--- a/www/downloads/README	Thu Aug 20 20:18:46 2009 -0500
+++ b/www/downloads/README	Thu Aug 20 22:48:42 2009 -0500
@@ -1,101 +1,96 @@
-A note about building old versions under Ubuntu 7.04 or later:
---------------------------------------------------------------
+The downloads directory contains the Firmware Linux build scripts, which is
+the source code for the FWL project.  If you would like to build your own
+cross compiler or target system image from source, use these build scripts.
+They're written in bash and should be fairly easy to read.
 
-  Ubuntu 7.04 broke the /bin/sh symlink to point to the Defective Annoying
-  Shell (dash), which can't run the FWL scripts.
-
-  FWL 0.2.2 and later work around this bug in Ubuntu by explicitly saying
-  #!/bin/bash at the start of each script.  To build older FWL versions
-  under new Ubuntu versions, you'll have to change the "#!/bin/sh" lines
-  at the start of each FWL script to say "#!/bin/bash" instead.
+If you want to download prebuilt binary cross compilers or system images,
+see the downloads/binaries directory (which has its own README).
 
-  Here's one way to do that:
-    sed -i 's@^#!/bin/sh$@#!/bin/bash@' *.sh
+These scripts include the following stages:
+
+  build.sh ARCH
 
-  Other Linux distributions do not exhibit this bug.  (Even MacOS X has
-  /bin/sh point to bash, despite using a different login shell by default.)
+    Top level wrapper script, calls the others in sequence.  Requires one
+    argument, which is the target platform to build for.  When run without
+    arguments, it lists available architectures.
 
-  Also note that User Mode Linux 2.6.20 and earlier no longer build on a modern
-  system because the field aio_reserved3 went away in /usr/include.  (Yes, the
-  API exported to userspace, as used by Linux itself, is unstable.)  Attempts
-  to build older FWL versions need to either fix that, or skip building UML.
+    Several environment variables can be set to control its behavior, see
+    the file "configure" for details.
 
-  The oldest version that builds unmodified on an ubuntu 7.10 system is
-  FWL 0.3.0.  You can also install an older distro under qemu, and build the
-  older versions under that.  The Red Hat 9 image available from
-  http://busybox.net/downloads/qemu should build all the versions before 0.3.0.
+    You can invoke the other scripts in sequence if you like, but this is
+    generally the one you use to do everything else.
+
+  download.sh
 
-Contents of the Firmware Linux download directory.
---------------------------------------------------
-
-Source tarballs:
+    Uses wget to download the source code required by the later build stages,
+    saving it in the "packages" directory.  It compares the sha1 checksum
+    of any existing tarballs to an expected value, only downloading new
+    source tarballs when it needs to.
 
-  The firmware-* tarballs contain build scripts which produce a uClibc-based
-  cross compiler and native build environment for various target platforms.
-  Run "./build.sh" to see a list of target platforms, and run "./build.sh $ARCH"
-  to build for a given target platform.  Old versions of the build script
-  tarballs are there for historical reasons; the newest version is probably
-  always the one you want.
+    If the primary site is down, it checks a series of fallback mirrors.
+    The environment variable PREFERRED_MIRROR can insert a new mirror at
+    the start of the list, which is checked before even the official website.
+
+    This script is not target-specific, and only needs to be called once
+    when building multiple architectures.
 
-binaries/cross-compiler:
+  host-tools.sh
 
-  The "binaries/cross-compiler" directory contains "host-i686" and "host-x86_64"
-  directories which contain prebuilt cross compilers which run on the
-  appropriate type of host.  The i686 versions were built under Ubuntu 6.06 and
-  the x86_64 versions were built under Ubuntu 7.04.  Each was built using the
-  newest release version of the build scripts, and when you run the build
-  yourself these tarballs should be created in the "build" directory.
+    Sanitizes the host environment by building known versions of needed tools
+    from source code, then restricting the $PATH to just those tools.  This is
+    an optional step which can be skipped, but without it the build process
+    is very brittle.
 
