Re: Hurd

["Ciaran O'Riordan" <ciaran@member.fsf.org>]

On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 08:54:04PM -0000, Colin JN Breame wrote:
> I was wondering about whether Hurd is still being actively developed and
> whether it has a future or not.  (does anyone have a plan??)

yes, the Hurd is still being actively developed by (from what I can
gather) somewhere between 5 and 8 developers (plus the odd helper).

Big improvements have been made in the last year or so making Hurd-based
GNU systems usable for day-to-day use by regular techs.

The current problems are the 2Gb filesystem partition limit, and
the lack of ppp support (well, it's not reliable enough for use), I
believe the latter problem is being fixed at the moment.

A data-corruption filesystem bug is reportedly on the loose but I
have yet to encounter it despite running a suceptable version of
GNU.  There are also problems with X at the moment, I don't think
it works right now but this is a very temporary problem.

If you are familiar with GNU/Linux then the only knowledge problem
is likely to be mounting harddisks and setting up devices.

> I use my computer for my uni-work but recently I've been considering making
> the jump to a GNU-ish system.

Having a GNU/Linux installation would be advisable so you can boot
into it when your stuck and want to read docs or whatever.

>  I have quite a lot of free time and I suppose
> I'm looking for a project, and perhaps Hurd is that.

It's certainly one of the more interesting pieces of software
out there, an little-discovered gem. "The Hurd Hacking Guide"
give great insight into how the system works.

(I haven't stayed up to date with mailing list traffic in the
 last week or three but I think my info is still correct.)