Gentoo Weekly Newsletter - Volume 3, Issue 8
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <[email protected]> Mon, 23 Feb 2004 23:26:24 -0500
| 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 February 23, 2004.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
==============
1. Gentoo News
==============
* FOSDEM Brussels 21 & 22 February 2004
* Gentoo Linux still looking for an additional dialup developer
FOSDEM Brussels 21 & 22 February 2004
-------------------------------------
What started four years ago as an initiative of a bunch of Brussels
University students has emerged to a full-blown international developers
event[1]. Approximately 2000 participants mainly from neighbouring
European countries (France, Netherlands, UK, Germany), but also from
Sweden, Hungary or Italy made it to Brussels' Free University[2] this
year, a fifth more than in 2003. Gentoo was present for the second year in
a row, except that the booth was a little larger and the developers
significantly more numerous this time around. Indisputable highlight at
the Gentoo table was Pieter van den Abeele's dual-processor G5 - compiling
Vim in six and a half minutes did its fair share of impressing visitors to
the Gentoo booth. Nobody stayed long enough to wait for the end of an X
compilation, but at 58 minutes they wouldn't have needed that much stamina
after all...
1. http://fosdem.org
2. http://www.ulb.ac.be/
Figure 1.1: Skeptical? Nah, not really: picture taken seconds before John
'maddog' Hall buys two Gentoo LiveCDs, FOSDEM edition
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/littlemaddog.jpg
Sadly, the quantum singularity[3] Daniel Robbins and Wout Mertens
discovered at last year's show seemed to have disappeared. Richard
Stallman, posing as Saint Richard of the Church of Emacs, had an Assisian
encounter with a dove, while speakers from Robert Love to Keith Packard
attracted equally huge crowds to their presentations on the ULB campus.
And the Gentoo developers used their spare time to do some
retroengineering and brought drobbins' singularity back! All is well that
ends well.
3.
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20030224-newsletter.xml#doc_chap1_sect3
Figure 1.2: Rediscovered quantum singularity at the Gentoo dev sleeping
quarters (with former beverage containers)
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/quantum-g-beer_small.jpg
Germany: Reminder for Chemnitzer Linuxtag
The Chemnitzer Linuxtag[4] activists are all set and ready to accomodate
visitors at the Gentoo booth on 6 and 7 March 2004. A coordination thread
at the forums is available here[5].
4. http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/linux/tag/2004/allgemeines/
5. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=131827
Gentoo Linux Project still looking for an additional dialup developer
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Since we didn't get any volunteers when we announced this two weeks ago,
we're still looking for a developer to join the net-dialup team to help
quash bugs and maintain ebuilds. We're looking for dedicated devolpers,
preferably with experience in developing for dialup packages and writing
ebuilds. If you're not sure you have what it takes, check out this[6] bug
list. If you're still interested, send an email to Heinrich Wendel[7] with
some background info.
6.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=&short_desc_type=allwordssu
bstr&short_desc=&long_desc_type=allwordssubstr&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type
=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=U
NCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&emailassi
gned_to1=1&emailreporter1=1&emailcc1=1&emailtype1=substring&email1=net-dial
up&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&changedin=&chfiel
dfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+la
st+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=
7. [email protected]
=================================
2. Featured Developer of the Week
=================================
Ned Ludd
Figure 2.1: Ned Ludd
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20040223_solar.jpg
Our featured developer for this week is Ned Ludd[8] (solar), a developer
working on the Hardened Gentoo[9], Gentoo Infrastructure[10] and Embedded
Gentoo[11]projects, as well as an itinerant dev in the security realm. He
has been instrumental in establishing (or re-establishing) an organized
security group amongst the developers, who handle the Gentoo Linux
Security Announcements as well as identifying, assessing and tracking
security bugs associated with the distro and its various packages. He has
also been working on development toolchains, within both the Gentoo base
system and the new Embedded Gentoo project.
8. [email protected]
9. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/hardened/index.xml
10. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/infrastructure/index.xml
11. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/index.xml
Ned started using Linux in 1995, with the venerable Slackware distribution
and a 1.x series kernel. His interest in computer security prompted him to
start developing an maintaining kernel security patches with the 2.2.x
series. He even began his own small security-enhanced distribution
(linbsd), to implement a BSD-style ports system on Linux. When he
discovered Gentoo, which had a larger developer community and features
like grsec support, he decided to move his efforts and support behind it.
He became an official dev in the usual way - by offering support and
contributions, particularly in the #gentoo-hardened channel. After
providing things like the original grsecurity policy examples, he was
invited to take on a more formal role. In addition to such projects, Ned
has contributed to other Open-Source security projects such as the
hogwash[12] packet scrubber and the middle-man[13] filtering proxy. He is
currently active in the PaX[14] project to provide kernel protection
against memory-related security faults, such as stack overflow attacks.
