DiscoBSD 2.2 released: February 29, 2024
--- DiscoBSD 2.2 RELEASED ---
DiscoBSD 2.2 Released
February 29, 2024
DiscoBSD 2.2 is released.
This is the third official release of DiscoBSD, the multi-platform
2.11BSD-based operating system for microcontrollers.
DiscoBSD 2.2 offers ports to two different microcontroller platforms:
- DiscoBSD/stm32 - STM32F4 family of 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4
microcontrollers from STMicroelectronics - DiscoBSD/pic32 - PIC32MX7 family of 32-bit MIPS32 M4K
microcontrollers from Microchip
DiscoBSD/stm32, unique only to DiscoBSD, offers a familiar BSD
environment on the many available STM32F4 development boards.
DiscoBSD/pic32, inherited from RetroBSD, offers a familiar BSD
environment on the many available PIC32MX7 development boards,
as well as full use with the included VirtualMIPS PIC32 simulator.
A nearly-complete development environment is included in DiscoBSD.
There are: various text editors and compilers, a MIPS assembler and
MIPS linker, and many more programming languages in addition to C
and asm, such as Scheme, BASIC, Forth, RetroForth, lex, yacc, and TCL.
Examples are provided in the file system at /usr/share/examples.
As a descendant of 2.11BSD, DiscoBSD inherits the strong BSD heritage.
The userland is powerful, full-featured, and comfortable to competent
UNIX users, as it is derived from the rich 4.3BSD-Tahoe userland, modern
implementations of classic utilities, and improvements along the way.
Install, build, and debug instructions can be found in the README files.
Significant Changes and Improvements
New Features
- Unprivileged builds, with our own version of install(1) in /tools.
- Imported and ported the Plan 9 versions of dc(1), bc(1), and lex(1).
- as(1) can assemble files that include the MIPS .module directive.
Filesystem
- More general cleanup from the file system reorganization.
Build System
Continuing the overhaul of the source tree and build system.
- Both BSD make and GNU make are fully supported.
- FreeBSD's version of make requires MAKESYSPATH set.
- Added machine-specific Makefile.inc files for debugging.
- Manual pages specify DiscoBSD as operating system name.
- Use ${INSTALL} throughout the source tree.
- tools/binstall is OpenBSD install(1), with an implementation of
the -U unprivileged option inspired from NetBSD install(1) . - Use the new tools/binstall for unprivileged builds and installs.
- System build Makefile from target.mk to share/mk/sys.mk.
- OpenBSD-style OSMAJOR, OSMINOR in share/mk/sys.mk.
Kernel
- Proper BSD-style kernel version string, for each architecture.
- KERN_OSTYPE, KERN_OSRELEASE, and KERN_OSVERSION
sysctls updated. E.g., DiscoBSD, 2.2, and F412GDISCO#5. - Kernel versioning unified; driven by /sys/conf/newvers.sh.
- Clean up some ifdefs between architectures for ELF.
- Clean up uname(3) and struct field lengths to 256.
DiscoBSD/stm32 Specific Improvements
- Enable new Plan 9 /usr/bin/lex for DiscoBSD/stm32.
- Add lex examples in /usr/share/examples/lex.
- Use the common /sys/conf/newvers.sh kernel shell script.
- Update to latest NetBSD Arm version of elf_machdep.h.
DiscoBSD/pic32 Specific Improvements
- Use the common /sys/conf/newvers.sh kernel shell script.
- Update to latest NetBSD MIPS version of elf_machdep.h.
- Fix many implicit int warnings.
- Enable -fcommon for MIPS kernel builds.
Bugfixes and Corrections
- Numerous K&R -> ANSI fixes.
- Newer compilers exposed many unsafe structures,
and they were promptly remedied. - Many updates concerning hierarchy changes.
- Steady improvements and corrections in games.
- Steady improvements and corrections in libraries.
- Manual page fixes and improvements.
Host Development Environment
While DiscoBSD is primarily developed and tested on OpenBSD,
Linux and FreeBSD are also supported as host environments.
These host development environments have been tested:
OpenBSD 7.3
- Host compiler Clang 13.0.0
- BSD make and GNU make
- DiscoBSD/stm32
- arm-none-eabi-gcc 7.4.1
- DiscoBSD/pic32
- Custom port of mips-elf-gcc 4.8.1
OpenBSD 6.8
- Host compiler GCC 4.2.1
- Host compiler GCC 8.4.0
- Host compiler Clang 10.0.1
- BSD make and GNU make
- DiscoBSD/stm32
- arm-none-eabi-gcc 7.4.1
- DiscoBSD/pic32
- Custom port of mips-elf-gcc 4.8.1
Ubuntu 23.04
- Host compiler GCC 12.3.0
- Host compiler Clang 15.0.7
- BSD make and GNU make
- DiscoBSD/stm32
- arm-none-eabi-gcc 12.2.1
- arm-none-eabi-gcc 10.3
- DiscoBSD/pic32
- Untested
Ubuntu 18.04
- Host compiler GCC 9.2.1
- BSD make and GNU make
- DiscoBSD/stm32
- arm-none-eabi-gcc 7.3.1
- DiscoBSD/pic32
- Custom compilation of mips-elf-gcc 4.8.1
FreeBSD 13.2
- Host compiler Clang 14.0.5
- BSD make (with MAKESYSPATH set) and GNU make
- DiscoBSD/stm32
- arm-none-eabi-gcc 10.3.1
- DiscoBSD/pic32
- Untested
