Hi Bill, I'm posting this reply with debian-hurd as well as the original addresses. Debian-hurd seems to be the primary HURD help listing. The following URL will get you to mailing list sign-up for debian-hurd and I am including a URL to the debian-hurd mailing list archives and dox page that we do have:
http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/subscribe http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/ http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-doc I would very much like to assist you in your documentation project for HURD, please feel free to contact me. Jim Bill White wrote: > > I would like to start working on the Hurd. > > I have done some initial reading of the FAQs and the manual, and I > am probably going to try to install the Hurd either this weekend or > else next week some time. I am somewhat conflicted as to whether I can > use my main machine for Hurd work, or if I should acquire a second > machine for testing, but that's a question I don't have to answer > right away. > > In any case, I have been looking for a project to get started. Perhaps, > since I have been constrained to reading the documentation, I have seen > it more, but it seems as if the documentation has many places which might > need to be fixed up. I am thinking that spending time on the documentation > might be a good first start. For instance: > o The info documentation for GRUB is somewhat confusing. It took, by > my actual record, about 3 hours for me to understand it sufficiently > to be able to install it, and I am still not clear on some of the > details. I think that some attention to this might be useful. > Of course, it might just be that I am slow, but I suspect not. > o The reference manual seems to have a number of places where it is > marked "FIXME". There are whole sections which are not filled in, > or whose contents are the interface function signatures with no > text. These need to be filled in. > o There are other places in the RefMan where distinctions are made > but not explained. The only example that leaps to my mind right now > is the difference between Buckets and Port Classes. The reference > manual does not have any examples of why one might be preferred over > the other when aggregating ports. There seem to be similar, if not > identical operations on Buckets and Port Classes, so it is not clear > why there is such a distiction. > o There seems to be no obvious architectural documentation. I suspect > that there is, but that it is either old and out of date, or else just > not on the web page anywhere. What I am thinking of for this is > one or more papers which answer these questions: > - What fundamental abstractions does the Hurd provide? > - How do the Hurd abstractions compare to POSIX Unix abstractions? > - What is the functional difference in developing applications for > the Hurd and developing applications for Linux? > - What servers are needed in a running Hurd system? What servers are > only A Good Idea? What servers are Nice To Have? > - Anything else related to servers? How to debug them? How to debug > sets of them? > - What happens when the Hurd Boots? I'm not thinking of how the > boot process works so much, though that's interesting as well. I > haven't read the Multiboot documentation. I'm thinking more of > understanding what the Hurd has which is equivalent to the SysV > init procedure. Also, it is slightly interesting to look further > back in the boot process and understand how the first task is > created. > o There seems to be no tutorial information on installing, using or > developing for the Hurd. For some kinds of applications the Linux > tutorial documentation is probably sufficient. But for developing > Hurd specific artifacts, such as translators, it would help if there > is some sort of easy paper which tells people "This is how we do it, > and this is why." > > Writing documentation also has another advantage. My current employer > seems to talk as if they own my dreams and my children's dreams, and > any marketable dreams of anybody whose last name begins with a W. I > don't think anyone would care about my contributing to the Hurd, as long > as I don't contribute to a graphics application, but I think they would > be hard pressed to complain if I just contributed documentation. > > So, who is currently responsible for the Hurd documentation? I know that > there is someone who spiffed up the RefMan for the 0.3 release, but is there > a project documentation coordinator? Who should I talk to first? > > Thanks. > > P.S. I must admit that I will be somewhat time constrained for the next > month or so. I am trying to reduce my work-for-hire hours to allow for > more time for this, as well as to spend more time with my family. However, > I do still need to work, at least part time. So, it will take some time > to reorder that part of my life.
