Project:Hurd - Gentoo wiki
Jump to:
content
Project:Hurd
From Gentoo Wiki
Jump to:navigation
Jump to:search
GNU/Hurd Project
Description
Porting Gentoo to the Hurd
Project email
hurd@gentoo.org
Packages
p.g.o/hurd@gentoo.org
IRC channel
#gentoo-hurd
webchat
Bugs
Related bugs
Lead(s)
Sam James
(sam)
Chief Boffin
Last elected: 2026-04-01
Member(s)
Christopher Fore
(csfore)
Boffin
Andreas K. Hüttel
(dilfridge)
Boffin
Subproject(s)
(and inherited member(s))
(none)
Parent Project
Gentoo
Project listing
The GNU/Hurd project works to bring Gentoo to the GNU Hurd.
Contents
Background
Status
Getting started
3.1
Cross-compilation
3.2
Booting
Notes
Team
5.1
Project members who are not Gentoo developers
External resources
Background
The Hurd has a legendary status, being developed around the same time as the Linux kernel that readers will be familiar with, but Linux took off while the Hurd wasn't so lucky.
It has a different design: it is a
microkernel
, meaning as little code as possible is run in kernel space, and as much as possible is delegated to userland.
This means that a bad kernel driver (say, for WiFi) can't crash the whole system. It makes developing easier too, as a debugger can be attached to any process without locking up the machine.
With the Hurd, the kernel doesn't need to know anything about a filesystem. Everything is like Linux's
Filesystem in Userspace
(FUSE). There's no need to reboot to add support for a particular feature and no need to ask the administrator to enable something.
Hardware support is always a problem for new kernels, especially with how advanced today's devices are. The old approach for Hurd was to import (now old) Linux drivers into
sys-kernel/gnumach
, but this doesn't scale both to the number of devices to be supported or with the rate of Linux changes. The approach today is to instead embrace NetBSD's
sys-kernel/rumpkernel
where its drivers can be run in userland.
It's also just good fun. One has the familiar GNU userland and the unfamiliar kernel. Explore!
Status
Lots to be done! Best to use a VM, but folks have booted Gentoo GNU/Hurd on real hardware too.
amd64
support exists in Gentoo but it is less stable so far than
x86
. For first experiences with the Hurd, we recommend trying
x86
, then graduate to
amd64
if brave.
There's a
TODO
in the scripts repository.
Getting started
Cross-compilation
Crossdev
now supports cross-compilation to the Hurd. The two target tuples are:
i686-gnu
x86
x86_64-gnu
amd64
To build a cross-toolchain, follow these steps:
root
emerge --sync
root
emerge -n app-eselect/eselect-repository sys-devel/crossdev
root
eselect repository create crossdev
root
crossdev -t i686-gnu -oS gentoo
Arbitrary packages can then be cross-compiled for the Hurd with
i686-gnu-emerge
or
x86_64-gnu-emerge
respectively.
Booting
Gentoo GNU/Hurd can be tested using a pre-prepared disk image. The easiest way to do this is with QEMU. For x86-64, use
root
wget
root
wget
root
gpg --verify hurd-x86_64-preview.qcow2.sig hurd-x86_64-preview.qcow2
root
qemu-system-x86_64 -drive file=hurd-x86_64-preview.qcow2,format=qcow2 -m 4G -net user,hostfwd=tcp:127.0.0.1:2222-:2222 -net nic,model=e1000 --enable-kvm -M q35
For i686, use
root
wget
root
wget
root
gpg --verify hurd-i686-preview.qcow2.sig hurd-i686-preview.qcow2
root
qemu-system-i386 -drive file=hurd-i686-preview.qcow2,format=qcow2 -m 2G -net user,hostfwd=tcp:127.0.0.1:2222-:2222 -net nic,model=ne2k_pci --enable-kvm -M q35
Note that the virtual ethernet card uses different simulated hardware (e1000 for x86_64/rumpnet, ne2k_pci for i686).
To log in, input
login root
, then use
gnuhurdrox
as the password.
Upon logging in, run
./setup-net.sh
and
/etc/init.d/sshd restart
to get SSH. Connect
via
ssh -p 2222 root@127.0.0.1
on the host.
The image can be created locally using the
mkhurd.sh
script in the
gentoo-hurd
repository.
Notes
The Hurd website gets pretty regular updates, but the
Recent changes
tab doesn't reflect this.
hurd/web.git
can be used to
track
changes.
Images produced default to using rumpdisk wd* devices even for
x86
(Debian only does it for
amd64
). This can be changed by editing the grub.cfg to remove
noide
and by adjusting
root=
/etc/fstab
and a
MAKEDEV
call in the scripts may need tweaking too for the traditional Mach IDE drivers which present devices as hd*.
Team
Project members who are not Gentoo developers
Member
Nick
Role
Hyland B.
nekobro
Boffin
External resources
Official announcement on gentoo-dev mailing list
Gentoo GNU/Hurd
announcement post on gentoo.org
gentoo-hurd
scripts to build a bootable image
Retrieved from "
Category
Gentoo Projects