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)Received on Sun Mar 07 2004 - 18:51:39 UTC
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