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Hurd Orientation


From: Neal H Walfield
Subject: Hurd Orientation
Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2001 23:28:02 -0500

                          Welcome to the Hurd
                          ===================

Welcome to the Hurd.  This email is automatically sent at the begining
of each month to the help-hurd@gnu.org and debian-hurd@lists.debian.org
mailing lists.  This message is intended for a quick orientation to new
users.

What is the Hurd?
-----------------

The Hurd is GNU's Multiserver Microkernel operating system.  It is
designed with the intention of fixing many of the flaws in *nix.  What
are these flaws?  The arbitrary limits that it imposes on the user:
there is not a whole lot that a user can do without special privileges.
Consider an NFS filesystem.  Only root can mount this on a traditional
*nix system.  Why is this?  It is not that NFS accesses anything
dangerous, at least, it is no more dangerous than ftp.  However, as a
portion of the NFS code lives in the kernel, this presents a potential
security problem.  In the Hurd, a user can transparently mount a NFS
filesystem directly into their home directory without affecting the
security of the system as a whole.  And this is only the tip of the
iceberg.

Getting Started
---------------

Installation Guides can be found at the following locations:

        http://web.walfield.org/papers/hurd-installation-guide/
        http://www.pick.ucam.org/~mcv21/hurd.html

You can find out about ISO images at:

        http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-cd

They come with a modified version of the Debian boot floppies making
installation relatively simple.

GNU Mach uses the drivers found in the Linux 2.0.x kernel.  Note, there
is no support for PCMCIA.  Here is a HCL:

        http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/hacking/hurd/hurd-hardware.html

Mailing Lists:

  - bug-hurd@gnu.org:  Hurd and Mach development.
  - help-hurd@gnu.org: General Hurd questions.
  - web-hurd@gnu.org:  Maintenance of the hurd webpages at
                       http://hurd.gnu.org.
  - debian-hurd@lists.debian.org: All things related to Debian GNU/Hurd
                       (especially porting issues).

Subscribe in the usual fashion.

The Hurd FAQ:

        http://web.walfield.org/papers/hurd-faq/

Contributions
-------------

A common question is: how can I contribute?  There are many tasks that
need to be done:

  - Help update the web pages at hurd.gnu.org.  Contact
    web-hurd@gnu.org.
  - Write documentation.
  - Port applications.  Contact debian-hurd@lists.debian.org.  Look at 
    http://people.debian.org/~jbailey/turtle/group/Debian/index.html
  - Write code.  Contact bug-hurd@gnu.org.  Look at:
    http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-devel-tasks, <hurd>/tasks
    and <hurd>/TODO
  - Send feedback.  This is, of course, the most important task of all:
    Help us help others.

Happy Hacking.



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