Gentoo Weekly Newsletter -- Volume 2, Issue 41
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <[email protected]> Mon, 13 Oct 2003 23:51:03 +0900
| Newsgroups | gmane.linux.gentoo.weekly-news |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of October 13th, 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
==============
1. Gentoo News
==============
Summary
-------
* GNOME 2.4 marked stable on x86
GNOME 2.4 marked stable on x86
------------------------------
GNOME 2.4 has now been marked stable on x86, thanks to the efforts of the
Gentoo GNOME team. This new release of GNOME doesn't hold very many new
features, but much has been improved under the hood, and a few subtle
additions have been made to the interface. These include a unified panel,
a screen resolution control under Desktop Preferences which provides an
interface to XRandR, the inclusion of Nautilus-cd-burner, and better
integration with media by utilizing the gstreamer and gst-plugins.
New GNOME users will have no problem installing this release by executing
emerge gnome, but those upgrading from 2.2 should keep a few things in
mind in order to make the transition smooth. First of all,
bonobo-activation has been merged into libbonobo in versions after 2.4.0,
so bonobo-activation will block the upgrade. The best method to deal with
this problem is to emerge -u gnome until the blocking bonobo-activation is
hit, then emerge -C bonobo-activation and then emerge -u gnome again to
resume the upgrade. This will ensure that the bonobo-activation libraries
remain on the system right until they are removed and then immediately
replaced, reducing the chance of compilation problems due to missing
libraries. Users may encounter the same problem with gnome-utils and
gucharmap as well; the solution then is emerge -u gnome-utils at the
blocking point before gucharmap is emerged. Another issue is the inclusion
of the Epiphany browser in the default GNOME distribution. We provide this
as part of the default GNOME installation as part of our effort to follow
GNOME's packaging procedures. While Epiphany is GTK2-based and has a
lightweight frontend, it's Mozilla-based, adding a hefty weight to the
installation if you don't have Mozilla already. Users who use a different
browsers and do not want to install Epiphany should run emerge inject
net-www/epiphany-1.0 so that it will be included as installed and will not
interfere with the upgrade.
==================
2. Gentoo Security
==================
Summary
-------
* GLSA: cfengine
GLSA: cfengine
--------------
From the bugtraq posting:
There is an exploitable stack overflow in the network I/O code used in the
cfservd daemon in Cfengine 2.x prior to version 2.0.8. Arbitrary code
execution has been demonstrated on x86 FreeBSD and is believed to be
possible on all platforms.
Cfengine 1 is not vulnerable, but downgrading is not recommended as
version 1 is nolonger supported by the author."
* Severity: High - stack overflow in cfengine network code
* Packages Affected: <2.0.8, 2.1.0a6-a9
* Rectification: emerge sync; emerge cfengine; emerge clean
* GLSA Announcement[1]
1. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-announce&m=106537022109682&w=2
New Security Bug Reports
------------------------
The following new security bugs were posted in the past week:
* JBoss 3.2.1 and 3.0.8 vulnerabilty[2]
2. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30554
=================================
3. Featured Developer of the Week
=================================
Donnie Berkholz
Figure 3.1: Donnie Berkholz
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20031013_spyderous.jpg
Our featured developer for this issue is Donnie Berkholz[3] (spyderous),
who is the XFree herd maintainer and co-lead (along with Michael Imhof[4])
of the Gentoo Cluster Project[5]. He also performs the usual developer
tasks of maintaining ebuilds for several packages in the tree, especially
in the app-sci category. He describes his main duties as "keeping XFree
working" and up-to-date as well as making the "Gentoo Cluster Project
larger and more visible".
3. [email protected]
4. [email protected]
5. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/cluster/
Donnie is a senior at the University of Richmond, Virginia, USA. He is a
dual-major in biochemistry and chemistry, with a minor in journalism. He
is originally from Plymouth, Minnesota. He works as an editor for the
student newspaper at the University, and enjoys Ultimate Frisbee and
fencing. He has been working at learning the guitar for the last six
months, and is a member of a choir. He prefers nano as an editor and
numbers Scribus, MPlayer, gAIM, XChat-2, xmms and VMWare among his
favorite applications.
