Fedora Weekly News 204
by Pascal Calarco
o 1.1 Announcements
+ 1.1.1 More Fedora 12 Reviews
+ 1.1.2 FEDORA ANNOUNCE LIST
# 1.1.2.1 Fedora Project Election Town Halls
+ 1.1.3 FEDORA EVENTS
# 1.1.3.1 Upcoming Events
# 1.1.3.2 Past Events
o 1.2 Planet Fedora
+ 1.2.1 General
o 1.3 Quality Assurance
+ 1.3.1 Test Days
+ 1.3.2 Weekly meetings
+ 1.3.3 Increasing the grub timeout
+ 1.3.4 Fedora 12 QA retrospective
o 1.4 Ambassadors
+ 1.4.1 Fedora at NYSCATE
+ 1.4.2 Fedora 12 is here
o 1.5 Translation
+ 1.5.1 Fedora 12 Translation Schedule Tasks
+ 1.5.2 Accessibility Guide
+ 1.5.3 New Members
o 1.6 Artwork
+ 1.6.1 Interaction Design Hackfest
+ 1.6.2 Game Screenshots Ready. Better Navigation Next
o 1.7 Security Advisories
+ 1.7.1 Fedora 12 Security Advisories
+ 1.7.2 Fedora 11 Security Advisories
+ 1.7.3 Fedora 10 Security Advisories
- Fedora Weekly News Issue 204 -
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 204[1] for the week ending November
29, 2009. What follows are some highlights from this issue.
We start this week's issue off with a couple additional Fedora 12
reviews to highlight, and also lots of Fedora Project Election
information to inform and engage the user community! In news from the
Fedora Planet this week, comparing the Nokia Maemo and Google Android
platforms, thoughts on sustainable open source engineering, and a review
of the 0.4 Eclipse Linux Tools. In the Quality Assurance beat, much
detail on this past week's QA team activities, and an interesting Fedora
12 QA retrospective. Ambassadors news this week gives us an event report
from the recent New York State Association for Technology and Computers
in Education meeting. In Translation happenings, 0-day Fedora 12
translation polishing, and new members to the Fedora Localization
Project for Italian, Sinhala and German. The Art/Design beat shows off
discussion on an interactive design hackfest and wrapup of screenshots
for a Fedora Game Spin. This issue wraps up with security patches
released last week for Fedora 10, 11 and 12. Please enjoy FWN 204!
If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see
our 'join' page[2]. We welcome reader feedback: fedora-news-list(a)redhat.com
FWN Editorial Team: Pascal Calarco, Adam Williamson
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue204
2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join
-- Announcements --
In this section, we cover announcements from the Fedora Project,
including general announcements[1], development announcements[2] and
Events[3].
Contributing Writer: Pascal Calarco
1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/
2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/
3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events
--- More Fedora 12 Reviews ---
Last week, we highlighted several Fedora 12 reviews from around the
globe. Here are a few more than came in over the past week:
* Distrowatch, "First look at Fedora 12" [1]
* Linux Planet "Fedora 12 pushes bleeding edge of Linux networking"
[2]
1. http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20091123#feature
2. http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6910/1/
--- FEDORA ANNOUNCE LIST ---
---- Fedora Project Election Town Halls ----
There are a number of high-profile and important elections for the
Fedora Project leadership in process right now, and there's lots on the
wiki to inform the user community on the candidates[1]. See the linked
page for a log of town hall discussions, and upcoming town halls[2]
through December 3rd! Who can vote? Check out the Fedora Elections Guide![3]
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Elections
2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Elections#IRC_Town_Halls
3. http://nigelj.fedorapeople.org/feg/
--- FEDORA EVENTS ---
Fedora events are the source of marketing, learning and meeting all the
fellow community people around you. So, please mark your agenda with the
following events to consider attending or volunteering near you!
---- Upcoming Events ----
* North America (NA)[1]
* Central & South America (LATAM) [2]
* Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)[3]
* India, Asia, Australia (India/APJ)[4]
1.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY10_Q3_.28September_2009_-_November...
2.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY10_Q3_.28September_2009_-_November...
3.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY10_Q3_.28September_2009_-_November...
4.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY10_Q3_.28September_2009_-_November...
---- Past Events ----
Archive of Past Fedora Events[1]
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#Past_Events
-- Planet Fedora --
In this section, we cover the highlights of Planet Fedora[1] - an
aggregation of blogs from Fedora contributors worldwide.
Contributing Writer: Adam Batkin
1. http://planet.fedoraproject.org
--- General ---
Gerard Braad installed[1] the Maemo 5 SDK on Fedora 12. However, there
were a few minor quirks with the installation process to be aware of.
Steven Moix compared[2] the Maemo platform (Nokia N900) with Android (Hero).
Richard W.M. Jones decided to take a look[3] into the Fedora and Ubuntu
Live CDs to see if it was possible "to quickly create a Fedora or Ubuntu
“all-defaults” virtual machine." Part 2 continues[4] with some
optimization that drastically reduce the time taken to install (one 16
minutes operation in particular ends up taking 2 1/2 minutes after
optimization).
