Excellent!
Someone should sent this out every week; sometimes its not...
Allen
On 9/29/08, Pascal Calarco <pcalarco(a)nd.edu> wrote:
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 145 for the week ending September 28,
2008.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue145
This week's issue brings plenty of insights into the Fedora 10 theme
decisions, as covered by longtime FWN writer, Nicu Buculei. Max Spevak
reports on several recent linux events and the Fedora acivity there, as well
as relays final Fedora 10 schedule changes and other announcements. Oisin
Feeley updates us on Fedora development activity with deactivation of some
dormant services and discussion of PackageKit. Jason Taylor highlights the
many release notes completed for the upcoming Fedora 10 release. Dale Bewley
brings us up to date on activity with four separate discussion lists in
Fedora virtualization. Svetoslav Chukov, in the marketing beat, celebrates
Fedora's fifth birthday with a wonderful, generous reflection of the project
by OpenSUSE's community manager, Joe Brockmeier, and Runa Bhattacharjee
covers the freeze activities surrounding translation and
internationalization for Fedora 10.
If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see our
'join' page[1].
[1]
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join
Contents
* 1 Fedora Weekly News Issue 145
o 1.1 Announcements
+ 1.1.1 Schedule updates for Fedora 10
+ 1.1.2 Fedora Test Day - 2008-09-25 - Live Beta Images and
FirstAidKit
o 1.2 Planet Fedora
+ 1.2.1 Events
+ 1.2.2 Tech Tidbits
o 1.3 Marketing
+ 1.3.1 Happy birthday Fedora!
+ 1.3.2 Lessons learned from five years of Fedora
+ 1.3.3 The sweet features of Fedora - Smolt
+ 1.3.4 Plug and Run Fedora on a Toshiba A300D laptop, Part
II
o 1.4 Developments
+ 1.4.1 Default Deactivation of Services
+ 1.4.2 specspo and PackageKit
+ 1.4.3 Are Other Distros Controlling Fedora through
PackageKit ?
+ 1.4.4 /sbin and /bin Linked to /usr/lib
o 1.5 Documentation
+ 1.5.1 Release Notes Galore
+ 1.5.2 Documentation Repository Changes
o 1.6 Translation
+ 1.6.1 String freeze breakage alarms
+ 1.6.2 Fedora Docs moved to git repository
+ 1.6.3 Translation schedule to be further discussed for
clarity of tasks
o 1.7 Artwork
+ 1.7.1 The desktop theme for Fedora 10 was chosen
+ 1.7.2 The fight for the theme
+ 1.7.3 The theme soap opera
+ 1.7.4 Lessons from the flamewar
+ 1.7.5 Echo icon theme and Fedora 10
o 1.8 Security Advisories
+ 1.8.1 Fedora 9 Security Advisories
+ 1.8.2 Fedora 8 Security Advisories
o 1.9 Virtualization
+ 1.9.1 Enterprise Management Tools List
# 1.9.1.1 Maximum Number of Attached CDROMs in Xen
# 1.9.1.2 Parallel Port Support in virt-manager
# 1.9.1.3 VMWare VMX Output from virt-convert
# 1.9.1.4 Disk Image Signature Verification
+ 1.9.2 Fedora Xen List
# 1.9.2.1 Continued Trouble with 32bit Fedora 9 DomU
on Fedora 8 Dom0
+ 1.9.3 Libvirt List
# 1.9.3.1 Libvirt 0.4.6 Released
# 1.9.3.2 RFC: Events API
# 1.9.3.3 Windows Binaries
+ 1.9.4 oVirt Devel List
# 1.9.4.1 oVirt 0.93-1 Released
# 1.9.4.2 Modeling LVM Storage
Fedora Weekly News Issue 145
-- Announcements --
In this section, we cover announcements from the Fedora Project.
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/
Contributing Writer: Max Spevack
-- Schedule updates for Fedora 10 --
Jesse Keating announced[0] the schedule changes for Fedora 10, "resulting
in a final release date of Tuesday Nov. 25th."
[0]
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-September/msg000...
-- Fedora Test Day - 2008-09-25 - Live Beta Images and FirstAidKit
James Laska advertised[1] the next Fedora Test Day, which has been a
recurring theme during the Fedora 10 cycle. "Testing efforts will focus on
testing Fedora 10 Beta Live images as well as system recovery using
FirstAidKit."[2]
[1]
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2008-September/msg00...
[2]
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2008-09-25
-- Planet Fedora --
In this section, we cover the highlights of Planet Fedora - an aggregation
of blogs from Fedora contributors worldwide.
http://planet.fedoraproject.org
Contributing Writer: Max Spevack
-- Events --
Several Fedora Ambassadors posted about OpenExpo, in Switzerland. Joerg
Simon posted[0] some pictures of the event, and Max Spevack and Sandro
Mathys both[1] posted[2] their own trip reports.
