Visopsys 0.82 released

[andymc]

Hello again,

I've been hard at work on new features for the 0.9 release (largely network-related) and I've been back-porting a lot of good changes to the 0.8 branch. It's about time to release something, so here's version 0.82:

Overview: This maintenance version features a small number of user-visible improvements and added functionality, plus polish and bug fixes, but much more in terms of refactoring and fixing existing capabilities (particularly of the nascent networking code) and at the developer level.

Download page: https://visopsys.org/download/
Changelog page: https://visopsys.org/download/change-log/

[ronaldlees]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the update (.82). I'm going to try it this evening.

It looks like you're working on layer two networking code. Is the DHCP client far along? Any projections as to milestones in the higher level network stack?

[andymc]

Hi Andy,

Hi Ron!

Thanks for the update (.82). I'm going to try it this evening.

Great, hope it works well for you. There's a good chance you won't notice much difference from 0.81 at the user experience level, but there are plenty of quality improvements. Oh, and thank you!

It looks like you're working on layer two networking code. Is the DHCP client far along? Any projections as to milestones in the higher level network stack?

All of the Ethernet, ARP, DHCP, ICMP, IPv4, and UDP sources are being kept up-to-date in the 0.8 branch (should work?! Including DHCP). At the moment the only network stuff I'm holding back for 0.9 is DNS and TCP. By 0.9, I'm hoping that the system will be fairly usable as a network client, at least. There'll probably be another 0.8x release in a month or so, and hopefully 0.9 before the end of the year. We'll see. I work on this most every night, but some nights I have more time than others (parenting a toddler, doing chores - trying to prevent the wife from going insane).

[ronaldlees]

Andy, you've made some very interesting improvements in v.82. Wow! Attached my little test from a minute ago, run on an Odroid QEMU (ARM) setup.



Needless to say: great work!

- Ron

[ronaldlees]

Was able to put Visopsys on QEMU virtual hard drive, after I laid down the MBR explicitly in partitioner. Maybe that's what I was sometimes doing incorrectly in the past - anyway, it works. Here's the bottom of the kernel log:

[andymc]

Cool, so I guess QEMU also has a virtual PcNet network device? That's the only implemented NIC driver at the moment, and I use that because that's what VmWare has. Obviously I need to add some more . But cool if QEMU has it.

[ronaldlees]

I should mention that my Odroid-XU4/Gentoo QEMU emulator setup is version 2.11.0. Anyway, the first time I tried the network with QEMU + Visopsys, I used the realtek 8139 driver, which Visopsys didn't recognize. I remembered, from looking at the source code, that you had a Lance driver in there. So (I guess AMD/PcNet is Lance derived?) - I changed the command line to use PcNet, and all was good.

Qemu supports: e1000, eepro100, lance, ne2000, pcnet, rtl8139, lan9118, smc91c111 as well as some others I didn't put in my notes.

For some reason, the "lance" driver didn't work, so I used pcnet which sticks in my mind as a derivative, but I'm not sure.

[andymc]

Yes, I believe that PcNet is derived from Lance. The driver was named Lance for a while, but all the specs I could find at the time were AMD ones, and so the driver is coded to look for PCI IDs from the AMD devices. The original original version was written by a fellow named Jonas and he seemed to target AMD. It's possible that a few tweaks could get it to work with a virtual Lance device, but I'd want to get my hands on a spec before attempting that.

Some of those QEMU ones are familiar names - might be useful for developing more drivers. I also have physical specimens of some of those, I think.

But in the meantime, one working driver is enough to build the network stack. Glad it's not only available in VmWare.

[ronaldlees]

Yeah - I use QEMU, since I'm kind of a free software nut. I have pictures of RMS all over my house. Kidding!

[andymc]

LOL RMS .. that kooky guy.

OK smart guy, but if you locked me and him in a room for a day, pretty sure I'd come out with a self-inflicted head-wound.