Andrew Overholt announced[5] release 0.4.0 of the Eclipse Linux Tools,
complete with SystemTap call graphs, GProf integration and better
autotools support.
John Palmier explained[6] "why do we care about push messaging"? (in the
form of a comic strip). This is all in preparation for a presentation on
AMQP and qpid for the upcoming FUDCon.
Karsten Wade discussed[7] "building a business around sustainable open
source engineering". Karsten wanted to "lay out a definition for
sustainable open source engineering, provide some examples you may not
have thought of, and find out who else is doing a good job at it (or
trying to, at the very least!)"
Mike McGrath says[8]: "I'm happy to announce today we finally have
context based sponsorship listings. What does this mean? Well, when you
go to http://fedoraproject.org/ you end up hitting one of several
reverse proxy servers. These hosts are located all over the world by
different hosting providers."
Pavol Rusnak took a look[9] at community engagement in the OpenSUSE and
Fedora communities. Many pie graphs ensued.
Ray Strode talked[10] about the point in the bootup process where it
transitions from Plymouth to X. "f you haven’t seen it, when boot up
finishes, plymouth settles down the boot splash to a transitionable
animation frame, then the mouse pointer shows up, and GDM’s background
cross fades in while the login window maps and expands to show
frequently logged in users. In the best case, this transition all
happens without any flicker, resolution changes, black intermediate
screens, or console text showing up."
1. http://blog.gbraad.nl/2009/11/maemo-5-sdk-on-fedora-12.html
2.
http://www.alphatek.info/2009/11/22/maemo-or-android-n900-versus-hero/
3. http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/prebuilt-distributions-part-1/
4. http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/prebuilt-distributions-part-2/
5. http://overholt.ca/wp/?p=139
6. http://www.j5live.com/2009/11/23/fudcon-the-amqp-story/
7.
http://iquaid.org/2009/11/23/building-a-business-around-sustainable-open-...
8. http://mmcgrath.livejournal.com/31686.html
9.
http://stick.gk2.sk/blog/2009/11/fedora-and-opensuse-community-engagement/
10.
http://blogs.gnome.org/halfline/2009/11/28/plymouth-%E2%9F%B6-x-transition/
-- Quality Assurance --
In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team[1].
Contributing Writer: Adam Williamson
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA
--- Test Days ---
There was no Test Day last week, and no Test Day is currently planned
for this week. If you would like to propose a main track Test Day for
the Fedora 13 cycle, please contact the QA team via email or IRC, or
file a ticket in QA Trac[1].
1. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/
--- Weekly meetings ---
The QA group weekly meeting[1] was held on 2009-11-23. The full log is
available[2]. James Laska noted that a common bugs page entry had been
added[3] to cover the known issue with preupgrade and free space in the
/boot partition, and Rui He had been working to update the preupgrade
test cases to catch similar problems in future[4].
James Laska admitted that he had not yet sent out the request for
feedback for the Fedora 12 QA retrospective, but promised to do it soon.
John Poelstra asked whether the group would be interested in a
project-wide retrospective at the upcoming FUDCon; James offered to
discuss the idea with John after the meeting.
The group discussed the question of privilege escalation testing,
following the PackageKit installation permission controversy[5]. James
Laska wanted to discuss the plan Tom 'spot' Callaway had proposed via a
blog post[6] and create a test plan based around it. Adam Williamson
felt it was too early to begin planning testing, since Tom's blog post
was only a proposal, and there was no official policy or guideline for
privilege escalation issues on which a test plan could be based. Adam
was also worried about defining the scope of testing, as checking every
package in the distribution would be impractical given the size of the
QA team. The group agreed that for any useful testing to be done, two
things would be needed: a project-wide policy or set of policies and
guidelines, and a tool for generating a list of packages which are
capable of privilege escalation. Adam agreed to start a discussion of
this on the development and security mailing lists. Will Woods offered
to work on the tool for identifying escalation-capable packages.
James Laska brought up John Poelstra's plan to improve the release
criteria[7], and asked the group to provide feedback. John noted that he
was hoping people could get together to work on finalizing the new
criteria at FUDCon.
Will Woods and Kamil Paral reported on the progress of the AutoQA
project. Will had completed the redesign of the autoqa code to be based
around a Python shared library containing functions commonly used in
multiple watchers and tests. The new post-koji-build test hook is also
included, and autoqa is currently running an rpmlint test on every Koji
build to test the hook. He said the next objective was to solidify the
post-koji-build hook, help package maintainers add post-build tests, and
get the rpmguard test running. A later objective is to work on a
post-bodhi-update hook and dependency check test so that all updates
submitted to Bodhi will be checked for dependency consistency, to
hopefully end the situation where updates are pushed which break
dependency chains. Kamil had been working on the Wiki documentation, and
had created a new front page[8] which briefly explains the project and
contains links to the most important relevant pages. He also pointed out
that James Laska had been drafting further improvements to this page[9].
Jesse Keating proposed a talk during FUDCon to explain how several new
ideas across the release engineering and QA groups - no frozen rawhide,
autoqa, autosigning, and new milestones - would fit together in upcoming
Fedora release cycles. The group thought this was a good idea, and Jesse
said he would take the lead in arranging it.
