Fedora Weekly News Issue 102
by Thomas Chung
= Fedora Weekly News Issue 102 =
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 102 for the week of August 20th.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue102
Here is a highlight of this week's report:
In Ask Fedora, we have "Cleaning Old Files and Packages" and "CD Split
For fedora 7."
In Daily Package, we have "Remind - GUI/Text reminder service",
"Gallery2 - Web photo gallery", "Audio Setting Persistence",
"Transmission - BitTorrent Client" and "BZFlag - Capture-the-flag in a
Tank."
FYI, Fedora Weekly News will take a summer break until September 21st.
To join or give us your feedback, please visit
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join.
1. Announcements
2. Ask Fedora
1. Cleaning Old Files and Packages
2. CD Split For fedora 7
3. Planet Fedora
1. New Features in Fedora 8 - disable dontaudit rules
4. Daily Package
1. Fedora Daily Package Articles in Russian
2. Remind - GUI/Text reminder service
3. Gallery2 - Web photo gallery
4. Wednesday Why: Audio Setting Persistence
5. Transmission - BitTorrent Client
6. BZFlag - Capture-the-flag in a Tank
5. Marketing
1. Fedora/Open Source Success Story
2. A view of Linux as introduced by a blind user via Orca
6. Developments
1. KDE: Replace Dolphin With D3lphin?
2. Rebuilds Essential For Fedora 8
3. 23rd Aug FESCo Meeting
4. Development Spin
5. Making Initscripts LSB Compliant
6. BuildID And Proprietary Drivers
7. KDE4 Not A Feature Of Fedora 8?
8. Auto-Opening Of Ports In Firewalls By Services
9. TeXLive Licensing Problem?
10. dist-rawhide Not A Valid Target In Koji
7. Translation
1. Developer Wiki Page
2. String Freeze Policy
3. Translation Quick Start Guide
8. Infrastructure
1. Turbogears and Memory Usage
2. Asterisk on the Wiki
3. Bugzilla Upgrade
9. Security Week
1. July 2007 Operating System Vulnerability Scorecard
10. Advisories and Updates
11. Fedora 7 Security Advisories
12. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories
13. Events and Meetings
1. Event Report: WBUT install fest. part 1
2. Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-08-21
3. Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-MM-DD
4. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-08-21
5. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD
6. Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting 2007-08-22
7. Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-08-23
8. Fedora Localization Project Meeting 2007-08-21
9. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-08-21
10. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-08-20
[[Anchor(Announcements)]]
== Announcements ==
In this section, we cover announcements from various projects.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
There was no Official Announcement from Fedora Project last week.
[[Anchor(AskFedora)]]
== Ask Fedora ==
In this section, we answer general questions from Fedora community.
Send your questions to askfedora(a)fedoraproject.org and Fedora News
Team will bring you answers from the Fedora Developers and
Contributors to selected number of questions every week as part of our
weekly news report. Please indicate if you do not wish your name
and/or email address to be published.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AskFedora
Contributing Writer: RahulSundaram, PaulFrields
=== Cleaning Old Files and Packages ===
''Peter A. Shevtsov <webmaster(a)mera.com.ru>: From time to time I
install some new software on my computers just to look at it, to try,
to see if it is the right tool for me, etc. After reading new articles
on Fedora Daily Package I run yum more frequently :)
This software requires some additional packages, libraries, etc. Also,
it creates some config files in my home dir. But when I remove the
software the redundant packages (libraries) and config files stay in
my system. Is there any way to remove theses unused packages and old
config files?''
By way of answering your question about configuration files, consider
that package updates are actually a remove and an install action. If
configuration files were included in package removal, instead of
sometimes treated specially, then upgrading a package might actually
erase the administrator's system configuration! This is obviously not
a desirable outcome, so many packages mark their system configuration
files in the RPM database so they are not yanked off the system. To
see if an installed package has a specially marked configuration file,
use the command {{{rpm -qc <package_name>}}}.
If you want to clean your system of packages that are not required by
any other software on your system, you can use the
{{{package-cleanup}}} script that is part of the 'yum-utils' package.
Install 'yum-utils' with the command {{{su -c "yum -y install
yum-utils"}}} and then run {{{su -c "package-cleanup --leaves"}}} to
see a list of these packages. Note that not every dependency
installed during a transaction is necessarily a leaf. A more thorough
way to remove packages you installed is by surveying the output of the
command {{{rpm -qa --last}}}, which shows you recently installed
packages listed by date.
You may also be interested in the {{{repackage}}} option, which you
can add to your `/etc/yum.conf` file to be able to roll back your
installed software state. Refer to the Fedora Daily Package site[1]
for an excellent explanation of how this feature works.
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/17-Wednesday-Why-R...
=== CD Split For fedora 7 ===
''Jack Gibbs <jbg2(a)att.net>: I need the address or url of the company
that splits fedora 7 into CDs. thanks!''
This information is available fro the Fedora 7 FAQ [1]. There are
torrent files available too.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora7/FAQ?#CD_Install_Images
[[Anchor(PlanetFedora)]]
== Planet Fedora ==
In this section, we cover a highlight of Planet Fedora - an
aggregation of blogs from world wide Fedora contributors.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Planet
Contributing Writers: ThomasChung
=== New Features in Fedora 8 - disable dontaudit rules ===
DanielWalsh reports in his blog[1],
"One of the features of SELinux is the ability to dontaudit certain
access checks by a confined application. dontaudit rules are handy
to force applications to take different code paths."
"In SELinux we prevent almost every application from reading the
/etc/shadow file directly, causing pam to use it's help application.
But this would cause a ton of AVC messages that look like sshd, login
or apache are trying to read /etc/shadow. So we dontaudit these
messages."
[1] http://danwalsh.livejournal.com/11673.html
[[Anchor(DailyPackage)]]
== Daily Package ==
In this section, we recap the packages that have been highlighted as a
Fedora Daily Package [1].
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/
Contributing Writer: ChrisTyler
=== Fedora Daily Package Articles in Russian ===
Dmitry Beketov is now translating Fedora Daily Package articles into
Russian and posting them at
http://www.fedora-core.ru/content/blogcategory/14/34/
=== Remind - GUI/Text reminder service ===
''Productive Mondays'' highlight a timesaving tool. This Monday[1] we
covered Remind[2]:
"Remind is a very flexible reminder service which can be used from the
command line. With the tkremind program (in the remind-gui package),
it can also be used with a graphical user interface."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/128-Productive-Mon...
[2] http://www.roaringpenguin.com/en/penguin/openSourceProducts/remind
=== Gallery2 - Web photo gallery ===
''Artsy Tuesdays'' highlight a graphics, video, or sound application.
This Tuesday[1] Gallery2 [2] was featured:
"Gallery2 is an easy-to-use web-based photo gallery, built on PHP,
which has many available plugins and an active user community."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/129-Artsy-Tuesday-...
[2] http://gallery.menalto.com/
=== Wednesday Why: Audio Setting Persistence ===
The ''Wednesday Why'' article[1] took a look at how Fedora saves audio
settings during system shutdown and restores them during a reboot:
"You've probably noticed that ALSA settings for various input and
output controls are preserved across reboots. The audio device state
is saved in the file /etc/alsa/asound.state, a text file which
contains a description of each device control and the current values."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/130-Wednesday-Why-...
=== Transmission - BitTorrent Client ===
''GUI Thursdays'' highlight software that enables, provides, enhances,
or effectively uses a GUI interface. This Thursday[1], Transmission[2]
was discussed:
"The preferred method for downloading Fedora installation images is
BitTorrent via the tracker at http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/ --
There are quite a few BitTorrent clients available in the Fedora
repositories. One of the newest is Transmission..."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/131-GUI-Thursday-T...
[2] http://transmission.m0k.org/
=== BZFlag - Capture-the-flag in a Tank ===
''Friday Fun'' highlights fun, interesting, and amusing programs. This
Friday[1], we took a look at BZFlag[2]:
"BZFlag is a team-based multiplayer 3D capture-the-flag game. You
manouver your tank between pyramids and block buildings within a
walled arena, shooting enemy tanks and collecting flags -- either to
win the game (capture-the-flag mode) or to gain additional
capabilities (free-for-all mode)."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/133-Friday-Fun-BZF...
[2] http://bzflag.org/
[[Anchor(Marketing)]]
== Marketing ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora/Open Source Success Story ===
JimNanney reports in in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"We really want to highlight to everyone that not only is the freedom
provided by open source software available, but is a key ingredient in
success from a business standpoint. Yes, as with any business there
are obstacles, but with open source solutions these have been very
minor when they could have been devastating."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-August/msg0018...
=== A view of Linux as introduced by a blind user via Orca ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Windows is still not my preferred operating system" reports Darragh
at the end of his audio tour. "With the recent advances in Orca in
GNOME, and the fact that with the work of the people on the Speakup
Modified group, Fedora 7 makes it very easy to set up, and with the
combination of everything it's just so fast to use; it's really
becoming just a pleasure."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-August/msg0016...
[[Anchor(Developments)]]
== Developments ==
In this section, we cover the problems/solutions,
people/personalities, and ups/downs of the endless discussions on
Fedora Developments.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Contributing Writer: OisinFeeley
=== KDE: Replace Dolphin With D3lphin? ===
ChitleshGoorah wanted to know[1] whether "dolphin" (a file-manager)
should be replaced with "d3lphin", which is a fork with some
improvements and fixes. He outlined the process by which dolphin might
be obsoleted by d3lphin and asked whether he should go ahead with it.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01697.html
In response[2] to PraritBhargava it was further explained that upstream KDE had
decided to no longer maintain dolphin in KDE3 and the fork was a
backport of bugfixes.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01725.html
RexDieter was mostly in favour but RahulSundaram wondered[3] why
Chitlesh didn't just include the patches and retain the name,
especially as the fork was likely to be short-lived.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01701.html
Discussion then centered on what the package should be named and what
it should state it is providing and obsoleting. JohanCwiklinski
thought[4] that it would be better to name the package "d3lphin" and
have it obsolete and provide "dolphin" due to the fact that this
reflected upstream naming. He also argued for not maintaining both
packages simultaneously. This made MattMiller concerned about
upgrading due to the co-existence of the KDE4 package, but
LaurentRineau saw[5] little to worry about as the KDE4 "dolphin" is in
the package named "kdebase" and is not separate.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01745.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01765.html
Rahul noted[6] that Chitlesh's provision of packages for both methods
meant he could go either way, but that patching the existing dolphin
would have been less work.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01739.html
=== Rebuilds Essential For Fedora 8 ===
The need for the rebuilding of 2845 packages was posted[1] by
JesseKeating. Jess explained that a bad "binutils" in the buildroots
had caused a problem for SELinux and also that binary packages with
debuginfo built before build-id (see FWN#100 "New finddebug-info.sh.
Don't Run ld Directly In %build"[2]) needed to be rebuilt. It was
desirable to have this work completed before the Test2 freeze date
(28th Aug).
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01437.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue100#head-e6a52df4480369d67463ec269...
Jesse included a link to a list of the affected packages[3] produced
by a script which he refined several times in response to feedback.
[3] http://jkeating.fedorapeople.org/really-need-to-rebuild
In addition, the license tags are supposed to be fixed up, but Jesse
drew attention to the large number which are known not to be. Jesse
outlined the logistical problems of trying to rebuild the packages, or
rely on the packagers to fix these issues and rebuild themselves and
finished with an appeal for input from the community.
PaulHowarth wondered what were the cut-off dates for the ppc32/SELinux
issue and for the buildid/debuginfo issue and Jesse responded[4] that
they were respectively "anything built with binutils between versions
2.17.50.0.16 and 2.17.50.0.17-7" and "Anything that is binary, has
-debuginfo, and hasn't been built with rpm-4.4.2.1-7 or newer (which
landed around 2007-08-14 02:00:00.000000 koji time".
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01454.html
ChristopherBrown thought that slipping the Fedora 8 Test2 release by a
week and trying to contact maintainers and upon failure to rebuild
allowing any other maintainer to rebuild at will would solve things,
but this didn't attract JoshBoyer on the grounds[5] that it was too
complicated and probably unnecessary.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01459.html
ThorstenLeemhuis also wanted[6] to keep to the Test2 release date. In
order to get the work done he suggested a script which would add a
".1" to the release and rebuild automatically any package not queued
or rebuilt by some time. A further script would email maintainers who
were delinquent in updating their license tags.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01456.html
Following JesseKeating's interest in Thorsten's proposal a request
came in[7] from MiroslavLichvar to put the ".1" before the %{?dist}.
VilleSkyttä thought that this was undesirable as it broke the purpose
of %{dist} and a longish discussion followed in which this viewpoint
seemed to predominate, with Jesse finally plumping[8] for appending
".1" to %{dist}. A side-thread arose[9] when RalfCorsepius noted the
problems that the current convention of using x in %changelog entries
instead of x%{?dist}. Ralf specifically pointed out that the problem
with Jesse's method would be that the release tags in the changelog
would not match the actual %release tags. This quickly diverged into a
discussion of using SCMs to hold the changelog instead of keeping it
in the package with ColinWalters advocating[10] the use of Koji or
other online solutions and other contributors pointing out the
advantages of a non-networked, CLI interface to the information.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01464.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01493.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01558.html
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01640.html
An email from ToddZullinger updated[11] the list of improperly licensed packages
(67%) and ToshioKuratomi[12] and MichaelSchwendt[13] helped him
generating a mapping between packages and maintainers in the new
PackageDB.
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01471.html
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01495.html
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01577.html
Returning to the central issue RayStrode wondered[14] why the rebuild
wasn't just automated instead of wasting developer time which could be
spent on adding new features.
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01494.html
JoshBoyer responded that an automated rebuild might disrupt the
ability of the maintainer to implement changes and that searching for
AWOL maintainers was also important. JesseKeating added[15] that
automation tied up a package set potentially for days. Jesse further
explained[16] this in response to Ray's questioning with the
information that automated rebuilds occur at low priority and so can
be held back in a queue until a maintainer's non-automated build is
done. The automated build is then queued and because it is completed
later it becomes the latest version and the non-automated build (with
all its changes) is lost. In addition the License-tags really are a
rebuild issue and should be done now instead of later so that any
unexpected consequences surface with time to fix them.
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01499.html
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01505.html
=== 23rd Aug FESCo Meeting ===
An invitation[1] from BrianPepple to introduce missed topics to the
FESCo IRC meeting[2] was embraced by several people.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01644.html
[2] http://bpepple.fedorapeople.org/FESCo-2007-08-23.html
Specifically HansdeGoede ensured[3] that there was discussion about
making "initscripts" LSB compliant (see "Making Initscripts LSB
Compliant" below in this same FWN#102 for full coverage).
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01645.html
The most meaty topic of the meeting concerned two related proposals.
The first was that articulated[4] by DavidWoodhouse to obsolete
"kmods" from Fedora altogether. David's proposal argues that kernel
modules shouldn't be shipped as separate packages. Instead patches to
the kernel package should be accepted at the discretion of the kernel
maintainers (DaveJones and ChuckEbbert). Contributors would be
allowed commit access to the kernel solely for their own patch.
[4] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DavidWoodhouse/KmodProposal
The clearest objections came from ChristopherAillon who wanted to know
what precedent there was for allowing the maintainers of a "base"
package (e.g. kernel, firefox) to influence the rejection of "addons"
to that package (e.g. kmods or firefox-extensions respectively).
The second proposal came from JefSpaleta and suggested[5] that DKMS
[6] could be used to ship the source of "out-of-tree" kernel modules
which could be dynamically rebuilt to work with updated versions of
the kernel. This seemed to offer a possible way out of the impasse
described above as it has the advantage of opening up the contribution
process to experimental modules which could then be mainlined later.
The honed and crafted stable Fedora kernel would be unaffected and
only those chosing to opt-in to the experimental modules would
experience their vagaries.
[6] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JefSpaleta/DKMSProposal
MattDomsch and JesseKeating noted during the meeting that JeremyKatz's
input was likely to be critical as he objected to having a second,
non-rpmdb database to track to find what is actually in /lib/modules.
Jef seemed to feel that this might be solvable, but Jesse was less
encouraged.
Several other meeting participants, e.g. ToshioKuratomi(abadger1999)
shared some of ChristopherAillon's worries about general rules
excluding add-on packages, but recognized its limited, practical value
for the special case of the kernel modules.
The conclusion was that this needed to be discussed at greater length
on @fedora-devel and that Jef, David and Jesse needed to produce a
mutually agreed proposal.
=== Development Spin ===
An email from AndrewOverholt announced[1] the creation of a SIG for
making a development specific spin of Fedora. Goals included but were
not limited to: providing tools, making targeting Fedora easier for
developers, making Fedora-developers lives easier. These open-ended
goals include deriving the spin from "Fedora Desktop" and including
Eclipse, Koji, Systemtap, Frysk, GCC-toolchain, Emacs and enabling the
debuginfo repository. An explicit goal is to attract new developers
to Fedora.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01356.html
There appeared[2] to be an immediate problem with the desire to enable
the debuginfo repository when JesseKeating pointed out that it would
involve changes to the fedora-release package or else post-install
processing. The latter seemed likely[3] when JeremyKatz added that
the spin would be based off the LiveCD image as opposed to a
traditional install. Jeremy added that it would be good to figure
this out for the latter too.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01357.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01371.html
Jesse didn't like[4] the idea of modifying packages using a %post in
kickstart immediately after they've been installed and wondered
whether ChristopherAillon's suggestion[5] of copying the .repo file
into a special fedora-release-debuginfo package which would only be
installed on this spin was as unappealing as appeared at first blush.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01379.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01373.html
DanHorak and JonathanUnderwood requested[6] their favorite IDEs to be
added to the spin (which Andrew in his initial email admitted was
going to be a bulky DVD).
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01539.html
The general idea was exciting[7] to ColinWalters, who also identified
three likely classes of users and suggested that developers of Fedora
could be left to fend for themselves, whereas amateur web-developers
and professional coders would be a larger audience. Colin had some
more specific ideas[8] about how the configuration of such a system
was much more important than simply the packages which were shipped
with it, these included: making finding software easier; starting
appropriate applications by default; having a running Xen image to
make it easier
to deploy apps on Xen.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01374.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01416.html
=== Making Initscripts LSB Compliant ===
HansdeGoede asked[1] a short while ago whether or not he should close
some bugs currently open on his packages which contained initscripts.
The bugs suggested that the initscrips should be LSB compliant[2] and
there was some discussion about switching to a different init system
(such as sysinit-ng) but no resolution was offered.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00898.html
[2] http://www.linux-foundation.org/spec/refspecs/LSB_3.1.0/index.shtml
Similar doubts were expressed[3] at that time by MatthiasSaou about
the "Unanswered questions" on the wiki page and VilleSkyttä pointed
out[4] that "rpmlint" wasn't much help.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00931.html
In the 23rd Aug 2007 FESCo meeting[4] the issue was advanced again by
Hans. The consensus during the IRC meeting seemed to be that
HaraldHoyer knew most about this (and had filed the bugs) and should
create a formal proposed guideline document in the wiki. WillWoods
was interested to hear that requiring "redhat-lsb" is uncool as it
bloats the install.
[4] http://bpepple.fedorapeople.org/FESCo-2007-08-23.html
=== BuildID And Proprietary Drivers ===
StewartAdam posted[1] a plea for help when he found the rpmbuild
failed when he tried to build ATi and nVidia proprietary drivers for
the devel branch at Livna.org. Stewart was aware that proprietary,
binary drivers weren't something which the Fedora Project could help
with but wondered if someone could help with the specific error which
was due to the absence of buildids. The problem was that buildids
couldn't be added to the binary and Stewart thought this showed
exactly why binary-only drivers should be avoided.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01317.html
A response from RolandMcGrath suggested[2] a define which might switch
off the behavior and wondered whether a debuginfo rpm could contain
any useful information about a binary anyway. VilleSkyttä was a bit
concerned[3] with the non-stripping of binaries that would then occur
and suggested a correction to Roland's define.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01321.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01322.html
Roland suggested[4] that Ville's worries were unfounded because even
when debuginfo is enabled /usr/lib/rpm/redhat/brp-strip is run, he
also asked for any of the "rpm wizards" who had helped to set up the
current macros to speak up on what the preferred method was.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01323.html
JeremyKatz confirmed[5] that Ville's method was the preferred one and
a happy StewartAdam confirmed[6] that he no longer saw the BuildID
errors and suggested including this information on the wiki page for
BuildID.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01355.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01328.html
=== KDE4 Not A Feature Of Fedora 8? ===
HansdeGoede mentioned[1] that he had started packaging a KDE game
(ksirk) and been surprised to find no kde4 packages in rawhide. Hans
wondered what the status was and what he could do to help. Strictly
speaking most of the discussion on this occurred during the timeframe
of the previous FWN issue, but it's important and useful information.
