Docs and art
by Jonathan Roberts
Hi all,
I don't think I'm going to be able to carry on with doing the docs and
arts beats :( I should be able to cover this weekend but after that I
can't make any promises - I hope this is enough notice and doesn't
inconvenience anybody too much?!
Hopefully a few months down the line I might be able to start
contributing again though :D
Jon
16 years, 7 months
- 3
- 4
Fwd: thanks for your work in Fedora Weekly News
by Thomas Chung
Here is a great compliment from a FWN reader. :)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Troy Folger <troy.folger(a)issinc.com>
Date: Aug 20, 2007 3:51 PM
Subject: thanks for your work in Fedora Weekly News
To: oisinfeeley(a)imapmail.org
Cc: tchung(a)fedoraproject.org
Mr. Feeley -
I was reading Fedora Weekly News today and I was struck by how
helpful your summaries in the "Developments" section of the news were.
I think they are concise and very well written. I fear that you
aren't paid for your work ... I hope my thanks will at least encourage
you to continue.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Troy Folger
16 years, 8 months
- 3
- 3
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
16 years, 8 months
- 1
- 0
Vacation Notice
by Thomas Chung
Hello News Team,
I'll be on vacation from Aug 31st until Sept 21st.
As an Editor in Chief, I propose we take a summer break for Fedora
Weekly News until I return. :)
Well, If I don't hear from you. Have a great summer!
Regards,
--
Thomas Chung
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung
16 years, 8 months
- 1
- 0
16 years, 8 months
- 2
- 1
FWN#102 development news beat ready
by Oisin Feeley
Hi,
Please find my @fedora-devel newsbeat ready for editing here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Beats/Developments#preview
Best wishes
--
Oisin Feeley
oisinfeeley(a)imapmail.org
--
http://www.fastmail.fm - Access your email from home and the web
16 years, 8 months
- 2
- 1
Ask Fedora beat ready
by Rahul Sundaram
Hi
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Beats/AskFedora
Thanks to Paul W Frields for contributing.
Rahul
16 years, 8 months
- 1
- 0
[Announcement] Fedora Weekly News Issue 100 in Czech language
by Bukovansky Richard
Hello everyone,
for those interested just a little announcement:
The Fedora Weekly News Issue 100 was translated to Czech language and
published on fedora.cz Wiki page:
http://wiki.fedora.cz/doku.php?id=tydenik:tydenikfedory100
Thanks goes to all FWN editors for hard work.
Thank you.
--
Bukovansky Richard
richard.bukovansky(a)atlas.cz
16 years, 8 months
- 2
- 2
Daily Package screencast is excellent
by Oisin Feeley
I'm really enjoying Chris Tyler's "Daily Package" screencast. It's
the ideal way of presenting some of this material, and that includes
not just graphical interactions but also talking about and showing the
use of commandline utilities like "renrot".
I'm especially happy that there's an OggTheora version available.
A minor glitch is that for both the YouTube (.flv) and the Theora
version there is apparently a slight lag in voiceover compared to
video. I'm aware of the YouTube issue as a known Linux problem, but
perhaps it's correctable with the Theora?
Best wishes,
Oisin Feeley
16 years, 8 months
- 2
- 1
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
16 years, 8 months
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