DragonFly BSD description

DragonFly is an Linux operating system and environment designed to be the logical continuation of the FreeBSD-4.x OS series. These operating systems belong in the same class as Linux in that they are based on UNIX ideals and APIs. DragonFly is a fork in the path, so to speak, giving the BSD base an opportunity to grow in an entirely new direction from the one taken in the FreeBSD-5 series.It is our belief that the correct choice of features and algorithms can yield the potential for excellent scalability, robustness, and debuggability in a number of broad system categories. Not just for SMP or NUMA, but for everything from a single-node UP system to a massively clustered system. It is our belief that a fairly simple but wide-ranging set of goals will lay the groundwork for future growth.The existing BSD cores, including FreeBSD-5, are still primarily based on models which could at best be called 'strained' as they are applied to modern systems. The true innovation has given way to basically just laying on hacks to add features, such as encrypted disks and security layering that in a better environment could be developed at far less cost and with far greater flexibility.We also believe that it is important to provide API solutions which allow reasonable backwards and forwards version compatibility, at least between userland and the kernel, in a mix-and-match environment. If one considers the situation from the ultimate in clustering... secure anonymous system clustering over the internet, the necessity of having properly specified APIs becomes apparent.Finally, we believe that a fully integrated and feature-full upgrade mechanism should exist to allow end users and system operators of all walks of life to easily maintain their systems. Debian Linux has shown us the way, but it is possible to do better.DragonFly is going to be a multi-year project at the very least. Achieving our goal set will require a great deal of groundwork just to reposition existing mechanisms to fit the new models. The goals link will take you to a more detailed description of what we hope to accomplish.1.2.0 is our second major DragonFly release and the first one which we have created a separate CVS branch for. DragonFly's policy is to only commit bug fixes to release branches.This release represents a significant milestone in our efforts to improve the kernel infrastructure. DragonFly is still running under the Big Giant Lock, but this will probably be the last release where that is the case.The greatest progress has been made in the network subsystem. The TCP stack is now almost fully threaded (and will likely be the first subsystem we remove the BGL from in coming months). The TCP stack now fully supports the SACK protocol and a large number of bug and performance fixes have gone in, especially in regard to GigE performance over LANs.The namecache has been completely rewritten and is now considered to be production-ready with this release. The rewrite will greatly simplify future filesystem work and is a necessary precursor for our ultimate goal of creating a clusterable OS.This will be last release that uses GCC 2.95.x as the default compiler. Both GCC 3.4.x and GCC 2.95.x are supported in this release through the use of the CCVER environment variable ('gcc2' or 'gcc34'). GCC 2.95.x is to be retired soon due to its lack of TLS support. The current development branch will soon start depending heavily on TLS support and __thread both within the kernel and in libc and other libraries. This release fully supports TLS segments for programs compiled with gcc-3.4.x.It goes without saying that this release is far more stable then our 1.0A release. A huge number of bug fixes, performance improvements, and design changes have been made since the 1.0A release.What's New in This Release:Kernel changes· Support for the 386 CPU was abandoned. · Added the Hardware sensors framework. Ported from OpenBSD via FreeBSD Google SoC port. · Major work on ipfw2, switch ipfw from ipfw1 to ipfw2. · ARCnet, FDDI and Token Ring support was removed. · The fla driver was removed. It's known to be buggy, supports very limited set of obsolete devices with limited set of firmware versions, is removed from FreeBSD more than 3 years ago and is not supported any more more than 4 years. · Remove nv driver, it is replaced by nfe. · Sync the ACPI code with recent changes from FreeBSD. · Syscall and trap entry code run MPSAFE by default now (most syscalls still get the MP lock when they hit the I/O path, though). · Fix memory leak in execve() · Many LWP related issues cleaned up. · Add support to CAM for 16-byte read and write commands. · Major update of the CAM code. · kmalloc() use cases cleaned