(See FWN#99 "KDE4 Status"[2] for previous coverage of this topic).
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01281.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue99#head-518400f8171178c344dc79f455...
An initial response from MichelSalim advanced the information that
KDE4 probably would not be included in Fedora 8 and that there would
be some parallel-installable packages. Michel also noted that SuSE
(due to release in October) will not be shipping KDE4. This drew a
rather short response[3] from Hans who asked those of us without a
clue to RTFM and refrain from answering questions. Michel referred[4]
Hans to specific @fedora-devel threads. Subsequent defence of Michel
both on grounds of his correctness and for politeness led Hans to
explain[5] that he wished a high signal/noise ratio and had been
misled by the outdated wiki entry. He subsequently issued[6] an
unreserved apology to Michel.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01286.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01287.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01306.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01305.html
JoshBoyer stated that KDE4 would not be in Fedora 8, which RexDieter
reproved[7], suggesting that no final, absolute decision had been
reached in this regard. Further discussion with Josh however brought
out the information[8] that the most likely scenario for Fedora 8 is
that there will be a KDE3 desktop (desktop manager, window manager
etc) and a KDE4 runtime (libraries and resources for developing and
running KDE4 applications). Rex saw two other possible scenarios of a
KDE4 desktop and KDE3 runtime and no KDE4 runtime at ship date at all.
One of the points of confusion cleared up was that if something isn't
in Test2 then it isn't going to be a Feature.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01297.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01301.html
Rex stated[9] that if the KDE4 desktop was not ready by Test2 then it would not
replace the KDE3 desktop mid-release.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01311.html
After investigating the issue Rex posted[10] later to say that KDE4
would realistically not be in Fedora 8. Rex was upset about this and
managed to be both polite and profane. HansdeGoede stepped up to the
plate yet again to offer assistance[11] and was joined by
JoséAbílioMatos and "MarkG".
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01714.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01720.html
AdamTkac was keen[12] on moving to KDE4 right now, but JoshBoyer
suggested that the KDE team had a better grasp of the practicalities
and RexDieter said[13] "there is a basic level of functionality and
reliability [...] which simply isn't there yet", and encouraged anyone
interested to join the KDE SIG[14].
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01341.html
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01362.html
[14] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/KDE
=== Auto-Opening Of Ports In Firewalls By Services ===
A proposal[1] from JóhannGuðmundsson to implement a method to allow
services to automatically punch holes in the firewall suggested that
the best way of doing this might be for a service to read a firewall
configuration file and add iptables rules based upon it on starting
(and conversely remove those rules when stopping).
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01363.html
In favour was JeremyKatz. He added[2] the question whether it was
better to make the iptables change during starting/stopping (as
suggested by Johann) or to do it at chkconfig time. The advantage of
the latter is that it avoids having to make initscript changes, but
the former seems more "correct".
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01372.html
SimoSorce was less enthralled[3] by the prospect of having iptables
rules overridden or else having to change the initscripts and/or
reapply the rule each time the service starts or stops. Simo also
wondered whether Jeremy was right about it being more correct to make
these changes at start/stop, and also wondered to which interfaces
this would apply.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01378.html
"Nodata" and JonCiesla both looked[4] like they'd be part of a
pitchfork-bearing mob if their custom firewall settings were disrupted
by this functionality. ArthurPemberton agreed[5] with JonCiesla that
perhaps tying this in to ''system-config-securitylevel'' would allow
the functionality to be disabled in one easy place by admins.
DaveHollis thought[6] that integrating existing protocols for
modifying firewalls (UPnP, NAT-PMP[7]) by talking to avahi and using
DBUS to prompt for user input offered a better path.
LennartPoettering noted[8] that someone was already developing such a
module for avahi.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01382.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01383.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01389.html
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAT-PMP
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01408.html
Like Simo SaikatGuha wondered[9] what would happen with VPNs, and also
suggested that system-config-security could be modified to allow the
opening of ports per service (instead of explicitly by port) with
functions added to initscripts to look at this.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01380.html
BennyAmorsen posted[10] a slightly tongue-in-cheek implementation of
Johann's idea, suggesting that all he needed to do was to remove the
firewall completely.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01386.html
=== TeXLive Licensing Problem? ===
In the continuing drive to get License tags sorted out PatriceDumas
was doing his part and examining TeXLive (see FWN#101 "TeXLive
Status"[1]). Patrice noticed[2] an obligation to send notifications
to the copyright holder for "dvips" and "makeindex". Patrice wondered
if these requirements were considered to be the same to the very
similar Academic Free License (AFL) which is considered a Free
license.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue101#head-5af8a93231914c67517970432...
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01802.html
RahulSundaram argued[3] that there was a difference between a
requirement and a request and that hence the AFL was different.
Patrice was unsure about this as the AFL license used the word "must",
but demurred that he was not a native speaker of English.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01805.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01812.html
A re-reading of the AFL by Rahul seemed[5] to show that the obligation
was to convey to the ''recipients'' the license terms. Patrice
concurred[6] with this and said that he had noted the issue in the
TeXLive review.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01815.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01816.html
=== dist-rawhide Not A Valid Target In Koji ===
DebarshiRay (rishi) was stumped[1] when using the standard BuildRoot
setup he couldn't build two of his packages from scratch. The
specific error message was "BuildrootError: could not init mock
buildroot, mock exited with status 100."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01784.html
A quick response[2] from MamoruTasaka suggested that Rishi try to use "dist-f8"
instead of "dist-rawhide" and although this worked Rishi was puzzled
because koji list-target provides it as a possibility.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01786.html
JesseKeating answered[3] that it was not "a fully valid target" and that it had
been created to allow pointing mock at a static repository of rawhide
on people's systems.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01792.html
[[Anchor(Translation)]]
== Translation ==
This section, we cover the news surrounding the Fedora Translation
(L10n) Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N
Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor
=== Developer Wiki Page ===
DimitrisGlezos put up a page[1] with information for maintainers
looking to get their project/resource translated[2].
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N/ResourceMaintainers
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-August/msg00064.html
=== String Freeze Policy ===
DimitrisGlezos posted[1] that there is now an official String Freeze
Policy, the idea is to give translators concrete timelines without
worry about overwrites and the like.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-August/msg00065.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/StringFreezePolicy
=== Translation Quick Start Guide ===
NorikoMizumoto posted[1] some changes to the guide[2] and as always
the team is looking for additions and improvements.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-August/msg00087.html
[2]http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N/Tasks/TQSG
[[Anchor(Infrastructure)]]
== Infrastructure ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure
Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor
=== Turbogears and Memory Usage ===
MikeMcGrath requested[1] some application owners and whoever else may
have some free time to investigate to ensure that the applications are
using their memory as intended as the machines are swapping
frequently.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-August/ms...
=== Asterisk on the Wiki ===
MikeMcGrath posted[1] about a page created[2] to inform others about
Asterisk and some basic troubleshooting.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-August/ms...
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/Asterisk
=== Bugzilla Upgrade ===
ToshioKuratomi posted[1] a breakdown of expected problems with the
proposed Bugzilla upgrade. He also posted some post upgrade notes[2]
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-August/ms...
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-August/ms...
[[Anchor(SecurityWeek)]]
== Security Week ==
In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora.
Contributing Writer: JoshBressers
=== July 2007 Operating System Vulnerability Scorecard ===
* http://blogs.technet.com/security/archive/2007/08/16/july-2007-operating-...
I ran across this vulnerability report. The goal of which appears to
be to show that Windows Server 2003 has fixed significantly fewer
flaws than various other operating systems. Upon reading the report,
the first thing that popped into my head was "But what about the
things that aren't fixed?" There are quite a few reports like this,
none of them really say much. We can safely say that any report is
going to show that lots of things get fixed in operating systems that
contain lots of things.
I wouldn't mind seeing an report about the various outstanding flaws
in a given system. Such a report is likely impractical to produce, as
it's a full time job to track outstanding flaws, but it would no doubt
be useful. It's very easy to draw the shortsighted conclusion that the
more flaws a vendor fixes, the more insecure their product is. It
would make just as much sense to say that the fewer flaws a vendor
fixes, the more outstanding things they are still vulnerable to.
[[Anchor(AdvisoriesUpdates)]]
== Advisories and Updates ==
In this section, we cover Security Advisories and Package Updates from
fedora-package-announce.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
== Fedora 7 Security Advisories ==
* sysstat-7.0.4-3.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* kdelibs-3.5.7-20.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* kdebase-3.5.7-13.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* po4a-0.32-4.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* libvorbis-1.1.2-3.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* id3lib-3.8.3-17.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* bochs-2.3-7.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* kernel-2.6.22.4-65.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* pam_ssh-1.92-2.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
== Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories ==
* dovecot-1.0.3-6.fc6 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
[[Anchor(EventsMeetings)]]
== Events and Meetings ==
In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from
various projects.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Event Report: WBUT install fest. part 1 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-August/msg00...
=== Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-08-21 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-August/msg0011...
=== Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
=== Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-08-21 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-August/msg00059.html
=== Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
=== Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting 2007-08-22 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/epel-devel-list/2007-August/msg00136.html
=== Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-08-23 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-August/ms...
=== Fedora Localization Project Meeting 2007-08-21 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-August/msg00082.html
=== Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-08-21 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-August/msg00567.html
=== Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-08-20 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01400.html
--
Thomas Chung
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung
15 years, 9 months
- 1
- 0
Fedora Weekly News Issue 101
by Thomas Chung
= Fedora Weekly News Issue 101 =
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 101 for the week of August 13th.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue101
Here is a highlight of this week's report:
In Ask Fedora, we have "Location For Menu Entries And Customization"
and "64-bit Java Plugin".
In Daily Package, we have "Fedora Daily Package Articles in Chinese",
"MediaWiki - Collaborative publishing", "RenRot - Rename and rotate
photos", "Wednesday Why: Logins and Sessions", "GKrellM - System
monitoring tool", "TaxiPilot - Drive a Space Taxi" and "Fedora Daily
Package Weekly Video Summary"
To join or give us your feedback, please visit
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join.
1. Announcements
2. Ask Fedora
1. Location For Menu Entries And Customization
2. 64-bit Java Plugin
3. Planet Fedora
1. Fedora 8 virtualization work-in-progress
2. LinuxWorld San Francisco 2007 Wrap-Up
4. Daily Package
1. Fedora Daily Package Weekly Video Summary
2. Fedora Daily Package Articles in Chinese
3. MediaWiki - Collaborative publishing
4. RenRot - Rename and rotate photos
5. Wednesday Why: Logins and Sessions
6. GKrellM - System monitoring tool
7. TaxiPilot - Drive a Space Taxi
5. Marketing
1. Deskftop Faceoff: Fedora vs. Vista
2. Virgin America moves from Fedora to Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3. Installing Fedora - a video tour
6. Developments
1. PulseAudio Enabled By Default
2. GPL And LGPL Not Acceptable For Fedora
3. Mock Problems With Failing libdb-4.5.so Dependency
4. Attention! Low-Hanging Fruit Ahead!
5. XFS Problems Confirmed On x86 LVM
6. Mkinitrd EHCI-HCD Erro-71 On Boot
7. Meet The Desktop Team
8. Naming Fedora 8 And How Freezing Works
9. Package Management Cont.
10. TeXLive Status
7. Maintainers
1. Naming Fedora 8
2. The Status of Eclipse 3.3 In Fedora 8
8. Translation
1. String and Trans Freeze Pages
2. Module Movement Suggestions
9. Infrastructure
1. Builder Monitoring
10. Security Week
1. Real world security
11. Advisories and Updates
12. Fedora 7 Security Advisories
13. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories
14. Events and Meetings
1. Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-MM-DD
2. Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-08-16
3. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-08-14
4. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD
5. Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting 2007-08-15
6. Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-MM-DD
7. Fedora Localization Project Meeting 2007-08-14
8. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD
9. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-08-13
15. Extras Extras
1. Fedora 7 Book for FWN 100th Issue
[[Anchor(Announcements)]]
== Announcements ==
In this section, we cover announcements from various projects.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
There was no significant announcement last week.
[[Anchor(AskFedora)]]
== Ask Fedora ==
In this section, we answer general questions from Fedora community.
Send your questions to askfedora(a)fedoraproject.org and Fedora News
Team will bring you answers from the Fedora Developers and
Contributors to selected number of questions every week as part of our
weekly news report. Please indicate if you do not wish your name
and/or email address to be published.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AskFedora
Contributing Writer: RahulSundaram
=== Location For Menu Entries And Customization ===
''Joe Klemmer <klemmerj(a)webtrek.com>: I have all three of the major
desktop environments installed on my systems. My primary is Xfce but
I do use GNOME or KDE at times. One thing I have found is that the
menu's are not consistent across desktops. On my system Fedora 7 box
it seems that KDE has MANY more entries in it's menu than GNOME or
Xfce. Xfce generates it's menu on the fly and I'm guessing that the
other two do as well. Is there any standard for placement of .desktop
files? Something more effective than "locate .desktop"
As an adjunct to this, is there a proper place for users to put
manually created .desktop files? I have been putting them with the
regular ones in /usr/share/applications/ but I'd be more at ease if
there were a place under $(HOME) to put them. Something other than
$(HOME)/Desktop as I wish to have entries in the menus but not on the desktop.''
Desktop menu entries in GNOME, KDE and Xfce among others follow the
freedesktop.org desktop entry specification [1]. The specification
allows for certain entries to be shown only in one particular desktop
environment or excluded from others based on the how they are
specified in the desktop files in Fedora packages. The menu is
generated dynamically from the ".desktop" files.
The system default folder in Fedora for menu entries is
/usr/share/applications. See the specification for more details.
[1] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec
=== 64-bit Java Plugin ===
''Lane Brooks <lbrooks(a)mit.edu>: What options are there for getting a
Java plugin working on 64bit Firefox?''
Sun has after a long delay committed[1] to a 64-bit plugin for Java
version 1.7. Meanwhile the usual solution is to install the 32-bit
version of Firefox which is available in the Fedora repository and
continue using the 32-bit plugin.
[1] http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4802695
[[Anchor(PlanetFedora)]]
== Planet Fedora ==
In this section, we cover a highlight of Planet Fedora - an
aggregation of blogs from world wide Fedora contributors.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Planet
Contributing Writers: ThomasChung
=== Fedora 8 virtualization work-in-progress ===
DanielBerrange reports in his blog[1],
"For Fedora 8 we have quite an ambitious set of goals[2] to improve
security of the virtualization management stack. With the test2 date
fast approaching things are starting to fall into place, although as
ever its taken longer than expected. Should really have expected this
since it requires getting code accepted in 3 upstream projects (Xen,
QEMU, KVM), releases several brand new pieces of new software (GTK-VNC
and Virt Viewer), and updating many others (Virt Manager &
virt-install)."
[1] http://berrange.com/personal/diary/2007/08/fedora-8-virtualization-work-in
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureVirtSecurity
=== LinuxWorld San Francisco 2007 Wrap-Up ===
MattDomsch reports in his blog[1]
See the Video Interview[2] at Fedora Booth.
"Fellow Fedora Project Board member KarstenWade, and Fedora engineer
JackAboutboul were manning the Fedora booth, and took time to tell me
about the Fedora Translations effort, and the Creative Commons Live
Content CD they were giving away, built entirely with Open Source
tools included in Fedora 7."
[1] http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/08/15/25022.aspx
[2] http://media.dellone2one.com/dell/August2007/Fedora_cc.ogg
[[Anchor(DailyPackage)]]
== Daily Package ==
In this section, we recap the packages that have been highlighted as a
Fedora Daily Package [1].
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/
Contributing Writer: ChrisTyler
=== Fedora Daily Package Weekly Video Summary ===
A screencast video summary of this week's daily packages is available [1].
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/127-Fedora-Daily-P...
=== Fedora Daily Package Articles in Chinese ===
Allen Chen has translated a number of Fedora Daily Package articles
into Chinese and posted them on his blog at
http://a3linux.blogspot.com.
=== MediaWiki - Collaborative publishing ===
''Productive Mondays'' highlight a timesaving tool. This Monday[1] we
covered Mediawiki[2]:
"A Wiki is a collaboratively-edited web site. Some of the best-known
examples are the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, including
Wikipedia and Wiktionary, and Wikis are useful collaboratively editing
and publishing many different types of web content. The software that
powers the Wikimedia Foundation projects is called MediaWiki and is
available within Fedora."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/120-Productive-Mon...
[2] http://www.mediawiki.org/
=== RenRot - Rename and rotate photos ===
''Artsy Tuesdays'' highlight a graphics, video, or sound application.
This Tuesday[1] Renrot[2] was featured:
"Renrot is a simple but very useful command-line tool. It renames
photo files based on information in the EXIF tags within the photo
file. ... It will also rotate images based on the orientation data in
the EXIF tags, if present."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/121-Artsy-Tuesday-...
[2] http://freshmeat.net/projects/renrot/
=== Wednesday Why: Logins and Sessions ===
The ''Wednesday Why'' article[1] took a look at the difference between
a login and an X session, and how this affects the execution of the
~/.bash_profile startup script:
"A login occurs when you authenticate to the system in character mode
and a shell is started for you. ... A session, on the other hand, is
the graphical version of a login. The session is started by the
display manager gdm (or, alternatively, kdm or xdm) when the program
starts."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/122-Wednesday-Why-...
=== GKrellM - System monitoring tool ===
''GUI Thursdays'' highlight software that enables, provides, enhances,
or effectively uses a GUI interface. This Thursday[1], GKrellM[2] was
discussed:
"If you're interested in monitoring your system's performance, but
want to see more information than the GNOME System Monitor applet can
display, GKrellM is the tool for you. It's the Swiss army knife of
graphical monitoring tools, offering more than a dozen built-in
monitors (which run in a single process) and supporting both plugins
and themes."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/125-GUI-Thursday-G...
[2] http://members.dslextreme.com/users/billw/gkrellm/gkrellm.html
=== TaxiPilot - Drive a Space Taxi ===
''Friday Fun'' highlights fun, interesting, and amusing programs. This
Friday[1], we took a look at TaxiPilot[2]:
"Taxi Pilot is a strange 2D game where you become the pilot of a space
taxi in the year 4017. You must pick up and drop off passengers
without landing on the passengers or crashing your vehicle. ...
Written for KDE 3, Taxi Pilot is loosely modeled after the Space Taxi
game on the Commodore 64."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/126-Friday-Fun-Tax...
[2] http://taxipilot.sourceforge.net/
[[Anchor(Marketing)]]
== Marketing ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Deskftop Faceoff: Fedora vs. Vista ===
DavidsonPaulo reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Fedora 7 adds a veneer to the GNU/Linux desktop that provides
much of the ease of use of a Windows operating system, but beneath it,
the traditional Unix concerns for security and for users doing things
their own way remains. While users can ignore these concerns,
especially when just starting out, as they become more experienced
they may welcome the added control."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-August/msg0015...
=== Virgin America moves from Fedora to Red Hat Enterprise Linux ===
ChristopherAillon reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Fedora was a fantastic solution for us as we began our journey with
open source," said Ravi Simhambhatla, director of architecture and
integration at Virgin America. "As our need for fine-grained control
and scalability grew, we decided to migrate to Red Hat Enterprise
Linux for its reputation as a resilient, secure and scalable platform
as well as for its incredible support. Red Hat has the best kernel
engineers in the world and when I'm in a real bind, it's priceless to
have the ability to call someone who has the knowledge to get us on
track quickly."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-August/msg0014...
=== Installing Fedora - a video tour ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Ready to try Linux but want some hand-holding when you do? Here are
three videos that walk you through the process of installing Fedora
GNU/Linux."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-August/msg0014...