The Bugzappers group weekly meeting[10] was held on 2009-11-24. The full
log is available[11]. The group discussed housekeeping tasks,
particularly updating the components and triagers page[12]. Adam
Williamson thought the list of triagers should be kept (rather than
being emptied as was previously the case with each new release) but
pruned, with triagers known to be inactive being removed. Edward Kirk
volunteered to look into a method for updating the component list, based
on the current critical path package list.
The group then discussed the topic of mentoring new members, with Edward
Kirk encouraging experienced group members to help mentor new ones to
make sure they got a good start on their triaging careers. He also
thought it would be good for existing members to join in welcoming new
members to the group when they posted their introduction emails. Adam
Williamson suggested doing this via private mail to avoid cluttering up
the list.
Matej Cepl brought up a problem related to the recently-implemented
change in the method of marking bugs that had been triaged. He had found
that the fact that this was now being done differently for different
releases made it impossible to construct a Bugzilla search for all
triaged or un-triaged bugs in a given component across all releases. To
address this problem, he proposed adding the new Triaged keyword to all
bugs in ASSIGNED state for existing supported releases (Fedora 10
through 12), which would allow searches to be performed using the
keyword in all releases. The group could see no problems with this idea,
as long as it was done without generating a large amount of email, and
approved the plan for Matej to approach the Bugzilla maintainer for help
in implementing it.
Matej Cepl pointed out that the level of duplicate bugs being filed via
the abrt[13] automated bug reporting tool was increasing the triage
workload on some components significantly. After a long discussion, the
group agreed a plan to try and address this. Will Woods would talk to
the abrt team about the idea of reporting issues to an intermediate,
abrt-specific server rather than directly to Bugzilla, based on the
kerneloops.org[14] model. Matej would talk to the abrt team about their
plans to improve abrt's own automatic duplicate detection and about
having abrt format its reports in ways that would aid triagers in manual
duplicate detection. Adam Williamson would respond to the existing
thread on the development mailing list about the problem to raise the
group's concerns, and ask the abrt team whether future improvements to
abrt's duplicate detection logic could be retrospectively applied to
bugs already filed by older versions of abrt.
The next QA weekly meeting will be held on 2009-11-30 at 1600 UTC in
#fedora-meeting, and the next Bugzappers weekly meeting on 2009-12-01 at
1500 UTC in #fedora-meeting.
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings
2.
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-11-23/fedora-meeting...
3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F12_bugs#preupgrade-boot
4. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/ticket/30
5. http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047
6. http://spot.livejournal.com/312216.html
7.
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-November/msg00926.html
8. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AutoQA
9. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Jlaska/Draft
10. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings
11.
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-11-24/fedora-meeting...
12. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Components_and_Triagers
13. http://fedorahosted.org/abrt/wiki
14. http://www.kerneloops.org
--- Increasing the grub timeout ---
Scott Robbins started a long thread[1] with the suggestion to increase
the default timeout for the Fedora boot loader from its current default
setting of 0 (which causes the boot loader menu never to be shown at
all). There were many opinions on this idea, but the general response
was positive enough for Scott to file a feature request[2] on the idea,
where some compromises were suggested. Richard Ryniker suggested having
the system detect unclean shutdowns and force the boot menu to be
displayed on the next boot (much as Windows does). Stewart Adam
suggested having grub initially installed with a non-zero timeout, and
have firstboot change it to zero on the assumption that a system that
can get to firstboot must have a properly configured bootloader.
1.
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-November/msg01012.html
2. http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=541315
--- Fedora 12 QA retrospective ---
James Laska posted a request[1] for feedback on the Fedora 12 QA cycle
from anyone, both on things that went well and areas that could be
improved. Many group members posted replies, including Adam
Williamson[2], Jóhann Guðmundsson[3], and Rahul Sundaram[4].
1.
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-November/msg01126.html
2.
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-November/msg01127.html
3.
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-November/msg01149.html
4.
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-November/msg01128.html
-- Ambassadors --
In this section, we cover Fedora Ambassadors Project[1].
Contributing Writer: Larry Cafiero
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors
--- Fedora at NYSCATE ---
Karlie Robinson posted a follow-up to New York State Association for
Technology and Computers in Education in her blog. Karlie had a variety
of Fedora and XO materials available at the event.
Her blog is at:
http://karlierobinson.blogspot.com/2009/11/nyscate-2009-bringing-open-sou...
"It was a good event and I hope we can do more next year," she says.
--- Fedora 12 is here ---
With Fedora 12 Constantine now here, this is a reminder that posting an
announcement of your event on Fedora Weekly News can help get the word
out. Contact FWN Ambassador correspondent Larry Cafiero at
lcafiero-AT-fedoraproject-DOT-org with announcements of upcoming events
-- and don't forget to e-mail reports after the events as well.
-- Translation --
This section covers the news surrounding the Fedora Translation (L10n)
Project[1].
