Kevux Systems and Software - News - 2023
Author: Kevin Day
Description: News posts for the year 2023.
Keywords: Kevin Day, Kevux, FLL, Featureless, Linux, Library, Distribution, Open-Source, News, 2023

# Year 2023 News

## 2023 / 12 / 31 - FLL 0.6.8 Release

The Featureless Linux Library stable version `0.6.8` is released.

This release is for the start of a new year.

My plans going forward are to attempt to date releases using UTC and I date this release as `Sun 31 Dec 2023 08:52 PM UTC`.

There are not many changes and there are no code-based bug fixes. Only a single bug fix exists and it is in a specification.

This contains mostly specification updates, clarifications, and fixes.

The Payload and Simple Packet specifications have "type" added as a recommended Object in the header section for the Payload. The size of units is rewritten to make more sense in the Payload and Simple Packet specifications. The Payload specification now allows for the "payload" section to be optional.

The most notable code change is the explicit casting of `uint32_t` when doing bit-wise operations for left and right shifting. The goal here is to increase the integrity of the design and not allow any opportunity for the compiler or architecture to use a different size.

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## 2023 / 09 / 07 - FLL 0.6.7 Release

The Featureless Linux Library stable version `0.6.7` is released.

With this release I hope to see a very stable `0.6` release series.

Only a single functional feature is added and then it is a bug fix in the guise of a feature. The Featureless Make program has an oversight in regards to "specify a custom path" within the buid settings paths. I discovered this while working on the TacocaT program in the Kevux Tools project.

A new FSS standard, FSS-0010 "Encrypted Simple Packet", is added. This is generally going to be in the `0.7.x` and greater version

I discovered a regression in the `0.6.6` release and possibly earlier regarding the dependencies in the stand alone builds. This should no longer be a problem as of `0.6.7`.

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## 2023 / 07 / 02 - FLL 0.6.6 Release

The Featureless Linux Library stable version `0.6.6` is released.

This is release is made in celebration of the Fourth of July.

There are about 1500 additional man pages representing the functions in addition to the usual bug fixes. The man pages were sort of generated and then manually fixed. These man pages are considered good enough but are not great. There will likely be a future project to assist in generating man pages that are better than the tools that I currently used.

Of particular note is that I found and fixed problems in the FSS processing code. The comments were not always being processed correctly resulting in actual Content being missed.

The Featureless Make build program has several notable fixes and improvements. The build system has now seen a lot more uses and more corner cases and minor details are addressed. Problems with propogating arguments across builds is now fixed.

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## 2023 / 05 / 06 - Turtle Development

I decided briefly return my focus to Turtle Kevux development following the recent 0.6.5 release of the Featureless Linux Library (FLL). Several good things were discovered. The most notable is that both musl-libc (vesion 1.2.4) and valgrind (version 3.21.0) made some relevant releases. The problems that I have been facing appear to have been resolved. Attempting to boot the kernel revealed some additional problems. These problems are primarily that the display does not display and gives the false impression that the system did not boot.

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## 2023 / 04 / 29 - FLL 0.6.5 Release

The Featureless Linux Library stable version `0.6.5` is released.

This release contains fixes and improvements discovered during daily use and several back ported fixes.

There are several build system improvements to make the project easier to use. Several of the project build scripts are out of date in parameter handling and processing. Proper Featureless Make functionality that is expected to be supported by the boostrapt script is found lacking in a few small ways.

The build setting files and fakefile files in this project should now have some more environment variables added by default. These added environment variables are focused on locale.

Check out the project on the FLL release page.

Continue reading…

## 2023 / 03 / 16 - FLL 0.6.4 Release

The Featureless Linux Library stable version `0.6.4` is released.

Adds the following stand alone programs:

- `controller`
- `fss_identify`
- `iki_read`
- `iki_write`

Copyrights are now displayed when the programs are passed the `+C/++copyright` standardized parameter.

The IKI standard is found to be slightly lacking. There is a strong need for IKI variables immediately after word-characters that are not part of the variable name. The IKI standard and specification is now updated to utilize open bracket '`[`' (`U+005B`) and close bracket '`]`' (`U+005D`), commonly referred to as "wrap" or "wrapping". Such an IKI variable looks like `[vocabulary]:"content"` (as opposed to `vocabulary:"content"`). New functionality is provided to keep this project compliant with the recent changes to the IKI standard and specifications.

A major behavioral bug has been found in the Controller program regarding the "program" operation mode. Solving this the simple way would then break other behavior. To avoid this, a new feature is implemented, called the "helper" operation mode. The "helper" operation mode provides an alternative to "program" operation mode to allow for starting tasks.

Check out the project on the FLL release page.

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## 2023 / 02 / 06 - Turtle and FLL

I am slowly getting back into building the next Turtle Kevux distribution. This distribution is being re-developed in parallel to the Featureless Linux Library. I am testing out the 0.6.x releases of the FLL and the Controller program.

As for the Turtle Kevux distribution, I have the system now booting. I experimented with the trying to build the kernel without the hard disk drivers compiled in. I want to use two initrds such that the first is the filesystem that does not change and the second contains the kernel modules. This will take more time to figure out than I am willing to spend on this. I decided to go back to the old way of booting the system and I am compiling the disk drivers into the kernel.

I can now focus on the Controller program as the Init program with the kernel now booting and with a working initrd (which is actually an initramfs, technically speaking).

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## 2023 / 01 / 14 - FLL 0.6.3 Release

The Featureless Linux Library stable version `0.6.3` is released.

This release contains breaking changes in the Featureless Make program to address functionality that is missing but should, if not must, be available. This primarily adds documentation and fixes a small number of bugs found.

Adds the following stand alone programs:

- `fss_status_code`
- `status_code`

There are now man pages for all of the programs. These are manually crafted.

The Featureless Make program has two new features that are important enough to break the `featureless` concept as an exception to the rule.

The Featureless Make program must be able to install settings files and documentation files. The documentation directory now exists. This is similar to the documents directory but is entirely focused on documentation that is installed onto the system. The documents directory might be synonymous with the standard share directory and the documentation directory might be synonymous with the share/man or share/docs directories.

The FLL install scripts are also updated to handle the installation of the settings and documentation files.

The Feeatureless Make program now supports the ability to specify a named section on the command line to be able to reasonably act as an alternative to GNU Make. It is now possible to create an `install` section. The user could then run `fake install` in a similar manner to how `make install` works. The core reserved words are never run in this way. These core reserved words are `build`, `clean`, `make`, and `skeleton`.

Check out the project on the FLL release page.

Continue reading…