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Introduction

In this Quarter work has been progressing in quite a few areas of FreeBSD. FreeBSD 7.1-BETA2 and 6.4-RC2 have been released for pre-release testing. EuroBSDCon 2008 took place in Strasbourg, France and quite a few developers got together for the Developer Summit before the Conference. The USB2 stack has been imported into the -HEAD branch.

Thanks to all the reporters for the excellent work! We hope you enjoy reading.

Projects

FreeBSD Team Reports

Kernel

Architectures

Documentation

Miscellaneous

    CVSMode for csup

    URL: http://p4web.freebsd.org/@md=d&cd=//&po=h&c=gCY@//depot/user/lulf/csup/?ac=83

    Contact: Ulf Lilleengen <lulf@FreeBSD.org>

    The implementation of cvsmode for csup has become more mature, and has been tested by a few people so far. All parts directly related to CVSMode have been implemented, and it seems to work quite well. Testers are still needed, so any users of cvsup using it to mirror or fetch the CVS repository (cvsmode/mirror mode) are encouraged to try it.

    Open tasks:

    1. Implement support for the rsync protocol (not needed for proper working, but it will probably speed up csup in some cases)
    2. Implement complete support for using the status file in cvsmode

    FreeBSD for ASUS EeePC

    URL: http://wiki.freebsd.org/AsusEee

    Contact: Stanislav Sedov <stas@FreeBSD.org>
    Contact: Rui Paulo <rpaulo@FreeBSD.org>
    Contact: Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org>

    ASUS Eee is a line of cheap subnotebooks. These come with Linux or Windows preinstalled. The hardware is a bit inconventional, so it required some efforts to make FreeBSD run properly on this hardware. Also, these machines contain some hardware that was not supported by FreeBSD.

    Currently FreeBSD should run on all Eee models out of the box, and most hardware should just work. At least, 700, 701, 901 and 1000 was tested successfully. The hardware supported includes Atheros wireless backed by ath(4) in HEAD (you still need a patch for RELENG_7), Attansic L2 FastEthernet controller (ae(4)), High Definition audio controller (snd_hda), Synaptics touchpad and so on. Suspend/resume also works fine with some exceptions.

    There is also a hardware monitoring module, that allows user to control FAN speed and voltage, as well as monitor current CPU temperature. Wiki page contains information on how to obtain this module and use it. There are also a lot of useful tips and tricks for using FreeBSD on ASUS EeePC on that page.

    Open tasks:

    1. Attansic L1 Gigabit Ethernet support (for ASUS Eee 901)
    2. Wireless driver for ASUS Eee 901 (ral(4))
    3. Fix Synaptics resume path.

    FreeBSD mirror statistics

    URL: http://www.mavetju.org/unix/freebsd-mirrors/
    URL: http://www.mavetju.org/unix/freebsd-mirrors/score.php

    Contact: Edwin Groothuis <edwin@FreeBSD.org>

    There are many FreeBSD mirrors, either FTP or WWW or CVSup or RSync, but are they really all up-to-date? Some are, some aren't. The ones who aren't, how out to date are they? Or do they only carry a subset of the data? And how does it go over time?

    This project checks once per day the contents of the sites which are advertised in DNS, with the rsync*, www*, cvsup* and ftp* prefixes. The lists of hosts are based on the contents of the DNS zonefile for the country domains, so it will be automatically adjusted whenever a mirror is added.

    The statuses can be compared on country base and between two dates and the 10 day score overview shows the general health of the FreeBSD Mirroring network.

    Open tasks:

    1. Create a list of contact details per mirror.
    2. Chase mirror maintainers with regarding to the status of their servers.

    FreeBSD Multimedia Resources List

    URL: http://www.mavetju.org/unix/multimedia/freebsd/multimedia.html
    URL: http://www.mavetju.org/unix/multimedia/freebsd/multimedia.xml

    Contact: Edwin Groothuis <edwin@FreeBSD.org>

    Please note that the FreeBSD Multimedia Resources List is still alive and kicking. It is a one-stop-shop for FreeBSD related podcasts, vodcasts and audio/video resources. It has talks, videos and papers of the New York City BSD Con 2008, FreeBSD Developer Summit, BSDCan 2008, AsiaBSDCon 2008, OpenFest and has recordings with regular talks like the NYCBUG user group and regular podcast of BSDTalk.