Donnie does much of his development work on an Athlon 2000+ MP
workstation, nicely modded with a clear side panel, green cold cathode
light and round bundle cables. He also has a Pentium 4 (2.4 GHz) laptop
for traveling. A former fluxbox user (he liked the tabs), Donnie has
recently moved to Gnome 2.4. When his computer boots, it automatically
brings up four tabs of gnome-terminal and two instances of gkrellm2. He
prefers evolution for his mail client.
Donnie first started using Linux three years ago, with Red Hat. He heard
about Gentoo last spring, and started using it almost immediately. Once he
had joined the community, he became aware of a need for more information
about direct rendering and took up the task of creating some documentation
about it. This got him noticed and invited to join the development team.
He is particularly pleased with the progress he and Seemant Kulleen[6]
have made in splitting up the XFree build, and is most proud of the
Hardware 3D Acceleration Guide[7] he wrote over the summer. He directed us
to games-misc/fortune-mod-gentoo-dev as a source of favorite quotes. He
conclude our conversation with the statement that: "Gentoo's given me
opportunities I never suspected I would have had".
6. [email protected]
7. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/dri-howto.xml
=========================
4. Heard in the Community
=========================
Web Forums
----------
PPC Worries on their Way Out
Dialogues with the devs have always been more frequent in the PPC section
of the Forums than elsewhere. Small wonder that pvdabeel, Gentoo lead
developer for the PowerPC architecture, chose a couple of threads in the
PPC forum to announce LiveCD updates that'll quite possibly fix a few of
the problems that have been discussed in those same threads:
* Update to Mac OS 10.2.8[8]
* Powerbook shuts down after pmac_init/openpic[9]
8. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=88188
9. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=94439
gentoo-user
-----------
Gentoo Killed My PC?
Most users of Gentoo know that it's demanding on system hardware. One of
the most stressful jobs a CPU can do is compile source code, and Gentoo
does have loads of it (unless you're a GRP user!). Because of this, many
people with hardware problems do not become aware of them until Gentoo
gets installed. Once such user on the community mailing list discovered
that Power Supplies can have a lot to do with system performance, and
many users [10] pitched in with helpful (and some life-saving) ideas.
10.
http://news.gmane.org/onethread.php?group=gmane.linux.gentoo.user&root=%3C2
00310090100.53561.mathieu%40depardo.ch%3E
gentoo-dev
----------
Three Tiers for Portage!
Ian Leitch (re)raised this[11] interesting idea about having three tiers
for portage. Stable, unstable and testing were one of the proposals, among
other discussions about the existing system.
11. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/12810/
=======================
5. Gentoo International
=======================
Germany: Pictures from the Practical Linux Day in Gie??en
A few hundred visitors had found their way to the show at the
Fachhochschule, some of them to get a good look at the open source
projects in the exhibition area, others in order to attend some of the
lectures and workshops in the meeting rooms around the house. The
obligatory Gentoo lecture was held by Benjamin Judas (beejay) before an
audience of several dozen interested people, while Cybersystem, Tantive,
Pyrania and stkn were the devs on duty at the Gentoo booth downstairs.
Here are two shots as a short impression from last Saturday's event, more
(and bigger) pictures are at pyrania's pages[12].
12. http://dev.gentoo.org/~pyrania/PLD/
================
6. Portage Watch
================
Portage Watch is on hiatus this week.
===========
7. Bugzilla
===========
Summary
-------
* Statistics
* Closed Bug Ranking
* New Bug Rankings
Statistics
----------
The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[13]) to record and
track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the
development team. Between 03 October 2003 and 09 October 2003, activity on
the site has resulted in:
13. http://bugs.gentoo.org
* 503 new bugs during this period
* 313 bugs closed or resolved during this period
* 16 previously closed bugs were reopened this period
Of the 4152 currently open bugs: 109 are labeled 'blocker', 196 are
labeled 'critical', and 343 are labeled 'major'.