[[Anchor(Developments)]]
== Developments ==
In this section, we cover the problems/solutions,
people/personalities, and ups/downs of the endless discussions on
Fedora Developments.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Contributing Writer: OisinFeeley
=== PulseAudio Enabled By Default ===
A replacement for the aging sound system with PulseAudio[1] was announced[2] as
the default in Fedora 8 by LennartPoettering. (See ChrisTyler's
description[3] in DailyPackage and earlier coverage[4] in FWN#98
"PulseAudio Improving Fedora Sound"). "Esound" has been booted for all
new installs of Fedora 8. Lennart's post
was comprehensive including a FAQ, links to presentations and more.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeaturePulseaudio
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01196.html
[3] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/97-Artsy-Tuesday-P...
[4] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue98#head-8b87bc9bb0ff1f9a45fa428cbd...
Lennart, as the principle developer, wanted to warn developers and packagers of
audio-requiring applications that they needed to exercise caution and
go through a handy checklist which he provided in his post. Although
PulseAudio provides
compatibility layers for e.g. OSS and ALSA it is incomplete and
difficult and Lennart asked that people file bugs with him after
checking through the list. The one big exception was Adobe Flash
which may later have a workaround, but is known for now to be broken.
There was a good deal of concern about the problem of Flash.
DennisJacobfeuerborn expressed[5] these concerns best and tried to get
some further information from Lennart. Dennis's suggestion was that
the Flash problem be fixed before switching to PulseAudio as the
default in order to avoid a backlash from users. IanBurrell drew a
distinction[6] between replacing the sound-servers "esd" and "aRtsd"
with PulseAudio (which will probably cause no problems) and replacing
OSS and ALSA (which is the level at which the FLash problem occurs).
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01204.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01219.html
MartinSourada wondered whether "swfdec" would work, and pointed out that it was
FL/OSS. DavidNielsen responded[7] that "gnash" was in the Fedora
repositories and had worked for him with PulseAudio.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01206.html
MatthiasClasen wondered[8] whether Lennart had looked at
"libflashsupport" as it seemed to work well for him. "Kelly"
responded that s/he had produced an RPM which worked although it was
currently dependent on Flash, which could be changed. After noting
that libflashsupport used an acceptable BSD license WarrenTogami
wanted to know whether it used sane defaults for sound autodetection
and an optional config file to override th(ese with explicit choices.
"Kelly" responded[9]
with what seemed like a list of sane overrides.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01225.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01231.html
The closed, proprietary nature of Adobe Flash had been mentioned by
Lennart as a reason why supporting it was low on his list of
priorities. "Nodata" wondered
whether he had actually talked to Adobe's developers and WarrenTogami
suggested[10] that if PulseAudio's interface was now stable then it
might be targettable by Adobe.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01209.html
As packager of a large number of games HansdeGoede was concerned that
when he tried to follow Lennart's instructions they didn't seem to
work. His supposition
that it might be a 64-bit issue was quelled[11] by AdamGoode, who noted however
that PulseAudio had recently broken in Rawhide for him also.
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01223.html
The VOIP client "Ekiga" was noted[12] to crash with PulseAudio
according to MatejCepl.
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01216.html
The issue of KDE's aRtsd was addressed[13] by Kelly who noted that
s/he had "Pulseaudio completely set up to use everything, so I know
what has to be done to get it working (especially on KDE). Just ask."
KevinKofler was also on the ball
to assure[14] everyone that the KDE-SIG was on top of the situation
with several options and that in future KDE4 would use Phonon which
uses xine-lib which is supported perfectly by PulseAudio.
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01221.html
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01222.html
=== GPL And LGPL Not Acceptable For Fedora ===
Our attention was grabbed[1] when TomCallaway (spot) posted that "GPL and LGPL
are not acceptable for Fedora". Having hooked us, Tom proceded to explain that
what he meant was that license-tags in rpms need to be much more
specific than merely "GPL" or "LGPL". A list of nine acceptable
License tags for L/GPL packages was provided along with definitions.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01128.html
EricSandeen (packager of "xfsprogs") was confused[2] about an apparent
discrepancy between the source-code licence (GPL) and the included
COPYING file (which specified that a particular library "libhandle"
and some header files were LGPL but all other files were GPL). Tom's
message had specified that COPYING should not be trusted and the
source should be examined instead.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01130.html
An interpretation advanced[3] by HansdeGoede pointed to the difference
between whether libhandle was distributed as a separate file or else
linked into the binaries. The former case, Hans argued, necessitated
separate packages with individual licenses in order to make automated
license checking work. Hans also interpreted the situation to mean
that because the source-code contained specific mentions of the L/GPL
they trumped[4] any mentions in the COPYING file.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01130.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01134.html
"Kelly" believed that the point about the COPYING file was supposed to
be that if both it and the source mentioned specific versions then the
source version trumped all. This initially seemed to be distinct from
the situation Hans and Eric were discussing in which COPYING mentioned
a version but the source didn't mention a version. Hans seemed a bit
miffed[5] and posted a quote from the Fedora Project wiki which backed
up his position and stated that if there was no version
specified for a L/GLP source then technically it was licensed under
_any_ version of the GPL.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01137.html
An apology[6] from SimoSorce went some way to clear up this point and
to disagree with Hans' interpretation. Simo stated that if an author
had gone to the trouble of modifying the information in COPYING as
opposed to merely cut and pasting
it from the GPL then it was clear that their intention was expressed in COPYING
and it ought to be used as the determinant of the License-tag.
TomCallaway agreed[7] with this.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01151.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01158.html
Simo came up[8] with a pretty good summary of the pairwise
combinations of un/modified COPYING with un/specified source licences
and the probable actions to take in each case.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01162.html
A separate thread was started[9] by PatriceDumas to raise the issue of
a copyright assignment without any licensing information in the
"lesstif" code. Patrice wanted to know which short License-tag he
should use. Spot responded that this was a "copyright assignment with
no restrictions" which he hadn't added to the table of licenses yet
because no package yet was solely and wholly under only thislicense.
Subsequent information from Patrice revealed that there were also
LPGLv2+, MIT and GPLv2+ parts, and Spot clarified[11] that "no
license" was not required to be listed.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01148.html
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01157.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01169.html
Spurred[12] by the apparent green light being given to listing all
possible licenses on a single binary rpm HansdeGoede sought
clarification from Spot. Spot agreed that Hans was correct in his
interpretation and that it was not appropriate to merely list all the
compatible licenses that accompanied code that went into a single
binary, instead the strictest license should be used. But there was
according to Spot[13] one exceptional case (which doesn't occur very
often), which is when the licenses are compatible but non-consuming
(the L/GPL licenses ARE consuming so this doesn't occur often).
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01174.html
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01176.html
A final point about the licensing applying only to the packaged files
was raised[14] in discussion between Hans and Patrice, both of whom
thought the wiki should make this clearer.
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01180.html
=== Mock Problems With Failing libdb-4.5.so Dependency ===
While trying to build some packages in mock MamoruTasaka stumbled across a
weird error[1] where unresolved dependencies on libdb-4.5.so were
reported on Koji with a resulting failed build. However the
individual packages installed fine without this problem. Mamoru also
found the same problem for another build.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01227.html
A hint as to what was going wrong was supplied[2] by JindrichNovy with
the information that db4 had been updated to a newer version (4.6.18)
recently and the older version (4.5.20) had been moved to compat-db.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01235.html
Mamoru knew this and thought[3] that compat-db needed to be added automatically
in Koji when dependencies were being resolved. He also pointed out
that when compat-db was added manually to the BuildRequires the
problem still persisted.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01237.html
The problem was nailed[4] by VilleSkyttä who noted that the Obsoletes: provided
in compat-db were the problem and should be changed from "Obsoletes: db4 < 4.6"
to "Obsoletes: db4 < 4.2.52". JindrichNovy agreed[5] and after making
this change rebuilt the compat-db package.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01238.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01243.html
This still resulted[6] in failure for Mamoru (who was trying to build
the "Oyranos" package produced by NicolasChauvet (kwizart) and "ice").
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01254.html
One of the Fedora Project's most experienced packagers,
MichaelSchwendt, then provided[7] further depth to the problem
explaining that packages were being obsoleted in the build environment
by RPM due to virtual provides and that this was a
problem intrinsic to RPM which will hopefully be resolved soon.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01256.html
Jindrich noted[8] again his rebuild of compat-db without "db4-*
provides" and also that he was letting everyone know that "direct
library dependencies are now needed for packages using older db4s".
This phrase made MichaelSchwendt[9] and PatriceDumas[10] query whether
that was needed given rpmbuild's automatic dependency handling.
MamoruTasaka was happy to report[11] success using Jindrich's new
packages.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01275.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01276.html
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01280.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01278.html
=== Attention! Low-Hanging Fruit Ahead! ===
MatthiasClasen got the ball rolling[1] over on @fedora-desktop with a
discussion of what changes could be easily made in order to produce a
"Fedora Desktop" LiveCD spin for Fedora 8.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00104....
The most controversial of Matthias' proposals (which he later pointed
out were his personal list and not some mandated one) was to remove
LVM/RAID from the LiveCD installer. "Dragoran" wondered what was
gained by this and ChristopherAillon
responded[2] that what was lost were "confused users" and "one less
screen in the install". JeremyKatz thought that users were unlikely to
be confused about LVM/RAID because they had to click several buttons
to get to that point. He also pointed out[3] that another loss would
be those that need "dmraid" (fakeraid) support. DavidZeuthen
thought[4] users would find their way into confusion if it was offered
and explained that RAID or LVM could be used "under the hood" (he also
posted a nice ASCII graphic to illustrate his ideal Install screen).
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00109....
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00113....
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00139....
David asked[4] Jeremy how easy it would be to change anaconda so that
the underlying mechanism was decoupled from potentially simpler UIs on
top of it. Jeremy
referred[5] to his earlier suggestion of writing a kickstart generator
as easier than adding another interface to anaconda.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00153....
A good number of items on the laundry list were already being
tackled[6] by JonNettleton, who also cautioned that there was a danger
in waiting for perfect solutions instead of neglecting good,
practical, immediate solutions. Among the projects Jon has been
working on is hacking pam_keyring so that the keyring is unlocked on
default, but he suggested, and Matthias confirmed[7], that with
GNOME2.20 the gnome-keyring-pam package would do this.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00118....
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00130....
Reconsidering the launchers presented on the default gnome-panel
configuration was appealing[8] to NicuBuculei, who especially thought
the OpenOffice.org icons
should be removed. DavidZeuthen and ZackCerza agreed and Zack added that having
the launcher display the name/icon of the preferred browser automatically would
be nice. Further discussion led JonNettleton to suggest a more
flexible launcher which could auto-add frequently used applications.
JesseKeating thought[10] this sounded like "BigBoard".
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00119....
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00172....
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00176....
GianPaoloMureddu reacted strongly[11] against the idea of removing the
root userand thought the Ubuntu experience of "sudo by default" added
"/sbin" to the PATH of ordinary users. Gian Paolo wasn't against
disabling root login on GDM though. In response ColinWalters wondered
what setting the path had to do with enabling the root account and
stated[12] that all he cared about was killing the multiple password
prompts. Colin posted a link to a thread on FedoraForum in which
MatthewMiller detailed how to use sudo and /etc/security/console.apps
to achieve this goal.
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00196....
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00200....
Dragoran thought[13] that it would be better just to disable root login through
GDM and RayStrode agreed enough (including for the non "Desktop
Fedora" cases) that he built[14] a new gdm package.
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00202....
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2007-August/msg00202....
=== XFS Problems Confirmed On x86 LVM ===
A follow-up of an earlier discussion (FWN#98 "XFS In Anaconda"[1])
about support of the XFS filesystem in anaconda was carried out[2] by
EricSandeen. Eric confirmed that xfs on 4KSTACKS over LVM was a
problem due to stack overflows. However xfs on ordinary partitions
seems to work. Eric committed to searching out the biggest problems
when he has some spare time.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue98#head-9c78349dfd68e4c95f8e05e44a...
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01255.html
Earlier NicolasMailhot asked[3] whether it would be possible to enable
xfs for the non-problematic case of x86_64.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00870.html
=== Mkinitrd EHCI-HCD Erro-71 On Boot ===
PeteZaitcev wondered[1] why the "ehci" module was loaded last in
Rawhide and proposed a patch to mkinitrd to load it before uhci and
ohci.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01029.html
The possibility that this would fix the detection of USB2.0 as USB1.1,
especially in notebooks, led LamontPeterson to hope[2] that the change
would be accepted. Pete responded, however, that this mis-detection
was probably a separate issue
(although it might be related) and asked for bugs to be filed. In the
same email Pete further explained that the problem he was solving was
discovery and initialization on the companion bus when EHCI is
initialized in parallel.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01037.html
Another bug (on bugzilla.kernel.org) was referenced[3] by TomLondon as
a related issue, but Pete thought that it wasn't and explained that
the "-71" error usually indicates poor signal integrity (due to
cabling) and specifically in this case was due to EHCI transferring
and switching a port.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01129.html
PeterJones agreed with PeteZaitcev's patch and committed it to the mkinitrd git
repo which led DaveJones to request details of how to access the git
repo. PeterJones (confused by all the Joneses and Peters yet?)
supplied[4] a URI which depends on ssh-access.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01267.html
=== Meet The Desktop Team ===
An announcement[1] from MatthiasClasen about regular public IRC
meetings to co-ordinate interested Fedora community members in making
a better "Fedora Desktop"
LiveCD (see also "Attention! Low-Hanging Fruit Ahead!" above in this
same FWN#101) also mentioned the creation of a Desktop SIG (special
interest group).
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01030.html
The time of the inaugural meeting (20:00 - 21:00 CEST) was
questioned[2] by MatejCepl as it was awkward for Europeans.
DebarshiRay (Rishi) was unimpressed and counterpoised[3] the timing
inflicted on developers in China and the Indian sub-continent.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01073.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01074.html
JeroenVanMeeuwen (kanarip) thought[4] that this was an ideal
after-work time for Europeans. ChristopherAillon posted that this was
the only time that some people could meet and then hastened[5] to
assure Matèj that he hadn't meant to sound
so harsh.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01078.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01090.html
Matèj didn't seem too disturbed[6] and pointed out that cutting into
connubial bliss with after-hours meetings wasn't ideal.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01214.html
ChristopherBlizzard kept things moving by creating[7] a page for the
DesktopSIG on the wiki and added the notes of the first meeting.
AdamJackson (ajax) updated[8] the bootchart review request.
LinusWalleij was grateful for the meeting notes, but
suggested[9] that several of the items be discussed on @fedora-devel.
Chris responded with links to greater discussion of some of the items
Linus was concerned
about and also pointed out that they were all on the F8 feature list already.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01105.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01111.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01112.html
=== Naming Fedora 8 And How Freezing Works ===
After discussion in the Release Engineering IRC meeting[1] (Aug 13th
2007) JoshBoyer was tasked to collect names for the Fedora 8 release.
KevinKofler initiated[2] a thread with his own suggestion (Galois),
noting that he was too lazy to subscribe to maintainers. Josh
stated[3] that unless suggestions were posted to maintainers or CC'ed
to him then they would most likely be missed.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/Meetings/2007-aug-13
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00957.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00964.html
A pleasantly esoteric suggestion from "Alan" was to use "Underline"
and from then on there was a descent into jokes about Spinal Tap,
including the unpleasant idea of a "Smell the Glove" name for Fedora
13.
DaveAirlie was pushing[4] for "Poitín" (an Irish Moonshine) and
AndyShevchenko countered[5] with "Absinthe". The following discussion
revealed that Fedora developers are steeped in the lore and minutiae
of semi-illegal alcohol.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00961.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00986.html
A suggestion from NormanGaywood to use one of the common objects from
John Conway's Game of Life, the "Glider" was approved by several
people and DouglasMcClendon added[6] that this might attract ESR back
to Fedora...
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01079.html
Doug admitted to AdamJackson that he had been half-trolling, but that
in light of the changed situation of codecs in Fedora 8 it might
actually be true. JoshBoyer made it clear[7] that Fedora's policy on
codecs was still the same and the only new thing was CodecBuddy which
pointed interested users elsewhere for informaiton. JesseKeating also
thought[8] that attracting ESR back would be a regression.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01123.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01091.html
Similar ideas were tossed around[1] in the Release Engineering IRC
meeting, but what was more interesting was the clarification thrashed
out between WarrenTogami(warren), WillWoods (wwoods) and
JesseKeating(f13) of what a "Feature Freeze" is (new packages are
allowed only if they don't require major changes to the well-tested
existing packages which precede them). WillWoods seemed to be trying
to
find a way of producing a cutoff point for significant updates to
packages at different "tiers" of strictness.
Also of note in the IRC log is the "Deep Freeze" proposed for October
23rd after which new packages will not be added to Fedora 8 at all.
This information should end up documented in the wiki[9]
[9] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/Overview
Warren also posted[10] a notice of the coming August 28th Feature
Freeze for Fedora 8 with notes explaining what the purpose of this is
(to stabilize components in the default install mainly) and what to do
if your favorite feature misses the deadline. DimitrisGlezos added[11]
that this was also the date of the StringFreeze.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00939.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00956.html
=== Package Management Cont. ===
NicolasMailhot gave some further feedback[1] to RichardHughes about
the state of package management on Fedora (see FWN#99 "Package
Management: Goats Satisfied With Current Situation"[2]). Nicolas
specifically disagreed with the idea that anyone using a machine
should be allowed to install security updates. RichardHughes continued
to argue[3] that this was a policy choice which should be under the
control of the administrator.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00876.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue99#head-dd8ff39e04dfea9eb777d17c13...
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00876.html
An interesting new general criticism was then raised[4] by Nicolas who
thought that the propagation time of fixes from packagers on Koji on
through the master server and several layers of mirrors caused much
wasted time. He highlighted the problem of a faulty package which can
be continued to be installed by users many hours after a problem is
identified and fixed. Nicolas proposed that RSS-blacklist support in
YUM would avoid the ramifying of such problems.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00942.html
SethVidal thought that this would introduce a single-point-of-failure
and also be a bandwidth problem, but Nicolas responded[5] that the
blacklist could be distributed in a decentralized way and would be
bandwidth light as evidenced by the use of RSS on many high traffic
sites. He added some good food for thought about how users flock to
overload the more reliable root servers when there's a problem.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00945.html
=== TeXLive Status ===
JindrichNovy announced[1] the availability of TeXLive for i386 and
x86_64 via a repository hosted at his people.redhat.com account. He
was seeking a reviewer and mentioned that the fixes included
obsoletion of tetex-tex4ht (which allows the conversion of TeX to HTML
and RTF among other things), and contained an updated xpdf-3.02 from
upstream and a pdftex no longer statically linked to
libstdc++.repository hosted at his people.redhat.com account. He was
seeking a reviewer and mentioned that the fixes included obsoletion of
tetex-tex4ht (which allows the conversion of TeX to HTML and RTF among
other things), and contained an updated xpdf-3.02 from upstream and a
pdftex no longer statically linked to libstdc++.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01047.html
After a small hitch it was reported[2] by EdHill that the x86_64
packages worked apart from a couple of small problems with xdvi map
files and dvips. Ed was happy to file bugs, but Jindrich replied[3]
that as the package was still waiting
on review there was no bugzilla entry for TeXLive yet.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01070.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01082.html
JesseKeating tried[4] to help out with the account quota restriction
faced by Jindrich, but even when restricted to the i386 and x86_64
architectures TeXLive[5] is large.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01075.html
[5] http://www.tug.org/texlive/doc/texlive-en/live.html#x1-120003
[[Anchor(Maintainers)]]
== Maintainers ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Maintainers, the group of people who
maintain the software packages in Fedora.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-maintainers
Contributing Writer: MichaelLarabel
=== Naming Fedora 8 ===
Fedora 8 isn't coming out until November, but entries are now being
accepted if you would like to come up with the "code name" for Fedora
8[1]. After all submissions have been received the names will be run
through the legal department followed by an election process. Good
luck to everyone picking the successor to Moonshine!
