Gentoo Weekly Newsletter -- Volume 3, Issue 34
Kurt Lieber <[email protected]> Tue, 24 Aug 2004 08:59:18 +0000
| Newsgroups | gmane.linux.gentoo.weekly-news |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
for the confusion]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of August 23rd, 2004.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
==============
1. Gentoo News
==============
Gentoo 2004 UK Meeting
----------------------
The first Gentoo UK Meeting will be held at Salford University,
Manchester, on Saturday 4th September 2004. The day's events will be a
mixture of presentations from invited speakers and break-out sessions
where you get the chance to discuss the aspects of Gentoo that matter to
you with the developers who will be attending on the day.
Confirmed Gentoo Linux developers attending include Stuart Herbert from
the PHP and web-app teams, Rob Holland from the tenshi project, and
Ciaranm McCreesh from the Sparc team.
We're also delighted that Harry Moyes from Manchester Wireless
(www.manchesterwireless.net) will be speaking at the event.
Full details can be found here: http://dev.gentoo.org/~stuart/2004/
Our thanks to Reuben Finch from Freenode[1] for organizing the event, and
to Ricky Clarkson and Andrew Young of Salford University for their
generous help and support.
1. http://www.freenode.net
Successful 2004.2 Release via BitTorrent Distribution
-----------------------------------------------------
With only limited publicity for its debut, the latest release of Gentoo
Linux was the first to try an additional method of distribution besides
the usual HTTP or FTP downloads: BitTorrent filesharing. Looking at the
data volume that has been piped through in the two weeks since the
release, the introduction of such a P2P service for downloading Gentoo
Linux was immediately very popular with users. The BitTorrent service
provided by the German NPO Gentoo e.V.[2] reports that already more than
two terabytes worth of data have been processed by the tracker, with
roughly one TB for the x86 and Athlon/P4 LiveCD images alone. Unlike other
filesharing services, the MIT-licensed BitTorrent builds peer networks
flexibly for each individual file, so that clients desiring information
about download locations may get different partners for every downloadable
item, and eventually provide chunks of data they've already got to others
in the process.
2. http://www.gentoo-ev.org
Gentoo Forums receive a hardware upgrade
----------------------------------------
The Gentoo web forums recently received a much needed hardware upgrade.
Many users have been commenting on the recent poor performance of the
forums, which was caused by the site's continued growth and popularity.
The new hardware, graciously provided by the OSU Open Source Lab[3], is
nearly twice as powerful as the old system and should hopefully provide
some breathing room for further growth. The Gentoo Foundation wishes to
thank the OSU OSL for their continued support of the Gentoo Linux project.
3. http://www.osuosl.org
==================
2. Projects Update
==================
Releng
The Release Engineering team has named a new Operations Lead: Chris
Gianelloni[4] (wolf31o2). The group is starting to get back into the swing
of things after a well-deserved hiatus following the 2004.2 release. John
Davis (zhen) has put together and released catalyst-1.0.9, which
incorporates complete support for cascading profiles and preliminary
X/GameCD support, which should completed by 2004.3's release.
4. [email protected]
==================
3. Gentoo Security
==================
rsync: Potential information leakage
rsync fails to properly sanitize paths. This vulnerability could allow the
listing of arbitrary files and allow file overwriting outside module's
path on rsync server configurations that allow uploading.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[5]
5. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200408-17.xml
xine-lib: VCD MRL buffer overflow
xine-lib contains an exploitable buffer overflow in the VCD handling code
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[6]
6. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200408-18.xml
courier-imap: Remote Format String Vulnerability
There is a format string vulnerability in non-standard configurations of
courier-imapd which may be exploited remotely. An attacker may be able to
execute arbitrary code as the user running courier-imapd (oftentimes root).
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[7]
7. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200408-19.xml
Qt: Image loader overflows
There are several bugs in Qt's image-handling code which could lead to
crashes or arbitrary code execution.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[8]
8. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200408-20.xml
Cacti: SQL injection vulnerability
With special configurations of Cacti it is possible to change passwords
via a SQL injection attack.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[9]
9. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200408-21.xml
Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird: New releases fix vulnerabilities
New releases of Mozilla, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Mozilla Firefox fix
several vulnerabilities, including remote DoS and buffer overflows.