-  Each cross-compiler-$ARCH tarball contains a compiler toolchain which
-  produces binaries or the given platform, linked against uClibc.  (If you
-  just want to build uClibc binaries on an x86 host, use the toolchain in
-  binaries/cross-compiler/host-i686/cross-compiler-i686.tar.bz2.)
+    This step serves a similar purpose to the temporary system built by Linux
+    From Scratch's chapter 5, isolating the new system from variations in the
+    host.  It also acts as an early check that the resulting system images
+    offer a sufficient development environment to rebuild themselves from
+    source, because the host tool versions used to build them in the first
+    place are the same ones the scripts install into the target root filesystem.
+
+    This script populates the "build/host" directory, which is automatically
+    used by later stages if it exists.  It is not target specific, and only
+    needs to be run once when building multiple architectures.
 
-  To use one of these compilers, extract the tarball and use the "$ARCH-gcc"
-  binary as your compiler, which is located in the "bin" subdirectory.  You
-  might find it convenient to add that to your $PATH.  (All the headers and
-  libraries for the target are located relative to $ARCH-gcc, so you can
-  extract the tarball anywhere you like, and move the directory it creates
-  anywhere, but don't move stuff around within that directory.)
+  cross-compiler.sh ARCH
+
+    Creates a cross compiler for the selected target architecture, built from
+    gcc, binutils, uClibc, and the Linux kernel headers.
 
-  Note: This cross compiler is small and simple and only supports C.  The
-  native compiler in mini-native supports C++ as well.
-
-binaries/mini-native:
+    The resulting compiler is assembled in build/cross-compiler-ARCH and
+    then packaged as an adjacent tarball of the same name.
 
-  Each mini-native-$ARCH tarball contains a minimal native root filesystem
-  for the given platform.  This filesystem is organized as a Linux From
-  Scratch style /tools directory containing uClibc, a compiler, and basic
-  system tools (mostly busybox), designed to boot with the kernel arguments
-  "init=/tools/bin/sh PATH=/tools/bin".
+  root-filesystem.sh ARCH
+
+    Creates a root filesystem mfor the target, built from busybox and
+    uClibc.  Adds to it a native compiler built from the same packages as
+    the cross compiler, plus the packages make, bash, and distcc.
 
-  This filesystem contains a native version of gcc, which builds stuff relative
-  to / (not to /tools), so in order to run the compiled programs either symlink
-  /lib to /tools/lib, start by building and installing uClibc, or statically
-  link the programs you build.  For more information, see
-  http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/chapter06/chapter06.html
+    This step uses the cross compiler built in the previous step.  It
+    assembles the new filesystem in the build/root-filesystem-ARCH directory,
+    then packages it as an adjacent tarball of the same name.
+
+  system-image.sh ARCH
 
-binaries/system-image:
-
-  This directory contains tarballs with five files per target architecture:
+    Package up the root filesystem into a filesystem image (ext2, squashfs,
+    or initramfs), build a Linux kernel configured for the target, and
+    generate a wrapper script capable of invoking an appropriate emulator
+    (generally qemu).
 
-  image-$ARCH.ext2.bz2: a bzipped ext2 filesystem image containing the
-  files from the corresponding mini-native tarball.  Run bunzip2 on this before
-  using it.
+    The system images are generated in build/system-image-ARCH directory,
+    and packaged as a tarball of the same name.
 
-  zImage-$ARCH: a bootable Linux kernel configured for use with QEMU.
+  run-from-build.sh ARCH
 
-  run-emulator.sh: shell script that attempts to boot the corresponding ext2
-  filesystem image and Linux kernel zImage files under the emulator QEMU
-  (version 0.9.1 or newer).  The script expects to find both files in the
-  current directory.
+    Boot up a system image under its emulator, with full native development
+    environment options (a 2 gigabyte /dev/hdb mounted on /home and distcc
+    calling out to the appropriate cross compiler).
 
