Version 3.4 of GCC is now the default compiler in DragonFly (CURRENT, anyway). This should net more compatibility with other projects that use it, and some degree of greater speeds.
The minor ifconf() security flaw found in FreeBSD affects DragonFly too; however, it’s already fixed.
Matthew Dillon, while examining another problem, added a webstress program, which tests making many, many connections to a http server.
He also committed a related program, wildcardinfo, which lists wildcard hash tables for each CPU in the system.
Joerg Sonnenberger has changed how sound devices are loaded; “device pcm” no longer loads every driver, and a separate command is used to load just one.
Joerg Sonnenberger has removed all the old sound support that dates back to before NEWPCM was added in FreeBSD-4. This probably does not affect anyone, as this is all for old, rare equipment, usually ISA.
Historically, access to devices by anyone other than root has been a slight hassle under BSD. Joerg Anslik’s changes to MAKEDEV have been committed, which, among other things, allows for a /etc/devices.conf that controls individual permissions for different devices, such as the CD drive.
Matthew Dillon has committed changes to the DragonFly CD image, put together by Eduardo Tongson, so that if one is inserted in a computer running Windows, it will autorun a web page with information and links about DragonFly BSD.
YONETANI Tomokazu has already moved on to the next version of Intel’s ACPI code, and committed it.
Joerg Sonnenberger has added firmware support, put together by he and Johannes Hofmann. Does this mean DragonFly could work on specialized hardware? Boot from an EEPROM? I don’t know, but it’s fun to pretend.
A rambling conversation on users@ brought about the idea of a editor that would work under dire circumstances (i.e. /usr missing). A improved version of mined was brought in.
DragonFly now runs CVS version 1.12.11, thanks to Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert.
Things are being added in right and left: Eirik Nygaard has updated ncurses to version 5.4.
YONETANI Tomokazu has brought in Intel’s acpica-20050211 package. That’s power management software, if that’s not familiar.
Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert has committed code from Steve O’Hara-Smith adding improvements to the bktr (TV input) driver, similar to those in FreeBSD, and adding support for newer cards.
If you haven’t guessed from his commits, Joerg Sonnenberger is bringing in the Citrus project from NetBSD, which handles internationalization.
Matthew Dillon has checked in a large update to msfbufs, produced by him and by Hiten Pandya.
Joerg Sonneberger has added ALTQ support from KAME, and removed PC98 support, though that probably affects noone.
The recent libc changes broke ssh, but it’s fixed already. Update and recompile libc to make it work again. Note that if you are following DragonFly_Stable, you won’t have had any of this trouble.
Liam J. Foy’s added a new battd daemon, for battery monitoring. He’s looking for feedback.