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-August/msg00199.html
=== The Status of Eclipse 3.3 In Fedora 8 ===
If you've been wondering the status of Eclipse 3.3 for Fedora 8,
AndrewOverholt has updated the fedora-maintainers-list with the
current status[1]. The Eclipse 3.3 SDK is mostly done and the message
goes into detail with the other areas of this integrated development
environment.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-August/msg00241.html
[[Anchor(Translation)]]
== Translation ==
This section, we cover the news surrounding the Fedora Translation
(L10n) Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N
Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor
=== String and Trans Freeze Pages ===
DimitrisGlezos put out a couple pages[1] to help clarify what freezes
are and outlined the string freeze policy. As always
comments/suggestions are appreciated.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-August/msg00013.html
=== Module Movement Suggestions ===
RunaBhattacharjee had a couple of suggestions[1] regarding how to
communicate between maintainers and translators when modules get moved
around in the repository. The suggestions seem sound and would help
keep everyone on the same page.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-August/msg00033.html
[[Anchor(Infrastructure)]]
== Infrastructure ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure
Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor
=== Builder Monitoring ===
The Infrastructure group has been closely monitoring some of the
systems and are looking to fine tune the monitoring parameters.
MikeMcGrath posted this message[1] outlining some options and as
always looking for any more suggestions.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-August/ms...
[[Anchor(SecurityWeek)]]
== Security Week ==
In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora.
Contributing Writer: JoshBressers
=== Real world security ===
It's always easy to talk about how great new security innovations are
which are currently included in things like the kernel, glibc, and
gcc. The real test of these technologies isn't how many articles are
written about how neat they are, it's real world examples. I found
two of these examples this week.
* SELinux blocks a Mambo exploit[1]
[1] http://interactive.linuxjournal.com/article/9176
In this example, we see that SELinux prevented a worm from spreading.
This was the result of SELinux sandboxing the httpd process. There
are a great many people who suggest the best way to run SELinux is to
disable it. I suspect this article proves that SELinux works, and
should be used.
* Stack Protector blocked an rsync off by one error[2]
[2] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2007-4091
CVE-2007-4091 describes an off by one error in which a stack buffer
ends up writing a single NULL byte ('\0') past the end of the
character array. The location of this buffer could possibly result in
an attacker taking over program execution. Stack Protector contains
logic which places a "canary" on the stack which is then checked to
ensure that nothing fishy is going on. The canary completely
nullifies the potential to exploit this flaw.
[[Anchor(AdvisoriesUpdates)]]
== Advisories and Updates ==
In this section, we cover Security Advisories and Package Updates from
fedora-package-announce.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
== Fedora 7 Security Advisories ==
* qtpfsgui-1.8.12-1.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* kdegraphics-3.5.7-2.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* koffice-1.6.3-9.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* Terminal-0.2.6-3.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* tor-0.1.2.16-1.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
== Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories ==
* None
[[Anchor(EventsMeetings)]]
== Events and Meetings ==
In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from
various projects.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
=== Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-08-16 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-August/msg00...
=== Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-08-14 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-August/msg00048.html
=== Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
=== Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting 2007-08-15 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/epel-devel-list/2007-August/msg00116.html
=== Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
=== Fedora Localization Project Meeting 2007-08-14 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-August/msg00026.html
=== Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
=== Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-08-13 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01181.html
[[Anchor(ExtrasExtras)]]
== Extras Extras ==
In this section, we cover any noticeable extras news from various
Linux Projects.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora 7 Book for FWN 100th Issue ===
Unfortunately, there was no winner for Fedora 7 Book since there was
no valid entries received last week.
FWN will reserve the copy for future special event for Fedora Project.
--
Thomas Chung
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung
15 years, 9 months
- 1
- 0
Fedora Weekly News Issue 100
by Thomas Chung
= Fedora Weekly News Issue 100 =
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 100 for the week of August 6th,
2007. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue100
In this week, we have announcements on Virtual FudCon8, Announcing
Fedora 8 Test 1.
In Ask Fedora, we have a few good questions on Intel IP2200 Wireless
In Fedora 7, Distribution Upgrades And Peripherals, Yum Reverse
Dependency Removal.
In Daily Package, we have a few good reviews on Qcad - Simple 2D CAD
program, Gscan2pdf - Frontend for scanning utilities, Xephyr - New
nested X server and Really Slick Screensavers
To celebrate our 100th issue, one lucky winner will receive "Fedora 7
Bible" by Christopher Negus. See Extras Extras section for more
information.
To join or give us your feedback, please visit
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join.
1. Announcements
1. Virtual FudCon8
2. Announcing Fedora 8 Test 1 (7.90)
2. Ask Fedora
1. Intel IP2200 Wireless In Fedora 7
2. Distribution Upgrades And Peripherals
3. Yum Reverse Dependency Removal
3. Planet Fedora
1. Fedora 8 Artwork: We Need Your Help!
2. Smolt passed 100k mark
3. FOSS.IN/2007 Announced
4. To Infinity and Beyond
5. OSCON Wrap-Up
4. Daily Package
1. New: Fedora Daily Package Weekly Video Summary
2. Qcad - Simple 2D CAD program
3. Gscan2pdf - Frontend for scanning utilities
4. Wednesday Why: Fast User Switching
5. Xephyr - New nested X server
6. Really Slick Screensavers
5. Marketing
1. Red Hat And Its Fedora 8 Friends
2. LinuxLinks Fedora 7 Review
3. Fedora 7: Community remix
4. Fedora 7 Chosen as LiveContent CD Platform
6. Developments
1. Xfs Going Away. Minor Bug In KDE Control Center
2. RPM Roadmap Winds On
3. Kmods: Does Fedora Intentionally Break 3rd Party Firewire
Drivers? No.
4. New "finddebug-info.sh". Don't Run "ld" Directly In %build
5. Enabling Compiz By Default
6. Changes TO Cvsadmin Requests And ACLs
7. Reducing Power Usage Of Fedora
8. Disabling Atime
9. ATIXpress200M And R500 Support For Fedora8
10. Layering An IDS on Linux: Only Use Abort() If You Intend A Core Dump
7. Maintainers
1. packages.fedoraproject.org
8. Infrastructure
1. Meetings and Voice Conferencing
2. Using Asterisk
9. Advisories and Updates
10. Fedora 7 Security Advisories
11. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories
12. Events and Meetings
1. Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-MM-DD
2. Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-08-09
3. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-MM-DD
4. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-08-09
5. Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting (Log) 2007-08-08
6. Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-08-09
7. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-08-07
8. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-08-06
9. Fedora Translation Project Meeting (Log) 2007-MM-DD
13. Extras Extras
1. Fedora 7 Book for FWN 100th Issue
[[Anchor(Announcements)]]
== Announcements ==
In this section, we cover announcements from various projects.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Virtual FudCon8 ===
JeffSpaleta announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"Announcing Fedora 8's Online FUDCon[2].
Come join us over the next few days for our first online community
conference where Fedora developers will be discussing features and
projects that will be impacting Fedora 8 and beyond."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-August/msg00002...
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon/FUDConF8
=== Announcing Fedora 8 Test 1 (7.90) ===
JesseKeating announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"Fedora 8 Test one[2] has been loosed upon the world today. Included in
this release is a "Fedora" installable 'choose your own adventure'
style set of isos and trees for i386, x86_64, and ppc(64). Also
included are Live images of both the Fedora Desktop and the Fedora KDE
desktop. These are available for both i686 and x86_64 (x86_64 is DVD
size only). Remember these can be used on USB media via the
livecd-iso-to-disk utility available in the livecd-tools package."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-August/msg00001...
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/Schedule
[[Anchor(AskFedora)]]
== Ask Fedora ==
In this section, we answer general questions from Fedora community.
Send your questions to askfedora(a)fedoraproject.org and Fedora News
Team will bring you answers from the Fedora Developers and
Contributors to selected number of questions every week as part of our
weekly news report. Please indicate if you do not wish your name
and/or email address to be published.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AskFedora
Contributing Writer: RahulSundaram
=== Intel IP2200 Wireless In Fedora 7 ===
'' adrian.mowrey(a)gmail.com: I have a laptop (Inspiron B130) from Dell,
and it has a wireless card (Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network
Connection). I also have a wireless connection established through a
linksys router. How can I connect my laptop to the Internet by
wireless? If you could explain to me whatever I have to do so that I
can connect to the Internet by wireless, it will be very helpful for
me as a beginner to Linux. Thank you.
Sincerely,
--
Adrian Mowre''
The kernel driver and firmware to support this card is included by
default in Fedora 7. We recommend the Live images for desktop use
which supports seamless wireless networking via Network Manager [1]
which is enabled by default. If you have used the DVD image to install
Fedora 7, you have to enable it manually. Network Manager is a
background service that has both GNOME (nm-applet) and KDE
(knetworkmanager) frontends.
Set the main service to automatically start on boot:
su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManager on'
Set the dispatcher service to automatically start on boot:
su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManagerDispatcher on'
Start the background services:
su -c '/sbin/service NetworkManager start ; /sbin/service
NetworkManagerDispatcher start'
In the next release, the plan [2] is to enable Network Manager by
default and use it system wide.
[1] http://www.gnome.org/projects/NetworkManager/
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/FeatureList
=== Distribution Upgrades And Peripherals ===
''William Brown <wbrn314(a)cox.net>: Why is it when I upgrade to a new
version of the same distro some of my peripherals won't function? I
was using Fedora 6 and upgrade to Fedora 7. I thought an upgrade was
to fix bugs and make things more user friendly. OK, I have to agree
the GUI looks better but the overall
functionaly seems to be the same. If we want to introduce more people
to the Linux community and the Open Software way of computing then the
developers have to concentrate on making the distros more user
friendly instead of more complicated???''
While the upgrades are intended to bring in more functionality and bug
fixes, there tends to be some amount of regressions in newer releases
too unfortunately. If you are having any issues with this release, do
report those in Red Hat Bugzilla. In Fedora 7, the majority of work
was on the infrastructure side merging in Fedora Core and Fedora
Extras, open build system and distribution composing and customization
tools, mirror manager etc but we did bring in a lot of new features
for end users too[1]. Note that Fedora updates lifecycle [2] has been
extended with Fedora 7 onwards to allow the flexibility for end users
to skip alternative releases if necessary and if you believe that the
advantages in the latest release are not compelling enough for you,
you can take advantage of this flexibility while continuing to receive
updates for the older version of Fedora.
We request the community to participate early in the testing process
by using the development branch of Fedora called 'rawhide' or one of
the three test releases, send feedback and report bugs[3]. Thank you
for your support.
[1] http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f7/en_US/sn-OverView.html#sn-...
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/LifeCycle
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugsAndFeatureRequests
=== Yum Reverse Dependency Removal ===
'' Roberto Vanto <roberto-vanto(a)tiscali.it>: In my opinion yum should
support reverse dependencies handling. Something like this:
http://planet.sabayonlinux.org/?p=65 ''
Yum supports reverse dependencies just fine. Try, yum remove
<packagename> and yum will automatically list all the packages that
depend on it and prompt for removing all of them. One of the requested
enhancements to this is to remove packages that has been installed as
dependencies for the package you are removing if they are only needed
for that particular package and this feature is under development as a
yum plugin [1]. Meanwhile package-cleanup utility which is part of
yum-utils package in Fedora is quite handy for a number of similar
things.
[1] https://lists.dulug.duke.edu/pipermail/yum/2007-June/009933.html
[[Anchor(PlanetFedora)]]
== Planet Fedora ==
In this section, we cover a highlight of Planet Fedora - an
aggregation of blogs from world wide Fedora contributors.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Planet
Contributing Writers: ThomasChung
=== Fedora 8 Artwork: We Need Your Help! ===
MairinDuffy reports in her blog[1],
"For the theme artwork[2] (wallpaper, login, banners, etc.) for Fedora
8, the Fedora Art Team is following a '3-round' process for creating
the artwork. We started by accepting theme concept proposals from the
entire Fedora community. Round 1 involved coming up with
concepts/ideas and rough sketches to demonstrate the concept; Round 2
involved coming up with some more polished artwork towards the concept
proposed, including a requirement of at least one wallpaper design and
3 supplementary designs. Round 2 just ended this past Monday, and the
two themes left standing are: (See the blog)"
[1] http://mihmo.livejournal.com/42902.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork
=== Smolt passed 100k mark ===
RolandWolters reports in his blog[1],
"Smolt passed the 100k mark, a month and ten days after the 50k mark.
While almost all the machines are Fedora machines (since the project
is at the moment fully included only in Fedora) there are also some
dozen OpenSuse machines."
[1] http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/08/07/fedora-8-test-1-released-smolt-p...
[2] http://smolt.fedoraproject.org/
=== FOSS.IN/2007 Announced ===
JamesMorris reports in his blog[1],
"The 2007 FOSS.IN conference has been announced[2], and will take
place in Bengalaru from December 4-8."
"It looks like they're tightening their focus on community development
and depth of talks, as discussed by Andrew Cowie."
[1] http://james-morris.livejournal.com/22258.html
[2] http://foss.in/2007/info/Announcement
=== To Infinity and Beyond ===
JackAboutboul reports out in his blog[1],
"Today, I'm at LinuxWorld in San Francisco and I've just wrapped up a
set of press interviews along with our very good friends from the
Creative Commons. Whats the skinny you ask? I'll tell you, but only
because I like you. Today we have announced[2] (link to press release)
the first step in what is a long term partnership between Fedora and
he Creative Commons. That first step is the CC LiveContent
Distribution (available off the Fedora torrent site), built on Fedora,
available to all."
[1] http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MadRhetoric/~3/141378247/to-infinity-and-b...
[2] http://www.redhat.com/about/news/prarchive/2007/creativecommons.html
=== OSCON Wrap-Up ===
JackAboutboul reports out in his blog[1],
"I cannot begin to tell you how many people were so extremely
enthusiastic about our little PS3[2] demo. People were walking up to
us left and right asking us, "Hey is that Fedora on the PS3? That's
wicked Cool!" I know, thats why I thought we should be showing that
off. We even had a couple of IBM developers walk by us and tell us,
"All of the cool innovation happens in Fedora anyway." Thats a direct
quote."
[1] http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MadRhetoric/~3/141343423/oscon-wrap-up.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PlayStation
[[Anchor(DailyPackage)]]
== Daily Package ==
In this section, we recap the packages that have been highlighted as a
Fedora Daily Package.
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/
Contributing Writer: ChrisTyler
=== New: Fedora Daily Package Weekly Video Summary ===
We've introduced a weekly screencast[1] of the packages featured as
Fedora Daily Packages. The video is available from Google Video (flash
and mp4/iPod Video formats) as well as OggTheora format. We look
forward to your comments on this experiment.
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/118-Fedora-Daily-P...
=== Qcad - Simple 2D CAD program ===
''Productive Mondays'' highlight a timesaving tool. This Monday[1] we
covered QCad[2]:
"Qcad is a two-dimensional drafting program, available in proprietary
and GPL versions. Fedora includes the GPL version of QCAD, which does
not have scripting or polyline support."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/113-Productive-Mon...
[2] http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad.html
=== Gscan2pdf - Frontend for scanning utilities ===
''Artsy Tuesdays'' highlight a graphics, video, or sound application.
This Tuesday[1] Gscan2pdf[2] was featured:
"Gscan2pdf is a one-stop GUI tool for the production of high-quality
PDFs from scanned images, providing a graphical front end for
xscanimage, unpaper, gocr or tesseract, and other tools."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/114-Artsy-Tuesday-...
[2] http://gscan2pdf.sourceforge.net/
=== Wednesday Why: Fast User Switching ===
The ''Wednesday Why'' article[1] took a look at the Fedora's Fast User
Switching configuration:
"Fast User Switching enables more than one user to log in to a local
graphical user interface on a computer equipped with a single seat
(monitor/mouse/keyboard) and permits quick switching between logged-in
users."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/115-Wednesday-Why-...
=== Xephyr - New nested X server ===
''GUI Thursdays'' highlight software that enables, provides, enhances,
or effectively uses a GUI interface. This Thursday[1], Xephyr[2] was
discussed and compared to Xnest[3]:
"Xephyr is an alternative to the Xnest nested X server mentioned last
week. Both of these programs provide a nested X display -- drawing
into a window on a parent X server instead of drawing directly onto a
hardware screen -- but they accomplish this in very different ways."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/116-GUI-Thursday-X...
[2] http://x.org/
[3] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/110-GUI-Thursday-X...
=== Really Slick Screensavers ===
''Friday Fun'' highlights fun, interesting, and amusing programs. This
Friday[1], we took a look at the Really Slick Screensaver collection[2]:
"The Really Slick Screensavers (RSS) -- OpenGL screensavers originally
developed on Windows -- have been ported to work with X and integrated
into the GNOME and KDE screensaver systems."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/117-Friday-Fun-Rea...
[2] http://rss-glx.sourceforge.net/
[[Anchor(Marketing)]]
== Marketing ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Red Hat And Its Fedora 8 Friends ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"When it comes to expanding the core feature set of Fedora, though,
Fedora 8 has a lot to offer. JackAboutboul explained that a new dbus
service launch service will aim to cut down boot time by minimizing
the number of services that start when a machine powers up.
On the identity side, Fedora 8 will include something called freeIPA
(Identity, Policy, Audit), which is intended to be an easy way for
system administrators to install, setup and administer centralized
identity management and authentication."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-August/msg0012...
=== LinuxLinks Fedora 7 Review ===
ThomasChung reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Fedora 7 has seen the word "Core" trimmed from it's name. This
reflects just one of several changes internally to the project. With
the first ever inclusion of tools to create your own version of
Fedora, Fedora 7 really reaches out to the community, quite literally.
If you don't like it, then by all means change it to be the way you
want. The Fedora Project has given you the power. To date this is the
most successful release of Fedora in my opinion."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-August/msg0011...
=== Fedora 7: Community remix ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"One of the popular features of Fedora 7 is the ability to remix
Fedora and build your own custom version. Now don't get me
wrong–building a new distribution is nice. But what about those who
wish to create their own Fedora-based project? How do you grow a
complete community in an enterprise environment or in the general
public? Thanks to some of the lesser-known features, anyone can use
the exact same tools that make Fedora, well… Fedora."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-August/msg0011...
=== Fedora 7 Chosen as LiveContent CD Platform ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"The Fedora 7 Linux distribution has been chosen as the platform for
the Creative Commons LiveContent[2] CD, an initiative to showcase
free, open-source software and Creative Commons-licensed multimedia
content"
"Fedora 7, which is the result of community-based open-source
collaboration, has a new build capacity that allows for the creation
of custom distributions and individual appliances."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-August/msg0010...
[2] http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Livecontent
[[Anchor(Developments)]]
== Developments ==
In this section, we cover the problems/solutions,
people/personalities, and ups/downs of the endless discussions on
Fedora Developments.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Contributing Writer: OisinFeeley
=== Xfs Going Away. Minor Bug In KDE Control Center ===
A report[1] from ArthurPemberton detailed a failure of Xorg to start
after a shutdown. Arthur had figured out that it was something to do
with the addition of the line ''FontPath "/usr/local/share/fonts"'' to
his Xorg.conf. He further suspected that this line had been added by
KDE's control center when he tried to add some TTF fonts.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00291.html
HansdeGoede thanked[2] Arthur for the clarity of the report and
requested that he file a Bugzilla entry so that this problem could be
elevated from mere discussion on @fedora-devel into an actual
trackable, non-losable bug report.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00293.html
RahulSundaram agreed[3] with Arthur that Xfs (the X font-server) was deprecated
and would be removed in Fedora8 eliminating this type of problem.
Kelly wasn't impressed[4] with this due to past experience with Xorg
being flaky when Xfs was
disabled. RahulSundaram doubted this was true with more recent
desktops which use fontconfig (e.g. Fedora7) and Kelly admitted[5]
that the problems s/he experienced had been with Debian two years ago
and never occurred with Fedora. Later[6] Kelly posted some unclear
details which seemed to indicate a problem with Fedora7 in which Xorg
will not start if Xfs is disabled. RahulSundaram seriously doubted[7]
this on the basis of personal experience and asked Kelly to verify.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00294.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00298.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00300.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00303.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00304.html
An interesting addendum[8] was provided by MichaelSchwendt who thought
that Rahul's blanket disavowal of problems like this in Fedora7 wasn't
justified. Michael showed that both "emacs" and "xterm" would complain
about missing fonts if xfs were stopped. In response to
ArthurPemberton's suggestion that Michael add the font paths to his
Xorg.conf Michael wondered why he should have to perform manual edits
if Fedora7 was supposed to "run without xfs out of the box". Michael
also provided a link[8] to a Bugzilla entry he had opened which
suggests that the Fedora "compiled-in" font path deviates from that
documented in the manpage.
