The current daily build only generated complete source code snapshots so far [1]. This has just been completed with the generation of a bootable CD-ROM image [2]. The download page has been updated as well [3].

There are known issues with the CD-ROM image, the most pressing being with modprobe: it is necessary to load the ISO9660 module and mount the filesystem. This is a good motivation to add an implementation of this essential utility to DeforaOS when I get the chance.

[1] https://www.defora.org/download/snapshots/DeforaOS-daily.tar.gz
[2] https://www.defora.org/download/snapshots/DeforaOS-daily.iso
[3] https://www.defora.org/os/wiki/display/2131/Download

I'm in the process of setting up more daily build operations. A new mailing-list is now dedicated to their respective logs: build [1]. The current Linux i686 build logs will also appear there instead.

[1] http://lists.defora.org/

The Surfer web browser [1] is now multi-widget, and offers a lightweight implementation using GtkHtml [2] and GNet [3]. Just like the file browser [4] and the text editor [5], It also features an embedded mode, fitting smaller screens nicely.

You can safely expect packages of more and more software from DeforaOS [6] to be released as soon as I can manage it. They will be available at least for Debian [7] and the Openmoko Freerunner [8], through the hackable:1 distribution [9].

Some packages are already available in the opkg format [10], targeted for the Om2008.x distribution.

[1] https://www.defora.org/os/project/340/Surfer
[2] http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gtkhtml2/
[3] http://www.gnetlibrary.org/
[4] https://www.defora.org/os/project/display/230/Browser
[5] https://www.defora.org/os/project/display/253/Editor
[6] https://www.defora.org/
[7] http://www.debian.org/
[8] http://www.openmoko.org/
[9] http://www.hackable1.org/
[10] http://www.opkg.org/

Long time without news, thankfully it doesn't mean nothing happened at all.

Before I get into more details, I'll start with the daily snapshots [1]. They were broken for a long while apparently: they were missing a lot of files. I believe this is fixed now. Many projects were responsible for this: libc, as, c99, Editor, DaPortal... Their respective archives are fixed as well.

[1] https://www.defora.org/download/snapshots/DeforaOS-daily.tar.gz

The infrastructure behind the Defora project is shuffling a bit. To ease the process, I have decided to create a new authority [1]. The old one is no longer used by any service, please tell me otherwise.

If you want to complete the certification chain, you can obtain the Signing authority here [2], and the Root authority as well [3].

[1] https://www.defora.org/Defora-cacert.crt
[2] https://www.defora.org/Defora%20Signing-cacert.crt
[3] https://www.defora.org/Defora%20Root-cacert.crt

To ease the packaging process, with their respective current source code, both the libSystem [1], Browser [2], Editor [3] and Player [4] have just been tagged 0.1.0 and released so. There is still a lot of work to do on all of them, but I am sure this will help.

The file browser in particular is expected to be adapted to the Openmoko software distribution [5], and packages are being worked on.

[1] http://www.defora.org/os/download/3224/libSystem-0.1.0.tar.gz
[2] http://www.defora.org/os/download/3223/Browser-0.1.0.tar.gz
[3] http://www.defora.org/os/download/3225/Editor-0.1.0.tar.gz
[4] http://www.defora.org/os/download/3228/Player-0.1.0.tar.gz
[5] http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Om2008.8

It has been decided a few weeks ago already [1] that DeforaOS would supply its libc [2] to the Whitix project [3]. A news should have been made here already to announce it, but time was scarce.

One reason for this is because of the infancy of the RunningBear project [4], for which DeforaOS is also supplying its libc and build system [5]. Cooperation should not stop here, and many other components may be developed and shared between the two projects.

The first consequence is the modification of the license terms for the complete DeforaOS project. It is now available again under the GPL license, version 3 [6] as published by the Free Software Foundation [7] (LGPL may eventually apply to library code). This is also thanks to Bearstech [8], who is driving the RunningBear project.

[1] http://www.whitix.org/pipermail/developers/2008-August/000088.html
[2] http://www.defora.org/os/project/14/libc
[3] http://www.whitix.org/
[4] http://runningbear.org/
[5] http://www.defora.org/os/project/browse/11/DeforaOS?file=/build.sh,v
[6] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt
[7] http://www.fsf.org/
[8] http://bearstech.com/

As announced on my blog [1], an unofficial DeforaOS image for the Openmoko is now available [2].

It was generated by the new build script [3], which has been slightly extended to be more flexible [4], while requiring less information from the user to function properly.

[1] http://people.defora.org/~khorben/200809.html#20080903150741
[2] http://people.defora.org/~khorben/temp/DeforaOS/deforaos-openmoko-rootfs.jffs2
[3] https://www.defora.org/os/news/2150/New-build-script
[4] https://www.defora.org/os/project/browse/11?file=/Apps/Devel/src/scripts/targets

For some time now, the libc had been also maintained in a separate branch, "khorben-libdl". Its aim was to experiment with dynamic object loading before the code would be any useful. Even though it is still far from being complete, the branch can be closed, which is good news.

Still about the libc, I have had the chance to port it to the ASU environment provided by Openmoko [2], on Linux/ARM. The shell and utilities are mostly working now, and I will continue work on extending this platform's support.

[1] http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Toolchain
[2] http://openmoko.org/

To ease the compilation of the system, I have decided to add a script at the root of the source tree [1]. It is actually inspired from its equivalent from NetBSD.

It would be even nicer to make it more flexible regarding the different platforms that are supported. In the meantime, I'll provide examples for useful situations.

[1] https://www.defora.org/os/project/browse/11?file=/build.sh,v