12. http://hogwash.sourceforge.net/
13. http://sourceforge.net/projects/middle-man
14. http://pax.grsecurity.net/
Ned reflected on some of the work he and his team-mates have been
performing: "I'm really proud of the accomplishments we have made recently
with PaX and the kernel and userland. It's becoming easier to for the
novice user to take advantage of these types of protection without having
to understanding all the inner workings. We also make it easier for the
advanced user that loves to play with settings and try different security
modules out." He added that he feels that the work he and the Hardened
Gentoo herd are doing results in the fact that "we are slowly becoming
leader in secure kernel and toolchain technologies by putting an end to
all arbitrary code execution".
Ned is a partner in a consulting and system integration firm operating out
of Savannah, Georgia in the United States. Their primary market is the
provision of secure Linux server solutions and large-scale embedded
wireless solutions. He is politically active, including membership and
activism in Earth First[15], Food Not Bombs[16]. He also helped start the
grass-roots radio station, Radio Free Cascadia[17]. His favorite quote is
a slogan from the possibly eponymous Luddites: "The machine is the enemy,
smash it without mercy", which he claims is prompted by the movie "Office
Space". He concluded with a observation about Gentoo: "it's nice to be
king of your own hill."
15. http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/efj/
16. http://members.efn.org/~fnb/
17. ttp://riseup.net/radiofreecascadia/
==================
3. Gentoo Security
==================
phpMyAdmin < 2.5.6-rc1: possible attack against export.php
----------------------------------------------------------
A vulnerability in phpMyAdmin which was not properly verifying user
generated input could lead to a directory traversal attack.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[18]
18. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200402-05.xml
Updated kernel packages fix the AMD64 ptrace vulnerability
----------------------------------------------------------
A vulnerability has been discovered by in the ptrace emulation code for
AMD64 platforms when eflags are processed, allowing a local user to obtain
elevated priveleges.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[19]
19. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200402-06.xml
Clam Antivirus DoS vulnerability
--------------------------------
Oliver Eikemeier has reported a vulnerability in Clam AV, which can be
exploited by a malformed uuencoded message causing a denial of service for
programs that rely on the clamav daemon, such as SMTP daemons.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[20]
20. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200402-07.xml
=========================
4. Heard in the Community
=========================
Web Forums
----------
X No Longer Free?
The XFree team has changed their license policy two weeks ago, to
something that isn't compatible to the GPL any longer. The Gentoo
developers have already drawn their own conclusions from this, and will
refrain from adding XFree86 versions under the new license scheme to the
portage tree for the time being. There's plenty of room left for
discussion at this thread:
* Xfree no longer free ?[21]
21. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=137607
New Forum for AMD64
Opteron users of Gentoo Linux have achieved critical mass to deserve their
own platform inside forums.gentoo.org. Threads that were scattered over
other forums have been moved to the new one, and any new debate on 64-bit
x86 architectures will belong here:
* [forums-announce] New AMD64 Forum![22]
22. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=138590
Bootsplash for 2.6 Kernels Available
One of the most lively long-term debate in the Forums has been the
bootsplash howto and its companion thread, the support discussion. Since
last week, 2.6 kernel users can also benefit from the collective effort -
gently hiding the fine print of a Linux boot process behind shiny handmade
flash screens:
* The Gentoo Framebuffer, Bootsplash & Grubsplash How-To[23]
* Gentoo Framebuffer, Bootsplash & Grubsplash - SUPPORT[24]
23. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=49036
24. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=52290
gentoo-user
-----------
XFree86 Alternatives
The XFree86 4.4 is being released under a revised license[25] that isn't
fully compatible with the GPL[26]. Because of this, several
distributions--including Gentoo--have users looking at alternatives. One
of them is Y-Windows[27], which was discussed in this thread[28].
25. http://www.xfree86.org/legal/licenses.html
26. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt
27. http://www.y-windows.org/
28. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/67366
gentoo-dev
----------
Portage and Bittorrent.
Here is an interesting idea about using bittorrent (or at least some of
it's code) to share source packages around. Although there obvious
benefits like sharing bandwidth, faster downloads, and less effects from
downtime, there are some downsides. These include security, responsibility
and possible design incompatibilities. Have a look[29] for more infomation.
29. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/15967/
===========
5. Bugzilla
===========
Summary
-------
* Statistics
* Closed Bug Ranking
* New Bug Rankings
Statistics
----------
The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[30]) to record and
track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the
development team. Between 13 February 2004 and 19 February 2004, activity
on the site has resulted in:
30. http://bugs.gentoo.org
* 669 new bugs during this period
* 392 bugs closed or resolved during this period
* 17 previously closed bugs were reopened this period
Of the 5160 currently open bugs: 0 are labeled 'blocker', 0 are labeled
'critical', and 0 are labeled 'major'.