[8] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=251203
AndyGreen identified the use of "/usr/local" in the FontPath as
suspicious and unusual for a package-mediated modification, which
Arthur agreed with and reminded[9] that he had already fingered "KDE's
font manager" as the possible culprit. Rahul noted that this provided
the component against which Arthur could file a bug, which was duly
done[10].
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00316.html
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00440.html
=== RPM Roadmap Winds On ===
Ideas for improvements to RPM kept on rolling in (see FWN [1] and FWN
[2] for earlier coverage). MatthiasClasen raised[3] the idea of
support for language packs or else some way to install a limited set
of locales. This would make LiveCDs much more useful.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue98#head-90b3708648e89def933055ad00...
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue99#head-197a66d4dbef91d613deea97f4...
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00306.html
Panu thought[4] that the problem with this was that metadata bloat
would occur and that although the mechanisms to install a limited set
of locales already existed they weren't useful because the only way to
get any skipped languages back was to reinstall completely.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00364.html
A potential spanner in the works was identified[5] by JonathanDieter
in the form of deltarpms. This will only work if all files are present
from the original rpm (e.g. none excluded on the basis of locale) and
yum would need instead to download the whole updated rpm instead of
the smaller drpm.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00372.html
Matthias was undeterred[6] by Jonathan and JeremyKatz's worries and
had confidence that the problem of verifying RPM integrity was
solvable. ToshioKuratomi's solution of GPG-signing the rpm metadata
made BillNottingham wince[7] when he considered the metadata bloat in
which it would result.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00380.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00391.html
A request for "scriptlets" was submitted[8] by TillMaas along with
examples of how they might be useful for installing, for example,
.desktop files.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00522.html
NicolasMailhot added[9] two items to the wish-list: 1) true
strong-dependency versioning; 2) noarch sub-packages for doc and
noarch resources.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00779.html
=== Kmods: Does Fedora Intentionally Break 3rd Party Firewire Drivers? No. ===
The discussion of kmods is another long-running thread (see FWN#99
"Kmods Clarified"[1]) and TillMaas provided a response[2] to
ThorstenLeemhuis 's request for a specfile which
uses DKMS in a mock-buildable SRPM which compiles modules shippable as
kmod packages and also produces a DKMS file for dynamic kernel-module
generation. Phew!
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue99#head-98170522fb95c1c25efc05a5f2...
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00791.html
A longish thread centered around the negative experience which
LesMikesell had with Firewire ceasing to function mid-version due to
kernel updates. Les was fairly persistent in explaining his problem
and in return RahulSundaram pointed to the problems of offering
support for 3rd-party drivers given Fedora's development methodology.
EmmanuelSeyman provided an excellent deconstruction[2a] of the
argument that Fedora should be more like RHEL. RahulSundaram also
noted that Les was seeking to change way in which the upstream kernel
worked and that discussing it on @fedora-devel was pointless.
ChristopherBrown didn't like[2b] Rahul's intervention and stated that
he'd opened the topic (of kqemu originally) because @fedora-devel had
a "better ambiance" and had a greater chance of generating an answer.
[2a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00389.html
[2b] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00325.html
RahulSundaram noted[3] problem with Firewire had affected all
distributions, not just Fedora, and that Red Hat had rewritten the
firewire stack to solve it and it was now merged upstream.
RahulSundaram also disputed Les's apparent suggestion that Fedora was
intentionally breaking third-party proprietary modules.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00414.html
In a disclaimer[4] from Les, the specter of Fedora intentionally
changing the ABI in order to "encourage users to switch to RHEL" was
raised and rejected, with the caveat that there should be a statement
that although third-party drivers may work at the start of a version
there is no guarantee that they will work with any updates. Les also
suggested that the Centosplus kernel was a good model and that Fedora
should make "untested changes" opt-in. Rahul's reply[5] emphasized
that all changes are opt-in anyway, that they are not untested, that
the Centosplus kernel relies on a huge amount of back-porting which
the Fedora Project can't do due to resource constraints. RahulSundaram
also pointed out that it is completely clear that software outside of
the Fedora Project repositories (for example any proprietary
third-party modules) cannot be supported.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00423.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00424.html
A stronger statement[6] from AlanCox averred that the default
expectation with Linux was that any such third-party drivers might
break, and that RHEL was an anomalous case which resulted from great
pain and hard work to preserve the kernel ABI. In addition Alan
redirected the finger of blame to point at the packager of the
third-party driver as rpm should have flagged the kernel-update as
violating a requires. Les thought[7] that Alan's assumptions and those
of a "typical new fedora user" were not congruent and that the
distinction should be made clear on the Fedora Project pages. A short
discussion between VilleSkyttä and Alan on the subject of when support
had been introduced for requiring a specific kernel version
occurred[8] with Ville apparently demonstrating that it wasn't for as
long as Alan thought.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00426.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00432.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00436.html
JefSpaleta[9] and RahulSundaram[10] both thought that Les should run
the updates-testing kernel and report any firewire bugs which he
discovered.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00425.html
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00434.html
A response[11] from ParagN to DavidWoodhouse's question about the
"spca5xx" and "gspca" kmods provided some information about them.
David's post also observed that the idea that Fedora would carry
out-of-tree modules so long as they had either "a hope of going
upstream" or "good reason to continue [being] carried forward" was
unsurprising because this was exactly what Fedora had been doing for
years.
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00318.html
Parag's response didn't provide the information which David was
looking for, namely were the modules good enough to be merged upstream
and what needed to be fixed to convince Linus to take them. Parag
responded[12] that the author wasn't interested in persuading upstream
and questioned whether it was now a hard and fast rule that although a
package was popular and functional it wouldn't be carried in Fedora if
its author were unwilling to upstream it.
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00437.html
=== New "finddebug-info.sh". Don't Run "ld" Directly In %build ===
A certain amount of surprise was expressed[1] by JesseKeating at the
unannounced replacement of 'find-debuginfo.sh' in the latest rpm in
the Koji build-system. Jesse noted the failures of some builds due to
this change and his intention to revert it until there was supporting
documentation to help package maintainers adapt. Jesse pointed to
older information in the wiki about the purpose of these changes,
which is to introduce a unique buildID into stripped objects and their
corresponding '.debug' files.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00457.html
RolandMcGrath apologized[2] and explained that crossed-wires had
resulted in him being unavailable to shepherd in the change for which
he was entirely responsible. Roland emphasized that the script should
be a simple drop-in replacement that only affected some corner cases
and that he was available to help anyone with problems.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00472.html
After JesseKeating pointed to mock failing to build Roland
explained[3] that this was due to a .so was being built improperly and
that the new BuildID support had enabled this to be caught.
JasonTibbitts was sure[4] that this .so issue was going to occur for
other packages and that it should be documented by someone that had a
thorough understanding. Roland agreed and wondered where that should
be. A detailed explanation[5] by Roland followed explaining why
''ld'' should not be run directly and instead it should be called
through ''gcc''. TomCallaway was happy[6] because this would fix some
sparc64 issues.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00475.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00477.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00481.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00488.html
JefSpaleta wondered[7] if local mock testing would help and Roland
responded[8] that while BuildID would work exactly the same he had
already taken care of obvious special cases (although he'd missed a
problem with noarch packages) and he could quickly take care of any
problems which occurred in Fedora development and testing, i.e.
"rawhide".
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00479.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00484.html
Further discussion with Jef, who favored using local mock builds
before sending to the build server, failed to convince Roland that his
current approach of introducing changes into rawhide and fixing the
resulting breakage would result in mobs bearing pitchforks and
torches. Roland questioned the need for a wordy documentation
preferring to post to @fedora-maintainers. In response to his
question "Do we really need a dissertation on the subject?"
JesseKeating answered[9] "Nope. But send a note to
'fedora-devel-announce redhat com' alerting people that this change
will go in, some builds may break when running the debug script, and
that they should contact you for help."
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00512.html
HansdeGoede was hopeful[10] that Roland had also fixed some ugly
cross-building behavior in the old debuginfo.sh, but unfortunately it
appeared not[11] although Roland declared his willingness to help out.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00486.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00491.html
=== Enabling Compiz By Default ===
RahulSundaram wanted to know[1] if the default enabling of Compiz in
GNOME had been considered.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00559.html
"Dragoran" thought it would be better to wait until it was possible to
make OpenGL apps play nicely with AIGLX and posted[2] a link to an
informative blog entry by KristianHoegsberg explaining the issues.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00562.html
A highly negative reaction[3] from AlanCox questioned the maintenance
of Compiz and its problems with Java menus. Alan also pointed to the
detrimental effects on power usage occasioned by its use.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00565.html
"Dragoran" replied that it was not Compiz which was broken, but Java, and
provided a simple environment variable fix and wondered what Alan
meant about Compiz being poorly maintained. Alan responded with "the
user view point: I DON'T CARE" and argued[4] that compatibility
worked because components didn't enforce strict standards compliance
and hence Fedora needed to either: 1)fix Java; 2)set "Dragoran's"
environment fix as default. "Dragoran" was in favor of #1, thought
that #2 was a hack and pointed[5] to the number of commits in the git
tree as evidence of the active maintenance of Compiz.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00580.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00585.html
A bugzilla was filed by "Dr.Diesel" pointing out[6] that "vino"
(remote desktop utility using Xv) was broken with Compiz.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00598.html
More skepticism came[7] from JoshBoyer who wanted to know if Compiz
could do basic window-manager tasks such as making a window present
simultaneously on all desktops. "Dragoran" confirmed[8] that it could
and later after JesseKeating had suggested enabling only subtle
features such as drop-shading and fading windows Josh and MikeChambers
agreed[9] that this might be useful as long as the basic WM features
were working.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00591.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00593.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00660.html
BillNottingham was another naysayer, advancing[10] the breaking of
other GL applications and Xv applications as reasons against enabling
Compiz as the default. JonNettleton suggested choosing a compositing
window manager which doesn't need OpenGL, but DaveAirlie answered[11]
that this didn't solve Bill's two problems. Dave argued that Compiz
wasn't broken, instead the problem is that drivers and GL are broken
when compositing is enabled and that KristianHoegsberg (krh) and
Dave's work on the Intel drivers was fixing this. The actual
compositing manager doesn't make any difference due to regressions at
the driver level.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00682.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00742.html
The meat of the problem was exposed further in a thread started when
BernardoInnocenti posted[12] that Ubuntu's "Gutsy Gibbon" was going to
use Compiz-fusion (the merged Beryl/Compiz) by default and was fixing
bugs to this end. Bernardo thought that AlanCox was wrong to believe
that all compositing effects would be turned off and cited the high
user-satisfaction with OSX's "Quartz". He also queried Alan's claims
about power inefficiency. DaveAirlie responded[13] that Ubuntu were
not fixing Compiz's technical problems and were benefitting
asymetrically from Red Hat's work. RudolfKastl was keen on encouraging
Dave's work and in response to his queries about getting a working
"nouveau" driver (the FL/OSS nvidia driver) and a driver for r500
(ATI) into rawhide DaveAirlie responded that work on 3D redirection
and on speeding up EXA were the important prerequisites for all
compositing managers. (These projects are done with KristianHoegsberg
and CarlWorth[14] respectively). The chances of a nouveau or r500
driver with these features are very small as only Intel have provided
enough information to allow the necessary fixes to be written.
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00589.html
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00600.html
[14] http://cworth.org/blog/
JonNettleton pointed out[15] the advantages of 2D-compositing
window-managers, such as "xfwm4" which works well with any
EXA-supporting driver and in response KevinKofler drew attention to
KDE4's "Kwin" (which will probably be in Fedora9).
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00606.html
AlanCox explained[16] his claims about power consumption to
IoannisNousias who had advanced the example of OSX. Alan's response
was that Apple had taken advantage of independent power-management of
the 2D and 3D graphics cores to achieve acceptable battery life
overall. Ioannis didn't accept the argument and cited[17] examples of
comparable battery longevity between an OSX system and an
Xorg+metacity system, indicating that compositing wasn't a big drain.
Ioannis further noted that the concern about power use seemed a little
hypocritical given other Fedora choices.
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00665.html
[17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00724.html
A slight defence was mounted by KevinKofler who noted[18] that much
work on reducing spurious wakeups was being undertaken (see also
"Reducing Fedora Power Use" in this same issue of FWN#100), especially
under the aegis of the OLPC project. Kevin also mentioned KWin again
which led Ioannis to wonder[19] why compositing was accepted in KWin
and Metacity but not Compiz.
[18] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00800.html
[19] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00822.html
DaveAirlie responded[20] that many applications would break for many
specific drivers and that Intel hardware would probably be an
exception once he and Kristian had made some more progress. After
this any compositing manager could be chosen and that although Compiz
might be overkill it could be acceptable if it had the same hotkeys as
Metacity. Later Dave confirmed[21] to RahulSundaram that much work
which he and Kristian had in hand needed to be upstreamed.
[20] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00825.html
[21] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00827.html
=== Changes TO Cvsadmin Requests And ACLs ===
ToshioKuratomi posted[1] an announcement of changes which will be
implemented over a couple of weeks. The changes concern the transition
from flat files to a packageDB. Toshio's post provided essential
information for packagers and an invitation to test the new
functionality provided.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00546.html
One of the first queries came from ChrisWeyl who wanted to know[2] if
the PackageDB would be updating the old owners.list or if the data
would be otherwise exported in some other format. Toshio responded[3]
that the data was available in JSON format, that owners.list was dead
and gone and that there was a ticket open to create a simply greppable
plain-text list. RalfCorsepius was irritated[4] that his scripts were
now broken as a result of this.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00549.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00569.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00760.html
MartinSourada asked[5] whether "Cvsextras Commits" would now be set to
"yes" if he had already removed "pkg.acl" in order to enable anyone in
cvsextras to access his packages. According[6] to Toshio this depended
on exactly when he had taken this action, with the cutoff point being
the importation of the packagedb. Toshio suggested that Martin check
this at https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/name/[PACKAGENAME]
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00552.html
MichaelSchwendt sought[6] the status of the replacement of owner.list
downloads+parsers and Toshio asked for further specification of the
problem and provided links[7] which list: packages owned by a user;
packages which has the user as a comaintainer or on cclist; packages
which can set bugzilla; packages which can set cvs ACLs.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00624.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00697.html
In response to Toshio Michael clarified that he wanted a Python module
and Toshio opened[8] a ticket for this and Michael further
specified[9] that anonymous access to a package's src.rpm %name,
primary maintainer, co-maintainers and cclist retrieved in a single
flat-file or db would be simplest.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00753.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00765.html
RalfCorsepius also described[10] similar requirements.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00761.html
=== Reducing Power Usage Of Fedora ===
BillNottingham asked whether we would like longer battery life and
lower server power bills. He stated[1] that unnecessary CPU wake-ups
were one of the biggest current problems and asked for our help in
tracking down misbehaving applications by installing "powertop" and
reporting the results. (See FWN#88 "PowerTOP Release Opens Up New
Directions In Power Saving"[1a].)
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00544.html
[1a] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue88#head-f0b77fa701a85115b677b05bf3...
A report from JonathanUnderwood about his LCD screen switching on/off
while running powertop was confirmed by ArjanvandeVen to be abnormal
and further details[2] were provided in a bugzilla report. TomLondon
also had this problem.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00554.html
Trying to run powertop on F7 with the "-d" flag didn't work[3] for
"nodata" who also wondered what to make of three Fedora-specific
features which powertop suggests changing. In response AlanCox
agreed[4] that disabling HAL polling of the cdrom was a good idea as
was enabling AC97 powersave mode by executing ''echo 1 >
/sys/module/snd_ac97_codec/parameters/power_save''. BillNottingham
cleared up the confusion[5] about the "-d" option with the information
that it was only in the F8 version.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00557.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00564.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00611.html
RahulSundaram posted[6] his results from several weeks of powertop
which included the suggestion of ''echo 5 >
/proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode''. "Dragoran" wasn't sure how useful this
was and ArjanvandeVen responded[7] that laptop_mode did not spin down
the disks, but rather clustered IO which was useful not merely with a
battery but in large data centers.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00558.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00579.html
Integration with Smolt was suggested[8] by ChristopherBrown.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00637.html
RalfCorsepius wondered whether the kernel's failure to boot without
ACPI disabled would class it as a misbehaving application and met
JoshBoyer's request for a bugzilla entry with one he had filed in late
2006 and the information that this problem had started sometime in
FedoraCore5. "Nodata" wanted[9] to start a tracker bug for "bugs that
have been hanging around for ages, but aren't yet fixed"
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00686.html
DebarshiRay added results which showed a python process taking second
place (at 17% of wakeups) and further interest from BillNottingham
prompted[10] Debarshi to list some candidates. ColinWalters pointed
to a 10Hz loop in all PyGTK2 programs in Fedora as the source of the
problem[11] and ArjanvandeVen thought there was no need for this on an
NPTL[12] system.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00701.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00704.html
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00757.html
=== Disabling Atime ===
A link to the Linux kernel mailing list (lkml) was posted [1] by
RahulSundaram to draw attention to the idea of disabling "atime" as a
mounting option for filesystems in order to improve performance.
Initial proposals from IngoMolnar were to use "noatime" to simply
avoid the performance penalty imposed by heavy I/O with "atime".
Based on discussion with Linus, AlanCox and others Ingo rapidly
produced a modified version of this proposal which adds "relatime" as
an option. "relatime" would simply not update the atime of the file
unless there had been a modification in the interval since the last
write.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00561.html
The main practical issues seem to be that mounting filesystems with
"noatime" instead of "atime" on non-CPU-bound systems may provide
serious performance increases. The downside is that applications
which rely upon examining the atime of inodes (e.g. tmpwatch and mutt
and possibly HSM[1a]) will be broken. "atime" support is also
necessary for strict compliance with POSIX.
[1a] Hierarchical Storage Management is also known as Tiered Storage
and the practice of storing infrequently accessed files on
slower/cheaper storage media (somewhat analogous to memory caches on
CPUs): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_storage_management
Reactions were mixed. "DrDiesel" thought[2] it would be worth testing
and LesMikesell also was willing[3] to forgo two uses of atime (as an
aid to verifying whether changes were being picked up). A brief
discussion between Les and JohnReiser ended with a handy tip[4] from
BobNichols.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00566.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00572.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00617.html
FlorinAndrei and "Dragoran" noted[5] positive experiences on a wide
variety of systems as did AlexandruCiobanu[6].
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00571.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00576.html
An alternative suggestion (also on the lkml thread) is to use "relatime". This
was proposed for Fedora by RudolfKastl and seconded by AlanCox.
Rudolf was prompted by RahulSundaram to expand on his reasons for
preferring "relatime" and explained[7] that merely switching off
flawed features and working around slows down fixes. Cautious
agreement was expressed[8] by EricSandeen who wanted more hard data
provided by the advocates of change.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00599.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00685.html
RalfCorsepius was against the idea of disabling atime by default
because it is a fundamental feature of UNIX filesystems. JamesHubbard
expressed[9] disagreement based on the evidence that NFS optimization
documents explicitly suggest disabling it and suggesting that most
applications and users would benefit from its absence and the minority
that needed could turn it on. Ralf's response[10] was skeptical and
provided some figures which showed a much slimmer gain from "noatime"
than reported by others. Ralf also pointed out that James might be
considering only single-user desktop systems at the expense of other
configurations.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00654.html
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00667.html
In response[11] to the figures provided by Ralf it was suggested by
JoshBoyer that the task (a heavy compiler run) wasn't that useful and
that it would be better to do a "find / -exec cat {} > /dev/null \;"
both with and without atime. DougMcClendon was happy to find some
actual numbers[12] and thought that Ralf was underplaying the
significance of the possible 5% advantage. Doug also noted the
benefit to laptop drives which wouldn't need to be spun up to update
the atime each time a cached file is read.
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00678.html
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00692.html
MartinEbourne reacted[13] to Ralf's post by questioning its rhetoric
and restating that the idea was to provide a sensible default for the
majority of users. Martin had been running "atime" disabled systems
for over five years with no problems (with the caveat that he didn't
use Mutt) and was surprised it had taken so long for the rest of the
world to come around to this idea. A robust defense[14] of his
position was mounted by Ralf who thought that Martin's logic was a
slippery slope which could lead to the removal of many
useful/essential features which impose some performance loss.
