Implimenting New Linux System Calls

[Lance Gilbert]

Hi there, I'm new to the list, so excuse me if I bring up some topics which 
have been previously covered. (I just briefly looked through the mail 
archive)

I have been working fairly extensively with the Linux emulation in FreeBSD 
over the past few months, primarily to get WineX 3.x working correctly under 
it.

What concerns me, is that according to the response of 'uname -a' under Linux 
emulation, (chrooted) the implimentation is only at Linux kernel 2.4.2. With 
Linux already at 2.6.x and much later versions of 2.4.x, it would seem that 
FreeBSD's Linux emualation has started to fall behind in terms of syscalls.

For example, I recently built a linux_base-Fedora port for myself. It uses a 
newer version of glibc then pervious linux_base. (glibc-2.3.2-101) As a 
result, even some simple commands like 'ls' core dump as a result of 
unimplemented system calls from newer linux kernels. I have tracked down the 
missing system call in question here, and it is an issue in 
"__pthread_initialize_minimal" from libpthread. (libpthread is provided by 
glibc)

Point and case being, if things like 'ls' are core dumping now due to a lack 
of updated system calls, how long until this trend renders Linux Emulation 
useless, and what effect will the movement to 2.6 have here?

Not to be completely glom-and-doom, I have started investigating the design of 
the Linux Emulation kernel module in order to start implimenting these calls 
myself, in an aim to keep it continually current with the current released 
Linux kernel.

Is there already a team assigned to this task, or if not, would it perhaps be 
wise to start a project aimed at maintaining this?

If anyone else is interested, I am also looking at the current state of 
linprocfs, and the challenges involved with updating that, especially given 
the fact that in 2.6 proc has changed fairly substantially. (Has there been 
any thought about how to manage 2.6 support while not breaking 2.4 support at 
this point?)

My apologies for the long winded mail. Please feel free to respond to this on, 
or off list to me.

-- 
Thanks,
Lance Gilbert
IT Department Head
The Front Networks
<Lance at thefrontnetworks.net>