up. · Updated rxcsum/txcsum offload support for network drivers. · mbuf leak fixed. Some use-after-free cases in if_ethersubr.c have been fixed. · Greatly simplify the vnode_pager*() code. · The kernel (and virtual kernel) now saves and restores the FP state for signal stack frames. Related libc_r hacks have been removed. · Ownership check added when dumping core (security fix). · Fix a possible weakness in the random number generator. · Fix a weakness in the 'random' IP sequence number generator and turn random IP id's on by default. · Correct a cpu routing bug in the TCP stack. · Power management updates. · Adjust getdirentries to support 64 bit directory position cookies. Also adjust libc. Unconditionally use seek (with its 64 bit offset range). · Add pselect() syscall. · Fix an objcache bug, improving objcache performance. Hardware changes· Import msk from FreeBSD which supports the Marvell Yukon II based NICs (both GE and FE). · Add uticom driver for Texas Instruments TUSB3410 USB to serial chips. · Add SATA ATAPI support for AHCI controllers. · Add et which supports Agere ET1310 based Ethernet chips (PCIe only). · Update the agp code to the latest one from FreeBSD HEAD. This brings in a lot of newer hardware support. · Add uchcom from NetBSD. A driver for WinChipHead CH341/CH340 chips. · Add several drivers for sensorsd: coretemp driver for Intel Core on-die digital thermal sensor from FreeBSD and lm and it drivers for hardware sensors used in many motherboards. · Add experimental bluetooth stack. · Add many new network adapter IDs. · Many network drivers updated & improved. · 802.11 support greatly improved. · Major sound system update. Added drivers, IDs, and fixes from FreeBSD. · AGP support greatly improved, changes primarily taken from FreeBSD. Hardware changes (USB)· Add many new USB device IDs. · Ported uftdi. · USB device attachment sped up considerably. · Geode companion support added to OHCI probe code. · ISA attachment for Adaptec 284X controllers and other significant aic7xxx work. · Improved reliability for high speed USB modems · Improved operation for USB based CD/DVD writers. Userland changes· Switch to gcc41 (4.1.x) as the default compiler. gcc 3.4.x is still available via 'setenv CCVER gcc34'. Scrap binutils 215. · libthread_xu is now the default threading library for the userland. · Threading-related header files moved out of emulation/posix4 and into sys. · Add pkg_search to the base system. pkg_search queries the pkgsrc index for a given package name and display the results. · Add pkg_radd. pkg_radd acts as a wrapper for pkg_add and install binary pkgsrc packages. · Add a pkg_search script to simplify pkgsrc searches. · Add getent from FreeBSD which retrieves and displays entries from the administrative database like passwd. · Add pam_nologin from FreeBSD. · Add bluetooth libraries and btconfig to configure Bluetooth devices. · Fix minor bugs in hog partition ('*') specifications in disklabel. · Add /usr/Makefile containing easy-to-use targets for users to install and maintain DragonFly source and pkgsrc subtrees. · traceroute can now handle MPLS reporting. · Many documentation updates. · DPMS support added to the vesa console module. · Allow VESA mode numbers > 512. · xntpd removed. dntpd is now our official client-side ntpd. · Add lldiv_t, lldiv(), llabs(), imaxdiv() to libc. · Update the 'at' command. · Switch from libreadline to libedit. Contributed Software· less was updated to version 416 · libarchive was updated to version 2.4.8 · libpcap was updated to version 0.9.8 · OpenSSL was updated to version 0.9.8g · OpenSSH was updated to version 4.7p1 · sendmail was updated to version 8.14.2 · tcpdump was updated to version 3.9.8 · openssh was updated to 4.7p1 · tcsh was updated to 6.15.00 · zoneinfo database was synced with tzdata2007k (merged to DragonFly 1.10) · bind was updated to 9.3.4-P1 · diffutils was updated to 2.8.7 · sync libfetch with FreeBSD · wpa_supplicant and hostapd were updated to version 0.5.8 (for 802.11) · gcc was updated to 4.1.x · gdb was updated to 6.7.1 · file was updated to 4.23 · libevent was updated to 1.3e Sub-project progress report· Progress has been made on making more of the kernel MP safe. The network path has a good chance of getting there by the end of the year. The I/O path still needs a lot of work. · A great deal of 64-bit support infrastructure has been brought in but 64-bit isn't operational yet. · The HAMMER filesystem is not quite alpha yet, but well on its way. · DMA introduced - currently in an alpha state. This subsystem will provide local mail delivery and simple outgoing/smarthost mail delivery and allow us to remove sendmail from base.
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