# GNU Hurd GNU Hurd This is one page of public article previews, not the complete archive. Follow Next page to continue. Summaries are not the original full articles. ## GNU Hurd Q2 2026 development updates DevFeed: [GNU Hurd Q2 2026 development updates]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2026-07-03T20:32:51Z Content type: news Language: en Sources: [GNU Hurd]() Topics: [Code](), [POSIX](), [SVG](), [GitHub](), [virtio](), [Kernel](), [Wiki]() Tags: [2026](), [code](), [crash](), [cross-compilation](), [posix](), [servers](), [svg](), [virtio](), [wiki]() ### AI overview A quarterly GNU Hurd development update covering a public 9pfs repository with basic file browsing and reading support, additional write support, POSIX-related validation, bug fixes, cross-compilation work, Rust translator development, and planned dynamic device population. ### Source excerpt Hello and welcome to another Qoth! Here's what's been happening in Q2 of 2026! Joshua Branson added a pretty cool svg logo for our ethernet multiplexor. He built that image with Inkscape whilst using a Hurd laptop (Thinkpad 420) running on real iron! The Hurd wiki could certainly use more artwork. Perhaps you have a favorite Hurd translator that you believes needs some artwork! Sergey Bugaev announced his WIP 9pfs (source code), and it has a wiki page! He writes: Some years ago, I experimented with implementing a 9P translator for the Hurd. Hopefully there is no need to tell this list what 9P is :) Besides just browsing files on the few existing servers out there, a potential use case is virtio-9p, to enable shared directory trees between VMs and the host. But that would need someone to implement virtio support in the Hurd. I wanted to complete 9pfs before publishing, but that ultimately didn't happen, so now it's time to turn it over to the community. I now went and made the repository public on GitHub: https://github.com/bugaevc/9pfs What's implemented is basic browsing (readdir, stat), path resolution (dir_lookup), and reading files (io_read). And below that, the whole tracking for nodes, peropens, protids, fids, tags, and 9p RPCs. Improvements are welcome, send patches to this list with [PATCH 9pfs] in the subject. A good starting point would be to continue porting things that I had implemented in the old netfs-based version (see netfs.c) but didn't yet port to the new one. He then got a little more motivated, and he added some write support! Etienne Brateau added validation to msync, so that the Hurd better follows POSIX. Diego Nieto Cid worked on allowing privileged users to set their task priority (nice value). His patches landed in glibc and GNU Mach. He also fixed a tiny bug in our test suite. He fixed an adjtime bug, which is helpful to the OpenNTPD port, and he fixed two more bugs. Paulo Duarte sent a RFC patch series trying to commit Sergey's previous AA ## Gentoo GNU/Hurd Released with QEMU Boot Image Build Scripts DevFeed: [Gentoo GNU/Hurd Released with QEMU Boot Image Build Scripts]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2026-04-01T00:00:00Z Content type: release Language: en Sources: [GNU Hurd]() Topics: [GNU/Hurd](), [Unix](), [Kernel](), [qemu]() Tags: [2026](), [announcement](), [distributed](), [gnu-hurd](), [ipc](), [linux](), [qemu](), [replacement](), [unix]() ### AI overview Gentoo GNU/Hurd has been released. The announcement points to scripts for building a working image that can boot in QEMU and describes GNU Hurd as a replacement for the Unix kernel. ### Source excerpt Gentoo GNU/Hurd released! Details. " The year is 2026 and Gentoo is perhaps ready for an advanced kernel: the GNU Hurd. [...] Scripts to build a working image that can be booted in QEMU can be found at https://codeberg.org/thesamesam/gentoo-hurd (will move that to Gentoo infra). " Read the announcement email. The GNU Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux). More detailed. GNU Mach is the microkernel upon which a GNU Hurd system is based. It provides an Inter Process Communication (IPC) mechanism that the Hurd uses to define interfaces for implementing in a distributed multi-server fashion the services a traditional operating system kernel provides. More detailed. ## GNU/Hurd developments and fixes in Q1 2026 DevFeed: [GNU/Hurd developments and fixes in Q1 2026]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2026-03-02T06:07:00Z Content type: news Language: en Sources: [GNU Hurd]() Topics: [GNU/Hurd](), [Linux](), [kernels](), [Debian](), [bug](), [C](), [Deadlock](), [Documentation](), [Claude](), [qemu]() Tags: [2026](), [bug](), [c](), [claude](), [deadlock](), [debian](), [documentation](), [gnu-hurd](), [hardware](), [linux](), [qemu]() ### AI overview A Q1 2026 GNU/Hurd project update reports debugging and fixes across SMP, threading, filesystem, IPC, networking, and related components, along with wiki documentation and hardware-installation guidance. ### Source excerpt Hello! Welcome to a new qoth. This qoth covers new and interesting GNU/Hurd developments in Q1 of 2026! Details. Brent W. Baccala debugged some x86_64 SMP issues with a Claude AI bot. The bot did not contribute any code. It just found some incorrect code that Damien then fixed. It did get some things wrong, but it was incredibly helpful pointing out several problems. You can read its report here. Joshua Branson tweaked the hurd wiki. The most helpful addition is this page, which documents how to flash a working qemu hurd image directly to an HDD or SSD. This is a really easy way to install the Hurd on real hardware! Buy a supported machine from this page and give it a shot! Consider this another reminder that the Hurd project could use more documentation writers. It's an easy way to contribute. As a fun fact, Joshua wrote this qoth on the Hurd running on a T420 with 12 GB of RAM! Running Debian GNU/Hurd on bare metal these days is largely fairly stable. Emacs, i3, netsurf, and luakit all work just fine and most of the Debian package archive compiles without issue on the Hurd. Etienne Brateau fixed a compilation error. He also provided a simple test program that exposed a rather serious threading bug, which Samuel promptly fixed. This is a good reminder that writing simple C test programs that successfully run on Linux, but fail on the Hurd can have a large impact. Gianluca Cannata worked on our httpfs translator. Diego Nieto Cid added a daemon-wait option for console-client. This can help users with slow machines avoid a broken Hurd console. He also fixed a rumpdisk compilation issue. Mike Kelley fixed a deadlock in SMP enabled GNU Mach kernels. He also fixed a page fault in amd64 SMP kernels. He fixed another deadlock in the alarm () function. He fixed a panic when running large builds without the mach-defpager. He also fixed some of our signal related code. He worked with Samuel to investigate an odd bug. Their detailed investigation uncovered and lead to a fix in ## GNU/Hurd development updates for Q4 2025 DevFeed: [GNU/Hurd development updates for Q4 2025]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2026-01-02T06:07:00Z Content type: news Language: en Sources: [GNU Hurd]() Topics: [Development](), [lwIP](), [Network](), [Ethernet]() Tags: [2025](), [ethernet](), [ipv4](), [lwip](), [network](), [porting]() ### AI overview The Q4 2025 GNU/Hurd update reports progress on porting dhcpcd, including IPv4 and Ethernet support over lwIP, while noting limitations such as the lack of IPv6 and unfinished interface-change notifications. It also covers GNU Mach timeout improvements, interrupt and rumpnet fixes, and progress on SMP support. ### Source excerpt Hello! Welcome to a new qoth. This qoth covers new and interesting GNU/Hurd developments in Q4 of 2025! Details. Joan Lledó worked on porting dhcpcd to the hurd. He also made some changes so that lwip would work with dhcpcd. In this message he writes: This is the current state of the port: Support only for IPv4. IPv6 not supported yet. It works only over lwip. First, because dhcpcd requires some definitions from headers and pfinet doesn't provide them AFAIK, but lwip provide the headers through the liblwip-dev package. Second, because both pfinet and lwip need changes in the translator in order to be fully compatible with dhcpcd, and I made the changes in lwip since I know it better. Only Ethernet is supported. This is because the Hurd doesn't define AF_LINK so dhcpcd can't get any data from the interface other thant what is returned by getifaddrs(). I'm manually providing the MAC address and hardcoding the interface type to Ethernet in the if_init function. I assume this is correct because the Hurd only supports ethernet interfaces AFAIK. dhcpcd monitors the interfaces and gets notified when there are changes in routes or network configurations. This is not working yet for the Hurd. dhcpcd implements some privilege separation by which the process spawns new processes that run as a non-privileged user. Or that's what I understood. It's not implemented for the Hurd because I've deferred this for now. Access to BPF is provided by libpcap. libpcap and liblwip-dev are dependencies for the Hurd. This has been tested only in a 32-bit Hurd. Damien Zammit worked on fixing some interrupt bugs