From the DragonFly mailing lists: Matthew Dillon posted a list of what will and won’t be in the next release. Rahul Siddharthan pointed out that there hasn’t been much user-visible improvement since FreeBSD-4, speaking specifically about 64-bit processors and SMP. Steve O’Hara-Smith added some less well known benefits we already have, while Michael Talon described the speed boost a 64-bit operating system gives. Matthew Dillon said “someone just needs to do it“. I daresay the conversation is not over.
Matthew Dillon was finally able to reproduce the problems some people with older ATA chipsets would have with the new ATA code; he made some subsequent fixes (working late) along with Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert, and it seems the ATA problems are fixed.
Alexander Motin wrote to the kernel@ mailing list about netgraph in DragonFly; it was getting difficult for him to maintain compatibility with mpd4 in the FreeBSD-4 style netgraph in DragonFly and also support netgraph in FreeBSD. Matthew Dillon said “Don’t wait up“. Anyone feel like updating netgraph? It’s probably not easy.
Preview, the version of DragonFly that is not-quite-bleeding-edge, has been updated so that everyone can try the latest version of NATA and virtual kernels.
We’re reaching the decision point where the new ATA system (disk system ported from FreeBSD, without GEOM) either should or should not be set as default for the next release. Give it a try if you are running something later than 1.8.2, and report any issues.
It’s a week with variety on UnixReview.com: “More Forensic Tools“, a Shell Corner article: “Littera Delenda Est“, a Regular Expressions article: “Good Works with Real Databases“, and a product review: “Examining SlickEdit 2007: Code Quick | Think Slick“
How good is Sepherosa Ziehau? The bce(4) driver is broken with polling in FreeBSD, but he’s made the DragonFly version work just fine.
Apparently pf has some significant speedups; updating the DragonFly version would have a nice benefit at this point. (seen on Undeadly and by _hasso_ on #dragonflybsd)
Julio M. Merino Vidal, a pkgsrc developer, has a writeup on his blog about some different ways to upgrade pkgsrc, along with a link to the definitive source. (seen on NetBSD News Beat)
Matthew Dillon has changed virtual kernels so that they can be internally restarted or shut down, just like a real system. OMG.
Matthew Dillon wrote up an explanation of how his disklabel changes work out.
Broadcom NetXtreme II GigE network cards are now supported on DragonFly, thanks to an excellent interaction between developer, users, and Broadcom.
This is interesting: Getting Flash to work on FreeBSD without Linux compatibility. It may apply to other BSDs – otherwise untested. (Thanks, BSDNews) If you want to do it with the Linux compatibility options, that’s documented on the wiki.
While not DragonFly specific, I think this Worse Than Failure article about what’s wrong with Agile development is interesting for its main point: strategy is not a replacement for skill.
In an effort to make testing of a new installer easier, Matthew Dillon added support for having a virtual kernel boot from a CD image. It works, though you can’t quite run an installer on it yet.
It’s a sparse week on UnixReview.com: Examining MySQL Certification, book reviews of “FISMA Certification and Accreditation Handbook“, and “PC Technician Street Smarts“. If you’re curious to know, FISMA stands for “Federal Information Security Management Act”, which means it’s probably only of interest to U.S. readers or people who enjoy bureaucratic paperwork.
Hubert Feyrer noticed that slides are up for all the pkgsrcCon 2007 presentations.
I’m going to be cleaning leaf.dragonflybsd.org – watch out! This should not affect services located there, like developer accounts or the mail archive. I hope.
Aggelos Economopoulos’s lwn.net articles titled “A Peek at the DragonFly Virtual Kernel” are now available as a single item on dragonflybsd.org, with some additional details that didn’t appear in the initial version.
Gergo Szakal suggested using FeedBurner to put recent wiki changes onto the doc@ mailing list. I think it would work well to make sure major changes get discussed – opinions?