a few problems with newer Hurd versions

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

For quite a while I've been using Hurd from 2022 [1] for testing
various GNU packages, and it's been quite stable.

This week, Samuel invited me to try newer Hurd versions [2].
So, I tried
  - Hurd/i386 from June 2023 [3]
  - Hurd/x86_64 from November 2024 [4].
In all cases, I do that in a VM in VirtualBox.

The only recurring problem with Hurd 2022 was that 'sudo reboot',
'sudo halt', 'sudo shutdown' sometimes worked and sometimes hung.

It's the first time I try Hurd/x86_64, and I find that it behaves
much like Hurd/i386. All gnulib tests that pass in Hurd/i386 also
pass in Hurd/x86_64. Congratulations!

With Hurd 2023 and Hurd 2024 I see three problems, though:

** File system problems

After copying a gnulib testdir (created under Linux through a
command
  $ ./gnulib-tool --create-testdir --dir=../testdir-all --with-c++-tests 
--without-privileged-tests --single-configure `./all-modules`
) to Hurd and building it
  $ ./configure
  make
  make check

when I run 'sync' it hangs. I can interrupt the 'sync' command via
Ctrl-C and restart it, but it then still hangs. I ended up rebooted
anyway, and after reboot an 'fsck' was required. This 'fsck' found
between 17000 and 170000 empty directories (depending on how much time
I had let 'sync' run). The data (built files under testdir-all) was
good, though.

** Networking problems

In the default (NAT) configuration of a VirtualBox VM, in all VMs
so far I could "ssh 10.0.2.2" to log into the VM host. With these
new Hurd VMs, this is not the case - regardless whether I select
a different networking card in VirtualBox.

To work around this, I had to
1. create a dedicated VM that runs only an SSH server, and assign it
   a static IP address,
2. change the Hurd VM's networking configuration from "NAT" to "bridged".
With that, I can run "ssh dedicated-ssh-server" instead of "ssh 10.0.2.2".
But it is quite a clumsy workaround.

** Console problems

In Hurd 2024 many lines (especially before and after a bash prompt)
contain
  ?2024h
or
  ?2024l

Which piece of software is causing this output, and how can I turn it off?

Bruno

[1] 
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/latest/hurd-i386/20220824/debian-sid-hurd-i386-DVD-1.iso
[2] https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=32522
[3] 
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/12.0/hurd-i386/debian-hurd-20230608.img.tar.xz
    = 
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/latest/hurd-i386/debian-hurd-20230608.img.tar.xz
[4] 
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/latest/hurd-amd64/debian-hurd-20241115.img.tar.xz