Contributing Writer: Runa Bhattacharjee
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N
--- Fedora 12 Translation Schedule Tasks ---
The Translation Schedule for this week included the completion of the 0
day Release Notes for Fedora 12, to be published on
docs.fedoraproject.org. This task ended on 26th November 2009[1].
1.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00123....
--- Accessibility Guide ---
Eric Christensen announced the availability of the Fedora Accessibility
Guide[1]. However, this Guide is not yet ready for translation via
translate.fedoraproject.org due to the older version of Transifex that
is currently being used here[2][3].
1.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00116....
2.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00117....
3. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=518348
--- New Members ---
Votta Luigi (Italian)[1], Yajith Ajanta (Sinhala)[2], Thomas Spitzmann
(German)[3] joined the Fedora Localization Project last week.
1.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00148....
2.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00152....
3.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00136....
-- Artwork --
In this section, we cover the Fedora Design Team[1].
Contributing Writer: Nicu Buculei
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork
--- Interaction Design Hackfest ---
Máirín Duffy announced[1] on @design-team an interaction design hackfest
" I am planning to hold a Fedora interaction design hackfest next
Tuesday to work on establishing a set of personas for Fedora" and
followed on her blog with a detailed plan[2] " 1. Learn about how
interaction design is done. 2. Pick up some interaction design and user
research skills. 3. Get involved in an open design project. 4. Help make
Fedora better!". After the IRC meeting, she also published[3] a summary
and logs.
1.
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/design-team/2009-November/001477...
2.
http://mairin.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/want-to-learn-design-skills-want-t...
3.
http://mairin.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/fedora-interaction-design-hackfest...
--- Game Screenshots Ready. Better Navigation Next ---
Máirín Duffy reported[1] the accomplishment of distributed the task to
gather screenshots for the Games Spin[2] "We are done. I just checked in
the last of the games images and we now have complete coverage. You
rock. 127 games. This may be the most complete set of free game
screenshots around. Congrats!" and opened a discuss for improving the
navigation of the page "I'd like to design it such that maybe the games
could be browsed slide-show style by category". James Mulroy proposed a
set of mockups[3]. "I did a few very rough mock ups of an idea i had for
this, my idea would be to create a ajax browser for the screen shots"
and the discussion continued, exploring ways to categorize the content.
1.
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/design-team/2009-November/001489...
2. http://spins.fedoraproject.org/games/
3.
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/design-team/2009-November/001491...
-- Security Advisories --
In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce
Contributing Writer: Pascal Calarco
--- Fedora 12 Security Advisories ---
* tomcat6-6.0.20-1.fc12 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* bind-9.6.1-13.P2.fc12 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* php-pear-Net-Traceroute-0.21.2-1.fc12 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* php-pear-Net-Ping-2.4.5-1.fc12 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* bugzilla-3.4.4-1.fc12 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
--- Fedora 11 Security Advisories ---
* bind-9.6.1-7.P2.fc11 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* tomcat6-6.0.20-1.fc11 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* php-pear-Net-Ping-2.4.5-1.fc11 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* php-pear-Net-Traceroute-0.21.2-1.fc11 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* snort-2.8.5.1-1.fc11 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* asterisk-1.6.1.9-1.fc11 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
--- Fedora 10 Security Advisories ---
* tomcat6-6.0.20-1.fc10 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* php-pear-Net-Ping-2.4.5-1.fc10 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* php-pear-Net-Traceroute-0.21.2-1.fc10 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* asterisk-1.6.0.17-2.fc10 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* snort-2.8.5.1-1.fc10 -
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
- end FWN 204 -
--
Pascal Calarco, Fedora Ambassador, Indiana, USA
14 years, 4 months
No KDE Beat
by Ryan Rix
Hi,
It looks like a fairly slow week in the KDE sector. I'll hold off on a beat.
--
Ryan Rix
Fedora KDE SIG Member, Phoenix AZ Ambassador, News KDE Beat writer
http://hackersramblings.wordpress.com | http://identi.ca/phrkonaleash
XMPP: phrkonaleash(a)gmail.com | MSN: phrkonaleash(a)yahoo.com
AIM: phrkonaleash | Yahoo: phrkonaleash
IRC: PhrkOnLsh(a)irc.freenode.net/#srcedit,#plugaz,#fedora-kde and
countless other FOSS channels.
14 years, 4 months
no virt beat
by Dale Bewley
Hey all. I'm in full blown vacation mode, and probably won't have time to do a virt beat tonight.
14 years, 4 months
Ambassadors is in
by Larry Cafiero
After a quick 15 minutes, Ambassadors is in.
Larry Cafiero
14 years, 4 months
FWN 203 status
by Pascal Calarco
Hi folks --
Are all of the beats in that are expected for today? We have neither a
marketing beat or an announcements beat, which are both really critical
following a release launch.
I am going to write up at least the announcements beat. We need to find
new writers for both of these if Rashadul and Chaitanya aren't able to
write them on a regular basis. I can likely pick up both if need be for
awhile, but it would be nice to get some more folk involved.
I'll target 203 to launch in a couple hours, unless I hear anything
different. If you need more time, just let me know! Thanks to everyone
who contributed to this issue!