Closed Bug Rankings
-------------------
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period
are:
* Heinrich Wendel[14], with 30 closed bugs[15]
* Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team[16], with 19 closed bugs[17]
* Perl Devs[18], with 17 closed bugs[19]
* Gentoo Games[20], with 16 closed bugs[21]
* Media-Video Herd[22], with 12 closed bugs[23]
14. [email protected]
15.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10-09&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
16. [email protected]
17.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10-09&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
18. [email protected]
19.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10-09&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
20. [email protected]
21.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10-09&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
22. [email protected]
23.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10-09&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
New Bug Rankings
----------------
The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during
this period are:
* Media-Video herd[24], with 14 new bugs[25]
* Net-Mail Packages[26], with 12 new bugs[27]
* Martin Schlemmer[28], with 12 new bugs[29]
* Portage team[30], with 10 new bugs[31]
24. [email protected]
25.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10
-09&[email protected]
26. [email protected]
27.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10
-09&[email protected]
28. [email protected]
29.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10
-09&[email protected]
30. [email protected]
31.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10
-09&[email protected]
==================
8. Tips and Tricks
==================
Introducing the -- flag
This week's tip introduces the -- flag. This flag is supported by many
utilities but isn't always documented in the man pages. However, it can be
very useful, especially when dealing with malformed filenames.
Note: Most programs that make use of --option also support the -- flag
since it is a standard feature of GNU getopt().
The -- flag forces everything passed in after it to be an argument to the
command. This can be extremely useful when dealing with filenames that
start with a - which would normally indicate an option or flag passed to
the command.
For example, assume that for some reason, there is a file named -file that
needs to be deleted. Normally you would use the command rm to delete a
file, but this doesn't work since the file in question starts with a -.
But by using the -- flag, we force rm to recognize -file as an argument
and not an option.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 8.1: |
|Using the -- flag |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
|Attempting to use rm results in an error as rm tries to |
|process all of the letters as options (f,i,l,e). It fails |
|on 'l' since that isn't a valid option for rm. |
|% ls |
|-file |
| |
|% rm -file |
|rm: invalid option -- l |
|Try `rm --help' for more information |
| |
|% rm -- -file |
|% ls |
| |
|-file was successfully removed |
| |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: For more technical information, see man 3 getopt.
==========================
9. Moves, Adds and Changes
==========================
Moves
-----
The following developers recently left the Gentoo team:
* none this week
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
=====================
10. Contribute to GWN
=====================
Interested in contributing to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter? Send us an
email[32].
32. [email protected]
================
11. GWN Feedback
================
Please send us your feedback[33] and help make the GWN better.
33. [email protected]
================================
12. GWN Subscription Information
================================
To subscribe to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, send a blank email to
[email protected].
To unsubscribe to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, send a blank email to
[email protected] from the email address you are
subscribed under.
