Martin Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Hello, > > I'm receiving regularly the new packages from debian (and I'm happy of > it). > But recently there is a new set of packages named 'debian hurd-i386'. > What is the meaning of this set ? Are the files listed for Gnu HURD ? > Is there a debian distribution of it ? I don't understand as the files > are from slink/* which is for Linux ?!
Right now, Debian is a GNU/Linux system. That is, it distributes a lot of free programs running on top of the (free) Linux kernel. Some people call this a Linux system, since the kernel is pretty important. Some kernel hackers would like to try different kernels, but like the cool (free) programs that Debian packages. So people are trying to create a Debian GNU/Hurd distribution; that is, give an alternative kernel (the Hurd) for people to try. Think MkLinux/PPCLinux. One of the reasonable goals is to allow this kernel to run vanilla Linux binaries, so it's not a huge change unless you like doing cool kernel things. Oh, and it's pretty rough right now. Andrew s/free/OpenSource(TM)/ above.