in the acpi server. He also made some fixes for rumpnet. He also worked on adding a callwheel to GNU Mach's clock. This would make GNU Mach faster in certain ways. He writes: Timeouts are now very fast to look up, at the expense of more memory, a much shorter list is traversed rather than all of them. See [1]. Timeouts that are stopped before expiry are now faster to remove, and inserti ## Debian GNU/Hurd 2025 Released as an Official GNU/Hurd Port Snapshot DevFeed: [Debian GNU/Hurd 2025 Released as an Official GNU/Hurd Port Snapshot]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2025-08-10T00:00:00Z Content type: release Language: en Sources: [GNU Hurd]() Topics: [Debian](), [systems]() Tags: [2025](), [debian](), [gnu-hurd](), [kernels](), [release](), [unix]() ### AI overview Debian GNU/Hurd 2025 is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release based mostly on Debian sid sources from the stable Debian Trixie release in August 2025. It is not an official Debian release. GNU Hurd is described as a collection of servers running on the Mach microkernel to provide services traditionally implemented by a Unix kernel. ### Source excerpt Debian GNU/Hurd 2025 released! Details. It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2025. This is a snapshot of Debian "sid" at the time of the stable Debian "Trixie" release (Auguest 2025), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release. Before posting questions on various webnews, please read [the FAQ][faq] which will answer most if not all of them. For release details, please read the announcement email. The GNU Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux). More detailed. GNU Mach is the microkernel upon which a GNU Hurd system is based. It provides an Inter Process Communication (IPC) mechanism that the Hurd uses to define interfaces for implementing in a distributed multi-server fashion the services a traditional operating system kernel provides. More detailed. ## GNU/Hurd development update for Q2 2024 DevFeed: [GNU/Hurd development update for Q2 2024]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2024-06-27T06:07:00Z Content type: news Language: en Sources: [GNU Hurd]() Topics: [GNU/Hurd](), [Debian](), [gcc](), [Compiler](), [Unix](), [test](), [Hardware]() Tags: [compiler](), [debian](), [gcc](), [gnu-hurd](), [hardware](), [ssh](), [tests](), [unix]() ### AI overview A Q2 2024 update on GNU/Hurd development covers the AArch64 GNU Mach port, merged GCC support for compiling GNU/Hurd programs on AArch64, bug fixes and tests, experimental SMP support, Rust compiler availability, and Debian package compatibility. ### Source excerpt Hello! Welcome to a new qoth. This qoth covers new and interesting GNU/Hurd developments in Q2 of 2024! Details. Sergey Bugaev committed public headers for the GNU Mach AArch64 port. He writes that ...there is now a real port of GNU Mach to AArch64, using these headers as its actual API/ABI. We got the Mach port to run glibc, several Hurd servers, and simple Unix programs, including things like fork/exec and signal delivery & handling working, which exercises these architecture-specific definitions (thread state & exceptions). We have also managed to do some testing on real hardware; although not everything is working yet, we have seen thread state manipulation & Mach handling an unaligned SP fault work as expected. His email also mentions that the GCC patches that enable GCC to compile GNU/Hurd programs on AArch64 have been merged! This apparently will make it easier to merge his AArch64 specific glibc patches. He also added new tests to check that threads handle signals well, and he also fixed a use-after-free in vmmappageable_scan(). He also hosted a lengthy Hurd code jam (apologies for the poor audio quality). He also very notably added support to copy a send once right to Mach and MIG. Some time ago, Sergey also wrote the [terrible-mdns-responder][hurd/terrible-mdns-responder], and if you would like to be able to type in ssh HOSTNAME.local and connect to a locally running Hurd, then you may want to try it! Flávio Cruz fixed some issues with the Hurd compiling on GCC 14. Luca Dariz fixed message sizes, where the size was not set by userspace, and he added another test to check message sizes on various code paths. Debian GNU/Hurd now offers an experimental SMP GNU Mach kernel (32-bit only) and the official rustc compiler! Now that we have ported rustc to Debian GNU/Hurd, we can compile important packages like librsvg. Debian GNU/Hurd now can compile 71% of the packages from the Debian archive. Now for something trivial but fun! I