[0]
http://kitall.blogspot.com/2008/09/open-expo-winterthur-switzerland-2008....
[1]
http://spevack.livejournal.com/66777.html
[2]
http://blog.sandro-mathys.ch/2008/09/27/openexpo-2008-zurich-in-winterthu...
Susmit Shannigrahi wrote[3] about the preparations for AXIS '08. "Fedora
will have a 1.5 hour session on 26th for talk and 2 hour slot with a media
lab for conducting workshops."
[3]
http://susmit.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/we-are-leaving-for-axis08/
Finally, Clint Savage posted[4] about Fedora Ambassador Day North America,
which will be taking place in parallel with Ohio Linux Fest in October.
[4]
http://sexysexypenguins.com/2008/09/24/fadna-at-olf2008/
-- Tech Tidbits --
We begin this section with Jonathan Roberts, and his[5] many[6] posts[7]
about the Dell Mini and how it functions[8] with Fedora. Credit JonRob for
being tough-minded enough to get the machine to work, despite sound and
wireless problems. "I've gone ahead and created a wiki page documenting
everything you need to do, as well as joined the Fedora Mini SIG. I've
already got some packages waiting to be sorted that would be appropriate for
the SIG, so I'll attach them to their tracker bug at some point in the near
future."
[5]
http://jonrob.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/dell-mini-inspiron-9/
[6]
http://jonrob.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/dell-mini-inspiron-9-q-a/
[7]
http://jonrob.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/final-mini-post/
[8]
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Dell_Mini_Inspiron
Dimitris Glezos posted[9] about translations and release engineering.
"There are more than 400 active Fedora translators contibuting in a lot of
languages. Anaconda, the Fedora installer, is shipped to more than 60
languages (counting only those with a considerable completion percentage).
The Fedora website speaks more than 20 languages. Considering that this is
almost exclusively volunteer community work, I'd say our groups of
translators are doing an amazing job."
[9]
http://dimitris.glezos.com/weblog/2008/09/23/release-engineering-and-tran...
Lennart Poettering wrote[10] several[11] articles[12] about the Linux audio
stack this week. His impetus: "At the Audio MC at the Linux Plumbers
Conference one thing became very clear: it is very difficult for programmers
to figure out which audio API to use for which purpose and which API not to
use when doing audio programming on Linux."
[10]
http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/guide-to-sound-apis.html
[11]
http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-linux-audio-stack.html
[12]
http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/guide-to-sound-apis-followup.html
-- Marketing --
In this section, we cover the Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
Contributing Writer: Svetoslav Chukov
-- Happy birthday Fedora!
Five years ago this past week, the Fedora project became a reality, and it
is amazing to see how far we have come. Happy birthday, Fedora!
-- Lessons learned from five years of Fedora
Rahul Sundaram highlighted [1] the OpenSUSE Community Manager, Joe
Brockmeier, in his blog posting posting, "Lessons learned from five years of
Fedora". Brockmeier reflects on building open source community projects, and
the success Fedora has had in this regard. "The most valuable thing I've
learned watching Fedora is this: Patience. It takes time and steady,
incremental growth to build a solid community. If you'd asked me two years
into Fedora's development whether the project would succeed, I'd have been
somewhat skeptical, but looking at the project five years down the road, I'm
convinced."
[1]
http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/?p=111
-- The sweet features of Fedora - Smolt --
The blog "Spread Fedora" offered a short story on Fedora's hardware
profiler, Smolt.[1] "It would be very beautiful and comfortable if there
were some GNU/Linux distribution that keep track of used hardware of the
users or just could provide information how the particular hardware would
perform. I know such a distribution - Fedora. "
[1]
http://spreadfedora.org/sf/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...
-- Plug and Run Fedora on a Toshiba A300D laptop, Part II
The blog "Spread Fedora" also offered part II of their experience
installing and configuring Fedora on a Toshiba A300D laptop.[1] Part I[2]
was highlighted in last week's FWN. In this week, configuring the USB to
ethernet and sound card tweaking.
[1]
http://spreadfedora.org/sf/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...
[2]
http://spreadfedora.org/sf/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...
-- Developments --
In this section the people, personalities and debates on the @fedora-devel
mailing list are summarized.
Contributing Writer: Oisin Feeley
-- Default Deactivation of Services --
Christoph Höger initiated[1] this week's mammoth thread with a request to
disable four services currently activated by default: sendmail, ip6tables,
isdn and setroubleshootd. Christoph invited the list to "go on and punish
me" after supplying some brief reasons for the deactivations.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02197...
