Gentoo Weekly Newsletter -- Volume 2, Issue 42

Yuji Carlos Kosugi <[email protected]> Mon, 20 Oct 2003 19:25:30 -0400
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 20, 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
==============
1. Gentoo News
==============
  
Summary
-------
  
 * An update on GLEPs 
    
An update on GLEPs
------------------
  
The Gentoo Linux Enhancement Proposal (GLEP) system was announced in June 
in order to track and manage large-scale proposals to the Gentoo Linux 
community. Since then, sixteen GLEPs[1] have been submitted, of which 
eight have been accepted. Here's a summary of some of the notable approved 
proposals: 

 1. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20030616-newsletter.xml
 
 * GLEP 6[2] was the proposal for a monthly Gentoo BugDay devoted to 
cleaning out bugs. These are now held on the first Saturday of each month. 
 * GLEP 11[3] standardizes the way web applications are installed by 
Portage. 
 * GLEP 13[4] extends and unifies documents on installation, 
configuration, and other topics into a large but well-organized Gentoo 
Handbook. 
 * GLEP 14[5] proposes to extend Portage so that it can read a GLSA and 
either fix security holes automatically, notify the user of how to fix the 
problem, or to merely print the GLEP. 
 2. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0006.html
 3. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0011.html
 4. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0013.html
 5. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0014.html
 
For more information about GLEPs, read GLEP 1: GLEP Purpose and 
Guidelines[6]. You can keep up on GLEPs by reading the GLEP index[7] or by 
reading the gentoo-dev mailing list[8] where these and other issues are 
discussed. 

 6. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0001.html
 7. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/
 8. http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml
    
==================
2. Gentoo Security
==================
   
Gentoo Security is on hiatus this week.
    
=================================
3. Featured Developer of the Week
=================================
  
Peter Johanson
 
Figure 3.1: Peter Johanson
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20031020_latexer.jpg
 
This week's featured developer is Peter Johanson[9] (latexer), who 
provides a lot of the developer support for wireless connectivity drivers 
and software in Gentoo. He has also contributed some of the work on IPv6 
support, documentation and some continuing work on the init scripts. Peter 
is also a frequent resident of the #gentoo IRC channel and often 
contributes to the support discussions there. 

 9. [email protected]
 
Peter started using Linux in the summer of 2001 by installing Mandrake on 
his 100 MHz Gateway Solo laptop. He later moved to Debian and made the 
final jump to the Gentoo he had been hearing about when he acquired a 1.8 
GHz laptop in September of 2002 - a computer that was "worth actually 
putting Gentoo on." Peter submitted fixes and suggestions to 
bugs.gentoo.org[10] before attending Linux World Expo 2003 in New York, 
where he met Seemant Kulleen[11] and Daniel Robbins[12]. He was soon 
invited by Seemant to join the development team. In addition to his work 
on Gentoo, Peter has found an interest in driver porting and has 
contributed work on the airo_mpi.c driver for the Cisco MiniPCI card found 
in some laptops. He is also working an a Gnome dockapp for wireless 
configuration. 

 10. http://bugs.gentoo.org
 11. [email protected]
 12. [email protected]
 
Peter has a PII (500 MHz) server, Pentium (100 MHz, BSD) Firewall, and an 
Ultra2 (dual 400 MHz, 128Mb) that boots Gentoo diskless over tftp from an 
NFS root. However, his primary development platform is a Thinkpad T30 (1.8 
GHz, 1GB). He generally works wherever he can find a wifi access point to 
connect to. He is currently a Gnome user, but has frequently used fluxbox 
and xfce. The first application he starts is usually xterm with AA fonts - 
which he promptly employs to ssh into a server with mutt and irssi running 
in a screen session. He rounds out his list of favorite apps by adding 
vim, nctfp, wavemon, iwconfig, sed, pork and gaim to the list. 
 
Peter is currently a senior at New York University, completing a 
Mathematics major. He does, however, express some regret at his choice of 
fields - now wishing that he had selected Computer Science instead. Peter 
is also employed at the University, serving the Business School as 
webmaster, programmer and general factotum. He lives in the borough of 
Brooklyn, near the Franklin stop of the C-Line. And the moment, he has no 
internet connectivity, and hopes that one of his neighbors will read this 
and offer some line-of-site wifi. He is single and available, but the news 
that Mandy Moore attends NYU fills him with hope that this will soon 
change. 
   
=========================
4. Heard in the Community
=========================
  
gentoo-user
-----------
  
Gnome or KDE 
 
Most Linux distros favor KDE over Gnome, or Gnome over KDE. What's 
Gentoo's slant? According to this thread[13] Gentoo leaves the ultimate 
decision up to the user to customize it how he or she pleases. 