updated the guide on the Hurd wik ## GNU/Hurd development updates for Q1 2024 DevFeed: [GNU/Hurd development updates for Q1 2024]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2024-04-05T11:07:00Z Content type: news Language: en Sources: [GNU Hurd]() Topics: [GNU/Hurd](), [gdb](), [qemu]() Tags: [compiler](), [gdb](), [gnu-hurd](), [qemu](), [test]() ### AI overview The Q1 2024 GNU/Hurd update reports work on keyboard layout support, 64-bit and AArch64 porting, GDB and glibc changes, SMP support, hardware support, testing with QEMU, and a new Alpine-based Hurd distribution in development. ### Source excerpt Hello! Welcome to a new qoth. This qoth covers new and interesting GNU/Hurd developments in Q1 of 2024! Details. Etienne Brateau modified console-client to use xkbcommon instead of x11 for xkb extended support, which improves keyboard layout coverage a lot! Flavio Cruz also worked on porting GDB to the 64-bit Hurd, implemented setcontext/getcontext/makecontext/swapcontex () in glibc, and implemented child process resource accounting. The latter implementsgetrusage(RUSAGE_CHILDREN, ) and populates child related data in times(). He fixed the perl testsuite for the Hurd, and he also posted a RFC to enhance tracing utilities, which he used to port the RPC format to 64 bit. Flavio also had a smattering of fixes here, here, here, here, and here. Damien Zammit had some fixes including fixing the console with APIC enabled, patching GNU Mach to support ACPI v2, fixing baud rate on com ports, porting the Hurd to some AMD CPUs (WIP), adding HPET (high precision timers). He also worked on making ext2fs use xattr by default to store translators. Damien also worked on more SMP fixes here, here, here, here, here, and here. Hurd currently boots in SMP mode on the BSP. Damien wrote a test program that lets you run a task on the APs. Sergey Bugaev patched binutils to support the GNU/Hurd on AArch64, and he wrote some patches to make the Hurd easier to port here, here, and here, Sergey also posted a fairly large RFC patch series for his AArch64 port. He writes: MIG seems to just work (thanks to all of Flávio's work!). I'm using the same message ABI as on x86_64, and haven't seen any issues so far -- neither compiler errors / failed static assertions (about struct sizes and such), nor hardware errors from misaligned accesses. He also mentions that "the hardware hardening features (BTI, MTE, PAC) are currently 'not really supported', but I do want to support them in the future." Samuel merged many of the patches. In Sergey's later glibc patch series, he wrote about the AArch64 port progr ## GNU/Hurd development updates from Q4 2023 DevFeed: [GNU/Hurd development updates from Q4 2023]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2024-01-05T22:22:00Z Content type: news Language: en Sources: [GNU Hurd]() Topics: [gcc](), [Linux](), [CI/CD](), [Testing](), [qemu](), [x86](), [Kernel](), [make]() Tags: [continuous-integration](), [gcc](), [kernel](), [linux](), [make](), [qemu](), [testing](), [x86]() ### AI overview A quarterly update on GNU/Hurd development describes GCC and GNU Mach improvements, proposed continuous integration, expanded testing across environments, x86_64 build infrastructure, IPC changes, and efforts to improve browser support. ### Source excerpt Hello! Welcome to a new qoth. This qoth covers new and interesting GNU/Hurd developments in Q4 of 2023! Details. Samuel Thibault fixed gcc's Hurd's default pie and added static pie support. He also added a whatis command to GNU Mach's kernel debugger, which can determine what an address points to (a stack? a port? some kalloc? ...). He also added hurd-amd64 support to GCC. Samuel requested that the Hurd team set up a continuous integration, so that when developers make code changes, they can be certain that they did not break anything. It turns out that the Hurd supports several different environments: 32 bit, 64 bit, 32-on-64 bit, ACPI, non-ACPI, SMP, non-SMP, Xen, etc. Apparently Flavio has a personal CI, but it is set up in a Debian independent way. If you are interested in helping the Hurd project set up a CI, then please get in touch! Luca Dariz worked on adding some simple GNU Mach user-space tests . With a working MiG, a GNU/Linux machine can run make check in the GNU Mach source code, which will launch qemu to ensure that 32 bit (PAE and non PAE), 32 on 64 bit, and full 64 bit GNU Mach works. We currently do this testing on GNU/Linux, because qemu does not run on the Hurd. Many people worked on the Hurd's new x86_64 bit support. A 64-bit debian buildd is set up, and we can bootstrap a chroot! The