- pascal
14 years, 4 months
Fedora Weekly News 203
by Pascal Calarco
o 1.1 Announcements
+ 1.1.1 Fedora 12 Reviews: A Sampling
+ 1.1.2 FEDORA ANNOUNCE LIST
# 1.1.2.1 F12 PackageKit root permission change
+ 1.1.3 FEDORA EVENTS
# 1.1.3.1 Upcoming Events
# 1.1.3.2 Past Events
o 1.2 Planet Fedora
+ 1.2.1 General
+ 1.2.2 Fedora 12 Roundup
o 1.3 QualityAssurance
+ 1.3.1 Test Days
+ 1.3.2 Weekly meetings
+ 1.3.3 Improving the release criteria
o 1.4 Translation
+ 1.4.1 Release Notes Translations Updated for Polish, Portuguese and Simplified Chinese
+ 1.4.2 Errors in Release Notes for Chinese and German
+ 1.4.3 Error in Package Name in the Fedora 12 Release Notes
+ 1.4.4 SSSD and MC Translation Request
+ 1.4.5 New Members in FLP
o 1.5 Security Advisories
+ 1.5.1 Fedora 12 Security Advisories
+ 1.5.2 Fedora 11 Security Advisories
+ 1.5.3 Fedora 10 Security Advisories
o 1.6 Virtualization
+ 1.6.1 Interviews
+ 1.6.2 Fedora Virtualization List
# 1.6.2.1 Fedora Virtualization Status Report
# 1.6.2.2 Rawvirt Rawhide Virtualization for Fedora 12
+ 1.6.3 Libvirt List
# 1.6.3.1 New Release libvirt 0.7.4
- Fedora Weekly News Issue 203 -
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 203[1] for the week ending November 22, 2009. What follows are some highlights from this issue.
Fedora 12 "Constantine" was released this past week, and we kick off this week's issue with a sampling of reviews from around the globe. Also in announcements, details on a change in Fedora 12's PackageKit permissions. In news from the Fedora Planet, some details on what's involved with providing delta RPMs, a new feature in Fedora 12, a site visit to the new Red Hat Computing Lab at Carnegie Mellon, and much more from Fedora contributors. Quality Assurance brings us up to date with the recent weekly meetings of the QA team which have focused on F12, with lots of interesting detail behind the scenes! In Translation news, details on updates and errata for Fedora 12 release notes, and a couple translation requests from SSSD and Midnight Commander. Security Advisories keeps us current with security patches for Fedora 10, 11, and 12. In news from the world of Fedora virtualization, coverage of a recent interview with virtualization luminaries, a status report on Fedora virtualization and details on the latest version of libvirt. Enjoy FWN 203!
If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see our 'join' page[2]. We welcome reader feedback: fedora-news-list(a)redhat.com
FWN Editorial Team: Pascal Calarco, Adam Williamson
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue203
2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join
-- Announcements --
In this section, we cover announcements from the Fedora Project, including general announcements[1], development announcements[2] and Events[3].
Contributing Writer: Pascal Calarco
1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/
2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/
3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events
--- Fedora 12 Reviews: A Sampling ---
Fedora 12, "Constantine", was released last week to widespread acclaim. A few sample reviews:
* Linux Magazine (USA) "Fedora, still pushing the envelope"[1]
* ZDNet UK "Saving the "Best" for Last - Fedora 12 (Constantine)"[2]
* The Register (UK) "Fedora 12 - Its a horse, not a camel"[3]
* ghacks.net (USA) "Major improvements with Fedora 12"[4]
* IT Pro (UK) "Fedora 12 tweaks virtualisation, video"[5]
* TechWorld (Australia) "Fedora Linux 12 arrives, ups multimedia support"[6]
* TechSpot (USA) "Fedora 12 released, brings multi-touch support, more"[7]
* Datamation "Building On-Ramps on the Fedora 12 Highway"[8]
1. http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7618/1.html
2. http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10014494o-2000498448b,00.htm
3. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/19/fedora_12_review/
4. http://www.ghacks.net/2009/11/18/major-improvements-with-fedora-12/
5. http://www.itpro.co.uk/617824/fedora-12-tweaks-virtualisation-video
6. http://www.techworld.com.au/article/326717/fedora_linux_12_arrives_ups_mu...
7. http://www.techspot.com/news/37004-fedora-12-released-brings-multitouch-s...
8. http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3848891/Building-On-Ram...
--- FEDORA ANNOUNCE LIST ---
---- F12 PackageKit root permission change ----
Fedora Project leader Paul W. Frields, announced a change in for Fedora 12's PackageKit, which had allowed non-root users to install updates and new packages. Frields wrote[1],
"The Fedora 12 release contained changes in the default PackageKit behavior that allow installation of packages by users in cases where:
* the user is logged in on the local console, and
* is installing packages signed with a previously trusted key, and
* is using a previously configured and trusted repository
After more discussion and thought, though, the package maintainers have posted to the fedora-devel-list mailing list agreeing to provide an update to Fedora 12's PackageKit. The update will require local console users to enter the root password to install new software packages. Details on the changes are found here[2]."
