
The iwi(4) firmware has been updated, and there’s an announcement that tells you where to find it.
Note SoC interest now!
If you are interested in the Google Summer of Code project, as a student, a mentor, or just want to suggest a project, write that down:
http://www.dragonflybsd.org/gsoc2009/
The application period starts for DragonFly (for the organization, not students) in a week, and it’ll help to see who wants to get in on the action.
More Tux3 filesystem notes
Daniel Phillips, who is working on the Tux3 filesystem, posted some more design notes. For those who joined recently, Tux3 is a filesystem similar in some ways to Hammer but being designed for Linux as its primary platform. This is a massively complex idea and project, so it’s good to peruse both the Tux3 site and prior posts about it.
Attention source mirrors
Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert has some tips on how to mirror the git repo for DragonFly more exactly; there’s an additional command that can clean up spurious branches.
em and emx driver preferences set
Sepherosa Ziehau has added a preference for the emx(4) driver over em(4). This means that loading the emx module or adding the emx device to your kernel config will may turn your em devices into emx. This isn’t dangerous; just a note to keep it from being a surprise.
Edit: Thanks, Sascha Wildner, for pointing out details on which chipsets are affected.
Here comes 2.2.1
Matthew Dillon notes that a 2.2.1 release will be coming about halfway through March; being a minor release, it’ll be bugfixes for things like the installer and the Hammer undo utility.
New I/O scheduler work
Alex Hornung posted a description of the work he’s done so far on a new I/O scheduler, with some details on his ideas on multiple scheduler levels. Feedback is welcomed.
DragonFly on Buzz Out Loud
CNet’s Buzz Out Loud podcast #918 mentions the new DragonFly release, though I haven’t yet listened to it to find out how far they get. Also, in the comments. (Thanks, Will Backman)
Mirror in Belarus
RUE Beltelecom has a DragonFly mirror; it includes images, snapshots, and binary packages. It’s already listed on the download page on the DragonFly website, too.
em(4) updated; adds a module
Sepherosa Ziehau has updated em(4) to version 6.9.6, with some interesting improvements. It does possible require loading a module now. He also has more patches to test.