Discussion mostly centered on the sendmail problem with suggestions ranging
from starting it asynchronously and late, as suggested[2] by Alan Cox, to
replacing it with one of the "send-only" MTAs such as ssmtp. Part of the
interest over this seemed to be stimulated by the information posted[3] by
Colin Walters that the "[...] desktop image no longer installs sendmail by
default." This led to a need to distinguish between the desktop LiveCD and
regular installs, as was done[4] by Bill Nottingham. Some apparent legal
threats posted by Matthew Woehlke led[5] Seth Vidal to point him to the
nearest convenient exit. Ralf Ertzinger noted[6] the deeply entrenched
nature of sendmail: "Unfortunately, sendmail isn't just a program, it's an
API. Calling /usr/lib/sendmail has been the way to get mail out (wherever
out is) in UNIX for, well, as long as sendmail exists, which is quite some
time."
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02410...
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02203...
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02308...
[5]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02384...
[6]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02505...
The problem of lack of local delivery with the proposed replacements was
brought up[7] by Patrice Dumas. This was seen as a stumbling block because
cron needs it and led Jesse Keating to argue[8]: "[W]e shouldn't be using
local delivery for this stuff. Instead we should ask in firstboot where
you'd want the mail delivered to." Matt Miller replied[9] with a link to a
bugzilla entry in which he had proposed just such a thing in 2004. Other
aspects of the problem of disentangling potentially important log data from
the mail delivery mechanism were touched[10] upon in other parts of the
thread. Deep in the thread Arjan van de Ven pointed[11] to aliases
generation as the reason for sendmail being slow to start up.
[7]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02246...
[8]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02253...
[9]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02349...
[10]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02411...
[11]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02217...
The complaint about setroubleshootd was addressed[12] by Steve Grubb. He
explained that he had intended it to be a plugin to audispd it but had ended
up being implemented as a standalone daemon by another author.
[12]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02322...
ip6tables was defended on two fronts. On the first Daniel P. Berrange
explained[13] how accessible IPv6 was and how likely it was that all
machines on a network could automatically acquiring IPv6 addresses. Typical
of the reaction on the other front Gregory Maxwell was startled[14] at the
idea of being exposed without firewalling upon plugging into an IPv6 enabled
network. He added the statistic that "About 4% of the web browsers hitting
English language Wikipedia are IPv6 enabled. IPv6 enabled web clients may
even become more numerous than Linux desktops this year, almost certainly by
next year, so be careful what you call rare. :)" Stephen John Smoogen also
explained[15] that if there were no IPv6 firewall a ping6 -I eth0 ff02::1
would enable an attacker to "walk the hosts with no firewalls." He suggested
that completely disabling IPv6 would be preferable but might affect IPsec
and related components.
[13]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02286...
[14]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02271...
[15]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02206...
No one seemed particularly concerned at the idea of disabling isdn by
default as it explicitly requires further configuration to be useful.
-- specspo and PackageKit --
A quick query was posted[16] by Richard Hughes asking whether PackageKit
should dump its dependency on specspo[17]. The advantage would be a savings
of 27Mb installed size and 6.9Mb download size. Tim Lauridsen was against a
hard dependency and argued[18] that as specspo was part of the @base group
it would be installed by default on a normal desktop and could then be used,
whereas on the LiveCD its absence was desired due to the space constraints.
[16]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02026...
[17] "specspo" is the rpm package which contains all the portable object
catalogues which provide translations for Fedora packages.
[18]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02034...
An interesting discussion about alternate methods to provide translated
package descriptions ensued when Seth Vidal suggested[19] that instead of
using specspo "translating pkgs might best be served by translating the
metadata in external files." In response to Bill Nottingham's skepticism
that this was just moving bloat to a new location Seth explained[20] that it
would allow only the data specific to the requested language to be fetched.
In a further explanation he provided[21] an overview of the ideal mechanism
which would allow translations only for the language in use to be installed.
This involved yum downloading translations from a language-segmented
repodata and inserting those translations into the local rpmdb. A further
reason to find an alternative to specspo was advanced[22] by Stepan Kaspal
when he drew attention to its lack of friendliness to third-party
repositories: "the specspo solution is not extensible at all; if you add a
third part repository, the messages just are not there. And the repository
cannot install another catalogue, rpm uses just 'the catalogue'."
[19]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02058...
[20]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02125...
[21]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02164...
[22]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02160...
Bill Nottingham's objections seemed[23] to involve both the resource
intensiveness of doing this during the composition of the repodata and also
that "[...] this is all stuff that exists."
[23]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02165...
-- Are Other Distros Controlling Fedora through PackageKit ? --
A thread initiated[24] by Thorsten Leemhuis explored some details on how
information on packages is created and stored at the distribution level and
the challenges this presents both to independent repositories and to tools
which wish to use this data. One heated aspect of this discussion concerned
the manner in which the PackageKit[25] application installer defines and
presents groupings of packages. PackageKit is designed to be a
distribution-independent tool and it appeared to some in the discussion that
its direction was inimical to the best release-engineering practices of the
Fedora Project. The central issue appeared to be that PackageKit developers
were not spending time helping to refine the comps.xml file which defines
how packages are bundled during installation and is used by every other
tool.