1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2009-November/msg0001...
2. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-November/msg01445....
-- FEDORA EVENTS ---
Fedora events are the source of marketing, learning and meeting all the fellow community people around you. So, please mark your agenda with the following events to consider attending or volunteering near you!
---- Upcoming Events ----
* North America (NA)[1]
* Central & South America (LATAM) [2]
* Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)[3]
* India, Asia, Australia (India/APJ)[4]
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY10_Q3_.28September_2009_-_November...
2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY10_Q3_.28September_2009_-_November...
3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY10_Q3_.28September_2009_-_November...
4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY10_Q3_.28September_2009_-_November...
---- Past Events ----
Archive of Past Fedora Events[1]
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#Past_Events
-- Planet Fedora --
In this section, we cover the highlights of Planet Fedora[1] - an aggregation of blogs from Fedora contributors worldwide.
Contributing Writer: Adam Batkin
1. http://planet.fedoraproject.org
--- General ---
Jonathan Dieter described[1] some of the challenges that were involved in the development of deltarpms.
Richard W.M. Jones shared[2] a couple shell tricks for using and modifying the shell's history in order to save time and work more efficiently.
Greg DeKoenigsberg visited[3] Pittsburgh for the opening of the new Red Hat Computing Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. Among the treats was a look at OpenISR[4], the Internet Suspend/Resume project. Sound cool? It is.
Devan Goodwin has "been doing some work recently on cobbler4j, a small Java library for interacting with Cobbler over XMLRPC based on the work done to integrate Cobbler into Spacewalk." [5]
Luke Macken announced[6] that TurboGears 2 is now available in Fedora and EPEL.
Máirín Duffy says: On Tuesday, November 24 there will be a Fedora Interaction Design Hackfest[7]. Anyone interested in learning about Interaction Design or improving the Fedora user experience should join in on IRC.
A number of folks chimed in with thoughts on some recent changes to the PackageKit default permissions in Fedora 12. Seth Vidal explained[8]: "In f12 the default policy for polkit for package kit is to allow users at the desktop to install signed pkgs from repositories enabled on the system." However, shortly thereafter it was announced that the default would change in an updated package. Ankur Sinha linked to the announcement[9] on fedora-devel.
Steven Pritchard shared[10] some further thoughts in a provocatively titled post "Why developers suck as admins".
Greg DeKoenigsberg used the opportunity to discuss[11] "the difference between transparency and communication" in relation to the recent PackageKit changes.
John Poelstra looked[12] at Fedora's Release Criteria now that a Target Audience has been discussed and agreed upon.
Dave Malcolm introduced[13] 2to3c, "a tool to help people port their C python extensions from Python 2 to Python 3."
1. http://cedarandthistle.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/deltarpm-problems-part-i/
2. http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/tip-and-in-the-shell/
3. http://gregdek.livejournal.com/56850.html
4. http://isr.cmu.edu/
5. http://rm-rf.ca/blog/introducing-cobbler4j
6. http://lewk.org/blog/TurboGears2-in-Fedora.html
7. http://mairin.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/want-to-learn-design-skills-want-t...
8. http://skvidal.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/polkit-and-package-kit-and-changi...
9. http://dodoincfedora.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/fedora-packagekit-change/
10. http://blog.stevecoinc.com/2009/11/why-developers-suck-as-admins.html
11. http://gregdek.livejournal.com/57105.html
12. http://poelcat.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/fedora-target-audience-amp-releas...
13. http://dmalcolm.livejournal.com/3935.html
--- Fedora 12 Roundup ---
Paul W. Frields[1] and Kulbir Saini[2] answered some of the more common questions to do with the new release.
Máirín Duffy announced[3] that the new Fedora Spins site has gone live[4].
Eric Christensen outlined[5] twelve different types of documentation available with Fedora 12, from Release Notes to Security and Virtualization guides.
1. http://marilyn.frields.org:8080/~paul/wordpress/?p=2811
2. http://gofedora.com/news-fedora-12-constantine-released-all-you-need-to-k...
3. http://mairin.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/new-fedora-spins-site-with-fedora-12/
4. http://spins.fedoraproject.org/
5. http://fedora-sparks.blogspot.com/2009/11/documenting-fedora-12-or-what-d...
-- QualityAssurance --
In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team[1].
Contributing Writer: Adam Williamson
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA
--- Test Days ---
There was no Test Day last week, and no Test Day is currently planned for this week. If you would like to propose a main track Test Day for the Fedora 13 cycle, please contact the QA team via email or IRC, or file a ticket in QA Trac[1].
1. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/
--- Weekly meetings ---
The QA group weekly meeting[1] was held on 2009-11-16. The full log is available[2]. Adam Williamson reported that Milos Jakubicek had still not yet followed up on his idea regarding an event to work on FTBFS problems, and the group agreed to table the proposal until he came back with further ideas.
James Laska reported that he had asked Rui He to improve the existing preupgrade test cases to make sure they more accurately reflected real-world use and would hence catch the disk space issues experienced with Fedora 12.