Closed Bug Rankings
-------------------
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period
are:
* Java Team[31], with 48 closed bugs[32]
* Mozilla Gentoo Team[33], with 38 closed bugs[34]
* Gentoo KDE team[35], with 27 closed bugs[36]
* Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team[37], with 20 closed bugs[38]
* Python Gentoo Team[39], with 14 closed bugs[40]
31. [email protected]
32.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2004-02-13&chfieldto=2004-02-19&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
33. [email protected]
34.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2004-02-13&chfieldto=2004-02-19&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
35. [email protected]
36.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2004-02-13&chfieldto=2004-02-19&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
37. [email protected]
38.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2004-02-13&chfieldto=2004-02-19&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
39. [email protected]
40.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2004-02-13&chfieldto=2004-02-19&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
New Bug Rankings
----------------
The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during
this period are:
* Core System Packages Team[41], with 19 new bugs[42]
* AMD64 Porting Team[43], with 19 new bugs[44]
* Media-Video Herd[45], with 13 new bugs[46]
* Gentoo KDE Team[47], with 13 new bugs[48]
* Portage Team[49], with 12 new bugs[50]
41. [email protected]
42.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2004-02-13&chfieldto=2004-02
-19&[email protected]
43. [email protected]
44.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2004-02-13&chfieldto=2004-02
-19&[email protected]
45. [email protected]
46.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2004-02-13&chfieldto=2004-02
-19&[email protected]
47. [email protected]
48.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2004-02-13&chfieldto=2004-02
-19&[email protected]
49. [email protected]
50.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2004-02-13&chfieldto=2004-02
-19&[email protected]
==================
6. Tips and Tricks
==================
Converting Text Files
This week's tip shows you how to convert files from Windows format to UNIX
format and vice versa. This can be handy if you've ever opened a file that
was created in Windows and found your screen full of of ^M characters at
the end of every line.
The easiest way to convert files back and forth is to use the dos2unix and
unix2dos commands provided by app-text/dos2unix and app-text/unix2dos.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 7.1: |
| Converting files the easy way |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
|% dos2unix file.txt |
|% unix2dos file.txt |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you're missing these commands and can't install them, you can also use
tr and sed
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 7.2: |
| Converting files with tr and sed |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
|Convert from DOS/windows to unix |
|% tr -d '\015' < win.txt > unix.txt |
| |
|Convert from unix to DOS/windows |
|% sed -e 's/$/\r/' unix.txt > win.txt |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
===========================
7. 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:
* Jason Stubbs (jstubbs) - portage documentation/modularization
Changes
-------
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo Linux
project:
* none this week
====================
8. Contribute to GWN
====================
Interested in contributing to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter? Send us an
email[51].
51. [email protected]
===============
9. GWN Feedback
===============
Please send us your feedback[52] and help make the GWN better.
52. [email protected]
================================
10. 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.
===================
11. Other Languages
===================
The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter is also available in the following languages:
* Dutch[53]
* English[54]
* German[55]
* French[56]
* Japanese[57]
* Italian[58]
* Polish[59]
* Portuguese (Brazil)[60]
* Portuguese (Portugal)[61]
* Russian[62]
* Spanish[63]
* Turkish[64]
53. http://www.gentoo.org/news/be/gwn/gwn.xml
54. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
55. http://www.gentoo.org/news/de/gwn/gwn.xml
56. http://www.gentoo.org/news/fr/gwn/gwn.xml
57. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ja/gwn/gwn.xml
58. http://www.gentoo.org/news/it/gwn/gwn.xml
59. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pl/gwn/gwn.xml
60. http://www.gentoo.org/news/br/gwn/gwn.xml
61. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt/gwn/gwn.xml
62. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ru/gwn/gwn.xml
63. http://www.gentoo.org/news/es/gwn/gwn.xml
64. 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
Luke Giuliani <[email protected]> - Contributor
Kurt Lieber <[email protected]> - Contributor
Rafael Cordones Marcos <[email protected]> - Contributor
David Narayan <[email protected]> - Contributor
David Nielsen <[email protected]> - Contributor
Ulrich Plate <[email protected]> - Contributor
Sven Vermeulen <[email protected]> - Contributor
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
João Rafael Moraes Nicola <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Brazil)
Translation
Marcelo Gonçalves 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
José Costa <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Luis Medina <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Ricardo Loureiro <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Aleksandr Martyncev <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Sergey Galkin <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Sergey Kuleshov <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Alex Spirin <[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
Jesús García Crespo <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Carlos Castillo <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Julio Castillo <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Sergio Gómez <[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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