Gentoo Weekly Newsletter 10 October 2005
Ulrich Plate <[email protected]> Mon, 10 Oct 2005 23:38:44 +0200
| Newsgroups | gmane.linux.gentoo.weekly-news |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
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Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of 10 October 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
==============
1. Gentoo news
==============
Gnome 2.12 moving to unstable
-----------------------------
The new Gnome 2.12 will be moved into unstable (~arch) this week. An
upgrade guide[1] is available with step-by-step instructions for Gentoo
users who'd like to update. If you experience any issues, please search
the Gentoo bugzilla[2], wander into #gentoo-desktop on irc.freenode.net,
or file a new bug. Changes to specific packages are shown in the upgrade
guide.
1.
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/gnome/howtos/gnome-2.12-upgrade.xml
2. http://bugs.gentoo.org
Unstable KDE users are also affected by this change. If a KDE user
upgrades hal/dbus/pmount then kde-base/kdebase-kioslaves will need to be
recompiled afterwards.
Gentoo at the Linux World Expo London
-------------------------------------
Last weekend was the time for the annual Linux World Expo in London[3].
This year Gentoo was represented by several developers, including Tim
Yamin[4], Marcus Hanwell[5], Benjamin Smee[6], Tom Knight[7], Colin
Morey[8], Tom Martin[9] and Herbie Hopkins[10]. Also present at the booth
were Gentoo developers Rob Holland[11] and Andrea Barisani[12], who had
just launched their new company, Inverse Path Ltd.[13], merely two days
before the LWE opened its gates. Their brandnew venture - besides
co-sponsoring the Gentoo booth - provides professional Gentoo support to
corporate customers.
3. http://www.linuxworldexpo.co.uk/
4. [email protected]
5. [email protected]
6. [email protected]
7. [email protected]
8. [email protected]
9. [email protected]
10. [email protected]
11. [email protected]
12. [email protected]
13. http://www.inversepath.com/
Figure 1.1: Left to right: James Le Cuirot (chewi) and developers
strerror, plasmaroo, tomk, peitholm and cryos
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20051010_lwe1.jpg
The booth was fairly busy throughout the show, but the lack of internet
access made it difficult to show the whole range of benefits Gentoo has.
The decision to burn LiveCDs on demand worked out really nicely, as x86
LiveCDs could be stock-piled and handed out as and when necessary, and
amd64 or PPC media were burnt on demand whenever people needed them.
Thanks to Computashop[14] on Tottenham Court Road for donating plenty of
blank CDs and printed labels for them!.
14. http://www.computashop.com
Figure 1.2: Tigger (left) and peitholm receive the Linux Format Awards
from Nick Veitch (right)
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20051010_lwe2.jpg
Editor Nick Veitch from Linux Format[15], the UK Linux magazine, came to
the booth to hand over the awards that the Gentoo project had won in March
this year, in two categories, best support forum and best
distribution[16]. Outside the Gentoo booth the LWE had its moments, too:
Gentoo Forums veteran and GWN author George Prowse[17] managed to show
ReactOS[18] to two head people at the Novell booth. They found the
open-source clone of a Windows NT environment impressing enough to send
their team over to talk with its founder and discuss the legality of the
project. Other highlights included the free discussions (attended also by
Microsoft), appearances by Mark Cox and Alan Cox from Red Hat, and by Mark
Spencer from Digium. But as always, the main highlight for everyone was
the chance to meet up with the other developers and the users they're in
contact with every day.
15. http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/
16. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20050314-newsletter.xml#doc_chap4
17. [email protected]
18. http://www.reactos.org/xhtml/en/index.html
To top off what was a great show, Digium president and Asterisk creator
Mark Spencer[19] treated the entire Gentoo booth staff to drinks, food and
talk about the future of open-source technology and Linux at a Sushi
restaurant in Kensington. More photos from the expo, the after-show event,
and other motives can be found at Marcus Hanwell's gallery[20].
19. http://linuxworldexpo.co.uk/content/view/56/83/
20. http://gallery.cryos.net/UKLinuxExpo2005
=========================
2. Heard in the community
=========================
Forums
------
CFLAGS for various Athlons
Forum user dannysauer[21] asks about the various optimizations that can be
found in the various Athlon chips from AMD. There seemed to be some
confusion over what was best with Thunderbird, XP and MP models all having
differentiating attributes.
21. https://forums.gentoo.org/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=70147
* CFLAGS for various Athlons?[22]
22. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-388225.html
gentoo-dev
----------
Grub and Reiser4
Version 4 of the Reiser filesystem gets tested by more and more people.
Some want to use it everywhere, including the boot partition - but for
that to work the bootloader needs to understand the filesystem. Patches
for grub do exist, but reiser4 is not officially supported - should GRUB
be patched or not?
* Grub and Reiser4 [23]
23. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/31906
Interactive emerge
Every now and then a "bad" ebuild exists that is interactive, asking the
user for some input. This thread discusses why that is in most if not all
circumstances not acceptable - imagine starting an "emerge -uD world" only
to come back an hour later to find an ebuild asking you "do you really
want to install me?" instead of just doing what it's been told...