[24]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01813...
[25]
http://packagekit.org/pk-intro.html
Thorsten asked a series of questions about the correct use of comps.xml and
how it interacted with anaconda, PackageKit and yum. Thorsten was concerned
that there appeared to be 1711 packages missing from comps.xml in order that
"[...] people can find and select them right during install with anaconda.
Do we care?"
After some investigation with the latest PackageKit, which Rahul Sundaram
pointed out[26] uses comps.xml, Thorsten deduced[27] in discussion with Tim
Lauridsen that "[...] adding packages to a group in comps.xml as
'<packagereq type="optional">' is only worth the trouble if you
want to make
the package selectable in anaconda, as that information is not used by
pk-application." Tim Lauridsen explained[28] that PackageKit used the
comps.xml groups as "meta-packages" but James Antill disagreed[29] that they
were similar.
[26]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01819...
[27]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01861...
[28]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01859...
[29]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01889...
Alex Lancaster agreed[30] with Thorsten's concern that many packagers were
not using comps.xml and posted a link that showed that both he and Toshio
Kuratomi had been thinking about using PackageDB to generate comps.xml for
some time[31].
[30]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01893...
[31] See also
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue136#Application.Installer..22Amber...
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue82#Presto.Server.Back.Up...Interes...
In sustained discussion with Kevin Kofler a defense of PackageKit was
mounted[32] by Richard Hughes using the argument that it was intended to be
a compliment to yum rather than a replacement. Its intent is to occupy a
very narrow niche for the specific type of user identified by "profiles"
produced by the PackageKit developers.
[32]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02015...
James Antill had done[33] some investigation of the difference between how
PackageKit and yum presented groups of packages and was not impressed: "In
short it's arbitrarily different, hardcoded and just plain wrong. But hey,
you've done "substantial user research" while we're just lowly
developers,
so feel free to keep ignoring us."
[33]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02008...
The evolution of comps.xml to its current complexity was advanced[34] by
Nicolas Mailhot as the result of multiple constraints of engineering,
maintenance and legality, he argued that "[i]t's always easy to present
one-shot specialized solutions. The difficulty is scaling because separate
maintenance of specialized overlapping package collections is not
efficient). When you refuse to look at scaling problems you're missing the
core of the problem."
[34]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02089...
When it seemed that PackageKit was being designed[35] to take the needs of
other distributions into account and that this might have a negative effect
on Fedora there was a great deal of disapprobation expressed[36] by Jesse
Keating: "If I'd known that upstream was actively looking to destroy our
package classifications, rather than actually work with us to clean them up
a bit maybe I would have joined the conversation. A heads up might have been
in order. I fear that any conversation now will just be too little too
late." Matthias Clasen characterized[37] this as Jesse being more interested
in confrontation than making things better but Nicolas Mailhot also saw[38]
the decisions being made about PackageKit's design as "non-representative"
of developers focused on Fedora. Interestingly he tied this in with an
observation on "[...] desktop team mislike for the common distro
communication channel [.]" A slight rapprochement seemed[39] to be in effect
towards the end of the thread as tempers cooled.
[35]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01957...
[36]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01974...
[37]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01976...
[38]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02012...
[39]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02022...
The issue of binary packages (several of which can be produced from any
single source package) was attacked when Toshio Kuratomi listed[40]
PackageDB, amber, koji,comps.xml, repoview and Fedora collection as all
"[...] doing a subset of the work in this area." He asked for some clarity
as to the storage, interface and presentation layers. Kevin Fenzi agreed but
added[41] mash as another player and suggested that perhaps all the
developers of the respective systems could meet to hash out some agreed
plan. Jesse Keating confirmed[42] Kevin's description and elaborated: "it's
mash that pulls comps out of cvs and 'makes' it and uses it when generating
repodata. Mash is used during rawhide production and during update repo
generation. When we make releases, that uses pungi which consumes the comps
data that mash generated and merges in data from any other repo pungi is
configured to use. Then pungi calls repoview to create data based on that
merged comps."
[40]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01949...
[41]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02182...
[42]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02185...
-- /sbin and /bin Linked to /usr/lib --
Steve Grubb posted[43] the output from a utility which he had authored to
check whether applications in the /bin and /sbin directories link against
anything in the /usr directory. In the ensuing discussion Bill Crawford
suggested[44] that one of the listed applications, /bin/rpm was useful in
its present location because of the "[...](admittedly quite odd situations)
where you need to, say, reinstall grub or a kernel because you broke
something[.]" He added that a "rescue" initrd would help for machines
without optical drives.
[43]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02315...
[44]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02458...