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00744.html
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00764.html
The issue of breaking "tmpwatch" was raised by MattMiller and after
RahulSundaram noted the existence of a patch MilsolavTrmac
wondered[15] what the rush was and suggested it would be easiest to
wait for upstream (lkml) to sort out a decision. Rahul pointed out[16]
that the lkml discussion had been redirected to @fedora-devel and that
this was an old discussion and it would be good to make a decision.
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00782.html
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00786.html
LesMikesell suggested[17] a possible strategy for introducing the
change gradually via an /etc/sysconfig file which contains mount
options merge-able with /etc/fstab specified options. There would be
no default options provided unless "noatime" were selected when
prompted during install. Further discussion of this with BenjaminLewis
(who thought that targetting the defaults to the simple home user case
made more sense) led Les to outline the benefits in terms of following
RedHat-style administration tools and preserving legacy defaults.
[17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00783.html
=== ATIXpress200M And R500 Support For Fedora8 ===
The 2007-07-08 Rawhide Report[1] excited ZoltanBoszormenyi because[2] it
contained the promise of 3D support for the ATI Xpress 200M. Zoltan noted
that the current Mesa (6.5.2) locked up with this driver and that Mesa-7.0.1
should be used instead. AlanCox asked Zoltan to file this as a security bug
because it was a local DoS which he promptly did[3].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00482.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00494.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00626.html
DaveAirlie promised[4] to look at getting the new Mesa into the tree so that 3D
support could be offered on the chipset and PeterGordon added[5] that this
might also fix a Gnash problem with YouTube.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00496.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00498.html
ManuelWolfshant wondered[6] whether the experimental, Free ATI R500
driver (which he had packaged succesfully for a friend) might be
included in the xorg-drv-ati package. AdamJackson responded[7] that he
would rather include it separately from -ati, but would like to see it
in Fedora8.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00507.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00536.html
=== Layering An IDS on Linux: Only Use Abort() If You Intend A Core Dump ===
SteveGrubb outlined[1] his plans to create a host-based IDS/IPS[2] system in
the Fedora9 cycle. Steve was concerned that his feature in the 2.6.22 kernel
which enables detection of buffer overflows may cause some programs to falsely
trigger the IPS in the future if they call abort().
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00272.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host-based_intrusion_detection_system
MiloslavTrmac thought[3] that Steve's request flew in the face of tradition
and POSIX and that only repeated abort()s should be taken as indications of a
DoS. Steve argued[4] that Miloslav's objections only applied in a
non-production, debugging scenario. Steve later expanded[5] on the problem in
the face of Miroslav's continued objections and SimoSorce's suggestion that
SteveGrubb outlined[1] his plans to create a host-based IDS/IPS[2] system in
the Fedora9 cycle. Steve was concerned that his feature in the 2.6.22 kernel
which enables detection of buffer overflows may cause some programs to falsely
trigger the IPS in the future if they call abort().
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00272.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host-based_intrusion_detection_system
MiloslavTrmac thought[3] that Steve's request flew in the face of tradition
and POSIX and that only repeated abort()s should be taken as indications of a
DoS. Steve argued[4] that Miloslav's objections only applied in a
non-production, debugging scenario. Steve later expanded[5] on the problem in
the face of Miroslav's continued objections and SimoSorce's suggestion that
as abort() was used so extensively it might be better [6] to give up on trying
to stop abort() usage and to build SELinux-like application profiles.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00276.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00278.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00282.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00310.html
AlanCox and ArjanvandeVen cooked up[7] the idea that although single SIGABRT
terminations might be ignorable it would also be nice to dump core somewhere
secure and then communicate the backtrace to the vendor. SteveGrubb (SteveG)
confirmed that this would be easy to add as a plugin to the audit event
dispatcher (audispd) [8].
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00305.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00309.html
[[Anchor(Maintainers)]]
== Maintainers ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Maintainers, the group of people who
maintain the software packages in Fedora.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-maintainers
Contributing Writer: MichaelLarabel
=== packages.fedoraproject.org ===
Ever visit packages.ubuntu.com or similar web-based deb package
viewers? It sure is nice and has led JohnPye to question why we don't
have a packages.fedoraproject.org[1]. There is the Fedora repobrowser
but right now it's really not a prominent resource. PatriceDumas had
replied with word that there is such an effort taking place with the
new repoview version.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-August/msg00151.html
[[Anchor(Infrastructure)]]
== Infrastructure ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure
Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor
=== Meetings and Voice Conferencing ===
JeffOllie and some others have been working on setting up a PBX
service for difference groups as a way to enhance and perhaps enable
others who don't have access to IRC a way to attend meetings.[1] The
Infrastructure group as always is open to any suggestions for
improvement.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-August/ms...
=== Using Asterisk ===
MikeMcGrath discusses the pros and cons of current meeting
communication and the addition of asterisk.[1]
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-August/ms...
[[Anchor(AdvisoriesUpdates)]]
== Advisories and Updates ==
In this section, we cover Security Advisories and Package Updates from
fedora-package-announce.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
== Fedora 7 Security Advisories ==
* mediawiki-1.9.3-34.0.2.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* openssl-0.9.8b-14.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* moodle-1.8.2-1.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* balsa-2.3.17-2.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* dovecot-1.0.3-14.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* cups-1.2.12-4.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* tetex-3.0-40.1.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
== Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories ==
* xorg-x11-xinit-1.0.2-16.fc6 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* vixie-cron-4.1-69.fc6 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
* kernel-2.6.22.1-32.fc6 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00...
[[Anchor(EventsMeetings)]]
== Events and Meetings ==
In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from
various projects.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
=== Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-08-09 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-August/msg00...
=== Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
=== Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-08-09 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00556.html
=== Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting (Log) 2007-08-08 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/epel-devel-list/2007-August/msg00062.html
=== Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-08-09 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-August/ms...
=== Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-08-07 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-August/msg00128.html
=== Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-08-06 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00405.html
=== Fedora Translation Project Meeting (Log) 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
[[Anchor(ExtrasExtras)]]
== Extras Extras ==
In this section, we cover any noticeable extras news from various
Linux Projects.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora 7 Book for FWN 100th Issue ===
For the latest guidelines and rules, please visit
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/F7Book
--
Thomas Chung
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung
15 years, 10 months
- 1
- 0
Site for Chilean users of Fedora
by Eduardo Villagrán Morales
I have the privilege to communicate that Chile already has a site for
the community of Fedora users.
This site tries to give information to local users, as well as to make
available a local Yum mirror of Updates.
You can enter the site http://fedora.linuxdiinf.org
I must be thankful to linuxdiinf.org for site hosting.
Regards,
--
Eduardo Villagrán Morales
Embajador Fedora
Linuxdiinf
15 years, 10 months
- 1
- 0
Virtual FudCon8
by Jef Spaleta
Announcing Fedora 8's Online FUDCon:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon/FUDConF8
Come join us over the next few days for our first online community
conference where Fedora developers will be discussing features and
projects that will be impacting Fedora 8 and beyond.
<-> When <->
Aug 11 - Aug 15
<-> What <->
This FudCon will be organized as a collection of IRC based topical
sessions, supplemented by Fedora's new call-in sip server. Due to the
global nature of the Fedora development community, sessions are
scheduled individually by presenters. If you are interested in
attending a session please check the session schedule each day for
scheduling updates.
<-> Where <->
Sessions will be making use of the Freenode IRC network
(irc://irc.freenode.net).
Presentations will nominally be held in channel: #fudcon .
Some presentations may also make use of Fedora's new collaborative
call-in server using conference room: sip:fudcon@fedoraproject.org .
Please check the session schedule for specific session topics, times
and locations.
<-> Schedule <->
The current schedule of events can be found at:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JefSpaleta/VirtualFudCon
The session schedule is still evolving. If you are interested in
attending session please check the the schedule page for updates for
time and location.
New session presenters are also invited to add session later in the
FudCon session. Please see the schedule page for instructions on how
to add a session topic.
-jef
15 years, 10 months
- 1
- 0
Announcing Fedora 8 Test 1 (7.90)
by Jesse Keating
We interrupt your rawhide for a moment to make a small announcement.
Fedora 8 Test one has been loosed upon the world today. Included in
this release is a "Fedora" installable 'choose your own adventure'
style set of isos and trees for i386, x86_64, and ppc(64). Also
included are Live images of both the Fedora Desktop and the Fedora KDE
desktop. These are available for both i686 and x86_64 (x86_64 is DVD
size only). Remember these can be used on USB media via the
livecd-iso-to-disk utility available in the livecd-tools package.
Test 1 is for "alpha" users. This is the time when we would like to have full
community participation. Without this participation both hardware and
software functionality suffers. We need your help. Join us!
Road Map And Release Schedule
=============================
This is the first test release of the Fedora 8 release, which
is scheduled for November 8, 2007.
For further information see http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/
How to get it:
=============
DVD and network installation are available. We also offer two
different varieties of installable Live media.
http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora.html
For those of you already running rawhide, all you need to do is yum update.
You may already have packages newer than Test 1 installed.
Bug reporting and tracking:
==========================
The Release Engineering and QA teams keep track of bugs that are
considered release blockers. You can see that list here:
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/showdependencytree.cgi?id=F8Blocker
In addition, a list of non-blocker bugs that should be fixed for Fedora
8 if possible can be found here:
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/showdependencytree.cgi?id=F8Target
Please check these lists before reporting new bugs!
Bugs for this release should be reported against the Fedora
product, version 'f8test1'. You can use this convenient link to report
bugs:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/enter_bug.cgi?product=Fedora&version...
About Fedora
============
Fedora is a set of projects sponsored by Red Hat and guided by the
contributors. These projects are developed by a large community of
people who strive to provide and maintain the very best in free, open
source software and standards. The central Fedora project is an
operating system and platform based on Linux that is always free for
anyone to use, modify, and distribute, now and forever.
You can help the Fedora Project community continue to improve Fedora if
you file bug reports and enhancement requests. Refer to
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugsAndFeatureRequests for more
information.
Thank you for your participation!
To find out more general information about Fedora, refer to the
following Web page:
http://fedoraproject.org
--
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- All my bits are free, are yours?
15 years, 10 months
- 1
- 0
Fedora Weekly News Issue 99
by Thomas Chung
= Fedora Weekly News Issue 99 =
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 99 for the week of July 29th,
2007. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue99
In this week, we have announcements on Fedora 8 Test 1, Virtual FudCon
and our new column called AskFedora.
Speaking of AskFedora, we received several good questions including
License Issue, Backups and Problem with Pup.
In Developments, we have continuing discussions on CodecBuddy, Yum,
Kmods, RPM Roadmap, KDE4 Status and more.
To join or give us your feedback, please visit
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join.
1. Announcements
1. Fedora 8 Test 1 slipping
2. Interested in holding a session at Virtual FudCon?
3. Ask Fedora: Fedora Weekly News Column
2. Planet Fedora
1. Better Fedora Collaboration
2. Come Party With Fedora
3. Ask Fedora
4. Questions and Answers
1. License violations
2. Making Backups
3. Future of RPM
4. CD Installations of Fedora 7
5. Global changes in Fedora
6. Bugzilla Responses
7. Problem with Pup
5. Marketing
1. Bradley Kuhn and Max Spevack to keynote at Ohio LinuxFest
2. Video: Meet the Fedora Ambassadors
3. New extras repository for Red Hat Enteprise Linux
4. Redirecting Core Dumps
6. Developments
1. FESCo Approves CodecBuddy
2. The Future Of Yum
3. Kqemu In The Kernel?
4. Kmods Clarified
5. LiveCD Wipes Root Partition
6. RPM Roadmap (Cont.)
7. KDE4 Status
8. Package Management: Goats Satisfied With Current Situation
9. FESCo Ratifies Changes To "License:" Tag In RPM SPECs
7. Maintainers
1. EPEL Repository Continues To Expand
8. Documentation
1. Virtual Fudcon Ideas?
2. Documentation Project Steering Committee Meeting
3. Fedora 8 Test 1 Release Notes
9. Infrastructure
1. Operating Procedures
10. Artwork
1. Echo Used on translate.fp.org
2. Virtual Fudcon
3. Round 2 Deadline
11. Security Week
1. Firefox 2.0.0.6
2. Hacking via IPS Signatures
12. Daily Package
1. Gobby - Collaborative editor
2. Netpbm - Utilities for graphic manipulation
3. Wednesday Why: Colour ls
4. Xnest - A nested X server
5. Kbilliard - Billiard simulator game
13. Advisories and Updates
1. Fedora 7 Security Advisories
2. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories
14. Events and Meetings
1. Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-07-31
2. Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-MM-DD
3. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-07-31
4. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-08-02
5. Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting (Log) 2007-08-01
6. Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-MM-DD
7. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-07-31
8. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-07-30
9. Fedora Translation Project Meeting (Log) 2007-MM-DD
[[Anchor(Announcements)]]
== Announcements ==
In this section, we cover announcements from various projects.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora 8 Test 1 slipping ===
JesseKeating announces in fedora-devel-announce[1],
"Due to an ongoing issue with booting many Dells (and some Toshiba)
systems via CD, we've had to delay the release[2] of Test1. The good news
is that we've found a solution and a new kernel is building in koji as
I type this. The bad news is that there is not enough time to get the
output of that build and spin it into a set of trees for release on
Thursday. As such, we're slipping the release to Tuesday of next
week, August 7."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2007-July/msg00012....
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/Schedule
=== Interested in holding a session at Virtual FudCon? ===
JeffSpaleta announces in fedora-advisory-board[1],
"I am putting a draft together for the Online UnFudcon aka (Virtual
Fudcon)[2]. I've already contacted many of the F8 Feature drivers
concerning presenting something and the draft includes those items for
which there was interest in holding a presentation. If you are part of
a fedora subproject that would like to hold a session as part of this
virtual conference, please email me and edit the draft page adding
your session topic accordingly."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-July/msg00218....
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JefSpaleta/VirtualFudCon
=== Ask Fedora: Fedora Weekly News Column ===
RahulSundaram announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"Fedora has a strong community of people helping each other in the
forum and fedora-list but have you always wanted to ask a question to
Fedora developers but weren't sure whom to ask? A new feature for the
next release of Fedora? Any big picture questions of general interest
to Fedora users?"
"If so, we have just the right solution for you. Send your questions
to askfedora(a)fedoraproject.org and Fedora news team will bring you
answers from the right places to selected number of questions every
week as part of our weekly news report."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-July/msg00013.html
[[Anchor(PlanetFedora)]]
== Planet Fedora ==
In this section, we cover a highlight of Planet Fedora - an
aggregation of blogs from world wide Fedora contributors.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Planet
Contributing Writers: ThomasChung
=== Better Fedora Collaboration ===
JohnPoelstra points out in his blog[1]
"One of my dreams for Fedora came true today. Free audio conference[2]
service is being tried out in anticipation of the upcoming Virtual
FUDCon[3]."
[1] http://poelcat.wordpress.com/2007/08/02/better-fedora-collaboration/
[2] http://mmcgrath.livejournal.com/6812.html
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JefSpaleta/VirtualFudCon
=== Come Party With Fedora ===
JackAboutboul points out in his blog[1],
"Hey all you geeks in the valley or those making your way to
LinuxWorld Expo SF[2]! This is an open invitation to come on down and
experience Fedora like you've never experienced it before. Heck, come
experience open source, open content, free culture and lots of
giveaways the way you never have before."
[1] http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MadRhetoric/~3/139819960/come-party-with-f...
[2] http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/dev/12/events/12SFO07A
[[Anchor(AskFedora)]]
== Ask Fedora ==
In this section, we answer general questions from Fedora community.
Send your questions to askfedora(a)fedoraproject.org and Fedora News
Team will bring you answers from the Fedora Developers and
Contributors to selected number of questions every week as part of our
weekly news report. Please indicate
if you do not wish your name and/or email address to be published.
Contributing Writer: RahulSundaram
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AskFedora
== Questions and Answers ==
=== License violations ===
''Peter A. Shevtsov <webmaster(a)mera.com.ru> : I know that Fedora is
so-called patents and license clear distro, so neither mp3 nor any
other proprietary technologies don't work in the base installation. As
far as I know, all software included in Fedora is GPLed (v.2 I
suppose). So, my question is the following -- what will happen if
someone violates license condition? For example, there is a company
which provides some open source solutions (like Red Hat Exchange), but
it distributes custom built (patched or something like that) RPMs of
some software -- for example their own built Apache HTTPD Server --
but do not provide sources and charge money. If I'm not mistaken this
is the case of license violation. If so, what can be done in such
situation? Are there any punished precedents of GPL violations?''
Thanks for writing, Peter, and for bringing us our first question. To
clear up some popular misconceptions about copyright and copyright
licenses, you might want to take a look at the article from Red Hat
Magazine in May 2007[1]. While Fedora News team members are not
lawyers, we've all done enough research on licensing to give you what
we hope is a pretty complete answer to your question.
All software included in Fedora is free and open source software. The
GPL is but one of the many free and open source licensing[2] options
available to developers. The example you cite, for instance, is the
Apache web server, which is available under the Apache License 2.0
[3]. This license allows licensees to copy and redistribute without
requiring them to distribute source, and none of the free and open
source licenses can have any restrictions on licensees' rights to
charge money for any original work that they produce or derive.
Therefore, the cited example is not a license violation for a product
built on the Apache web server. It would, however, be a license
violation for a product built on software licensed under the GPL (or
any of a number of other reciprocative licenses), since the GPL
requires the licensee to make source code available for any derivative
work if the work is distributed to a third party.
To more directly answer your second question, only a copyright holder
has the right to bring an action in case of a violation of a product's
license agreement. For a program "Foobar" in Fedora, the copyright
holder is the developer of Foobar. (The Fedora copyright statement
attributes program content to "Red Hat, Inc. and others" to make clear
that Red Hat is the copyright holder for the material it contributes,
while "others" refers collectively to all the other copyright holders
who contribute or originate other work in Fedora.) The Free Software
Foundation has helped developers deal with enforcing GPL [4] in
multiple instances in the past and has generally been successful. You
can read more about their licensing compliance work in the FSF site
[5]. If you're interested or want to raise awareness about GPL
violations, the GPL violations website[6] also has several public
cases.
[1] http://www.redhat.com/magazine/007may05/features/ip/
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing
[3] http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
[4] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html
[5] http://www.fsf.org/licensing/compliance
[6] http://gpl-violations.org
=== Making Backups ===
''s sokol <sokolstephen(a)yahoo.com> : I am an enduser and having a hard
time finding out how to backup to an external hard drive in an orderly
and automatic manner.''
Fedora has a number of backup solutions available. The `cp` or `tar`
commands are usually not the most effective way to maintain backups.
Most advanced users and administrators recommend a system based on the
`rsync` family of utilities, which allow you -- as the name suggests
-- to synchronize two separate storage areas, such as your home
directory and an external device or network share.
Keep in mind that file system differences may affect your choice of
how to back up your data. Linux file systems such as ext3 have
features that cannot accurately be copied directly to the VFAT file
systems found on many USB disks, or CD/DVD. However, you can usually
write your data as specially-formatted backup files (such as `star`
format) where this information can be safely retained on such devices.
There are dozens of different solutions available. You might want to
try one or more of these packages:
* `pybackpack` - A GNOME- and Python-based graphical backup utility;
after installation, look in ''System > Preferences > System > File
Backup Manager''
* `kbackup` - A KDE-based graphical backup utility; after
installation look in ''Applications > Accessories''
* `rsync` - reliable command-line program (try {{{rsync -Pavy
<source> <dest>}}} for example)
* `BackupPC` - A complete web-based backup solution that includes
scheduling and multiple system handling
=== Future of RPM ===
''
Maxime Carron <maxime.carron(a)fedoraproject.org> : can i/we have some
explanations about future of RPM.
>From what i red,
- redhat, novell and Co start a merge of their many patches to apply
them to the main stream (dec 2006)
- but it also exists another branch : www.rpm5.org (from an ex RH-employee)
- i heard about openpkg too (which support rpm5.org)
So my questions are : What are the news? What will happen?
Will rpm5.org and rpm.org merge?
What about openpkg?