 13. 
http://news.gmane.org/onethread.php?group=gmane.linux.gentoo.user&root=%3C2
00310171137.32539.hallstevenson%40mindspring.com%3E
 
Clustering High-Volume Mail Servers 
 
Despise some of the risks of using a bleeding-edge distro in 
high-availability solution, there's always ways to circumvent possible 
problems, and clustering several physical servers is one of them. This 
pretty big thread[14] covers some of the solutions and problems that one 
could encounter. 

 14. 
http://news.gmane.org/onethread.php?group=gmane.linux.gentoo.user&root=%3C2
00310161856.06415.haimat%40lame.at%3E
    
gentoo-dev
----------
  
GTK and GTK2
 
Ever wondered the difference between these two USE flags? Well here[15] is 
a short post explaining the use and history (and future?) of the two.

 15. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/13076/
 
Is your system shutting down too fast?!
 
Eric Sammer raised this issue when his init system stopped processes a bit 
too aggressively, making life difficult. This was especially true for some 
of the nameservers and other related internet services. Take a look 
here[16] at some of the suggestions and comments made. 

 16. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/13018/
    
=======================
5. Gentoo International
=======================
  
Japan: Raising a Gentoo Penguin
 
Even to people with modern pan-global awareness standards, Japan is a 
strange country. Who can explain why penguins are among the country's most 
popular zoo animals, depicted in a multitude of pop culture settings, 
generally cuddly and kawa-ii - yet the Open Source Software mainstream 
continues to flow towards *BSD and its slightly more belligerent 
iconography? In an attempt to reconcile the imagery, Hagihara Yoshiaki, a 
Gentoo-JP activist of advanced seniority and notoriousness, is busy 
preparing for next Friday's presentation of Gentoo Linux in Tokyo's 
splendid Electric Town, the Akihabara district. Titled "Let's raise a 
Gentoo penguin", his introduction to installation and maintenance of 
Gentoo Linux will be held at Plat'home[17] (try pronouncing this 
"platform", the pun is intended), Akihabara's most imminent vendor and 
systems integrator of *NIX-related hard- and software. Plat'home has 
teamed up with a training facility by the name of Begi.net[18] for 
regularly scheduled "@home seminars" about Linux and related subjects, 
falling in line with Begi.net's mission statement of "lowering the 
threshold and broadening the market" for open source software. While the 
organisers seem to know what they're doing, Hagihara-san himself - 
needlessly, needless to say - feigns nervousness about his presentation 
software skills... If you happen to be in Tokyo that day, cheer him on and 
grab after-talk drinks and snacks on Friday, 24 October 2003, from 19:00 
(doors open 18:45) to 21:00. Registration isn't compulsory, but seats are 
limited to 30 people, so please sign up here (site in Japanese)[19]. 
You'll have to pay 1000 JPY at the door, unless you're a student or 
someone who purchased more than 2000 Yen worth of merchandise at Plat'home 
that same day...

 17. http://www.plathome.co.jp
 18. http://www.begi.net
 19. http://www.plathome.co.jp/hqsales/seminer/index_home031024.html
 
Germany: Gentoo User Meeting in Oberhausen
 
On 8 October (as announced in the GWN) almost twenty Gentooists had left 
their computers at home and went to meet at the "Brauhaus Zeche Jacobi" in 
Oberhausen's CentrO. Long-term Linux-users and freshmen talked about 
advantages of Gentoo Linux, other distributions and their eventual 
benefits, the new KDE alpha branch, and lots of other amusing things. 
Since it was such an interesting and outright funny meeting they finally 
agreed to meet again, on 10 December. The venue and other details are 
subject to discussion in this Forum thread[20].

 20. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=94915
 
Germany: Practical Linux Day Report Vol. 2
 
The last GWN was published before all the information from the Gentoo 
booth participants in Gie??en had actually trickled in, so here's an 
update on what you've missed if you weren't there last week... On early 
Friday afternoon tantive, pYrania, stkn and beejay had set up the booth, 
went on to meet TG, ian! and dertobi123 at the youth hostel which turned 
out to be a nasty surprise leading to a group decision to book a hotel 
next year... Having spent the evening (and important parts of the night) 
in a Greek restaurant with other exhibitors, organisers of the show, and 
late-arrival pylon. 
 
Mild public interest in the early hours developed into a big rush on the 
Gentoo booth in the afternoon. Hanno joined the group of devs sitting 
around the table, and Cybersystem and a nameless Gentoo user performed a 
live installation of Gentoo Linux on an Apple Powerbook. Somehow the 
number of people looking over their shoulders with more than just mild 
interest must have achieved critical mass. The ice thusly and visibly 
broken, the Gentoo booth the dominant location in the exhibition area for 
the remainder of the Practical Linux day. When the doors closed at dusk, 
the visitors went away with lots of answers to their questions, and a 
LiveCD to ease their way into future Gentooism. 
 