-- Documentation --
In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
Contributing Writer: Jason Taylor
-- Release Notes Galore --
With the approaching F10 release[1] the Docs team spent time this week
getting release note beats updated and organized. A lot of progress was made
updating the beats to include pertinent package information as well as all
the new features[2] and it looks like there may be a new format for the
release notes as well[3]. There has also been a lot of work on getting the
release-note structure to be compatible with publican[4]. Once compatible
with publican the release-notes will support additional formats (HTML, PDF,
etc.).
[1]
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/10/Schedule
[2]
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/10/FeatureList
[3]
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Release_notes_structure_for_F10
[4]
https://fedorahosted.org/publican
-- Documentation Repository Changes --
The Docs Project has been working to convert from CVS as the main
repository for published documents to git[1]. More progress on that front
was made this week as the Install-Guide[2] was moved over. The
implementation of git and trac[3] allows for better group communication and
work flow management with contributors.
[1]
http://git.or.cz/
[2]
https://fedorahosted.org/install-guide/
[3]
http://trac.edgewall.org/
-- Translation --
This section covers the news surrounding the Fedora Translation (L10n)
Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N
Contributing Writer: Runa Bhattacharjee
-- String freeze breakage alarms --
Noriko Mizumoto reported[1] about suspected string freeze breakage for a
few modules, during the week that modified the translation status
figures[2]. These modifications (except for one: comps) turned out to be the
result of delayed creation of new template files which caused confusion
about the string freeze. The template files are generally scheduled for
creation by the respective package maintainers before the start of the
string freeze period.
Fedora packages are currently string frozen for Fedora 10[3] i.e. no new
translated messages can be added without the prior permission of the Fedora
Localization Team as per the String Freeze Policy[4].
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00053...
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00076...
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2008-September/msg0...
[4]
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/StringFreezePolicy
-- Fedora Docs moved to git repository --
The Fedora documentation (including the Installation Guide, Release Notes
etc.) were moved to the Fedora git repo[5]. Translation submissions can be
continued via the Transifex interface[6]. However, Piotr Drag writes in that
the statistics page will not be able to present the status for these
documentation modules, as documents compiled with publican are not supported
by Damned Lies yet[7]. As per Dimitris Glezos, support for publican
documents could be achieved if patches for this functionality can be
developed by interested volunteers[6].
[5]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00084...
[6]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00099...
[7]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00093...
-- Translation schedule to be further discussed for clarity of tasks --
John Poelstra and Dimitris Glezos are scheduled to meet on Monday 29th
September 08[8], to discuss about the details of the Fedora 10 translation
schedule to clearly define all the tasks and integrate them in the schedule.
The meeting is open for others to join in.
[8]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00100...
-- Artwork --
In this section, we cover the Fedora Artwork Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork
Contributing Writer: Nicu Buculei
-- The desktop theme for Fedora 10 was chosen
Mairin Duffy announced[1] the vote for the default theme in Fedora 10 on
@fedora-art "Nigel Jones set up a vote for us to vote on round 3. You must
be a member of the art group in the accounts system to be eligible to vote"
and after the voting process ended, Michael Beckwith announced[2] the
winner, the Solar theme[3] "We weren't feeling completely InvinXble.
However, being the FOSS advocates we are, and with our support of Fedora, we
were not afraid of of the unknown frontier. The Gears of time shown bright
with a healthy Neon glow, but neither of these had very much effect on the
course of destiny. Come join us as we sail into the Solar future for Fedora
10 later this year" and Max Spevack drew the conclusion: "They are all
beautifully done pieces of artwork, and I really hope that everyone in the
Art Team is proud of what the group has collectively achieved. I say
'congrats' to everyone on the Art Team."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00364.html
[2]
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F10Themes/Solar
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00455.html
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00456.html
-- The fight for the theme --
As the vote for the Fedora 10 theme was closed to the members of the Art
Team, a lot of people tried to vote even if they weren't members of the
team, as Mairin Duffy noted[1]: "Since i announced the F10 theme vote, we've
received a deluge of art group membership requests, some clearly approveable
but many not" and she reminded the requirements to become a member, which
are listed on the project's page[2]. David Nielsen tried an appeal on her
blog[3] "Maybe the solution is to open the vote, even if we are not inclined
to contribute in your area of Fedora we might still have an opinion. Do you
want other contributors to make decisions on the projects collective future
without including you?" but Mairin remained firm "As an artist, I don't
expect to have a vote on many technical decisions. I wonder how someone
without both the experience and inclination to provide artwork for Fedora
would have the expertise necessary to make an informed decision" and
concluded "Everyone has an opinion. Not everyone is willing to put their
money where their mouth is. It is a shame."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00371.html
[2]
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork#First_Steps
[3]
http://mihmo.livejournal.com/62031.html
-- The theme soap opera --
While the vote for the Fedora 10 theme was ongoing, Seth Kenlon reminded[1]
an old issue with one of the contenders and asked for an update "I am not
clear, is this to be the final katana or is it still being swapped out with
a newly photographed one? I recall there being an issue with licensing, and
thought we would be seeing a different sword...but maybe I missed the thread
in which all of this was solved" on which Nicu Buculei expressed[2] his
remaining doubts "Honestly, I have some doubts about that: sstorari
*claimed* he remade the image using his own (Free) photo as a base and he
posted the reference photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sstorari/2826852493/ While it looks pretty
much like a katana (just like the photos used previously), the sword in the
photo is not at the same angle as the sword in the wallpaper (so the hilt
looks different), which make me have some doubts", which raised an angry
answer[3] from Samuele Storari, the theme author, who claimed innocence "If
u take a look in the source before write something u can see that the
problem was solved creatin' the blade from 0."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00369.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00383.html
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00386.html
When the discuss started to look like a classic flamewar, Paul Frields
dropped a bomb by showing[4] a movie poster identical with the theme
discussed "Samuele, I'm a big fan of Quentin Tarantino, and collected some
desktop backgrounds when Kill Bill Vol. 1 was going to be released. One of
the backgrounds features a katana sword which looks to me to be identical to
the one in your source .XCF file" and outlined the importance of having all
of the elements of a design Free in order to have the result Free "When we
talk about having an entirely free desktop theme, it means that *all* the
elements must be created from free sources."