-  run-with-home.sh: shell script that creates an empty 2 gigabyte ext2 image
-  named hdb.img, to act as a second hard drive for the emulator to mount on
-  /home.  It then calls run-emulator.sh.  (It will not recreate the image if it
-  already exists.)
+    Note that targets with the hw- prefix are aimed at actual hardware, and do
+    not have an emulator configured.  Hardware targets are derived from an
+    existing architecture, repackaging the other architecture's root filesystem
+    with a different Linux kernel configuration.
 
-  run-with-distcc.sh: a shell script that runs a distcc server hooked up to
-  the cross compiler for this architecture, and calls run-with-home.sh with
-  extra environment variables so the development environment inside the
-  emulator can call out to the cross compiler for extra speed.
+The wrapper script buildall.sh runs build.sh on every available target,
+with extra configure options to produce additional optional stages such as
+statically linked cross and native compilers.

--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/www/downloads/binaries/README	Thu Aug 20 22:48:42 2009 -0500
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+The downloads/binaries directory contains prebuilt binary images, created by
+running ./buildall.sh in the most recent Firmware Linux source tarball.  The
+source packages for these binaries are mirrored at
+"http://impactlinux.com/fwl/mirror".
+
+The following tarballs are found here:
+
+cross-compiler-ARCH.tar.bz2
+
+  Statically linked cross compilers which creates target binaries for
+  a given architecture (linked against uClibc).
+
+  To use, extract this tarball and add its "bin" subdirectory to your $PATH,
+  then use the appropriate ARCH-gcc as your compiler name.
+
+cross-static-ARCH.tar.bz2
+
+  Same as the above cross-compiler tarballs, only built to run on an i686
+  host and statically linked (against uClibc, this time on the host) for
+  maximum portability between PC Linux distributions.
+
+  These versions include uClibc++, to support C++.  Note that the i686 and
+  x86_64 targeted cross compilers allow you to build binaries linked against
+  uClibc/uClibc++ with minimal preparation.
+
+root-filesystem-ARCH.tar.bz2
+
+  Native Linux root filesystem for a given target, suitable for chrooting into
+  (on appropriate hardware) or packaging up into a bootable system image.  It
+  contains busybox, uClibc, a simple boot script (usr/sbin/init.sh), and a
+  native toolchain with which to build additional target binaries from source.
+
+native-compiler-ARCH.tar.bz2
+
+  Statically linked version of the native compiler from root-filesystem,
+  which you can extract and run on an appropriate target the same way you
+  can extract and run the cross-compiler on the host.
+
+  You don't need this when using FWL's root filesystem images, it provides
+  a native compiler for use with existing target filesystems.  Again,
+  linking binaries against uClibc/uClibc++.
+
+system-image-ARCH.tar.bz2
+
+  Prepackaged bootable system images image for each target.
+
+  This includes the above root-filesystem files (packaged as either ext2 or
+  squashfs filesystem images), an appropriately configured Linux kernel,
+  and a wrapper script to invoke the emulator QEMU on them.  Running the
+  wrapper script should produce a shell prompt on the emulator's stdin/stdout
+  connected to the emulated system's /dev/console.
+
+  This allows you to compile additional packages natively, generally under
+  QEMU.  (Just wget the source tarball and build it normally.)  See the file
+  "run-from-build.sh" in the FWL source tarball for an example of how to set
+  up a working native development environment with a writeable 2 gigabyte
+  disk image (mounted on /home) and optionally use distcc to call out to the
+  cross compiler to accelerate the native builds.

