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Date:      Sun, 07 Mar 2004 21:51:58 -0600
From:      Mark Johnston <mjohnston@skyweb.ca>
To:        current@freebsd.org
Subject:   cvs-src summary for 07/03/04
Message-ID:  <1078717917.5266.2.camel@localhost>

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I'm posting with Evolution this week, instead of the usual mutt.  If the
formatting is messed up or there are any other problems with this
message, please let me know.

FreeBSD cvs-src summary for 29/02/04 to 07/03/04
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is a regular weekly summary of FreeBSD's cutting-edge development.
It is intended to help the FreeBSD community keep up with the fast-paced
work going on in FreeBSD-CURRENT by distilling the deluge of data from
the CVS mailing list into a (hopefully) easy-to-read newsletter.  This
newsletter is marked up in reStructuredText_, so any odd punctuation
that you see is likely intended for the reST parser.

.. _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

You can get old summaries, and an HTML version of this one, at
http://www.xl0.org/FreeBSD/.  Please send any comments to Mark Johnston
(mark at xl0.org).

For Lukasz Dudek and Szymon Roczniak's Polish translations of these
summaries, which may lag the English ones slightly, please see
http://mocart.pinco.pl/FreeBSD/.

.. contents::

============
New features
============
Netgraph support for IEEE 802.1q VLAN tags
------------------------------------------
Ruslan Ermilov (ru) committed a new Netgraph node type to support 802.1q
virtual LAN tagging.  This addition means that Netgraph users can take
advantage of VLANs, which simulate multiple networks on one wire by
tagging packets to mark which network they belong to.  If you'd like to
give Netgraph a shot, or learn more about it, `Daemon News`_ has `an
article`_ by Archie Cobbs (archie) with details and a tutorial on trying
out Netgraph.

.. _`Daemon News`: http://www.daemonnews.org/
.. _`an article`: http://www.daemonnews.org/200003/netgraph.html

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403011722.i21HMG1h016273

ACPI video extensions driver added
----------------------------------
Nate Lawson (njl) committed the ACPI standard video extensions driver,
acpi_video, which was submitted by Taku YAMAMOTO.  The ACPI video
extensions are the standard way of controlling LCD brightness and video
output selection (like CRT or TV out), so this new driver will be
especially useful for laptops.  Nate will be doing some style cleanups
for the driver later.  Mark Santcroos also submitted a manual page for
acpi_video.


http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403010812.i218CuGq075780

PowerPC gains libthr support
----------------------------
Peter Grehan (grehan) committed code, mostly from Suleiman Souhlal, to
allow the libthr threading library to work on PowerPC.  The new library
works with the Apache "worker" threading module and passes most libpthread
tests.  Peter is planning on implementing support for the libkse threading
library next.

Most of the kernel changes: http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403020613.i226D9HA003463

Activating libthr on PPC: http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403020626.i226QbiK005777

Cronyx Tau/ISA driver connected to kernel
-----------------------------------------
Roman Kurakin (rik) updated the ctau driver for Cronyx_ Tau/ISA cards
and connected it to the kernel build.  Cronyx_ Tau cards are short-range
modems; the Tau/ISA family consists of the `Tau/E1`_, an ISA card with two
E1 interfaces that works over distances of up to 1.5 km.

.. _Cronyx: http://www.cronyx.ru/
.. _`Tau/E1`: http://www.cronyx.ru/hardware/taue1.html

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403021648.i22GmJU8061918

USB 2.0 support merged from -CURRENT
------------------------------------
Julian Elischer (julian) committed the ehci driver to -STABLE.  EHCI
(Enhanced Host Controller Interface) is the USB 2.0 controller
specification, replacing USB 1's OHCI (Open) and UHCI (Universal).  This
driver introduces USB 2.0 support to -STABLE.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403022321.i22NLFNj056044