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00394.html
As Samuele continued to deny any wrongdoing "the Blade wasn't the same cos
the blade was totally recreated. Take a look to the source file and please
post something similar", Nicu Buculei created and posted[6] a short video[7]
revealing the similarities "What can I say? rotate the image 180 degrees and
the resemblance is, uh..., uncanny"
[5]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00397.html
[6]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00398.html
[7]
http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/invinxible.ogv
During the heated debate, Martin Sourada expressed[8] his doubts regarding
the allegations against the two themes proposed by Samuele. "First, I have
an impression that Mo and Nicu are somehow biased against Samuele's work.
First, some weeks ago, Mo kept asking Samuele about Moon brushes in the
Solar theme, when the Moons were already removed from the artwork, next
there is the problem in katana. As nicu pointed out, the original design
indeed resembles the Kill Bill poster, but even though I saw the .ogv file
he provided, I am not 100% convinced Samuele used that katana" and "I
believe both Mo and Nicu are just trying to prevent any legal issues that
might arose in the future otherwise" but after seeing additional evidence
provided by Mairin Duffy[9] and Charlie Brej[10] he changed his position "Mo
and Nicu, I'd like to apologize for accusing you from being biased and
pointing out outdated issues. It was me who was wrong and I should have
checked the sources first. While part of the sword was replaced, the tilt
was indeed from the same source image and I was wrong in arguing otherwise."
[8]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00436.html
[9]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00437.html
[10]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00438.html
After the vote ended and after a long and heated debate, Samuele Storari
apologised for his misunderstandings about licensing "First of all I want to
apologize with all art-team and mailing list member for last two days mails.
This is my first work in FOSS environment and I didn't understand all
implication and I saw your continue checking on my work as a way to find
something wrong" and started to work fixing his two themes proposals and
remove a number of tainted graphic elements from them. At the moment of this
report, Samuele is closely collaborating with other members of the team on
this task and the Solar theme cleaned almost completely.
[11]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00463.html
-- Lessons from the flamewar --
In parallel with the debate surrounding the license of a couple of theme
proposals for Fedora 10, Mairin Duffy opened a debate[1] about the policy to
apply when finding license infringements "Here are the options as I see them
and/or as have been suggested to me: 1 - disqualify invinXble as a theme,
even if invinXble wins, the 2nd-place winner will win 2 - if invinXble (or
any theme that has photos we aren't able to source) wins, replace any
sourced photographs in it with properly-licensed ones 3 - disqualify any
themes that use images we cannot find properly-licensed photo source
references for", she noted the pros and contras for each option and
expressed her option for one of the first two. David Nielsen raised the
case[2] for a written policy "I would favor option 2 with the understanding
that a proper policy be written and must be agreed upon when submitting
artwork for Fedora in the future. This way we do not lose the two most
developed themes this late in the game and we still get to correct the
problem. This at least would be similar to what we have done in other parts
of the distro when such unfortunate issues have arisen", a policy considered
not needed[4] by Nicu Buculei "Well, I propose a simple guideline: 'Don't
like. When people ask about the source of your work, be honest and tell the
truth.' That would have solved all of our problems *weeks* ago, but I think
it is common-sense and we should not have to have this as a written
guideline. "
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00425.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00432.html
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00460.html
As a lesson from the happening, Mairin Duffy asked[4] on @fedora-art about
unclarities some member of the team may have about licensing: "Did any of
you joining the art team have doubts/questions/confusion over copyright law
and licensing as it pertains to the usage of externally-sourced images used
in artwork? Were you unsure of what licenses were acceptable to use in
Fedora artwork? What kinds of questions / uncertainties did you have, if
any?" and proposed a few measures, on which David Nielsen completed[5] with
a couple of simple guidelines "* Unsure about source licensing terms, don't
use it. * Unable to document source licensing terms, don't use it."