--- a/www/index.html	Thu Aug 20 20:18:46 2009 -0500
+++ b/www/index.html	Thu Aug 20 22:48:42 2009 -0500
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 <!--#include file="header.html" -->
 
-<h2><a href=news.html>News: 0.9.6 release April 2, 2009</a></h2>
+<h2><a href=news.html>News: 0.9.7 released August 20, 2009</a></h2>
 
 <b><h1><a href=documentation.html>What is Firmware Linux?</a></h1></b>
 
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 Linux development environment for each target, runnable on real hardware or
 under emulators such as <a href=http://qemu.org>QEMU</a>.</p>
 
-<p>Currently supported targets include arm, mips, powerpc, and x86, x86-64.
+<p>Currently supported targets include arm, mips, powerpc, x86, and x86-64.
 Partial support is available for sparc, sh4, and m68k.</p>
 
 <p>For more information, see <a href=documentation.html>the documentation
@@ -24,49 +24,30 @@
 <blockquote>
 <b><h2><a href=downloads>Source Code</a></h2></b>
 <p>The current source tarball is
-<a href=downloads/firmware-0.9.6.tar.bz2>Firmware Linux version 0.9.6</a>.
+<a href=downloads/firmware-0.9.7.tar.bz2>Firmware Linux version 0.9.7</a>.
 This is the series of shell scripts you run to create the various binary
 images.  See the <a href=downloads/README>README</a> for usage instructions,
 and the <a href=news.html>release notes</a>.</p>
 
 <p>Several <a href=downloads/binaries>prebuilt binary images</a>
-are available, based on the current Firmware Linux release.</p>
-
-<b><h2><a href=downloads/binaries/system-image>System Images</a></h2></b>
-
-<p>System images provide a complete native development environment, based
-on seven packages: Linux, uClibc, BusyBox, binutils, gcc, make, and bash.
-(The build also uses the toybox, genext2fs, uClibc++, and distcc packages, but
-does not depend on them to achieve a self-hosting OS image.)</p>
+are available, based on the current Firmware Linux release.  The
+<a href=downloads/README>README</a> describes each tarball.  The
+release notes on the <a href=news.html>news page</a> explain recent
+changes.</p>
 
-<p>System image tarballs contain an ext2 root filesystem image and a kernel
-configured to boot under the emulator QEMU.  Use the "./run-emulator.sh"
-script to use qemu to emulate the appropriate target system, giving you a
-shell prompt within the native development environment.  (Type "exit" when
-finished.)</p>
-
-<b><h2><a href=downloads/binaries/mini-native>Root filesystem tarballs</a></h2></b>
-
-<p>If you prefer to package your own filesystem images, or use QEMU's
-application emulation mode, you can download each target's root filesystem
-packaged in a tarball.</p>
-
-<b><h2><a href=downloads/binaries/cross-compiler>Cross compilers</h2></a></b>
-
-<p>Prebuilt binary cross compilers for use on <a href=downloads/binaries/cross-compiler/host-i686>i686</a> or <a href=downloads/binaries/cross-compiler/host-x86_64>x86-64</a> hosts.</p>
 </blockquote>
 
 <b><h1><a href=/hg/firmware>Development</a></h1></b>
 
 <p>The project maintains a <a href=/hg/firmware>development repository</a>
 using the Mercurial source control system.  This includes RSS feeds for
-<a href=http://landley.net/hg/hgwebdir.cgi/firmware/rss-log>each checkin</a>
-and for <a href=http://landley.net/hg/hgwebdir.cgi/firmware/rss-tags>new releases</a>.</p>
+<a href=/hg/firmware/rss-log>each checkin</a>
+and for <a href=/hg/firmware/rss-tags>new releases</a>.</p>
 
 <p>Questions about Firmware Linux should be addressed to the project's
-<a href=http://www2.them.com:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firmware>mailing
-list</a>, the IRC channel #firmware on irc.freenode.org.  The project
-maintainer's <a href=/notes.html>blog</a> often includes notes about
+<a href=http://lists.impactlinux.com/listinfo.cgi/firmware-impactlinux.com>mailing
+list</a>, or the IRC channel #firmware on irc.freenode.org.  The project
+maintainer's <a href=http://landley.net/notes.html>blog</a> often includes notes about
 ongoing Firmware Linux development.</p>
 