===================
13. Other Languages
===================
The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter is also available in the following languages:
* Dutch[34]
* English[35]
* German[36]
* French[37]
* Japanese[38]
* Italian[39]
* Polish[40]
* Portuguese (Brazil)[41]
* Portuguese (Portugal)[42]
* Russian[43]
* Spanish[44]
* Turkish[45]
34. http://www.gentoo.org/news/be/gwn/gwn.xml
35. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
36. http://www.gentoo.org/news/de/gwn/gwn.xml
37. http://www.gentoo.org/news/fr/gwn/gwn.xml
38. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ja/gwn/gwn.xml
39. http://www.gentoo.org/news/it/gwn/gwn.xml
40. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pl/gwn/gwn.xml
41. http://www.gentoo.org/news/br/gwn/gwn.xml
42. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt/gwn/gwn.xml
43. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ru/gwn/gwn.xml
44. http://www.gentoo.org/news/es/gwn/gwn.xml
45. http://www.gentoo.org/news/tr/gwn/gwn.xml
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <[email protected]> - Editor
AJ Armstrong <[email protected]> - Contributor
Brian Downey <[email protected]> - Contributor
Cal Evans <[email protected]> - Contributor
Chris Gavin <[email protected]> - Contributor
Luke Giuliani <[email protected]> - Contributor
Shawn Jonnet <[email protected]> - Contributor
Michael Kohl <[email protected]> - Contributor
Kurt Lieber <[email protected]> - Contributor
Rafael Cordones Marcos <[email protected]> - Contributor
David Narayan <[email protected]> - Contributor
Gerald J Normandin Jr. <[email protected]> - Contributor
Ulrich Plate <[email protected]> - Contributor
Mathy Vanvoorden <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Hendrik Eeckhaut <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Jorn Eilander <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Bernard Kerckenaere <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Peter ter Borg <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Jochen Maes <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Roderick Goessen <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Gerard van den Berg <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Matthieu Montaudouin <[email protected]> - French Translation
Martin Prieto <[email protected]> - French Translation
Antoine Raillon <[email protected]> - French Translation
Sebastien Cevey <[email protected]> - French Translation
Jean-Christophe Choisy <[email protected]> - French Translation
Thomas Raschbacher <[email protected]> - German Translation
Steffen Lassahn <[email protected]> - German Translation
Matthias F. Brandstetter <[email protected]> - German Translation
Lukas Domagala <[email protected]> - German Translation
Tobias Scherbaum <[email protected]> - German Translation
Daniel Gerholdt <[email protected]> - German Translation
Marc Herren <[email protected]> - German Translation
Tobias Matzat <[email protected]> - German Translation
Marco Mascherpa <[email protected]> - Italian Translation
Claudio Merloni <[email protected]> - Italian Translation
Christian Apolloni <[email protected]> - Italian Translation
Stefano Lucidi <[email protected]> - Italian Translation
Yoshiaki Hagihara <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Katsuyuki Konno <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Yasunori Fukudome <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Takashi Ota <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Radoslaw Janeczko <[email protected]> - Polish Translation
Lukasz Strzygowski <[email protected]> - Polish Translation
Michal Drobek <[email protected]> - Polish Translation
Adam Lyjak <[email protected]> - Polish Translation
Krzysztof Klimonda <[email protected]> - Polish Translation
Atila "Jedi" Bohlke Vasconcelos <[email protected]> - Portuguese
(Brazil) Translation
Eduardo Belloti <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Jo??o Rafael Moraes Nicola <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Brazil)
Translation
Marcelo Gon??alves de Azambuja <[email protected]> - Portuguese
(Brazil) Translation
Otavio Rodolfo Piske <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Brazil)
Translation
Pablo N. Hess -- NatuNobilis <[email protected]> - Portuguese
(Brazil) Translation
Pedro de Medeiros <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Ventura Barbeiro <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Brazil)
Translation
Bruno Ferreira <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal)
Translation
Gustavo Felisberto <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal)
Translation
Jos?? Costa <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Luis Medina <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Ricardo Loureiro <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Sergey Galkin <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Sergey Kuleshov <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Alex Spirin <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Dmitry Suzdalev <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Anton Vorovatov <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Denis Zaletov <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Lanark <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Fernando J. Pereda <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Lluis Peinado Cifuentes <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Zephryn Xirdal T <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Guillermo Juarez <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Jes??s Garc??a Crespo <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Carlos Castillo <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Julio Castillo <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Sergio G??mez <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Aycan Irican <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
Bugra Cakir <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
Cagil Seker <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
Emre Kazdagli <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
Evrim Ulu <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
Gursel Kaynak <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
signature.asc
(application/pgp-signature, 189 B)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/irvX9QP4LZPv56cRAuWmAKCZ7/y05ZclPZeJ+JpoE7IT187/kACgmmy8 75gBbpjCoIGPOrfyfNS4YJw= =YUCJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----