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00426.html
[5]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00434.html
-- Echo icon theme and Fedora 10 --
Bill Nottingham raised[1] a cross-question to @fedora-art and
@fedora-desktop about the status of the Echo icon theme "When we approved
Echo as the default icon theme for F10, I was under the assumption that this
was already more or less known as a feature to the Desktop group, and they
were OK with the coverage provided and the experience given. Is that the
case?" on which William Jon McCann expressed[2] his opposition to the new
theme "I strongly disagree with the decision to use the Echo icon theme. For
one, there is simply not enough time before Fedora 10 to fix the problems
that you point out. There is also the fact that the quality of the artwork
is noticeably lower than the upstream GNOME and Tango icon themes" and
preference for the Tango set "Encourage Fedora artists to become involved
with the upstream GNOME and Tango artist communities" while Mairin Duffy
pointed[3] the inclusion of Echo as a default in Rawhide as a means to
enable wider testing and accelerate development |I also was under the
understanding that Echo was set as the default in rawhide to enable the
folks working on it a chance to get fuller coverage, and that if it was
deemed to not have appropriate coverage, it would be pulled."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00441.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00442.html
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00443.html
Martin Sourada pointed[4] that some of the concern raised in Bill's
original questions are also valid for the current situation "With Mist,
there are still new gnome styled icons, old gnome styled icons and
bluecurve. In some places we reduced the old gnome and bluecurve to minimum,
in others not yet. Check the System -> Administration menu as an example"
and reminded there is still development time until the final decision about
inclusion will be made "Our general idea is that some time around the final
freeze it will be decided by art and desktop teams whether we are ready. If
not, echo will be pulled back and submitted again for F11. I'd be for
voting, enabled for art and desktop fas groups members regarding this issue"
and Jaroslav Reznik showed the enthusiasm of the KDE SIG[5] regarding the
new set and his openness to work for getting it in a good shape "We (KDE
SIG) are trying to use Echo theme as default for KDE but currently there are
still some icons missing. We are preparing list of to-be-done icons. So can
we fill it as ticket for echo-icon-theme and edit Todo on Wiki?"
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00457.html
[5]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00471.html
-- Security Advisories --
In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce
Contributing Writer: David Nalley
-- Fedora 9 Security Advisories --
* viewvc-1.0.6-1.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/ms...
* initscripts-8.76.3-1 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/ms...
* rkhunter-1.3.2-5.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/ms...
* phpMyAdmin-2.11.9.1-1.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/ms...
* phpMyAdmin-2.11.9.2-1.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/ms...
-- Fedora 8 Security Advisories --
* viewvc-1.0.6-1.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/ms...
* phpMyAdmin-2.11.9.1-1.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/ms...
* phpMyAdmin-2.11.9.2-1.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/ms...
* rkhunter-1.3.2-5.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/ms...
-- Virtualization --
In this section, we cover discussion on the @et-mgmnt-tools-list,
@fedora-xen-list, @libvirt-list and @ovirt-devel-list of Fedora
virtualization technologies.
Contributing Writer: Dale Bewley
-- Enterprise Management Tools List --
This section contains the discussion happening on the et-mgmt-tools list
-- Maximum Number of Attached CDROMs in Xen --
Alexander Todorov asked[1] why only 3 CDROM devices could be attached in
virt-manager.
Cole Robinson replied[2] "Xen uses a forked qemu for HVM device emulation"
and the version on RHEL is limited to 4 IDE devices. The newer qemu found in
Fedora 9 allow attaching SCSI disks and CDROMs, and thereby more devices.
This ability already in libvirt is not yet exposed in the virt-manager GUI.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00062.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00065.html
-- Parallel Port Support in virt-manager --
Bob Tennent asked if virt-manager supports adding a parallel port to a
guest OS. Cole Robinson answered[2] this functionality is[3] in libvirt, but
not exposed in virt-manager yet.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00048.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00051.html
[3]
http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsConsole
-- VMWare VMX Output from virt-convert --
Joey Boggs posted[1] a patch which provides VMWare vmx[2] output from
virt-convert. "This will replace the virt-pack command and supplemental
Unware.py file and integrate them into virt-convert directly as a module."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00057.html
[2]
http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html
-- Disk Image Signature Verification --
Joey Boggs posted patches for virtinst[1] and for virt-convert[2] that
"will add in disk signature support for ISV's and others folks that wish to
verify the disk has not been altered prior to running virt-image. Supports
MD5 and SHA1 signatures."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00068.htmlk
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00096.html
-- Fedora Xen List --
This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-xen list.