 <!--#include file="footer.html" -->

--- a/www/news.html	Thu Aug 20 20:18:46 2009 -0500
+++ b/www/news.html	Thu Aug 20 22:48:42 2009 -0500
@@ -1,6 +1,241 @@
 <!--#include file="header.html" -->
+
 <b><h1>News</h1></b>
 
+<h2>August 20, 2009</h2>
+<p><a href=downloads/firmware-0.9.7.tar.bz2>Version 0.9.7</a> is out, a little
+over a month and a half late.  It's a larger update than usual, so the
+release notes are a bit long.</p>
+
+<p>This release is based on
+<a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/firmware/log/807>mercurial version 807</a>
+of the build scripts,
+and includes <b>Linux 2.6.30.4</b> and <b>BusyBox 1.14.3</b>.
+No new uClibc release is out since last time.</p>
+
+<p>Lots of little bugs got fixed.  For example, this release should build on
+Fedora 11 (and any other platform that hasn't got "which" installed by
+default), and now supports distcc and ccache on the host (and will use them
+automatically if they are installed).</p>
+
+<h3><b>Changes to build stages: new root-filesystem, cross-static, and
+native-compiler tarballs, upgraded buildall.sh and smoketest-all.sh.</b></h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>The old "mini-native" stage has been renamed "root-filesystem"
+(the same way package-mini-native became system-image last release).  The
+script names (and resulting tarballs) now indicate what each stage makes.
+So build.sh calls host-tools.sh, cross-compiler.sh, root-filesystem.sh,
+and system-image.sh, in that order.</p>
+
+<p>Th old build-static-toolchains.sh script is gone, with its functionality
+integrated into buildall.sh (which now builds i686 hosted static toolchains
+for each target by default).  This is implemented by two new environment
+variables triggering optional behavior: STATIC_CROSS_COMPILER_HOST
+and BUILD_STATIC_NATIVE_COMPILER.</p>
+
+<p>Setting STATIC_CROSS_COMPILER_HOST to an architecture name creates a
+cross compiler statically linked to run on that host (via a technique
+known as canadian cross compile).  For example, the invocation:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>BUILD_CROSS_COMPILER_HOST=i686 ./build.sh armv4l</P>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Would create a tarball called "cross-static-armv4l.tar.bz2" which was
+built to run on an i686 host, and was statically linked (against uClibc)
+on that host to be distribution independent.</p>
+
+<p>Setting BUILD_STATIC_NATIVE_COMPILER to any non-empty value creates a
+native compiler for the target (packaged as native-compiler-$ARCH.tar.bz2),
+which is statically linked against uClibc so it can be extracted and run on
+just about any system of the appropriate type.  (So if you can get a Linux
+shell prompt and have enough storage and memory, you should be able to
+compile stuff.)</p>
+
+<p>The upgraded smoketest-all.sh script runs smoketest.sh on each
+target built.  (The smoketest.sh script attempts to compile and run "hello
+world" natively within a system image under qemu, and indicates whether or
+not it worked via "pass" or "fail".)  Note that smoketest-all.sh now
+autodetects which targets have been built (have system images in the build
+directory), and smoketest.sh times out after 60 seconds so targets that hang
+will return failure eventually.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<h3><b>Squashfs 4.0 now the default system image type</b></h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>The root filesystem image type is now squashfs by default.  (To change it set
+SYSIMAGE_TYPE to ext2 or initramfs, either in your environment or the file
+"configure".)</p>
+
+<p>This involved upgrading the userspace squashfs support package
+to the version 4.0 supported by the upstream kernel, and numerous small fixes
+to work with a read-only root filesystem (with writeable spaced mounted on
+/home and /tmp).</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<h3><b>Target upgrades</b></h3>
+<blockquote>
+<h3><b>ARM upgrades</b></h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Lots of work on the arm targets, with the addition of a new armv6l target
+and conversion of the armv5l target to
+<a href=http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/Linux-For-Devices-Articles/Why-ARMs-EABI-matters/>ARM EABI</a> (which used to be documented <a href=http://www.arm.com/products/DevTools/ABI.html>here</a>,
