Re: Help on offer.
Hi Bill,
I'm posting this reply with debian-hurd as well as the original
addresses. Debian-hurd seems to be the primary HURD help listing. The
following URL will get you to mailing list sign-up for debian-hurd and I
am including a URL to the debian-hurd mailing list archives and dox page
that we do have:
http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/subscribe
http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/
http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-doc
I would very much like to assist you in your documentation project for
HURD, please feel free to contact me.
Jim
Bill White wrote:
>
> I would like to start working on the Hurd.
>
> I have done some initial reading of the FAQs and the manual, and I
> am probably going to try to install the Hurd either this weekend or
> else next week some time. I am somewhat conflicted as to whether I can
> use my main machine for Hurd work, or if I should acquire a second
> machine for testing, but that's a question I don't have to answer
> right away.
>
> In any case, I have been looking for a project to get started. Perhaps,
> since I have been constrained to reading the documentation, I have seen
> it more, but it seems as if the documentation has many places which might
> need to be fixed up. I am thinking that spending time on the documentation
> might be a good first start. For instance:
> o The info documentation for GRUB is somewhat confusing. It took, by
> my actual record, about 3 hours for me to understand it sufficiently
> to be able to install it, and I am still not clear on some of the
> details. I think that some attention to this might be useful.
> Of course, it might just be that I am slow, but I suspect not.
> o The reference manual seems to have a number of places where it is
> marked "FIXME". There are whole sections which are not filled in,
> or whose contents are the interface function signatures with no
> text. These need to be filled in.
> o There are other places in the RefMan where distinctions are made
> but not explained. The only example that leaps to my mind right now
> is the difference between Buckets and Port Classes. The reference
> manual does not have any examples of why one might be preferred over
> the other when aggregating ports. There seem to be similar, if not
> identical operations on Buckets and Port Classes, so it is not clear
> why there is such a distiction.
> o There seems to be no obvious architectural documentation. I suspect
> that there is, but that it is either old and out of date, or else just
> not on the web page anywhere. What I am thinking of for this is
> one or more papers which answer these questions:
> - What fundamental abstractions does the Hurd provide?
> - How do the Hurd abstractions compare to POSIX Unix abstractions?
> - What is the functional difference in developing applications for
> the Hurd and developing applications for Linux?
> - What servers are needed in a running Hurd system? What servers are
> only A Good Idea? What servers are Nice To Have?
> - Anything else related to servers? How to debug them? How to debug
> sets of them?
> - What happens when the Hurd Boots? I'm not thinking of how the
> boot process works so much, though that's interesting as well. I
> haven't read the Multiboot documentation. I'm thinking more of
> understanding what the Hurd has which is equivalent to the SysV
> init procedure. Also, it is slightly interesting to look further
> back in the boot process and understand how the first task is
> created.
> o There seems to be no tutorial information on installing, using or
> developing for the Hurd. For some kinds of applications the Linux
> tutorial documentation is probably sufficient. But for developing
> Hurd specific artifacts, such as translators, it would help if there
> is some sort of easy paper which tells people "This is how we do it,
> and this is why."
>
> Writing documentation also has another advantage. My current employer
> seems to talk as if they own my dreams and my children's dreams, and
> any marketable dreams of anybody whose last name begins with a W. I
> don't think anyone would care about my contributing to the Hurd, as long
> as I don't contribute to a graphics application, but I think they would
> be hard pressed to complain if I just contributed documentation.
>
> So, who is currently responsible for the Hurd documentation? I know that
> there is someone who spiffed up the RefMan for the 0.3 release, but is there
> a project documentation coordinator? Who should I talk to first?
>
> Thanks.
>
> P.S. I must admit that I will be somewhat time constrained for the next
> month or so. I am trying to reduce my work-for-hire hours to allow for
> more time for this, as well as to spend more time with my family. However,
> I do still need to work, at least part time. So, it will take some time
> to reorder that part of my life.
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