This one is a testing release, is quite buggy, and is targeted to the OSDev.org community with their real hardware and unique emulator configurations. We prefer you try this release on real hardware so we can find the most bugs.
Where do I get it from?
You can get the release image from the http://pedigree-project.org/projects/pe ... ilestone_1 page on the project website.
Any more Information? Changelog or something?
The page above has everything you need to know - a change log, information about the release itself, and the rationale for making this release.
What is Pedigree?
The Pedigree Project aims to develop a solid yet portable operating system from the ground up with an object oriented architecture where possible. The goal is to support multiple different subsystems to allow many different applications to run natively on Pedigree. Further goals include portability across multiple different architectures (x86, amd64, PPC, MIPS and ARM), a unique graphical user interface, and support for a variety of popular driver interfaces to improve hardware support.
Pedigree began life in early 2008.
Who develops Pedigree?
Originally the team consisted of James Molloy (JamesM), Jörg Pfähler (bluecode, who left the project in early 2009, but wrote a significant amount of core code in the kernel before he left), and Matthew Iselin (pcmattman). JamesM left the project during 2009 and Eduard Burtescu (eddyb) has made a significant contribution to Pedigree since JamesM left.
The current team is pcmattman and eddyb.
As was said for the last release: this has truly been a team effort, and without the unique combination of the various skills presented by each member of the team, and the massive time investment, this release would not have been possible.
What is a Milestone Release?
We have chosen to release this milestone version of Pedigree as a specific set of features has been implemented, namely:
- A level of USB support (UHCI and EHCI, OHCI to an extent)
- A new graphics framework
Any Known Issues?
Yes, absolutely!
The following is a list of things we know are faulty and buggy, but haven't had the time or hardware to test.
- EHCI does not work in VirtualBox, and is relatively unreliable on some hardware.
- UHCI is unreliable on some hardware.
- OHCI is completely untested on real hardware.
- ATA disk detection is still hit-and-miss on real hardware.
- Several of the applications on the image, such as Python, may not work reliably (recent changes to some of the packages).
- Pedigree does not run well on systems with less than 256 MB of RAM. Reducing the memory footprint is something we're looking at, but not overly concerned about at the moment.
What are Foster's key features?
Foster's key features include:
- Powerful text-based user interface with support for multiple consoles and Freetype font rendering.
- POSIX subsystem capable of running Apache and Python (though Apache is not available for use in Foster)
- Graphics framework and an SDL port
- USB stack supporting EHCI, UHCI and OHCI to varying degrees.
- TCP/IP network stack with the standard Berkeley sockets interface for applications
The easiest way is to visit the issue tracker, sign up, and file a new issue. Your feedback and bug reports help us improve our system, so by all means file report anything you run into. If however you do not wish to sign up on another website, or you cannot for some reason, you can contact the development team directly in #pedigree on irc.freenode.net.
How do I Enter/Use the Debugger?
When something goes wrong with Pedigree, you'll be thrown into the kernel debugger. This appears initially as a blank screen with blue text, saying something along the lines of "Press any key to enter the debugger". The rest of the message might be anything from "Page Fault" to "Breakpoint Exception".
Once you are in the debugger you should type 'backtrace', and take a screenshot or note the top 3 or 4 functions. This should be posted with any bug report. You should then type 'log' and take the last 5-20 log messages and add them to your bug report. This helps us identify the context of a bug and saves us asking more questions of you.
We've had a lot of fun developing Foster, and we hope you'll have a lot of fun using it.
-- The Pedigree Team