Adam Williamson started a discussion of preparation for the release of Fedora 12, which was to happen the day after the meeting. He highlighted the common bugs page[3], and James Laska provided a link to a list[4] of issues which were awaiting addition to that page. James and Adam agreed to work on updating the page. Adam also noted that the Fedora 12 blocker bug should be cleaned up. After some discussion, James and Adam noticed that blocker bugs fell under the remit of the BugZappers group, and agreed to let the following day's BugZappers meeting handle the issue.
James Laska gave a heads-up on his planning for a post-Fedora 12 release retrospective. He was planning to send an email to the mailing list asking for people to identify potential areas for improvement from the Fedora 12 QA cycle, and then sum up the resulting feedback in a wiki page.
Will Woods and Kamil Paral reported on the progress of the AutoQA project. Will had been trying to complete the post-koji-build hook which would allow tests to be triggered by the completion of a build in Koji. He had also talked with the release engineering group about how to create AutoQA tests to help prevent broken dependencies in update repositories, and this had identified the need for a post-bodhi-update hook which would allow tests to be run when Bodhi is used to request a package be added to updates-testing or updates repositories. Will asked Luke Macken what resources Bodhi currently provides that would allow AutoQA to notice when an update is requested, and Luke said at present only RSS feeds are available. Will said he would write a hook that monitored the RSS feeds. Will and Kamil also outlined the current plan for rpmguard integration. Kamil had posted a proposal[5] on making test development easier, and James Laska had derived an AutoQA use cases page[6] from it. James also noted that the updated autotest packages had been tested and seemed to be working well.
The Bugzappers group weekly meeting[7] was held on 2009-11-17. The full log is available[8]. Edward Kirk announced that the long-planned semantics change would now be going into effect, as Rawhide had separated from Fedora 12 and was driving towards Fedora 13 development. As previously agreed, all bugs filed for Rawhide should be marked as having been triaged by the addition of the Triaged keyword, rather than setting the ASSIGNED status. Steven Parrish volunteered to send an email to the development list announcing the change. Steven also pointed out that the GreaseMonkey script used by most triagers would need updating for the change. Chris Campbell volunteered to follow up with Matej Cepl about updating the script. Adam Williamson volunteered to update the text in the bug workflow page[9] to reflect the change, and Edward volunteered to change the image.
Edward Kirk introduced the topic of housekeeping updates. He noted that the first release day tasks[10] - including creating the Fedora 14 blocker bugs, and closing off the Fedora 12 blockers - needed to be done, and said he would take care of that.
The group helped Joerg Stephan with choosing some components to begin his triage work.
Matej Cepl asked for some input on the design of the Greasemonkey script with regards to the new triaging procedure. The group agreed that a single 'smart' button which made the appropriate changes depending on the distribution version for which the bug in question was reported would be better than separate buttons for pre-Fedora 13 and Fedora 13-and-later bugs would be a better design.
The next QA weekly meeting will be held on 2009-11-23 at 1600 UTC in #fedora-meeting, and the next Bugzappers weekly meeting on 2009-11-24 at 1500 UTC in #fedora-meeting.
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings
2. http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-11-16/fedora-meeting...
3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F12_bugs
4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20091116#Common_F12_Bugs
5. http://fedorahosted.org/pipermail/autoqa-devel/2009-November/000018.html
6. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AutoQA_Use_Cases
7. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings
8. http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-11-17/fedora-meeting...
9. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/BugStatusWorkFlow
10. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping/FirstDayDevel
--- Improving the release criteria ---
John Poelstra submitted a proposal[1] for improving the release criteria[2] for future releases. The new proposed criteria [3] splits the old single page into an introductory / outline page and separate pages for each public release in the upcoming cycle. Adam Williamson[4] and James Laska[5] both replied to welcome to idea and post some suggestions for refinement. John plans to further refine the proposal and then have a session to discuss it at the upcoming FUDCon Toronto.
1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-November/msg00926.html
2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/ReleaseCriteria
3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Release_Criteria
4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-November/msg00933.html
5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-November/msg00992.html
-- Translation --
This section covers the news surrounding the Fedora Translation (L10n) Project[1].
Contributing Writer: Runa Bhattacharjee
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N
--- Release Notes Translations Updated for Polish, Portuguese and Simplified Chinese ---
Translations for Polish, Portuguese and Simplified Chinese have been rebuilt and updated in docs.fedoraproject.org by Ruediger Landmann[1].
1. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00087....
--- Errors in Release Notes for Chinese and German ---
John J. McDonough reported tag related errors for Traditional & Simplified Chinese[1] and German[2] translations of the Fedora 12 Release Notes. These errors were identified during the nightlt builds of the documents. The German translation error was fixed by Jens Maucher, while the tag errors in the Chinese translations were fixed temporarily by Ruediger Landmann.
Additionaly, John J. McDonough also mentioned that some sections of the translated versions of the Release Notes do not display the translated content in the built documents, inspite of the translations being present in the .po file. Rudi clarified that this is a known issue and often occurs when translated .po files are split and merged with the individual component files as required by Publican[3].
1. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00090....
2. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00084....
3. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00097....
