LibGTop 1.1.0 (developer's snapshot) has been released

[Martin Baulig <martin home-of-linux org>]

Hello guys,

LibGTop 1.1.0 "One Day before Sunrise" has been released.

This is a developer's snapshot from the current CVS and is not intended for
people who want a stable LibGTop.

However, if you want to either help with LibGTop development, or simply test
things out, this release should be a good starting point.

* About the LibGTop snapshot releases

  LibGTop is currently branched in CVS - the `LIBGTOP_STABLE_1_0' branch
  should be used for everyone who wants to have a stable LibGTop while the
  head should only be used by developers and people who want to help LibGTop
  development.

  However, to give more people the chance to use the results of latest LibGTop
  development, I'll periodically make snapshot releases from the HEAD when it's
  stable for some time.

  Even if they may not be as stable as LibGTop 1.0.x, there are good chances
  that you get a stable LibGTop with all the lastest additions such as the
  Solaris port of the new sysctl () based interface to the Linux kernel.

* Availability:

  The tarball is called libgtop-1.1.0.tar.gz can can be found at:

	ftp://ftp.home-of-linux.org/pub/libgtop/1.1.0
	ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/libgtop

  Can can also get LibGTop 1.1.0 from the GNOME CVS Tree; there are tags
  which you can use:

	LIBGTOP_1_1_0		- this is the 1.1.0 release
	HEAD			- this is release has been made
				  from the HEAD

* Important changes between LibGTop 1.0.x and 1.1.x

  - Solaris: This is the first release of LibGTop which contains the
             new Solaris port (read below for details).

  - Linux: There's a new experimental sysctl () based kernel interface.
           (read below for details).

  - You can now use `libgtop-config --cflags --libs` on the compiler command
    line to compile and link a LibGTop application (see ChangeLog).

  - Added some new features (see the ChangeLog and the header files).

* The Solaris port (aka what gave this release its name)

  Due to the good work of Drazen Kazar and some other people, this release
  contains a first version of a new Solaris port for LibGTop.

  I tested it on SunOS 5.7 (alias Solaris 7) and he pointed out that it also
  works under other Solaris systems.

  This is just a snapshot release of the current CVS - so please test it out
  yourself if you want to ...

* The Linux sysctl () kernel interface

  I wrote a new sysctl () based kernel interface. This is a lot faster than
  reading from /proc (see misc/timings for some timings I made some time ago).

  You can find the kernel code in the `kernel/sysctl' directory:

  - copy the contents of this directory to /usr/src/linux/libgtop
  - apply the `patch-2.2.1' (tested with kernel 2.2.1; if newer versions
    require different patches, feel free to add them to CVS)
  - do a `make config' (make sure to enable the "experimental" option) and
    enable the "LibGTop support" option (you can also use this as a module)
  - compile, install and boot your new kernel
  - reconfigure LibGTop with the --with-linux-sysctl option

  This kernel interface is basically ready for use and I'm using it on my
  home machine without problems since a couple of weeks - I just had not yet
  found the time to write a public announcement ...

* How you can help

  The BSD part of LibGTop requires some kind of "maintainer". This should
  be ideally be a person who is familar with most of the supported BSD
  versions (such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and BSDI) who wants to help
  with that port. For me it's very difficult to maintain this port since
  I'm not running BSD all the time and I don't have the time and the power
  to test LibGTop on all the supported BSD systems.

  I'm happy for each bug fix here, but it's really difficult to maintain
  this port. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

* Thanks

  At this place, I'd like to thank especially Drazen Kazar for his work on
  the Solaris port of LibGTop.

-- 
Martin Baulig - martin@home-of-linux.org - http://www.home-of-linux.org