
Welcome to Fiasco 1.1!
----------------------

Fiasco is a new microkernel intended to be compatible with the L4 microkernel
for x86. It implements the L4 ABI as defined in the L4/x86 Reference Manual,
which can be found at: http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/L4/bib.html

The Fiasco kernel can be used to construct flexible systems. We at TU Dresden
will use it as a base for our DROPS system which supports running real-time
and time-sharing applications concurrently on one computer. However, Fiasco
is not only suitable for big and complex systems, but also for small,
embedded applications.

This distribution contains the Fiasco 1.1 microkernel, plus recent versions
of the following L4 software packages:

sigma0   - The L4 root pager
rmgr     - The L4 resource manager
hello    - A simple L4 application

For your convenience we also provide precompiled binaries from these packages
for all supported architectures and ABIs in the l4/bin/ subdirectories.

Licensing
---------

Fiasco is freely redistributable under the GPL (see l4/kernel/fiasco/COPYING).
For different licensing schemes please contact us at:
  fiasco-core@os.inf.tu-dresden.de

For more details, see our webpage at: http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/fiasco/

Supported architectures and ABIs
--------------------------------

  * IA32 (Intel, AMD and compatible CPUs, i486 and above)
  * ARM  (ARM SA1110 CPU)
  * UX   (Linux usermode emulation of Fiasco/L4)

  The following L4 ABIs are supported:

  * L4/v2 (stable version 2)
  * L4/x0 (experimental version 0)

A list of changes since the last release can be found in the CHANGES file.

Building the Fiasco kernel
--------------------------

To compile Fiasco you need gcc 2.95, 3.2 or 3.3, GNU binutils 2.12 or later,
GNU make and Perl version 5.6 or later. For the configuration tool you also
need Python version 2.

Change to the directory fiasco-1.1/l4/kernel/fiasco/ and optionally modify
the default configuration using "make menuconfig". Then compile the kernel
by typing "make".

The kernel image can then be found in fiasco-1.1/l4/kernel/fiasco/build/.

For further information refer to: http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/fiasco/use.html

Building L4 userland binaries
-----------------------------

If you intend to build your own L4 binaries, you must also unpack the OSKIT
tarball shipped with this version, and you will need flex and byacc. 

Change to the directory fiasco-1.1/l4/ and run "make config" to configure
your settings. Then build the userland packages by typing "make". This will
first compile the OSKIT libraries and then the L4 programs.

The userland binaries can then be found in fiasco-1.1/l4/bin/ subdirectories.

Mailing List
------------

For problem reports and suggestions regarding the Fiasco microkernel,
please subscribe and send mail to the l4-hackers mailing list:
   http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/mailman/listinfo/l4-hackers/

Remote CVS
----------

The latest development versions are available from our Remote-CVS server.
The truly bleeding edge will want to check out daily snapshots from there.
However, be aware that these may not always build or run correctly.

For information how to use Remote-CVS see:
http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/drops/download.html


Enjoy!

The Fiasco Team