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[10]
10. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200408-22.xml
=================================
4. Featured Developer of the Week
=================================
Christian Andreetta
Figure 4.1: Christian Andreetta
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20040823_satya.jpg
This week, we are featuring Christian Andreetta[11] (satya), one of
several developers supporting samba[12] under Gentoo. In addition to the
traditional developer activities of creating and supporting ebuilds,
Christian focuses on providing support for antivirus integration,
printing, and authorization tools like kerberos and ldap. He has also
contributed to a number of other FOSS projects, like the python-based
skunkweb[13] and postgresql[14]. He is also looking forward to becoming
active working with the clusters and app-sci herds in Gentoo. When pressed
for an example of work he was particularly proud of, he confessed to being
pleased about the resolution to Bug #48871[15], a new Samba ebuild that
resolved a number of other bugs.
11. [email protected]
12. http://www.samba.org
13. http://skunkweb.sourceforge.net/
14. http://www.postgresql.org/
15. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48871
Christian completed a Bachelor's degree in Information Engineering,
specializing in biomedical and control systems. He is currently employed
as a Technology Officer for the University of Padova in Italy, but hinted
that he would be interested in working in Applied Research in other
European countries. Christian began using Unix in the early 90s, with
Solaris and HP-UX. In 1997, he was looking for a Unix-like operating
system for his home computers and experimented with Red Hat and Slackware
before settling on Mandrake. A magazine article in 2002 led hem to Gentoo,
and he "converted all of [his] systems as soon as possible." He became a
Gentoo developer by being active on bugzilla as a user, contributing
patches and ebuilds. When a call went out for samba maintainers, he
volunteered and was accepted based on his earlier work.
Christian usually develops using the Scintilla[16] text editor, with the
amaroK[17] radio streamer running. kgpg[18], kworldclock[19] and
distcc-gnome[20] are launched automatically when his system starts. He
works on an Asus L3C laptop that is abundantly supplied with RAM, and uses
KDE for his desktop environment. When away from his computers, Christian
practices shiatsu massage. He prefers having people around him, which
extends to a development philosophy that he describes as preferring "group
work over lone", adding his pleasure at working with the other members of
the Samba team. He closed with the observation that Gentoo provides
"simple tools and is very well documented. Every user is easily a
developer."
16. http://www.scintilla.org/
17. http://amarok.kde.org/
18. http://devel-home.kde.org/~kgpg/
19. http://docs.kde.org/en/3.2/kdetoys/kworldclock/
20. http://distcc.samba.org/
=========================
5. Heard in the Community
=========================
Web Forums
----------
Don't Drink and Sing - Gentoo Song Revisited
Forum userKen{NoBeeb}[21] aka Kristoffer Ericson from Sweden checked back
on a thread he created in January, and was pleasantly surprised that
apparently thousands of people had listened to the Gentoo song he recorded
(while inebriated, or so he claims), and evidently liked it! So he
re-mastered his old tune and put a new version up for download, this time
in almost acceptable sound quality:
21. http://forums.gentoo.org/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=14901
* Gentoo Song[22]
22. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=121752
Booting from Floppies
For users with historic hardware, the standard installation method of
booting from a Gentoo LiveCD can be challenging at times. Many alternative
procedures including netbooting via PXE, rescue floppies borrowed from
minimal Linux distributions exist, but for those who actually have a
CD-ROM drive that's just refusing to boot from the media, the GPL'ed Smart
Boot Manager may provide an easy solution:
* Installing from floppy [Solved][23]
* Smart Boot Manager Website[24]
23. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=67849
24. http://btmgr.webframe.org
=======================
6. Gentoo International
=======================
UK: Gentoo Meet-Up Car Sharing Exchange
Since the venue for the planned UK meet-up in September has been decided,
users have begun making travel arrangements to get to Manchester.
Sheffield-based Gentoo developer Tomk[25] has set up a tool on his website
at dev.gentoo.org that helps tackling the UK Gentoo community's geographic
challenges. If you plan on coming to Manchester by car, or seek
opportunities to hitch a ride to take you there, check the UK Meet-Up Car
Pool[26] page provided by Tom.