+but ARM screwed up its website and now you have to go
+<a href=http://infocenter.arm.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.arm.doc.subset.swdev.abi/index.html>here</a>).  The armv4l target still provides an ARM v4
+little endian soft float OABI target (which is "the i386 of ARM", meaning it
+should run on just about any arm hardware, if a bit slowly).  A new
+armv4be target is the same as armv4l except big endian.</p>
+
+<p>A new hw-tct-hammer target supports the <a href=http://www.tincantools.com/product.php?productid=16143>Tin Can Tools hammer/nail board</a>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<h3><b>Updated sparc support, almost works now.  (uClibc for sparc still sucks.)</b></h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>The sparc target has also been upgraded to the point where it now gives
+a shell prompt.  (And immediately dies with a bus error or a hang if you try
+to do anything, because uClibc for sparc still doesn't work.  The "upgrade"
+consisted of statically linking everything because uClibc's dynamic loader
+doesn't work for sparc.)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<h3><b>PowerPC remains fiddly due to QEMU issues, new powerpc-440fp target</b></h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>PowerPC support in QEMU is
+<a href=http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2009-07/msg01007.html>officially unstable</a>, so although FWL's powerpc target hasn't significantly
+changed from last release, the version of QEMU in source control no longer
+runs it (nor the binary powerpc system images released with FWL 0.9.6) and
+QEMU's developers do not consider this a regression.  While we search for a new
+Linux kernel .config that matches QEMU's current expectations (and await a
+release considered "stable"), note that setting HOST_BUILD_EXTRA=1 before
+running host-tools.sh will build a version of qemu that does run powerpc and
+put it in build/host where run-from-build.sh can find it.  (Note also that
+building qemu from source still takes significantly longer than the rest of the 
+host-tools.sh stage combined.)</p>
+
+<p>A new powerpc-440fp target produces code for the powerpc 440 with hardware
+floating point.  (Theoretically QEMU's "bamboo" board emulation should
+run this, but QEMU doesn't emulate a 440 processor yet.  We compromise by
+running a ppc440 filesystem under qemu's power mac emulation, to take
+advantage of the ppc440 instruction set being almost a subset of full powerpc.
+This gets us a shell prompt, but throws illegal instruction errors if you
+try to do anything fancy.)</p>
+
+<p>(Note that powerpc-440fp is not a hw-target for powerpc, it's a different
+processor instruction set like i586 vs i686.  Alas, one that qemu doesn't
+properly emulate yet.)</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<h3><b>Now using last GPLv2 release of GCC, and future plans</b></h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>The upgrade to <b>gcc 4.2.1</b> gives us
+<a href=http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-announce/2007/msg00003.html>the last
+GPLv2 licensed version of gcc</a> (thus avoiding
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/343608/>various problems</a>).
+<a href=http://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=4932>Make 3.81</a>
+was already the last GPLv2 release of that project.</p>
+
+<p>Note that <b>bash 2.05b</b> is still intentionally ancient (to avoid the
+bloat of 3.x), and may be replaced with busybox ash as the default FWL shell
+in a future release.  Similarly, although <b>binutils 2.17</b> was the last
+GPLv2 version from the FSF, an upgrade to
+<a href=http://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/release.binutils-2.18.50.0.1>the
+last GPLv2 release of Red Hat's binutils fork, 2.17.5.0.17</a> is under
+consideration for a future release.  But mostly the GNU compiler toolchain
+has been upgraded as far as possible for the forseeable future, either because
+new versions provide no significant benefits or because they're not available
+under a license compatible with the Linux kernel's.</p>
+
+<p>Future upgrades to these packages will either be via individual patches
+(maintaining GPLv2 license) or by investigating alternative non-FSF