What about CPM (Community Package Manager)? cf
http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/02/08/the-story-of-rpm/
Thank you. ''
After the initial announcement from Fedora Project [1] about renewed focus,
Panu Matilainen announced a new release of RPM 4.4.2.1 [2] that
includes some cleanups of the codebase, consolidation, and
introduction of several bug fixes from Red Hat, Novell and others.
rpm5.org has a different roadmap from rpm.org. Both these branches
have their own community of individuals and vendors with a existing
common codebase. They influence each other and have shared fixes in
various instances. As long as both branches retain compatibility with
the RPM spec format, the higher level tools can explore different
directions. This freedom is a inherent part of free software.
The Red Hat Magazine article to which your question refers is a short
description of some of the history behind RPM. You can read about the
rpm.org ongoing roadmap discussions in the last week's report [3]. You
can also refer to Max Spevack's thoughts on RPM's and Fedora's future
in Linux Weekly News[4]. RPM is the underlying packaging format and a
base that Fedora builds upon using Yum and friends, and Fedora will
continue to participate in its development for the foreseeable future.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2006-December/msg000...
[2] https://lists.dulug.duke.edu/pipermail/rpm-announce/2007-July/000001.html
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue98#head-90b3708648e89def933055ad00...
[4] http://lwn.net/Articles/237700/
=== CD Installations of Fedora 7 ===
'' R. Drew Davis <drewclist(a)rdd.name> : My old PC has no DVD drive,
but Fedora 7 appears to only be distributed on DVD's. Before Fedora
7's release, CheapBytes was accepting pre-orders for Fedora 7 on CD's,
but after Fedora 7's release, they
e-mailed me to say there wasn't going to be a CD version, so they
refunded my money. I asked them why they couldn't make their own
custom spin of Fedora 7 on CD's and they said the Fedora license
agreement wouldn't let them call the re-spin "Fedora" and that would
make it very hard for them to sell any such version. So what should
I do?''
Fedora provides GNOME and KDE based live images that can be burned to
a CD and installed to a hard disk or USB flash. Fedora Live images
have a subset of packages from the Fedora repository and some
configuration changes suitable for a desktop user. If you are using
Fedora on the desktop or laptop, this solution is ideal for you.
You can also install Fedora from a network using a boot or rescue
image burned to a CD. Furthermore, you can copy the DVD image to your
hard disk and install from that.
CheapBytes or anyone else can very well create custom spins of Fedora
7 on CD's. Since they are not changing any packages in the
distribution, they are free to call it Fedora and distribute it. There
are other online and retail vendors doing similar custom spins, and
the ability to create custom spins easily is one of the primary
benefits in Fedora 7. Refer to the Fedora 7 FAQ [1] for more details.
With the merge of Fedora Core and Fedora Extras, the repository has
grown to nearly 8000 packages, which takes around 9 GB of storage
space. This repository is growing rapidly, with more packages
maintained by existing and new contributors. In the next release, the
Fedora Project plans to integrate support for additional
architectures. Fedora is distributed by hundreds of volunteer mirrors,
which would have difficulties mirroring CD variants of all these
packages and architectures. The Fedora Infrastructure team is looking
for volunteers to integrate Jidgo [2] into the release process of
Fedora as a potential solution to this problem. If you are interested
in helping, contact the Fedora Infrastructure team[3] for more
information. Thank you for your support.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora7/FAQ
[2] http://atterer.net/jigdo/
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure
=== Global changes in Fedora ===
''Martin Jürgens <martin(a)gamesplace.info> : I have a question to the
Fedora Project, namely where global changes can be discussed.
I know that Bugzilla is the right way to report Feature Requests when
you exactly know how the new feature should look, but I had a more
global idea of making Fedora more end-user friendly without making
system admins unhappy (in the way of changing configuration,
installation and package managing tools, RHBZ #248259). I hoped that
some discussion with ideas would come up in the bug report, but it was
not like this. I did not get a single reply. ''
As you have noticed, Bugzilla is generally very good for reporting
specific bugs, but unsuitable for high level discussions that might
require project management and participation from multiple
contributors. As commented upon in the Bugzilla report, the better
place to discuss any changes like these is in the fedora-devel [1]
mailing list. If you want a informal chat, the #fedora-devel IRC
channel in Freenode is a good place to meet other contributors and
exchange this kind of information.
[1] http://redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list/
=== Bugzilla Responses ===
''fred <lazlow(a)charter.net> : After you file a bug with bugzilla, how
do you get a response? I have several bugs filed that have sat there
for a long time and have gotten no response. Are the people that are
supposed to be looking at these bugs no longer with the project? Are
the people who should be working on F7 bugs too busy with F8? The odd
thing about it is the responses that I have received were on the bugs
that were trivial. The important bugs seem to be ignored. No request
for further information or clarification. No anything.''
Fedora as a distribution has several thousand packages being
maintained, and hundreds of packages being updated daily, and the
maintainers involved need to prioritize bug reports. Severe security
and bug fixes get higher priority compared to other bug reports. If
the problem you reported is not specific to Fedora, you might want to
report this problem directly to the upstream project bug tracker or
mailing list.
If you do not get a response on a bug which you consider important,
you might want to verify that you have assigned the bug to the right
package and try providing more information on the problem. Log files,
hardware information and screenshots are useful depending on the
issue. (Post large sets of data by creating an attachment, not by
pasting the data directly into the comment.) Your additional comments
or attachments will also act as a gentle reminder to the maintainers.
Contributing patches or being part of the bug triaging team [1] is
also a very good way to participate. Issues concerning security get
special attention [2]
Many of the packages are maintained by volunteers who contribute in
their spare time and other people who might have various commitments.
Fedora Project has been encouraging co-maintainership or multiple
people to work together as a team called special interest groups on
the same or similar packages to share the work. Many of the packages
are maintained in this manner. With the merge of Fedora Core and
Fedora Extras in Fedora 7, the base of contributions and the potential
for more volunteers to work in the packages which were in Fedora Core
and accessible directly only to those in Red Hat, we expect these
problems to be mitigated if not solved to a good extend. If you are
still unsure about the status, or suspect that the package is
currently unmaintained or the maintainer has not responded in a
reasonable timeframe, consider following up in an email to the
fedora-devel mailing list. Include a reference to the bug report, and
CC the maintainer of the package in question. We understand that this
process can sometimes be frustrating and we appreciate the feedback
and support.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Security/Bugs
=== Problem with Pup ===
'' david witbeck <fifi5252(a)yahoo.com> : I am completely new to Linux.
I looked at faq's and I dont see an answer. I installed fedora 6 a few
months ago and didnt use it. I got interested again and logged in . I
got a message i had 252 updates available . When I checked the "apply
updates" box I got the following message "another appliccation is
running which is accessing information".
Also I tried to install the f-stop application through the "add/remove
software " option on the applications drop down menu ,and got the same
message. Also when i do a search for yum with the search
button, there is no yum. Isnt yum included with version 6 ?
I would really appreciate any help you could give me . Thanks''
We appreciate the detailed descriptions and error messages. To better
understand the issue, we can provide some basic information first.
Fedora package management is based on the RPM format and tool. The
{{{yum}}} application is the automatic dependency resolver that uses
RPM beneath. '''Pirut''' is the graphical frontend to {{{yum}}}, and
'''Pup''' is the package updater. '''Puplet''' provides desktop
notification for available package updates. A daemon or background
service called {{{yum-updatesd}}} is leveraged by '''Puplet'''. The
{{{yum-updatesd}}} process locks {{{yum}}} and the RPM database while
checking for the presence of any updates, to prevent multiple
transactions in the database.
In the earlier versions of {{{yum-updatesd}}}, the daemon had a issue
which caused it to lock the database more often than necessary to
check updates. You can stop the daemon using the
{{{system-config-service}}} graphical utility. From the Main Menu,
choose ''System > Administration > Services'' and enter the password
for {{{root}}}. Locate the {{{yum-updatesd}}} service, select it, and
click the '''Stop''' button. At the command line, you can stop
{{{yum-updatesd}}} for the current session using this command, and the
password for the {{{root}}} account:
{{{su -c '/sbin/service yum-updatesd stop'
}}}
Then perform an update by selecting ''Applications > System Tools >
Software Updater'' from the graphical menu, or with the following
command:
{{{su -c 'yum update'
}}}
You can permanently turn the {{{yum-updatesd}}} service off with this command:
{{{su -c '/sbin/chkconfig yum-updatesd off'
}}}
While this particular issue has been fixed in a update, the threaded
design for performance has caused more problems, and developers have
redesigned and rewritten {{{yum-updatesd}}} to avoid further issues.
This package is currently available in rawhide, the development branch
of Fedora, and will soon be available as an update to the regular
releases.
[[Anchor(Marketing)]]
== Marketing ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Bradley Kuhn and Max Spevack to keynote at Ohio LinuxFest ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Columbus, Ohio -- 2007 has been an exemplary year for software
freedom, which makes the keynote speakers selected for Ohio
LinuxFest[2] 2007 particularly fitting. The Ohio LinuxFest organizers
are proud to announce that Max Spevack and Bradley Kuhn will be
keynoting this year."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-August/msg0004...
[2] http://www.ohiolinux.org/about.html
=== Video: Meet the Fedora Ambassadors ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Show case[2] of impressive Brazilian team of Fedora Ambassadors. One
of the very strong regionals teams. With the Free software in Fedora
and in Brazil, this isn't a surprise though. Congrats folks."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-August/msg0004...
[2] http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/08/02/video-meet-the-fedora-ambassadors/
=== New extras repository for Red Hat Enteprise Linux ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"If you need a software app that is not included or supported in the
standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or CentOS distribution, Red
Hat's new Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL)[2] repository
might be an excellent place to go fishing."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-July/msg00096....
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL
=== Redirecting Core Dumps ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Apport[2] is a system wide crash dump handler. Will Woods, QA lead in
Fedora has been working on adopting Apport from Ubuntu and Neil Horman
is pushing some reimplemented patches upstream that is required for
this feature in true Fedora fashion. Originally targeted for the next
release, this has now been moved to Fedora 9. A important feature that
will make it easy for users to report issues. Good to keep an eye on."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-July/msg00090....
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureApport
[[Anchor(Developments)]]
== Developments ==
In this section, we cover the problems/solutions,
people/personalities, and ups/downs of the endless discussions on
Fedora Developments.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Contributing Writer: OisinFeeley
=== FESCo Approves CodecBuddy ===
BrianPepple posted[1] the summary of decisions of the last (2nd Aug
2007) FESCo meeting and the link to the IRC log. Included in this was
the decision to approve the CodecBuddy and RahulSundaram wished[2]
that they'd waited until MaxSpevack had heard answers back from
"legal" about specific questions raised in FAB discussions.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00203.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00216.html
MatthiasClasen asked[3] Rahul for his alternate code and also claimed
that some points raised by FAB had been addressed. Rahul pointed[4]
out that Matthias was not addressing the issues raised by FAB and that
probably no one could until legal had investigated. From this exchange
and the IRC log[5] it seems that the implementors of "codeina" /
CodecBuddy believe that creating a Fedora Project controlled web-page
will ward off the evil eye of patent lawyers. There was not an
extensive discussion even given the caution expressed by
DavidWoodhouse (dwmw2) and others. The IRC log records a tentative
approval subject to FESCo input to the content of the webpage.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00219.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00223.html
[5] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras/SteeringCommittee/Meeting-20070802
=== The Future Of Yum ===
An enigmatic opening post from FlorianFesti [1] tantalized by
suggesting that "whois yum4.org" and "whois yum5.org" would be
interesting. The actual pages were the default test-page distributed
with Fedora's httpd package. Following up on Florian's hint revealed
JeffJohnson ex-Red Hat RPM developer and leader of the rpm5.org fork
(see also FWN#98 "RPM Roadmap...Panu Opens Pandora's Box"[2].)
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01755.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue98#head-90b3708648e89def933055ad00...
SethVidal, as the originator of "yum", was entertained[3] and wondered
whether he should release successive versions numbered by squaring the
previous version number. Some creative suggestions followed.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01756.html
A good laugh was also being had by RobertScheck[4], who claimed that
yum4/5 will be written in C instead of python and suggested that
PanuMatilainen rip out Python and maybe even PERL support in RPM along
with HTTP and FTP. RahulSundaram wasn't amused[5] by the lack of
courtesy shown in creating a misleadingly similar project name and
also thought that as Robert was involved in a fork he should
concentrate on that instead.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01782.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01785.html
The thread ended[6] as enigmatically as it had begun with
IgnacioVazquezAbrams asking Robert to let him "know when wnh is
ready".
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01793.html
=== Kqemu In The Kernel? ===
A belated response[1] from "dragoran" to a 16 June 2007 thread on the
absence of kqemu from Fedora argued that it recompiled without much
trouble although it was large. DaveJones responded[2] that kqemu
wasn't merged upstream (the kernel) and that Fedora was trying to stay
close to upstream to make rebasing easier. Dave was of the opinion
that although Fedora was getting better in this regard it still sucked
(wireless was singled out) and he didn't want to undo the progress.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00107.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00131.html
PaulWouters seemed to think[3] that this was a duplicitous answer as
many of the concerned upstream people are also Red Hat developers on
this very list. RahulSundaram asked where the patches had been
submitted upstream and "dragoran" answered that no one had done so.
Rahul disparaged[4] the idea that "politics" or "Red Hat developers"
were relevant to the issue and suggested trying to get the Fedora
kernel maintainers to patch the kernel was futile unless upstream did
it first. AlanCox had empirical evidence[5] that no one was very much
interested in kqemu.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00134.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00174.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00172.html
=== Kmods Clarified ===
Following on from the discussion of kqemu above (FWN#99 "Kqemu In The
Kernel?" and last week's slightly misleadingly titled FWN#98 "Kmods
Deprecated"[*]) "Kelly" wondered[1] why DKMS[2] wasn't in the main
repository as s/he found it an invaluable means of managing
non-standard kernel modules. JefSpaleta corrected[3] Kelly with the
information that DKMS was actually available and Kelly rephrased the
question to ask why couldn't kqemu be included in the main repository
as a DKMS module? The advantage Kelly perceived over including kqemu
in the kernel would be that they could be upgraded separately.
[*] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue98?action=show&redirect=FWN%2FLate...
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00147.html
[2] http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00173.html
The responses mostly rehashed the older debates on this subject and
ToddZullinger pointed this out[4] along with the need to avoid
packages that require compilation tools which is implicit in the DKMS
approach. ThorstenLeemhuis followed up[5] with a link to the last
discussion (in Jan 2007) which included a clear argument[6] from
JeremyKatz that the problem of multiple different databases for
tracking installed software and the realistic lack of a stable
upstream kernel interface meant that DKMS was not a preferred
solution. Thorsten suggested that Kelly review this entire earlier
discussion because if nothing had changed in the interim then there
was no point in replaying it, especially as kmods were on their way
out.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00176.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00178.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-January/msg01294.html
JesseKeating was quick to point out[7] that kmods as separate packages
were deprecated but that kmods in the kernel rpm as out of tree
modules were a preferred solution. Also included in Jesse's list of
advantages was the fact that the kernel maintainers would excercise
the same criteria for kernel modules as for the kernel. In response[8]
Thorsten re-iterated that he was in agreement with parts of the
decision but still saw the advantages of providing an "alphaworks"
space which provided kernel modules. Thorsten also wondered about the
apparently conflicting messages with some developers within Red Hat
favoring a packaging standard like DKMS developed in Fedora while
"some Red Hat people [were] kick[ing] kernel modules out of Fedora
now."
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00179.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00183.html
LesMikesell argued[9] the advantages of a stable interface to the
kernel for RHEL so that 3rd party modules upon which customers rely
were not broken on updates. A fairly longish thread followed with
some interesting examples backing up this viewpoint including one from
PaulWouters (who advanced the OpenSWAN case). The problem with this
argument was pointed out by ToddZullinger who noted that RHEL spends
developer time on constantly backporting to provide this stability and
that Fedora did not have this model. Todd suggested that the majority
using Fedora preferred a rapidly updated kernel as opposed to a stable
ABI and that CentOS and RHEL existed for people whom this did not
suit.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00192.html
=== LiveCD Wipes Root Partition ===
A remarkably calm MichelSalim reported[1] that an attempt to do a
clean-install of Fedora7 from the LiveCD while retaining his old
"/home" by explicitly requesting anaconda not to reformat "/" had
resulted in anaconda ignoring the request and reformatting "/".
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01838.html
There were several indications during the process that anaconda seemed
to be doing the right thing (including a warning that retained files
might interfere with the installed system). Michel wanted to know his
best strategy for recovering his data and consequently the details
about how the LiveCD worked.
DouglasMcClendon was a mine of information and confirmed[2] that the
absence of a warning dialogue which clarifies that "/" will be
reformatted is a horrible bug and was surprised no one had reported it
before now. He also confirmed that anaconda copies the whole image
over from the CD using "dd" into a newly reformatted (at least) 4.0GB
"/" partition and subsequently copies "/usr" and "/var" and other
filesystems from this into separate partitions (if they exist). Doug
was hopeful that data beyond that 4GB limit would be recoverable to
some extent.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01852.html
Further discussion between Douglas and Michel elucidated[3] the point
that F7 is the first time this LiveCD install option has been
available and the worrying warnings probably steered testers clear.
Douglas discussed his "turbo" version of the installer and the
potential of an alternate file-level copy installation mechanism
(which would also solve the non-ext3 root fs problem). In response to
Michel's suggestion of a FreeBSD-style default /home partition Douglas
described his strategy of creating a preserved subdirectory within
/home (which also had copies of dotfiles) and this then allowed
"wipegrades". A default preservable /home partition would aid this
strategy.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01862.html
Michel expanded[4] on this with the idea that the distinction wasn't
so much /home and /, but rather RPM-managed vs non-RPM-managed (and
hence preservation worthy). Michel wondered how Ubuntu and OpenSUSE
were coping with this in their new LiveCDs. RahulSundaram thought
that every LiveCD used the "dd" strategy, but Douglas corrected this
with the information[5] that copy-on-write is implemented using
unionfs on Ubuntu whereas devicemapper-snapshot is used on Fedora.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01863.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01865.html
=== RPM Roadmap (Cont.) ===
The excellent discussion initiated last week by PanuMatilainen (see
FWN#98 "Panu Opens Pandora's Box"[1]) continued apace without a break.
TillMaas wanted[2] rpmbuild to internalize the common part of the
Fedora specs including setting up a sane buildroot, cleaning up and
setting attributes. Till noted the five lines saved in each spec file
as a result of this. DimiPaun wasn't interested in saving the five
lines, but agreed[3] that Till's proposal would be correct because the
rpmbuild should be telling the specfile where the buildroot is instead
of vice-versa. Dimi also proposed that attempts to set the buildroot
or "rm -rf" by the specfile should be ignored and should issue
warnings.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue98?action=show&redirect=FWN%2FLate...
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01676.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01678.html
The problem which this would create for backwards compatability was
explored when JasonTibbitts agreed[4] with Dimi's suggestions with the
exception of ignoring specfile initiated buildroot setting and
clean-up, pointing out EPEL4 as an instance. Panu wearily welcomed[5]
us to the "world of rpm: people want progress but no change" and
wondered about forking the specfile format, but Rahul thought[6] that
would only work with a new parallel-installable version of RPM in
order to be able to deal with the legacy issue.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01682.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01689.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01690.html
RobertScheck thought[7] that the macros in /usr/lib/rpm ought to be
used to implement Till's suggestions. Till answered[8] with the
argument that reliance on macros in this way would mean the spec was
not generally useful for non-Fedora distributions. A minor
sub-discussion about non-sane specfiles creating dangling symlinks
followed.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01695.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01713.html
Another desired feature was "sandbox" support, requested[9] by ZCMiao
who noted Gentoo's implementation of ebuild, but KevinKofler responded
that "mock" was the appropriate way to test unsafe code builds.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01696.html
"Nodalus" argued[10] against stripping out HTTP/FTP capabilities on
the grounds that bootstrapping would become awkward and wondered if a
solution would be to leave these features but enable RPM to use
superior external methods when/if detected. JesseKeating, GilboaDavra
and HorstvonBrand argued variously that a rescue environment with
tools to add/remove content via a chroot, a plug-in system for
resource poor systems and security problems were all good reasons not
to implement "nodalus'" proposal.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01754.html
A dream[11] which MatthiasSaou would like to come true is the
automatic cacheing of all %config files which would allow diffs to be
shown against the original state. This spawned a certain amount of
interest in using a version-control system to manage these files, with
IanBurrell promoting[12] the idea of a hook which could call an
external VCS if needed. TheodorePapadopoulo was inspired[13] to
describe a use-case where it would be advantageous to extend RPM to
deal with rpms which have the sole purpose of over-riding the config
files of some other rpm. BillCrawford was cautiously encouraging[14]
but also suggested the workaround of replacing redhat-release with a
hand-rolled version and repackaging the software with new config
files. Similarly, EmmanuelSeyman suggested[15] repackaging with the
addition of using something like "cfengine" to centralize the changes
in a reproducible manner. JefSpaleta[16] and TonyNelson[17] also
thought that Matthias' suggestion was a good one.
