DragonFly BSD 2.6.1 with new swapcache released

DragonFly BSD, the FreeBSD fork, has been updated to version 2.6.1 and incorporates a added a number of new features whilst updating the components of the clustering oriented operating system. A new swapcache has been incorporated which allows the swap space to also retain clean filesystem data and meta-data rather than just memory. According to the developers, when used with an SSD drive, swapcache has "an enormously positive effect on system performance". As an example, the developers say a 40GB SSD drive can cache around 80 million inodes for fast directory operations "almost acting like extended memory".

Among other changes, the HAMMER filesystem has been updated to version 4 and now supports a REDO capability for fast, crash-recoverable fsync operations and the developers have ported NetBSD's implementations of memory efficient tmpfs and POSIX message queues to DragonFly BSD. The developers have also included an updated Linuxlator for i386 which now runs java and flash and a new, but compatible, watchdog framework. Hardware support has also been improved with the incorporation of drivers for the Atheros AR8131/AR8132 and Intel Pro/1000 network cards. Full details of the changes are in the release notes.

DragonFly BSD is licensed under the DragonFly BSD licence and is available to download as a live CD image or USB image for x86-32 and x86-64 systems.

(djwm)