-- Continued Trouble with 32bit Fedora 9 DomU on Fedora 8 Dom0 --
Fred Brier followed[1] up on a thread[2] from June 2008. It seems that on a
32bit system running Fedora 8 dom0, the shutdown or restart of a Fedora 9
domU results in that guest being inaccessible to libvirt tools until a dom0
reboot or xend restart. There are at least two similar bugs[3],[4] filed for
this issue.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2008-September/msg00029.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2008-June/msg00029.html
[3]
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=429403
[4]
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=453276
-- Libvirt List --
This section contains the discussion happening on the libvir-list.
-- Libvirt 0.4.6 Released --
Daniel Veillard announced[1] the release of libvirt 0.4.6. "There is no
major change in this release, just the bug fixes a few improvements and some
cleanup".
Improvements include:
* add storage disk volume delete (Cole Robinson)
* KVM dynamic max CPU detection (Guido Günther)
* spec file improvement for minimal builds (Ben Guthro)
* improved error message in XM configuration module (Richard Jones)
* network config in OpenVZ support (Evgeniy Sokolov)
* enable stopping a pool in logical storage backend and cleanup deletion
of pool (Chris Lalancette)
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2008-September/msg00380.html
After finding no F8 build newer than 0.4.4 in Bodhi, Dale Bewley asked[2]
if the Xen users stuck[3] on Fedora 8 could expect an update[4].
Daniel Veillard responded[5] it was unclear the release would fix anything
for Xen users and "It was looking more risky than potentially useful to
update there."
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2008-September/msg00400.html
[3]
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue137#kernel-xen_is_Dead
[4]
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/libvirt
[5]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2008-September/msg00401.html
-- RFC: Events API --
David Lively began[1] a discusion on implementation of events in libvirtd.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2008-September/msg00321.html
-- Windows Binaries --
Richard W.M. Jones pointed[1] out that -- while not an official
distribution -- binaries for libvirt-0.dll and virsh.exe are available[2] in
the mingw32-libvirt package.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2008-September/msg00393.html
[2]
http://www.annexia.org/tmp/mingw/fedora-9/
-- oVirt Devel List --
This section contains the discussion happening on the ovirt-devel list.
-- oVirt 0.93-1 Released --
Perry N. Myers [1]
both the oVirt Node and oVirt Server Suite.
New features in this release include:
* Addition of 'Smart Pools' in the Web user interface for organizing
pools on a per user basis.
* Additions to the Edit VM screen to allow re-provisioning of a guest as
well editing other guest settings.
* oVirt Appliance manages VMs directly on the host it is running on.
This eliminates the 'fake nodes' used in previous versions.
* oVirt API (Ruby Bindings)
* Support for configuring more than one NIC per Node. UI support for
this will be integrated shortly.
* Support for bonding/failover of NICs. UI support for this will be
integrated shortly.
* SELinux support on oVirt Node
* Rewrite of performance graphing visualization
Instructions for configuring yum to point to the
ovirt.org repository:
http://www.ovirt.org/download.html
Instructions for using the Appliance and Nodes:
http://www.ovirt.org/install-instructions.html
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/ovirt-devel/2008-September/msg00491.html
-- Modeling LVM Storage --
Chris Lalancette described[1] the outcome of a IRC chat about carving up
storage with LVM.
The existing StoragePool in the current model contains zero or more
StorageVolumes. Chris described adding a StorageVolume of type LVM which
contains one or more iSCSI StorageVolumes and presumably fiberchannel in the
future.
After the model is modified and the backend "taskomatic" code is in place,
then while provisioning a guest VM the user will either choose an entire LUN
guest, choose an existing logical volume, or create a new volume.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/ovirt-devel/2008-September/msg00313.html
Scott Seago clarified[2] that "volumes must be of the same 'type' as the
pool". An IscsiStoragePool contains IscsiStorageVolumes an LvmStoragePool
contains LvmStorageVolumes. "In additon, for LvmStoragePools, we have a new
association defined between it and StorageVolumes. an LvmStoragePool has 1
or more "source storage volumes""... "which for the moment must be
IscsiStorageVolumes."
"When determining which storage volumes are available for guests, we'll
have to filter out storage volumes which are connected to LvmStoragePools."
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/ovirt-devel/2008-September/msg00315.html
Steve Ofsthun asked[3] how will oVirt distinguish between logical volumes
created on a whole disk assigned to a guest versus volumes used by the host.
Daniel P. Berrange suggested[4] this could accomplished by creating a
partition on the disk and assigning this to the guest,
thereby making the guest LVM one step removed from the host.
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/ovirt-devel/2008-September/msg00317.html
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/ovirt-devel/2008-September/msg00322.html
--- End FWN 145 ---
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