Debian GNU/kFreeBSD

From owner-svn-doc-head@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 10 23:45:02 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: svn-doc-head@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B789BE1B; Fri, 10 Oct 2014 23:45:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: from svn.freebsd.org (svn.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:2068::e6a:0]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id A29D1330; Fri, 10 Oct 2014 23:45:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: from svn.freebsd.org ([127.0.1.70]) by svn.freebsd.org (8.14.9/8.14.9) with ESMTP id s9ANj2vn077567; Fri, 10 Oct 2014 23:45:02 GMT (envelope-from wblock@FreeBSD.org) Received: (from wblock@localhost) by svn.freebsd.org (8.14.9/8.14.9/Submit) id s9ANj2Ia077565; Fri, 10 Oct 2014 23:45:02 GMT (envelope-from wblock@FreeBSD.org) Message-Id: <201410102345.s9ANj2Ia077565@svn.freebsd.org> X-Authentication-Warning: svn.freebsd.org: wblock set sender to wblock@FreeBSD.org using -f From: Warren Block Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 23:45:02 +0000 (UTC) To: doc-committers@freebsd.org, svn-doc-all@freebsd.org, svn-doc-head@freebsd.org Subject: svn commit: r45781 - head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/news/status X-SVN-Group: doc-head MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-BeenThere: svn-doc-head@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1 Precedence: list List-Id: SVN commit messages for the doc tree for head List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 23:45:02 -0000 Author: wblock Date: Fri Oct 10 23:45:01 2014 New Revision: 45781 URL: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/doc/45781 Log: Add Debian GNU/kFreeBSD report. Modified: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/news/status/report-2014-07-2014-09.xml Modified: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/news/status/report-2014-07-2014-09.xml ============================================================================== --- head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/news/status/report-2014-07-2014-09.xml Fri Oct 10 23:16:33 2014 (r45780) +++ head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/news/status/report-2014-07-2014-09.xml Fri Oct 10 23:45:01 2014 (r45781) @@ -1858,4 +1858,126 @@ + + + Debian GNU/kFreeBSD + + + + Debian GNU/kFreeBSD Maintainers + debian-bsd@lists.debian.org + + + + + Debian GNU/kFreeBSD on the Debian Wiki + + + + +

Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a software distribution produced by + Debian, based on the kernel of &os; (instead of Linux) and GNU + libc. Around 90% of Debian's software archive has now been + ported to it, for amd64 and i386 architectures. It was first + released with Debian "squeeze" as a development preview in + 2011, featured again in the "wheezy" release, and hopes to be + part of the official Debian "jessie" release early 2015.

+ +

In 2003 there were several attempts to bootstrap a minimal + Debian system upon &os; or NetBSD kernels, some also trying to + use the native BSD libc. The most successful and + longest-lived of these was a "GNU/FreeBSD" chroot bootstrapped + by Robert Millan with the GNU libc that most of Debian's core + packages were designed to work with. The "k" was later added + to the name to reflect that it takes just the kernel from + &os;, with most everything else from the Debian archive. We + do also package some FreeBSD utilities as needed to boot it + and take advantage of certain features.

+ +

&os; support within GNU libc is now mostly maintained by Petr + Salinger, who recently converted it from an older threading + implementation based on LinuxThreads to NPTL which is much + more compatible with the software we run. We have the GNU + compiler toolchain as well as Clang 3.4; Perl, Python and + Ruby; and OpenJDK 7, based the on work done in &os;'s own + ports collection. We use linprocfs for /proc because + much of Debian GNU software expects this. The Linuxulator + is not needed at all, but could make for interesting future + uses. Porting work mostly focuses now on individual packages' + build systems, on preprocessor #ifdefs that do not clearly + distinguish between kernel and libc, or fixing testsuites' + presumptions of Linux-specific behaviour. In the course of + this, we even found the odd &os; kernel bug, including + EN-14:06 / CVE-2014-3880.

+ +

GNU/kFreeBSD has already seen production use, mostly on + webservers, email servers and file servers; one such machine + has 475 days' uptime receiving around 10,000 emails per day. + It has become increasingly practical for desktop/laptop uses + thanks largely to new features coming in from &os; 10.1.

+ +

KMS graphics mean that 3D gaming and high-definition video + playback perform brilliantly. We have great support for Intel + graphics chipsets, but only an older nvidia Xorg driver. For + radeonkms, Robert Millan was able to add firmware-loading + support so that non-free binary blobs can be packaged + separately, outside of Debian's main archive. Proprietary + drivers are not useful to us as they would need to be rebuilt + from source to port them.

+ +

vt(4) was necessary for KMS to not break VT + switching. But it has also improved the console's handling of + non-ASCII character sets and we do look forward to having + console fonts for non-Latin script.

+ +

We have supported ZFS for some time, even as a root/boot + filesystem (using GRUB 2; Robert Millan added the ZFS support + which now &os; itself is able to benefit from). Enhancements + coming from OpenZFS, especially LZ4 compression, in + combination with better memory management and GEOM + improvements, mean that "jessie" should see a noticeable + performance boost.

+ +

debian-installer already allows for pre-seeded, unattended + installs and there are PXE-bootable install images + available.

+ +

virtio drivers are new to the "jessie" release, enabling + support for some public clouds. We are now compiling Xen domU + and PVHVM support into our standard kernel builds.

+ +

We already have userland tools to configure the PF firewall. + As an experimenting, we are compiling in IPSEC support by + default for the upcoming release, and would like to see it put + to good use against present-day privacy and security + threats.

+ +

We try to support uses of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD inside a jail + on a &os; host system, and hopefully vice-versa. Some of the + jail utilities are not yet packaged, but we have documentation + on the Debian Wiki on how to set up jails on "wheezy", which + are fully functional.

+ +

The init system we currently use is a parallel System V-style + init, although Debian GNU/Linux will be switching away from + that to systemd. For the next release we may switch to + OpenRC, which is mostly ported already.

+ +

Not having systemd or udev, means that we will be unable to + support GNOME 3.14 in the upcoming release. We have very good + support for XFCE, also have KDE, LXDE and the + recently-packaged MATE desktop environment. The Debian + software archive provides many alternative window managers for + Xorg such as IceWM, dozens of terminal emulators, and so + on.

+ +

As we approach the freeze of the Debian "jessie" release, + we would love for anyone to test GNU/kFreeBSD, try to use it + for whatever would be useful to you, and let us know what + issues you run into. Ask for help on our project mailing list + or IRC channel, and let us know of any bugs you find. We + still have time to fix problems before release, and we would + be happy to improve our documentation any time.

+ +