    Open tasks:

      FreeBSD Security Officer and Security Team

      URL: http://www.freebsd.org/security/
      URL: http://www.freebsd.org/administration.html#t-secteam
      URL: http://vuxml.freebsd.org/

      Contact: Security Officer <security-officer@FreeBSD.org>
      Contact: Security Team <security-team@FreeBSD.org>

      The FreeBSD Security Team has recently had some membership changes. George V. Neville-Neil, Dag-Erling Smorgrav, and Marcus Alves Grando have retired from the team. We thank them for their work while they were on the security team. Xin Li, Martin Wilke, Qing Li, and Stanislav Sedov have joined the team.

      FreeBSD/powerpc for Freescale MPC8572

      Contact: Rafal Jaworowski <raj@semihalf.com>
      Contact: Bartlomiej Sieka <tur@semihalf.com>

      The MPC8572 system-on-chip device is a high-end member of Freescale PowerQUICC III family, which features a rich set of integrated peripherals. It is a dual e500v2 core system, compliant with Book-E definition of the Power Architecture. For detailed specification see: http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC8572E This work is extending our (single core) MPC85XX port already available in the SVN tree. Currently the MPC8572 support covers:

      • all existing functionality of FreeBSD/MPC85XX (console, e500 interrupts/exceptions, networking, etc.)
      • SMP
        • dual-e500 cores running at 1.5GHz each
        • ULE
      • Security engine (SEC)
      • General purpose DMA controller
      • Pattern matching engine (PME)
      • Ethernet controller (eTSEC) advanced features
        • multicast
        • jumbo frames
        • TCP/IP h/w checksumming
        • VLAN tagging
        • polling
        • interrupt coalescing
      • PCI-Express bridge
      • I2C controller
      High level functional summary:
      • stable multiuser SMP operation
      • NFS-mounted root filesystem

      Open tasks:

      1. Remaining built-in peripherals drivers

      MavEtJu's FreeBSD Mailing List Browser

      URL: http://www.mavetju.org/mail/

      Contact: Edwin Groothuis <edwin@FreeBSD.org>

      Earlier this year I put efforts into the creation of a new layout for the FreeBSD mailinglists. The following issues were tackled:

      • Display which mailinglists are active and are visited often.
      • A clean weekly/monthly overview per list.
      • In the weekly/monthly overview, be able to go forward and backward in time.
      • Browsing through threads goes by the Replies/Replies To/Referenced By/References To fields of the emails, but visible who the email is from.
      • An overview of the thread with quick links to the articles.
      • Text attachments are normally shown, other attachment are normally not shown.
      • Tag messages, see your browsing history, reply to emails and an "wrap long lines" feature.
      • Filtering out of svn-, cvs-, freebsd-, and p4- groups.
      • Show date and time in the format you want.
      • Storing of preferences managed via OpenID identification.
      The mailinglist website is updated once per hour with the mailinglists via cvsup.

      Open tasks:

      1. Addition of RSS feeds per mailinglist and for the "last day" feature.

      Multi-IPv4/v6/no-IP jails

      URL: http://sources.zabbadoz.net/freebsd/jail.html
      URL: http://p4web.freebsd.org/@md=d&cd=//depot/user/bz/jail/&rc=s&c=kmz@//depot/user/bz/jail/?ac=43&mx=50

      Contact: Bjoern A. Zeeb <bz@FreeBSD.ORG>

      The multi-IPv4/v6/no-IP jails project was resumed beginning of this year and is in the final stage now. A commit is imminent waiting for final review to be finished.

      As an alternative solution to full network stack virtualization, this work shall provide a lightweight solution for multi-IP virtualization. The changes are even more important because of the emerging demand for IPv6.

      Ideally this will be merged to FreeBSD 7 before 7.2-RELEASE and stay in FreeBSD 8 for the transitional period to full network stack virtualization.

      Open tasks:

      1. Finish review.
      2. Management (rc framework, ..) for 7-STABLE.
      3. Identify ports that need to be updated.

      pkg_trans

      URL: http://wiki.freebsd.org/IvanVoras/PkgTransProposal

      Contact: Ivan Voras <ivoras@freebsd.org>

      The "pkg_trans" project is a work in progress aiming to add package transactions / grouping to common package manipulation utilities (pkg_add, pkg_delete). The intention is to have all packages pulled in by a particular command like "pkg_add" or "make install" grouped in a single transaction, which can be later rolled back. This will allow users to, for example, install a big tree of dependent packages (like kde4), try it, and later delete it.