* Interactive emerge [24]
24. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/31939
Gentoo classes?
As an idea to help Gentoo power users learn specific tools and concepts a
user suggests to have "Gentoo Classes" - focused IRC discussions with a
set timetable, supervised by someone with a reasonably good knowledge of
the subject. While not without its faults this could turn out to be a nice
experiment, with one criticism being that well-written documentation might
be better than an IRC logfile.
* Gentoo Classes? [25]
25. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/32013
=======================
3. Gentoo international
=======================
Germany: Gentoo User Meeting in Oberhausen
------------------------------------------
4 November is the date for the next GUM at Gasthof Harlos[26] in
Oberhausen, the town in Germany's Ruhr region where a whole nucleus of
Gentoo developers happen to live. On the agenda next month, among other
things are: preparations for the November developer conference[27] at
Kransberg castle, and an introductory presentation of the "Capture the
flag" contest (CTF[28]) to be followed by some practicing and a test bout
right then and there. The meeting - Oberhausen GUMs are monthly events, on
every first Saturday of a month - will start around 19:00, please reserve
a seat[29] and - if need be - your Schnitzelplatte in advance.
26. http://www.gasthof-harlos.de
27. http://conference.gentoo-ev.org
28. http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~vigna/CTF/
29. http://www.dertobi123.org/cgi-bin/schnitzel.pl
======================
4. Gentoo in the press
======================
WAGM-TV (6 October 2005)
------------------------
Local CBS affiliate TV station WAGM[30] has a regular news segment called
"Sci Tech Flash", produced by Samantha Hensell and scheduled each Thursday
at 18:00. Last week WAGM-TV broadcast an interview with Michael
Surran[31], computer science teacher and network administrator at the
Greater Houlton Christian Academy[32], a private kindergarten-to-twelfth
grade school in Houlton, a U.S. border-town to Canada. The 2:41 minutes
spot covers the principles of steering a computer lab that's entirely
Gentoo-driven: distributed compilation across all workstations, fast
deployment, easy administration. And Surran does an excellent job of
explaining in simple terms what source-based distributions are about. A
thread in the Gentoo forums[33] keeps an updated list of mirror sites for
the recording, in different formats to meet all possible codecs and
bandwidth limitations.
30. http://www.wagmtv.com
31.
http://www.ghca.com/blogs/reader.php?teacher=Michael_Surran&level=secondary
32. http://www.ghca.com
33. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-389173.html
PPC Zone (8 October 2005)
-------------------------
Gentoo beta-testers wanted: a t-shirt bounty has been declared by Gentoo
sponsor Genesi[34]. Launching an initiative for beta-testing the PPC build
of the REBOL programming environment[35] we reported about a month ago,
this post[36] at the PPC Zone forums promises "the coolest t-shirt we ever
made" to the 100 first beta-testers who report back.
34. http://www.genesi.lu
35.
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20050912-newsletter.xml#doc_chap3_sect2
36. http://www.ppczone.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1571
==================
5. Tips and tricks
==================
Recovering some log space
-------------------------
To keep your computer uncluttered and clean you can use these commands to
keep /var/log nice and tidy.
Firstly, tar up those messages that are over a day old with:
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 5.1: |
| Find old logs |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
|# find /var/log/remove -name -mtime +1 *.log -exec bzip2 -z {}; |
| |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Then you can delete the tars' that are over 30 days old (or any amout of
time, just edit the "-mtime +n" part) using this:
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 5.2: |
| Delete old tars |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
|# find /var/log -name \*.bz2 -mtime +30 -exec rm {} \; |
| |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
===========================
6. Moves, adds, and changes
===========================
Moves
-----
The following developers recently left the Gentoo team:
* Robb Romans
Adds
----
The following developers recently joined the Gentoo Linux team:
* None this week
Changes
-------
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo Linux
project:
* None this week
==================
7. Gentoo Security
==================
gtkdiskfree: Insecure temporary file creation
---------------------------------------------
gtkdiskfree is vulnerable to symlink attacks, potentially allowing a local
user to overwrite arbitrary files.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[37]
37. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200510-01.xml
Berkeley MPEG Tools: Multiple insecure temporary files
------------------------------------------------------
The Berkeley MPEG Tools use temporary files in various insecure ways,
potentially allowing a local user to overwrite arbitrary files.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[38]
38. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200510-02.xml
Uim: Privilege escalation vulnerability
---------------------------------------
Under certain conditions, applications linked against Uim suffer from a
privilege escalation vulnerability.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[39]
39. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200510-03.xml
Texinfo: Insecure temporary file creation
-----------------------------------------
Texinfo is vulnerable to symlink attacks, potentially allowing a local
user to overwrite arbitrary files.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[40]
40. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200510-04.xml
Ruby: Security bypass vulnerability
-----------------------------------
Ruby is vulnerable to a security bypass of the safe level mechanism.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[41]
41. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200510-05.xml
Dia: Arbitrary code execution through SVG import
------------------------------------------------
Improperly sanitised data in Dia allows remote attackers to execute
arbitrary code.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[42]
42. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200510-06.xml
RealPlayer, Helix Player: Format string vulnerability
-----------------------------------------------------
RealPlayer and Helix Player are vulnerable to a format string
vulnerability resulting in the execution of arbitrary code.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[43]
43. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200510-07.xml
xine-lib: Format string vulnerability
-------------------------------------
xine-lib contains a format string error in CDDB response handling that may
be exploited to execute arbitrary code.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[44]
44. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200510-08.xml
Weex: Format string vulnerability
---------------------------------
Weex contains a format string error that may be exploited by malicious
servers to execute arbitrary code.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[45]
45. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200510-09.xml
===========
8. Bugzilla
===========
Summary
-------
* Statistics
* Closed bug ranking
* New bug rankings
Statistics
----------
The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[46]) to record and
track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the
development team. Between 02 October 2005 and 09 October 2005, activity on
the site has resulted in:
46. http://bugs.gentoo.org
* 713 new bugs during this period
* 379 bugs closed or resolved during this period
* 40 previously closed bugs were reopened this period
Of the 8511 currently open bugs: 103 are labeled 'blocker', 181 are
labeled 'critical', and 530 are labeled 'major'.