--- Error in Package Name in the Fedora 12 Release Notes ---
The name of the multimedia-menus package was transcribed as 'multimedia menus' in the original english version of the Fedora 12 Release Notes that was handed to the Fedora Translation teams. As a result, this was translated into many languages. The maintainer of 'multimedia-menus' Orcan Ogetbill brought forward this issue[1].
1. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00100....
--- SSSD and MC Translation Request ---
Translation requests have been made to the Fedora Localization Project by the maintainers of System Security Services Daemon (SSSD)[1] and Midnight Commander (MC)[2]. The former is hosted at www.transifex.net to accept translations, since the upstream project requires all patches (inlcuding translations) to be reviewed by the repository validators. SSSD would be string frozen on the 23rd of November 2009.
Midnight Commander currently uses some parts of the Gnome Infrastruture, but uses its own git repository. Suggestions to allow easier translation submissions, include that the project be listed at translate.fedoraproject.org under 'various'[3], hosted on www.transifex.net[4] or be moved to git.gnome.org[5].
1. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00077....
2. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00109....
3. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00113....
4. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00110....
5. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00114....
--- New Members in FLP ---
Peter V. Khaninyov (Russian)[1], Nikolai Husung (Germany)[2], and Tomasz Szczeszak (Polish)[3] joined the Fedora Localization Project last week.
1. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00070....
2. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00075....
3. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-November/msg00076....
-- Security Advisories --
In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce
Contributing Writer: Pascal Calarco
--- Fedora 12 Security Advisories ---
* wordpress-2.8.6-2.fc12 - http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
--- Fedora 11 Security Advisories ---
* wordpress-2.8.6-2.fc11 - http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* proftpd-1.3.2b-1.fc11 - http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* asterisk-1.6.1.8-1.fc11 - http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
--- Fedora 10 Security Advisories ---
* wordpress-2.8.6-2.fc10 - http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
* proftpd-1.3.2b-1.fc10 - http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-November/msg0...
-- Virtualization --
In this section, we cover discussion of Fedora virtualization technologies on the @fedora-virt and @libvirt-list lists.
Contributing Writer: Dale Bewley
--- Interviews ---
Mel Chua recently interviewed[1] 3 Fedora virtualization luminaries: Richard Jones, David Lutterkort, and Mark McLoughlin. Topics included:
* Richard Jones on guestfish and friends (libguestds and libvirt)
* Mark McLoughlin on virtual upgrades to your virtual machine
* David Lutterkort on "Network scripts: complex no more!"
* How to try out virtualization
* From etherboot to gPXE
* qcow2: now with better performance!
* Virtualization in Fedora: a historical retrospective
* What's Next? Virtualization in F13 and beyond
* When they're not hacking...
1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Virtualization_improvements_in_Fedora_12
--- Fedora Virtualization List ---
This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-virt list.
---- Fedora Virtualization Status Report ----
The latest virt status report[1] from Mark McLoughlin details the status of the latest virtualization related bugs, and relayes behind the scenes drama of "a couple of fire-drills with last-minute serious blocker bugs" as Fedora 12 was about to go out the door.
1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-virt/2009-November/msg00045.html
---- Rawvirt Rawhide Virtualization for Fedora 12 ----
Justin Forbes announced[1] "As was done for Fedora 11 users, the tradition continues, only the locations have changed.
We've set up a repository for people running Fedora 12 who would like to test the rawhide/F13 virt packages. To use it, do e.g."
$> cat > /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-virt-preview.repo << EOF
[rawvirt]
name=Virtualization Rawhide for Fedora 12
baseurl=http://jforbes.fedorapeople.org/virt-preview/f12/$basearch/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0
EOF
$> yum update
The Virtualization Preview Repository[2] is for people who would like to test the very latest virtualization related packages. This repository is intended primarily as an aid to testing / early experimentation. It is not intended for 'production' deployment.
1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-virt/2009-November/msg00041.html
2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Virtualization_Preview_Repository
--- Libvirt List ---
This section contains the discussion happening on the libvir-list.
---- New Release libvirt 0.7.4 ----
Daniel Veillard announced[1] a new image:Echo-package-16px.pnglibvirt release, version 0.7.4. "The rate of changes doesn't seems to slow down, though this release is more about incremental improvements, bug fixes and cleanups than major new features"
New features:
* Implement a node device backend using libudev (David Allan)[2]
* New APIs for checking some object properties (Daniel P. Berrange)
* Fully asynchronous monitor I/O processing (Daniel P. Berrange)
* add MAC address based port filtering to qemu (Gerhard Stenzel)
* Support for IPv6 / multiple addresses per interfaces (Laine Stump)
Improvements:
* Far too many to list here.
Read the full list of changes in the release announcement.[3]
1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-November/msg00674.html
2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue200#Node_device_enumeration_with_udev
3. http://www.libvirt.org/news.html
- end FWN 203 -
Pascal Calarco, Fedora Ambassador, Indiana, USA
14 years, 4 months
No Ambassadors this week
by Larry Cafiero
There are a lot of events ramping up, so I expect a report next week.
Larry Cafiero
14 years, 4 months