+packages such as OpenBSD's <a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/255558>PCC</a> or
+Apple's <a href=http://llvm.org>LLVM</a>.  In preparation for support of
+alternate compilers, the build scripts have moved from using "gcc" to the
+more generic "cc" for the compiler name wherever possible, but currently no
+drop-in replacement compiler is available.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<h3><b>Implementation details</b></h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Each target configuration renamed "details" to "settings", and added
+a "description".  (This makes Gentoo From Scratch's kconfig easier.)</p>
+
+<p>The download.sh stage now populates a "packages" directory instead of
+"sources/packages", meaning that everything in the sources directory now
+comes from the FWL source tarball.  To do the equivalent of "make clean"
+you can "rm -rf build", and to do a "make distclean" you can
+"rm -rf packages build".</p>
+
+<p>The build no longer deletes the alt-* tarballs when UNSTABLE isn't
+set, you must do that by hand if you want an updated alt- version of a
+package.  The packages/MANIFEST file creation can now use the extended
+tarball information to detect git version numbers.</p>
+
+<p>The === bars now show the current stage name and architecture each
+package is being built for.  (Pipe the build output to grep "^===" to see
+just the start of each new package build.)  The same information is sent
+to the title bar of your xterm, export NO_TITLE_BAR=1 if you don't want the
+build to update the title bar.</p>
+
+<p>The BUILD_STATIC option now applies to all packages built in
+root-filesystem.sh, and can be set from a target configuration's settings file
+(as sparc is now doing).</p>
+
+<p>The BUILD_VERBOSE option passes V=1 to the linux, busybox, and uClibc
+builds that otherwise sanitize their output.</p>
+
+<p>You can now set NATIVE_TOOLCHAIN=only to build just the compiler
+and not the other parts (busybox, make, toybox, bash...)  This is used
+by the canadian cross steps in build.sh to create static cross and native
+compilers.</p>
+
+<p>This release broke up scripts/include.sh so that script just
+sets lots of environment variables, and now includes scripts/functions.sh
+to define shell functions.  The architecture setup (reading architecture
+files and creating temporary directories and such) is now done via the
+"read_arch_dir $ARCH" shell function, so merely including sources/include.sh
+should no longer have significant side effects.  Similarly, setupfor now
+has an EXTRACT_ONLY environment variable instead of depending on a blank
+$ARCH (which host-tools.sh has, despite wanting to snapshot source so it can
+build stuff).</p>
+
+<p>Various fixes to make parallel builds work better.  (So it neither leaves
+background processes running nor kills the parent shell and closes your
+xterm when you hit ctrl-c.)  The new "killtree" shell function,
+which kills a process and all its children and grandchildren recursively with
+pgrep.  We also build our own sources/toys/mysetsid.c program with the host
+compiler (because the normal command line "setsid" doesn't also do a tcsetpgrp
+on stdin so signal handling isn't forwarded to the new session).  This should
+more reliably allow ctrl-c to exit smoketest.sh and system-image.sh and such,
+and let FORK=1 ./buildall.sh stop all its background processes when
+interrupted.  (Note that smoketest-all.sh also honors FORK=1.)</p>
+
+<p>The logs from buildall.sh now live in build/logs.</p>
+
+<p>The new config option ROOT_NODIRS avoids creating the normal set of empty
+directories in the new root filesystem.  (The old /tools support went
+away, but a BUILD_STATIC ROOT_NODIRS build can be extracted into /tools
+and used from there.  Then either symlink "/lib" to "/tools/lib" or "export
+UCLIBC_DYNAMIC_LINKER=/tools/lib/ld-uClibc.so.0" to add more stuff to
+/tools natively.)</p>
+
+<p>The compiler wrapper (sources/toys/ccwrap.c) can now use
+architecture-specific WRAPPER_TOPDIR values.  (I.E. armv4l-cc could
+"export armv4l_WRAPPER_TOPDIR=/path/to/directory".)  This makes
+canadian cross compiles a lot easier.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
 <h2>April 2, 2009</h2>
 <p><a href=downloads/firmware-0.9.6.tar.bz2>Version 0.9.6</a> includes
 Linux 2.6.29 and uClibc 0.9.30.1, now with support for sh4 and upgraded powerpc