Working with Debian GNU/kFreeBSD (was Re: FreeBSD problems and preliminary ways to solve)

[Pedro F. Giffuni]

--- On Fri, 8/19/11, Rick Macklem <rmacklem at uoguelph.ca> wrote:
...
> 
> One thing I thought I'd bring up (since I haven't seen it
> mentioned yet) is Debian GNU/kFreeBSD. I haven't tried it,
> so I'm talking through my hat a bunch, but...
>

Oh, yes ... the "others" ... ;).

This kFreeBSD vs. Linux comparison is very interesting:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=debian_kfreebsd_h210&num=1

They seem to be doing pretty well but they still have
some issues that are important for some debian packages:
- No alsa
- Still using the older userland linux threads.
- Systemd is becoming popular but is linux specific.

Having the kernel X.Org stuff would help them too.

The guys there are actually eager to work with us
but they don't know well the ways around our standards
and development process.

For some stuff I was working on, Robert Millan pointed
me to these patches for system headers:
http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/glibc-bsd/trunk/kfreebsd-kernel-headers/debian/patches/

They require a lot of cleaning but it would be a good
starting point.

Another possibility could be to work together on
a launchd port, but that's a completely different topic and I
am not sure there's interest.

cheers,

Pedro.