hurd-amd64 wanna-build infrastructure is also set up. We are having issues reliably building packages on a 64-bit Hurd, which lead Samuel to uncover and fix a proc leak. Flavio Cruz improved GNU Mach's IPC by reordering mach_msg_type_t fields to byte align msgt_name and msgt_size. He also created a patch series to avoid message resizing for x86_64. He also removed untyped mach RPC code. GNU Mach uses typed IPC. The Hurd could support both typed and untyped, but it appears that the Hurd only uses typed RPC. So it seems best to remove any untyped RPC code. Sergey Bugaev added GNU Mach entry re-coalescing support. Essentially, Mach was not always able to merge two vm e ## GNU/Hurd Development Updates for Q3 2023 DevFeed: [GNU/Hurd Development Updates for Q3 2023]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2024-01-01T22:22:00Z Content type: news Language: en Sources: [GNU Hurd]() Topics: [systems](), [Git](), [Rust](), [Debian](), [x86](), [networking](), [debugging](), [Remote Procedure Call (RPC)]() Tags: [debian](), [debugging](), [git](), [networking](), [patches](), [rpc](), [rust](), [x86-64]() ### AI overview A quarterly update on GNU/Hurd development in Q3 2023, covering PCI arbiter changes, Rust porting, PAE work, progress on the X86_64 port, build fixes, networking and dpkg fixes, and debugging-tool limitations. ### Source excerpt Hello! Welcome to a new qoth. This qoth covers new and interesting GNU/Hurd developments in Q3 of 2023! Details. Joan Lledo modified the PCI arbiter to prevent mapping I/O region files. He previously sent some patches to implement mapping region and ROM files using mmap(). However, a BAR region can represent either memory or I/O space, and only memory should be allowed to be mapped. Since I/O BARs only contain I/O addresses, he went ahead and prevented the mapping of I/O region files. The next step is to make IO spaces available for users through the pci-arbiter. He plans to add a new RPC that checks for permission and calls i386_io_perm_create(). Then it returns the resulting port. Our Google summer of code student Vedant Tewari decided to port rust, and the rust porting effort is making good progress. The build process is a bit wonky, and Debian is using an older rust version. Check out the rust pull request that adds Hurd support! Samuel worked on setting up PAE, which will eventually let us use more than 4GB of RAM on a 32-bit Hurd! It is also useful for the X86_64 architecture. He also fixed the jemalloc build. Samuel was incredibly productive this quarter making the X86_64 bit port more stable. He fixed the 64-bit Hurd PIE build, and he got git working on the 64-bit port! Though a few of the git tests are failing on both X86_64 and the 32 bit port. He fixed the glibc build, which involved fixing pmap_remove and pmap_protect. He discovered that core dumping is currently causing problems on the 64-bit port, and he temporarily encourages people to disable core dumping. Samuel fixed some networking issues and a dpkg issue for the 64-bit port. It was hard to discover what the problem was, because the debugging tools have not been ported to the 64-bit port. He add some helpers to locking to fix some bugs, and he encourages other developers to help him fix the debugging tools for X86-64. It seems that most developers are currently running the 64-bit Hurd in a virtual ## 2023-06-11-debian gnu hurd 2023 DevFeed: [2023-06-11-debian gnu hurd 2023]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2023-06-11T00:00:00Z Content type: release Language: en Sources: [GNU Hurd]() Topics: [Debian](), [Unix](), [systems]() Tags: [debian](), [gnu-hurd](), [release](), [snapshot](), [unix]() ### AI overview The Debian GNU/Hurd team announced Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, an official GNU/Hurd port release based mostly on Debian sid sources at the time of Debian bookworm's June 2023 release. It is not an official Debian release. ### Source excerpt Debian GNU/Hurd 2023 released! Details. It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2023. This is a snapshot of Debian "sid" at the time of the stable Debian "bookworm" release (June 2023), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release. Read the announcement email. The GNU Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux). More detailed. GNU Mach is the microkernel upon which a GNU Hurd system is based. It provides an Inter Process Communication (IPC) mechanism that the Hurd uses to define interfaces for implementing in a distributed multi-server fashion the services a traditional operating system kernel provides. More detailed.