      Currently the pkg_trans and the patched utilities are available for testing. There are some open issues but it's generally stable.

      Open tasks:

      1. I cannot modify the "make install" infrastructure for ports and 3rd party utilities such as portupgrade. People who know these utilities are very welcome to help.
      2. More testing is needed.

      Release Engineering Team

      Contact: Ken Smith <re@FreeBSD.org>

      The Release Engineering Team continues to work on getting 6.4-RELEASE and 7.1-RELEASE ready. 6.4-RC2 builds are coming up shortly, with 6.4-RELEASE expected about two weeks later. There are still a few issues being worked on for 7.1-RELEASE though hopefully we will be ready to proceed with 7.1-RC1 within the next week. Both 6.4-RELEASE and 7.1-RELEASE will include DVD image ISOs for the amd64 and i386 architectures which has been requested by quite a few end-users.

      Synaptics touchpads support improvements in psm(4)

      URL: http://wiki.freebsd.org/SynapticsTouchpad

      Contact: Jean-SĂ©bastien PĂ©dron <dumbbell@FreeBSD.org>

      psm(4) provides basic support for Synaptics Touchpad but doesn't allow one to take advantage of many features like multi-finger tap and tap-hold, or virtual scrolling. A driver for X.Org is available but the movements are not very precise and the setup is not easy if you want to use your touchpad in the console.

      The goal of this project is to first provide a better movement filtering and smoothing, then bring the more advanced features.

      Right now, movement filtering, multi-finger tap, tap-hold and virtual scrolling (using a dedicated area) is implemented.

      Virtual scrolling with two fingers (as seen on Apple MacBook) will be brought back soon.

      But before that, the new driver needs testing! It's currently tested on an ASUS V6V only and feedback on other laptops would be greatly appreciated.

      Open tasks:

      1. Test and send feedback.

      The FreeBSD Foundation

      URL: http://www.freebsdfoundation.org

      Contact: Deb Goodkin <deb@FreeBSD.org>

      For the first time we sent out a request for project proposals. We were very excited about the proposals we received. We accepted four projects and will be announcing them soon. We were proud to sponsor NYCBSDCon and EuroBSDCon. We are also a sponsor of MeetBSDCon. We provided travel grants for the Cambridge FreeBSD Developer Summit in August. We are continuing to provide updated Java binaries for FreeBSD 7.0. We continued to provide legal support for the project.

      The FreeBSD Hungarian Documentation Project

      URL: http://www.FreeBSD.org/hu
      URL: http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/hu
      URL: http://wiki.FreeBSD.org/HungarianDocumentationProject
      URL: http://p4web.freebsd.org/@md=d&cd=//depot/projects/docproj_hu/&c=aXw@//depot/projects/docproj_hu/?ac=83

      Contact: Gábor Kövesdán <gabor@FreeBSD.org>
      Contact: Gábor Páli <pgj@FreeBSD.org>

      In July, pgj gave a presentation (in Hungarian) about the FreeBSD Hungarian Documentation Project in Debrecen, Hungary.

      Based on the checkupdate script mentioned in our previous status report, we launched our Translation Checking Service to help to schedule periodic updates for Hungarian doc/www translations. Moreover, a small bug in EPS images blocking automatic generation of the Handbook PDF version was corrected , therefore it is now available for download .

      Shortly after the renovation of its source, translation of the FAQ has also become part of Hungarian documentations. Both online and offline versions are available. A recently translated article ( gjournal-desktop) has also been added.

      Hungarian translation of the FreeBSD Documentation Project Primer for New Contributors has been started . We hope this will encourage others to help our work. There is always place in our team, every submitted translation or feedback is appreciated and very welcome.

      Open tasks:

      1. Translate release notes for -CURRENT and 7.X
      2. Translate articles
      3. Translate the FDP Primer
      4. Read the translations, send feedback

      USB2

      URL: http://p4web.freebsd.org/@md=d&cd=//depot/projects/usb/src/sys/dev/usb2/&c=OPj@//depot/projects/usb/src/sys/dev/usb2/?ac=83

      Contact: Hans Petter Sirevaag Selasky <hselasky@freebsd.org>

      The new USB stack has been imported to FreeBSD-CURRENT. There is an ongoing review process at the freebsd-usb mailing list and the freebsd-current mailing list. A couple of minor issues remain.

      Ideas and comments with regard to the new USB stack are welcome at freebsd-usb@freebsd.org .

      Open tasks:

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