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01744.html
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01778.html
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01841.html
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01845.html
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01846.html
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01773.html
[17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01794.html
AxelThimm requested[18] fixing whatever minor bugs cause rpm to choke
on fakeroot/fakechroot some of the time and advanced the security
benefits as one of the reasons plus the expansion of possible
packagers in the form of students without root accounts. JesseKeating
was keen on something like this for Koji too, and Panu requested
further reproducible bug details.
[19] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01766.html
There were a hell of a lot of other excellent suggestions, including
RalfCorsepius' concrete suggestions for what should be done to make
the current rpm codebase usable. Panu was strongly in agreement with
Ralf on these points and requested[20] his autotool expertise.
[20] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01816.html
NilsPhilippsen wanted[21] to get rid of the 2GB limit and hence cpio,
which led to a discussion of compression[21a]. (MichaelSchroeder of
SuSE clarified[22] that the 2GB limit applies to single files not the
entire RPM). AdamJackson (ajax) thought that POSIX 2001 tar might[23]
make a worthy replacement and cast doubt on the sanity of using the
same package manager across multiple systems. AlanCox defended[24]
ErikTroan's original choice of cpio and argued that a single package
manager across multiple systems had been shown to be both profitable
and useful. Surprisingly it seemed that there are several [25][26]
possible uses of RPMs containing files greater than 2GB.
[21] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00025.html
[21a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00100.html
[22] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00064.html
[23] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00037.html
[24] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00069.html
[25] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00074.html
[26] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00106.html
One of the most informative posts came from Panu himself and
explained[27] the problem with adding architecture specific requires
and provides as requested last week by "dragoran" to solve the
multilib problem.
[27] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00056.html
There's a lot more to this thread which is worth reading but can't be
adequately summarized.
=== KDE4 Status ===
A notice[1] from JosPoortvliet (of the KDE Promo group) advised that
the first beta of KDE4 would be released soon and wondered whether it
would be in Fedora 8. Since then the beta has actually been released
(Aug 2nd 2007)[1a]. Jos wanted to be able to mention Fedora8 in the
release notes.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01644.html
[1a] http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-4.0-beta1.php
The issue had been discussed earlier (see FWN#89 "KDE4 For Fedora8
Draft Document Discussion"[2]) by KevinKofler and JeremyKatz with
attention paid to the problem with clashing sonames between KDE3 and
KDE4 and the inadvisability of delaying the Fedora8 release-schedule
in the hope that the KDE release-schedule was cast in stone.
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue89#head-51fa717561e1d1e16b73bec573...
This time around there was a top-posted attempt[3] at encouragement
from "MarkG85" to the Fedora-KDE SIG to "make packages" of KDE4.
Responses from the folks producing the KDE desktop for the Fedora
Project were fairly uniform. ChrisBrown noted[4] his personal
experience with the complexity of the task of maintaining a complete
desktop environment, and also the inadvisability of rushing poorly
constructed packages into the distribution. "MarkG85" thought that
F8t1 would be a good place to test the packages to which KevinKofler
responded[5] that F8t1 was already frozen.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01697.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01699.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01714.html
GilboaDavara shared[6] the concerns of Kevin and RexDieter that
KDE4beta2 would be released a mere 3 days before the Fedora8
feature-freeze which would mean that there would be very little
testing in rawhide. Gilboa wondered whether KDE4beta2 would be
feature complete and, in a recapitulation of the FWN#89 discussion[2],
whether it was parallel installable.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01715.html
RexDieter invited anyone interested in speeding things up to join the
effort at the Fedora KDE SIG and ArthurPemberton requested an
appraisal of the chances of KDE4 in Fedora8 and suggested a qemu image
for testing if parallel-installation of KDE4 and KDE3 were impossible.
Rex's response[7] was to draw a distinction between the complete KDE4
desktop, which has a 50/50 chance of making it in depending on
release-schedule slippage, and some bits of KDE4 which will without
doubt make it in. Rex was warmly welcoming of anyone that wanted to
help out with a qemu-image.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01733.html
=== Package Management: Goats Satisfied With Current Situation ===
RichardHughes continued[1] to think hard about the problems of
software installation and wanted other people to join him. Richard
outlined a series of use cases which might form the basis on which to
make decisions about how package management should be implemented.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01818.html
The first substantive comment[2] came from AlanCox who thought that
Richard's security model needed refinement as it made it too easy for
uninformed users to install malware. Two other important points which
Alan identified were: the absence of install-time distinction of
install types (which limits the automounting of filesystems and Ubuntu
style sudo); and the need for revoke() in the kernel[3] in order to
allow multiple users to install packages after switching desktop user.
Alan identified three install types: user-managed; centrally-managed;
and physical-access.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01823.html
[3] The revoke() syscalls are not yet in the kernel although they are
in the -mm branch. They allow a file (or other resource) to be
revoked and all processes which have the file open receive an error.
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0701.3/1344.html
Richard thought[4] that most of the problems which Alan identified
with security were ones that could be handled using PolicyKit and
defining the repositories from which authenticated users could install
software. There was also strong agreement that the revoke() system
calls were important "Yes. Take a stapler gun and start firing it into
the air until it's merged" but also optimism that 90% of the
FastUserSwitching could be achieved without it.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01828.html
A short response from ColinWalters disagreed with AlanCox and
suggested that there were only two cases to be considered, namely:
1)that of a user responsible for the machine (who should be able to
install any package from the default CD set); 2)that in which the user
is not responsible, but an admin is and they should be able to set
policy in any way. RichardHughes requested[5] that Colin add this to
PackageKit[6].
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01853.html
[6] http://live.gnome.org/PackageKit
A significant number of the comments expressed concern about the idea
of making it easier for users to install software. EmmanuelSeyman's
raising of the point with regard to any logged-in user was answered[7]
by Richard invoking the use of PolicyKit to allow the admin to
arbitrarily enforce any desired policy. A very strong version of the
argument was presented[8] by HorstvonBrand who had concerns about the
amount of disk-space and bandwidth that would be consumed if the
laxity of Richard's suggested use-cases were permitted. Horst thought
that a simple configuration using sudo and yum would solve the problem
without much trouble. Richard replied that this was true only for
some users and didn't cover the case of the non-technically adept.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01826.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01843.html
PaulNasrat drew[9] Richard's attention to the Klik package-management
system[10] which attempts to rethink some aspects of
package-management (mainly by assuming the LSB as standard). Paul
wanted Richard to make his use-cases a little clearer as regards their
administrative role and also was concerned with the need for more
metadata in packages (perhaps obtained using mime/file(1) info) in
order to allow the system to suggest appropriate applications when
users wish to access particular files. Again the issue of bandwidth
and trust was raised with Paul pointing out that automatic updates
over GPRS wouldn't be nice. NicuBuculei suggested[11] expanding the
information gathered and stored by Mugshot to help with the metadata
problem. (Convergence with other Mugshot features was also discussed
in FWN#98 "Package Management Craic"[12]).
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01827.html
[10] http://klik.atekon.de/
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01833.html
[12] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue98#head-2e4823600525c6129df7d1944e...
=== FESCo Ratifies Changes To "License:" Tag In RPM SPECs ===
On the foot of recent extensive discussions (see FWN#98 "NOTE:Please
publicize any license changes to your packages (CONT.)"[1]) a friendly
announcement[2] from TomCallaway (spot) communicated the decision of
FESCo (2 Aug 2007) to require every package to have a "License:" tag
formatted in a way which allows some automated checking for
incompatibilities. Spot provided a list of acceptable licenses and
answers to predictable questions.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue98#head-98f4908dba5aeb4008843b233e...
The positive tone of the posting encouraged specific requests for
information which displayed a few common themes. One was that
alerting upstream projects of unclear or apparently contradictory
licensing problems . JakubJelinek pointed out[2] the potential for
one such problem when he thought that Spot's wording concerning the
presence of L/GPL "or any later version" should emphasize that all
files in a program should be examined for consistency in this regard.
Jakub asked for clarification using the example of "glibc" which
contains LGPL2.1 or later libraries certain files of which have
exceptions allowing linking to proprietary code, and also contains
GPL2 or later executables and some erroneous GPL2 only executables.
Spot provided[3] the License-tag "License: LGPLv2+ and LGPL with
exceptions and GPLv2+" under the assumption the package would contain
corrected versions of the executables and thought that Jakub's
description exemplified the sort of breakdown that should be included
in the spec comments. A very similar question was posed by
JasonTibbitts about the "ypbind" package which seems to have
contradictory information in the source and the manpage. Spot's answer
was to get upstream to sort it out, but that source-code trumps all[4]
in the event of this not occurring.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00111.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00116.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00126.html
The question of how necessary this all is was floated[5] by TomLane
while he tried to sort out his "mysql" package. Tom echoed
JasonTibbitts suspicion that Fedora will be more organized than most
upstream projects and that things are going to be complicated, perhaps
unnecessarily so. In support of this Tom noted that many of the
popular graphics libraries (libtiff, libpng and libjpeg) have BDS-ish
licences and that his long involvement with them made clear to him
that their spirit was intended to be BSD. This made the existence of
a distinctly separate "zlib/libpng" license in Spot's list a little
surprising to Tom. JesseKeating thought[6] that if those projects had
really intended to use BSD licensing then they would have and it was
best not to assume anything and to try and be specific. Spot
assured[7] Tom that his intent was not to cause pain, but to make
license-auditing easier for the Fedora Project and offered to try to
pigeonhole any licenses which Tom wished to send him.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00155.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00162.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00169.html
The impact on the buildsystem was considered[8] by HansdeGoede who
thought that it would be better to update the CVS devel-branch and
avoid rebuilding until a more convenient time as otherwise this would
effectively be triggering a mass rebuild. Hans also asked how freely
distributable, non-modifiable content should be tagged (e.g. much
firmware). JesseKeating listed[9] other outstanding issues that might
trigger a mass rebuild (BuildID, IceTea for Java, all ppc32 due to
SELinux problem) and agreed[10][11] with Hans and Spot that it would
be best to just tag in CVS-devel and add the license tagging as
another item for a synchronized rebuild to minimize churn.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00118.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00121.html
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00128.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00127.html
Hans had further pertinent[12] points with regard to the zlib/libpng
short-form license tag (which seemed to deviate from rpmlint's
preferences) and also the licensing of non-modifiable game content.
VilleSkyttä[13] reassured Hans that the latest rpmlint (0.80-2) was
consistent with the new packaging guidelines thanks to work by Spot.
The games issue was admitted to be an oversight by Spot who
thanked[14] Hans for pointing it out.
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00130.html
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00132.html
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00133.html
An error in the license table on the wiki was flagged[15] by
GianlucaSforna and later corrected.
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00156.html
JefSpaleta wondered what to do when a package contains some "GPLv2 or
later" files and other "GPL2 only" files and was answered[16] by
JoshBoyer that the package should be then tagged as "GPL2" only as the
principle is that the stricter of the licenses should be used.
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00227.html
In closing it should be noted that Spot is apparently willing to take
any further license queries and is also seeking help from anyone else
interested in getting involved with helping in this area.
RahulSundaram has stepped forward[17] to assist.
[17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00112.html
[[Anchor(Maintainers)]]
== Maintainers ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Maintainers, the group of people who
maintain the software packages in Fedora.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-maintainers
Contributing Writer: MichaelLarabel
=== EPEL Repository Continues To Expand ===
EPEL (or Extras Packages for Enterprise Linux[1]) has been making news
in recent weeks after it officially opened up a while back. In this
week's EPEL report[2] the number of packages for EPEL 5 has risen by
30 to a total of 872 binary packages while the EPEL 4 repository is up
by 31 for a total number of 596 binary packages.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-July/msg00441.html
[[Anchor(Documentation)]]
== Documentation ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
Contributing Writer: JonathanRoberts
=== Virtual Fudcon Ideas? ===
With the upcoming virtual Fudcon, KarstenWade sent a message to the
list requesting ideas for sessions that the DocsProject might run[1].
Initial suggestions included how to work on docs in the wiki and XML
skills, with practice.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-July/msg00086.html
=== Documentation Project Steering Committee Meeting ===
The log[1] and the summary[2] of the FDSCo meeting held on 07/31 were
posted to the list.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-July/msg00091.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-July/msg00093.html
=== Fedora 8 Test 1 Release Notes ===
RahulSundaram wrote to the list requesting help with creating the
release notes for Fedora 8 Test 1[1]. This prompted PaulFrields to
suggest that this would be the ideal task for a new contributor, with
help available if they need it[2].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-July/msg00081.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-July/msg00082.html
[[Anchor(Infrastructure)]]
== Infrastructure ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure
Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor
=== Operating Procedures ===
MikeMcGrath has documented some SOP's[1] for the infrastructure team
and is looking for people to review them.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-August/ms...
[[Anchor(Artwork)]]
== Artwork ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork
Contributing Writer: JonathanRoberts
=== Echo Used on translate.fp.org ===
DimitrisGlezos wrote to the list to announce that, on the new
translate.fedoraproject.org, he has made extensive use of the Echo
icon set[1].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00180.html
=== Virtual Fudcon ===
NicuBuculei, having just read about the virtual Fudcon, writes to the
list to propose that the art team take part[1], proposing the
possibility of a hackfest on a number of possible projects.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00197.html
=== Round 2 Deadline ===
The deadline for round 2 submissions has been extended to Monday 6th
August, to provide contributors one more week to polish their
submissions[1]. For a submission to be considered for round 2 it must
have at least one wallpaper proposal, and three supporting graphic
proposals. Supporting graphics can include a vertical banner for first
boot, a horizontal banner for Anaconda, banner for fedoraproject.org,
CD label etc.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-August/msg00000.html
[[Anchor(SecurityWeek)]]
== Security Week ==
In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora.
Contributing Writer: JoshBressers
=== Firefox 2.0.0.6 ===
Firefox 2.0.0.6 was released this week. Neither Fedora or Red Hat
Enterprise Linux will see this version. Here is why.
This update fixes these two flaws:
* MFSA 2007-27: Unescaped URIs passed to external programs[1]
* MFSA 2007-26: Privilege escalation through chrome-loaded
about:blank windows[2]
[1] http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2007/mfsa2007-27.html
[2] http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2007/mfsa2007-26.html
The reason the Mozilla Foundation released this update was primarily
to address MFSA 2007-27. This is a rather serious flaw regarding to
how Firefox hands URIs to external helper programs. This flaw does
not affect Linux as helper applications are launched in an understood
and controlled manner. The other flaw, MFSA 2007-26, is a rather
minor flaw that has been rated as being of moderate severity. It
involves how certain Firefox extensions create new windows. In
general this flaw is harmless and upstream wanted to fix it since it
was a regression from the 2.0.0.5 update.
A lot happens behind the scenes anytime there is an update of Firefox,
Thunderbird, and Seamonkey. Apart from a great deal of developer and
QA time, this translates into lost time for users as well. Vast
quantities of bandwith are consumed to download the updates, then the
various plugins must be updated. It was decided that it would be a
great disservice to the users to squander the available recourses for
an update they don't need.
Obviously, if you run Firefox on Windows, you best get this update, as
the flaw is rather serious there.
=== Hacking via IPS Signatures ===
An Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is supposed to stop malicious
attacks from ever happening. In general most security researchers
worth their salt feel these systems are a waste of time and money.
They fall into the classification of security theater, or something
that doesn't actually make you more secure, it makes you think you are
more secure.
An article on Dark Reading[1] claims something that has been
suspected, but unproved, for a very long time about IPS vendors.
Their 0day vulnerability signatures, aren't very 0day. One of the
ways IPS vendors try to add value is to include currently unknown
vulnerabilities they discovered. The way this works is they acquire
information about a security flaw, create an IPS signature for it, add
the signature to their product, then tell the vendor. The article
from Dark Reading suggests that attackers are using the signatures to
figure out what the vulnerability is, then leveraging the fact that
it's not fixed in the vendors product.
How this will be handled by various vendors is now a vary real
question that needs to be addressed. We shall see where it goes.
[1] http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=130313&WT.svl=news1_1
[[Anchor(DailyPackage)]]
== Daily Package ==
In this section, we recap the packages that have been highlighted as a
Fedora Daily Package.
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/
Contributing Writer: ChrisTyler
=== Gobby - Collaborative editor ===
''Productive Mondays'' highlight a timesaving tool. This Monday[1] we
covered Gobby[2]:
"Gobby is a collaborative editor which enables multiple people to
simultaneously edit a group of documents. ... Gobby also enables
cross-platform collaboration: MS Windows and (limited) Mac OS/X
clients are available from the upstream website."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/107-Productive-Mon...
[2] http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/
=== Netpbm - Utilities for graphic manipulation ===
''Artsy Tuesdays'' highlight a graphics, video, or sound application.
This Tuesday[1] Netpbm[2] was featured:
"Netpbm is a venerable collection of over 300 short programs that
manipulate graphics files."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/108-Artsy-Tuesday-...
[2] http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/
=== Wednesday Why: Colour ls ===
The ''Wednesday Why'' article[1] took a look at the colour-coding
capabilities of GNU 'ls' and Fedora's default configuration of these
features:
"By default, the Fedora 'ls' command colour-codes file listings when
they are displayed on a virtual terminal or terminal window, but not
when they are piped into another command."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/109-Wednesday-Why-...
=== Xnest - A nested X server ===
''GUI Thursdays'' highlight software that enables, provides, enhances, or
effectively uses a GUI interface. This Thursday[1], Xnest[2] was
discussed:
"Xnest is a nested X server: a display that runs in a window within
another display. It's useful for testing GUI applications as a
different user, trying out several desktop environments at the same
time, or getting screenshots of the login process."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/110-GUI-Thursday-X...
[2] http://x.org/
=== Kbilliard - Billiard simulator game ===
''Friday Fun'' highlights fun, interesting, and amusing programs. This
Friday[1], we took a look at Kbilliards[2]:
"Kbilliards is a billiard game simulator. As the name implies, it's
KDE-based. You can play against yourself, another user, or the
computer. When you start a new game, you can also select 'Training
Mode', which enables you to move any ball to set up complex practice
shots."
[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/111-Friday-Fun-Kbi...
[2] http://www.hostnotfound.it/kbilliards.php
[[Anchor(AdvisoriesUpdates)]]
== Advisories and Updates ==
In this section, we cover Security Advisories and Package Updates from
fedora-package-announce.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora 7 Security Advisories ===
* [SECURITY] gdm-2.18.4-1.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-1362
* [SECURITY] GraphicsMagick-1.1.8-2.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-1340
* [SECURITY] tcpdump-3.9.7-1.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-1361
* [SECURITY] xorg-x11-xinit-1.0.2-21.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-1409
* [SECURITY] xpdf-3.02-1.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-1383
=== Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories ===
* [SECURITY] gdm-2.16.5-2.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-653
* [SECURITY] tcpdump-3.9.4-11.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-654
[[Anchor(EventsMeetings)]]
== Events and Meetings ==
In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from
various projects.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-07-31 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-August/msg0000...
=== Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
=== Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-07-31 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-July/msg00093.html
=== Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-08-02 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg00203.html
=== Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting (Log) 2007-08-01 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/epel-devel-list/2007-August/msg00014.html
=== Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
=== Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-07-31 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-August/msg00010.html
=== Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-07-30 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg01784.html
=== Fedora Translation Project Meeting (Log) 2007-MM-DD ===
* No Report
--
Thomas Chung
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung
15 years, 10 months
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