25. [email protected]
26. http://dev.gentoo.org/~tomk/gentoo-uk/car-pool/
===========
7. Bugzilla
===========
Summary
-------
* Statistics
* Closed Bug Ranking
* New Bug Rankings
Statistics
----------
The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[27]) to record and
track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the
development team. Between 14 August 2004 and 20 August 2004, activity on
the site has resulted in:
27. http://bugs.gentoo.org
* 689 new bugs during this period
* 534 bugs closed or resolved during this period
* 26 previously closed bugs were reopened this period
Of the 6889 currently open bugs: 135 are labeled 'blocker', 194 are
labeled 'critical', and 554 are labeled 'major'.
Closed Bug Rankings
-------------------
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period
are:
* PPC Porters[28], with 62 closed bugs[29]
* Portage Team[30], with 43 closed bugs[31]
* Gentoo Gnome Team[32], with 31 closed bugs[33]
* Gentoo Games[34], with 28 closed bugs[35]
* Gentoo KDE Team[36], with 24 closed bugs[37]
28. [email protected]
29.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2004-08-14&chfieldto=2004-08-20&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=2004-08-14&chfieldto=2004-08-20&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=2004-08-14&chfieldto=2004-08-20&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
34. [email protected]
35.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2004-08-14&chfieldto=2004-08-20&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
36. [email protected]
37.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2004-08-14&chfieldto=2004-08-20&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
New Bug Rankings
----------------
The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during
this period are:
* Gentoo Kernel Bug Wranglers and Kernel Maintainers[38], with 19 new
bugs[39]
* Gentoo Sound Team[40], with 14 new bugs[41]
* Gentoo Science Related Packages[42], with 11 new bugs[43]
* OSX Porters[44], with 11 new bugs[45]
* Gentoo Core System Packages Team[46], with 11 new bugs[47]
38. [email protected]
39.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2004-08-14&chfieldto=2004-08
-20&[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=2004-08-14&chfieldto=2004-08
-20&[email protected]
42. [email protected]
43.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2004-08-14&chfieldto=2004-08
-20&[email protected]
44. [email protected]
45.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2004-08-14&chfieldto=2004-08
-20&[email protected]
46. [email protected]
47.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2004-08-14&chfieldto=2004-08
-20&[email protected]
==================
8. Tips and Tricks
==================
Comparing Files
---------------
Often people compare the differences between two files using diff. But if
you needed to do a comparison of similarities between files, comm is the
command to use.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 8.1: |
| comm usage syntax |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
|comm [option] file1 file2 |
| |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: both file1 and file2 need to be sorted before using comm as it does
a line by line comparison.
comm outputs three columns: lines that are unique to file1, lines that are
unique to file2, and lines that are common to both files. The options
'-1', '-2', '-3' will suppress the corresponding columns.
Running comm -2 file1 file2 with the following files, would output five.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 8.2: |
| comm output |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
|File1: |
|one |
|two |
|three |
| |
|File2: |
|one |
|five |
|three |
| |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
===========================
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[48].
48. [email protected]
================
11. GWN Feedback
================
Please send us your feedback[49] and help make the GWN better.
49. [email protected]
================================
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================================
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===================
13. Other Languages
===================
The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter is also available in the following languages:
* Danish[50]
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* Japanese[55]
* Italian[56]
* Polish[57]
* Portuguese (Brazil)[58]
* Portuguese (Portugal)[59]
* Russian[60]
* Spanish[61]
* Turkish[62]
50. http://www.gentoo.org/news/da/gwn/gwn.xml
51. http://www.gentoo.org/news/be/gwn/gwn.xml
52. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
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62. 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
Kurt Lieber <[email protected]> - Contributor
Ulrich Plate <[email protected]> - Contributor
Sven Vermeulen <[email protected]> - Contributor
Simon Holm Thagersen <[email protected]> - Danish Translation
Jesper Brodersen <[email protected]> - Danish Translation
Arne Mejlholm <[email protected]> - Danish 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
Stefano Lucidi <[email protected]> - Italian Translation
Katuyuki Konno <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Hiroyuki Takeda <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Masato Hatakeyama <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Shigehiro Idani <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Masayoshi Nakamura <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Tomoyuki Sakurai <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Lukasz Strzygowski <[email protected]> - Polish Translation
Karol Goralski <[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
Guillermo Juarez <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Fernando J. Pereda <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Juan Diego Gutiérrez Gallardo <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Nicolas Silva <[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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