Pentium 4 thermal control circuit support merged from -CURRENT
--------------------------------------------------------------
Maxim Sobolev (sobomax) added support to -STABLE for the Pentium 4's
thermal control circuit.  The TCC is the P4's temperature monitoring
system, which can control the processor's speed to keep it from
overheating or to save power.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403031524.i23FOFlb097173

=================
Discussion topics
=================
Conflicting driver names
------------------------
Roman Kurakin (rik) committed the Cronyx Tau/ISA manual page, naming it
"ct" to match the driver.  Yoshihiro TAKAHASHI (nyan) pointed out that
there is already a ct driver, which supports SCSI controllers based on the
WD33C93 chip.  Some discussion followed about which driver had been using
the name longer, ending in a post by M. Warner Losh (imp) that concluded
that both drivers had been using the name since before they were imported.
Furthermore, he mentioned that one system could never use both, since the
Cronyx Tau driver supports only ISA cards, and the WD33C93 driver supports
only the PC98 platform, which does not use ISA.

The discussion turned to manual pages, since they were the only remaining
conflict.  There was some talk of creating a separate man page category
for PC98-specific pages; Warner suggested that a note in the PC98 ct man
page about the duplication would also clear up the problem.

Roman's commit: http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403031323.i23DNINs070351

Warner's post about the two ct's: http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20040303.102155.38697537.imp

What does "fixing the tinderbox" really mean?
---------------------------------------------
Bruce M. Simpson (bms) tweaked the ctau driver to correct a macro problem,
noting that the commit would "Fix tinderbox builds".  Dag-Erling Smorgrav,
the author and maintainer of the tinderbox code and build system, replied
that the "fix tinderbox builds" comment was unclear; he clarified that
ctau was being fixed, not the actual tinderbox code.  John Baldwin (jhb)
disagreed, saying that the comment didn't imply that the tinderbox itself
is broken and suggesting that Dag-Erling had overreacted.  Dag-Erling
explained that his comment was prompted by the frequency of the tinderbox
being blamed for problems in other code.

John Polstra (jdp), the author of CVSup, sympathized, mentioning his
frustration with people saying things like "Latest CVSup is totally
broken!" when they were really talking about the source they had checked
out with CVSup.  Doug Barton (dougb), author of mergemaster, mentioned
that he had had a similar problem, with mergemaster being blamed for
problems in the files it was merging.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403041416.i24EGDNh035332

===================
Important bug fixes
===================
FreeBSD-SA-04:04 patches committed
----------------------------------
Jacques Vidrine (nectar) committed patches to -STABLE and to the 4.8,
4.9, and 5.2.1 branches to fix a vulnerability to a low-bandwidth
denial-of-service attack against TCP.  The patches were submitted by Andre
Oppermann (andre).  Please see `the advisory`_ for more information.

.. _`the advisory`: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/advisories/FreeBSD-SA-04:04.tcp.asc

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403021719.i22HJIro069620

===============
Other bug fixes
===============

Julian Elischer (julian) fixed a bug in bfe, the Broadcom fast ethernet
driver, that could cause an infinite loop when an error occured, resulting
in a system hang.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403020543.i225hg0r096341

Bill Paul (wpaul) fixed a crash in his NDISulator code that resulted in
a kernel trap crash with the RealTek 8180 wireless card.  This crash
affected only kernels compiled with INVARIANTS, not non-debugging or
release kernels.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403040017.i240HE4Q026154

Nate Lawson (njl) fixed a bug in ACPI that caused the minimum cooling level
setting to actually influence the maximum level.  The report and fix were
submitted by Andrew Thompson.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403051806.i25I6VPr049785

Tim Kientzle (kientzle) touched up his libarchive code, especially the cpio
support, especially when restoring linked files.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200403070057.i270vh1g004580

Andrey A. Chernov (ache) made many minor enhancements and tweaks to the
getopt command-line parsing code and its manual pages.

(numerous)

David E. O'Brien (obrien) made several commits to make some DRM (Direct
Rendering Module) drivers, network drivers, and miscellaneous system files
more 64-bit friendly.

(numerous)




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