Hi, For quite a while I've been using Hurd from 2022 [1] for testing various GNU packages, and it's been quite stable.
This week, Samuel invited me to try newer Hurd versions [2]. So, I tried - Hurd/i386 from June 2023 [3] - Hurd/x86_64 from November 2024 [4]. In all cases, I do that in a VM in VirtualBox. The only recurring problem with Hurd 2022 was that 'sudo reboot', 'sudo halt', 'sudo shutdown' sometimes worked and sometimes hung. It's the first time I try Hurd/x86_64, and I find that it behaves much like Hurd/i386. All gnulib tests that pass in Hurd/i386 also pass in Hurd/x86_64. Congratulations! With Hurd 2023 and Hurd 2024 I see three problems, though: ** File system problems After copying a gnulib testdir (created under Linux through a command $ ./gnulib-tool --create-testdir --dir=../testdir-all --with-c++-tests --without-privileged-tests --single-configure `./all-modules` ) to Hurd and building it $ ./configure make make check when I run 'sync' it hangs. I can interrupt the 'sync' command via Ctrl-C and restart it, but it then still hangs. I ended up rebooted anyway, and after reboot an 'fsck' was required. This 'fsck' found between 17000 and 170000 empty directories (depending on how much time I had let 'sync' run). The data (built files under testdir-all) was good, though. ** Networking problems In the default (NAT) configuration of a VirtualBox VM, in all VMs so far I could "ssh 10.0.2.2" to log into the VM host. With these new Hurd VMs, this is not the case - regardless whether I select a different networking card in VirtualBox. To work around this, I had to 1. create a dedicated VM that runs only an SSH server, and assign it a static IP address, 2. change the Hurd VM's networking configuration from "NAT" to "bridged". With that, I can run "ssh dedicated-ssh-server" instead of "ssh 10.0.2.2". But it is quite a clumsy workaround. ** Console problems In Hurd 2024 many lines (especially before and after a bash prompt) contain ?2024h or ?2024l Which piece of software is causing this output, and how can I turn it off? Bruno [1] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/latest/hurd-i386/20220824/debian-sid-hurd-i386-DVD-1.iso [2] https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=32522 [3] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/12.0/hurd-i386/debian-hurd-20230608.img.tar.xz = https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/latest/hurd-i386/debian-hurd-20230608.img.tar.xz [4] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/latest/hurd-amd64/debian-hurd-20241115.img.tar.xz