Closed bug rankings
-------------------
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period
are:
* Portage team[47], with 28 closed bugs[48]
* Gentoo Sound Team[49], with 22 closed bugs[50]
* AMD64 Porting Team[51], with 17 closed bugs[52]
* Gentoo's Team for Core System packages[53], with 16 closed bugs[54]
* Gentoo Security[55], with 13 closed bugs[56]
* Stefano Rossi[57], with 12 closed bugs[58]
* Gentoo Games[59], with 12 closed bugs[60]
* Gentoo for Mac OS X[61], with 11 closed bugs[62]
47. [email protected]
48.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&resolution=FIXED&[email protected]
49. [email protected]
50.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&resolution=FIXED&[email protected]
51. [email protected]
52.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&resolution=FIXED&[email protected]
53. [email protected]
54.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&resolution=FIXED&[email protected]
55. [email protected]
56.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&resolution=FIXED&[email protected]
57. [email protected]
58.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&resolution=FIXED&[email protected]
59. [email protected]
60.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&resolution=FIXED&[email protected]
61. [email protected]
62.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&resolution=FIXED&[email protected]
New bug rankings
----------------
The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during
this period are:
* AMD64 Testing Team[63], with 36 new bugs[64]
* Default Assignee for New Packages[65], with 28 new bugs[66]
* Gentoo Sound Team[67], with 15 new bugs[68]
* Sergey Kuleshov[69], with 13 new bugs[70]
* Default Assignee for Orphaned Packages[71], with 11 new bugs[72]
* media-video herd[73], with 9 new bugs[74]
* Gentoo Games[75], with 8 new bugs[76]
* Gentoo Kernel Bug Wranglers and Kernel Maintainers[77], with 7 new
bugs[78]
63. [email protected]
64.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&[email protected]
65. [email protected]
66.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&[email protected]
67. [email protected]
68.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&[email protected]
69. [email protected]
70.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&[email protected]
71. [email protected]
72.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&[email protected]
73. [email protected]
74.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&[email protected]
75. [email protected]
76.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&[email protected]
77. [email protected]
78.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-10-02&chfieldto=2005-10-09&[email protected]
===============
9. GWN feedback
===============
Please send us your feedback[79] and help make the GWN better.
79. [email protected]
================================
10. GWN subscription information
================================
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===================
11. Other languages
===================
The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter is also available in the following languages:
* Danish[80]
* Dutch[81]
* English[82]
* German[83]
* French[84]
* Japanese[85]
* Italian[86]
* Polish[87]
* Portuguese (Brazil)[88]
* Portuguese (Portugal)[89]
* Russian[90]
* Spanish[91]
* Turkish[92]
80. http://www.gentoo.org/news/da/gwn/gwn.xml
81. http://www.gentoo.org/news/nl/gwn/gwn.xml
82. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
83. http://www.gentoo.org/news/de/gwn/gwn.xml
84. http://www.gentoo.org/news/fr/gwn/gwn.xml
85. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ja/gwn/gwn.xml
86. http://www.gentoo.org/news/it/gwn/gwn.xml
87. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pl/gwn/gwn.xml
88. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt_br/gwn/gwn.xml
89. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt/gwn/gwn.xml
90. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ru/gwn/gwn.xml
91. http://www.gentoo.org/news/es/gwn/gwn.xml
92. http://www.gentoo.org/news/tr/gwn/gwn.xml
Ulrich Plate <[email protected]> - Editor
John N. Laliberte <[email protected]> - Author
Patrick Lauer <[email protected]> - Author
George Prowse <[email protected]> - Author
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