Last but not least, now that the show is over beejay has made copies of 
his presentation available as a Flash Movie (72kb)[21] and as a PDF file 
(223kb)[22]. Enjoy.

 21. http://www.judas-merlau.de/gentoo2.swf
 22. http://www.judas-merlau.de/gentoo2.pdf
   
================
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[23]) 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: 

 23. 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[24], with 30 closed bugs[25]  
 * Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team[26], with 19 closed bugs[27]  
 * Perl Devs[28], with 17 closed bugs[29]  
 * Gentoo Games[30], with 16 closed bugs[31]  
 * Media-Video Herd[32], with 12 closed bugs[33]  
 24. [email protected]
 25. 
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]
 26. [email protected]
 27. 
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]
 28. [email protected]
 29. 
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]
 30. [email protected]
 31. 
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]
 32. [email protected]
 33. 
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[34], with 14 new bugs[35]  
 * Net-Mail Packages[36], with 12 new bugs[37]  
 * Martin Schlemmer[38], with 12 new bugs[39]  
 * Portage team[40], with 10 new bugs[41]  
 34. [email protected]
 35. 
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]
 36. [email protected]
 37. 
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]
 38. [email protected]
 39. 
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]
 40. [email protected]
 41. 
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
==================
  
Using the Gentoo Log Parser (genlop)
 
This week's tip introduces the Gentoo Log Parser (genlop), which is a 
utility to create useful reports from your /var/log/emerge.log file. To 
get started with genlop, you'll need to install it using the following 
command: emerge app-portage/genlop. 
 
We can now use genlop to look at the merge history for a package (or your 
entire system), and to calculate the merge times for various packages. The 
following example looks at the merge history for Mozilla. 
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 8.1:                                                       |
| Using genlop                                                            |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                         |
|% genlop -t mozilla                                                      |
|                                                                         |
| * net-www/mozilla                                                       |
|                                                                         |
|     Merged   at Fri Jan  3 19:29:16 2003    (mozilla-1.2.1-r4)          |
|       merge time: 1 hour, 35 minutes and 6 seconds.                     |
|                                                                         |
|     Merged   at Fri Mar 21 20:59:45 2003    (mozilla-1.2.1-r5)          |
|       merge time: 2 hours, 53 minutes and 4 seconds.                    |
|                                                                         |
|     Merged   at Thu Jun 12 15:55:58 2003    (mozilla-1.3-r1)            |
|       merge time: 3 hours, 28 minutes and 37 seconds.                   |
|                                                                         |
|     Merged   at Wed Jun 25 16:29:38 2003    (mozilla-1.3-r2)            |
|       merge time: 2 hours, 43 minutes and 47 seconds.                   |
|                                                                         |
|     Merged   at Wed Jul 23 18:36:58 2003    (mozilla-1.4)               |
|       merge time: 2 hours, 2 minutes and 24 seconds.                    |
|                                                                         |
|     Merged   at Wed Oct  1 14:49:31 2003    (mozilla-1.4-r3)            |
|       merge time: 3 hours, 20 minutes and 38 seconds.                   |
|                                                                         |
| merged totally 6 times in 16 hours, 3 minutes and 36 seconds.           |
| average merge time: 2 hours, 40 minutes and 36 seconds.                 |
|                                                                         |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Note:  Type genlop to see the other options availble. 
   
==========================
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:
 
 * Lance Albertson (ramereth) -- system administration 
 * Sven Blumenstein (bazik) -- sparc 
    
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[42].

 42. [email protected]
   
================
11. GWN Feedback
================
  
Please send us your feedback[43] and help make the GWN better.

 43. [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[44] 
 * English[45] 
 * German[46] 
 * French[47] 
 * Japanese[48] 
 * Italian[49] 
 * Polish[50] 
 * Portuguese (Brazil)[51] 
 * Portuguese (Portugal)[52] 
 * Russian[53] 
 * Spanish[54] 
 * Turkish[55] 
 44. http://www.gentoo.org/news/be/gwn/gwn.xml
 45. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
 46. http://www.gentoo.org/news/de/gwn/gwn.xml
 47. http://www.gentoo.org/news/fr/gwn/gwn.xml
 48. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ja/gwn/gwn.xml
 49. http://www.gentoo.org/news/it/gwn/gwn.xml
 50. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pl/gwn/gwn.xml
 51. http://www.gentoo.org/news/br/gwn/gwn.xml
 52. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt/gwn/gwn.xml
 53. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ru/gwn/gwn.xml
 54. http://www.gentoo.org/news/es/gwn/gwn.xml
 55. 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
Xavier Neys <[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
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