I recently joined a hurd mailing list. I received this mail in a that list. I want it to share with you. It is a good small introduction to HURD OS.

Welcome to the Hurd ===================

Welcome to the Hurd. This email is automatically sent at the begining of each month to the help-hurd@gnu.org and debian-hurd@lists.debian.org mailing lists. This message is intended for a quick orientation to new users.

What is the Hurd? -----------------

The Hurd is GNU's Multiserver Microkernel operating system. It is designed with the intention of fixing many of the flaws in *nix. What are these flaws? The arbitrary limits that it imposes on the user: there is not a whole lot that a user can do without special privileges. Consider an NFS filesystem. Only root can mount this on a traditional *nix system. Why is this? It is not that NFS accesses anything dangerous, at least, it is no more dangerous than ftp. However, as a portion of the NFS code lives in the kernel, this presents a potential security problem. In the Hurd, a user can transparently mount a NFS filesystem directly into their home directory without affecting the security of the system as a whole. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Getting Started ---------------

Installation Guides can be found at the following locations:

http://web.walfield.org/papers/hurd-installation-guide/

You can find out about ISO images at:

http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-cd

They come with a modified version of the Debian boot floppies making installation relatively simple.

GNU Mach uses the drivers found in the Linux 2.0.x kernel. Note, there is no support for PCMCIA. Here is a HCL:

http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/hacking/hurd/hurd-hardware.html

Mailing Lists:

- bug-hurd@gnu.org: Hurd and Mach development. - help-hurd@gnu.org: General Hurd questions. - web-hurd@gnu.org: Maintenance of the hurd webpages at http://hurd.gnu.org. - debian-hurd@lists.debian.org: All things related to Debian GNU/Hurd (especially porting issues).

Subscribe in the usual fashion.

The Hurd FAQ:

http://web.walfield.org/papers/hurd-faq/

Contributions -------------

A common question is: how can I contribute? There are many tasks that need to be done:

- Help update the web pages at hurd.gnu.org. Contact web-hurd@gnu.org. - Write documentation. - Port applications. Contact debian-hurd@lists.debian.org. Look at http://people.debian.org/~jbailey/turtle/group/Debian/index.html - Write code. Contact bug-hurd@gnu.org. Look at: http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-devel-tasks, <hurd>/tasks and <hurd>/TODO - Send feedback. This is, of course, the most important task of all: Help us help others.

Happy Hacking.