Gentoo Archives: gentoo-gwn

From: Kurt Lieber <klieber@g.o>
To: gentoo-gwn@g.o
Subject: [gentoo-gwn] Gentoo Weekly Mailing List -- Volume 1, Issue 2
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 09:33:52
Message-Id: 20021230092949.GV21801@mail.lieber.org
1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
3
4 http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
5
6 This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of December 30th, 2002.
7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
8
9 Kurt Lieber <klieber@g.o> - Editor
10 AJ Armstrong <aja@×××××××××××××.com> - Contributor
11 Brice Burgess <nesta@×××××××.net> - Contributor
12 Yuji Carlos Kosugi <carlos@××××××××.net> - Contributor
13 Rafael Cordones Marcos <rcm@×××××××.net> - Contributor
14 David Narayan <david@×××××××.net> - Contributor
15 Ulrich Plate <plate@×××.com> - Contributor
16 Peter Sharp <mail@××××××××××××××.net> - Contributor
17 Lanark <lanark@××××××××××.ar> - Spanish Translation
18 Marco Mascherpa <mush@××××××.net> - Italian Translation
19 Claudio Merloni <paper@×××××××.it> - Italian Translation
20 Ventura <venturasbarbeiro@××××××.br> - Portugese (Brazil) Translation
21
22
23 1. Gentoo News
24
25 Summary
26
27
28 * Gentoo to be at LinuxWorld Expo in January
29 * Gentoo Linux 1.4 Release Schedule and Feature Update
30 * Gentoo Linux 1.4_rc2 to be Released on December 31st
31 * New Kernel Development Strategy
32 * New Formal Release Schedule Process
33
34
35 Gentoo to be at LinuxWorld Expo in January
36 Daniel Robbins and other members of the Gentoo Linux team will be at
37 LinuxWorld Expo[1] January 22nd-24th in New York City. They will be
38 manning booth #8 at the .org pavillion and hope to have an impressive
39 display of graphics hardware showing off Gentoo Linux. If you're in the
40 area, stop by and show your support for Gentoo Linux!
41
42 1. http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/
43
44
45 Gentoo Linux 1.4 Release Schedule and Feature Update
46 Daniel Robbins recently announced the planned Release Schedule for Gentoo
47 1.4_rc3, which will hopefully be released as Gentoo 1.4_final. While the
48 Release Shedule is subject to change based on bugs and user feedback, the
49 current release date is planned for January 14, 2003, just in time for
50 Linux World 2003[2] in New York. New for Gentoo is a more formal release
51 process, comprised of five main stages that take the 1.4_rc3/1.4_release
52 candidate through a testing and QA process that should improve the quality
53 and stability of the final system.
54
55 2. http://www.linuxworldexpo.com
56
57 1.4_final will take the improvements introduced in rc1 and rc2 and also
58 add:
59
60 * Fully integrated Xft2 support
61 * New baselayout to remove dependency on tmpfs
62 * expanded GRP package set
63 * integrated optional prelink support
64 As this release makes its way through the Release Schedule process, the
65 quality and stability of this version will determine whether it receives
66 the "1.4_final" designation. As with any unreleased product, features and
67 dates may change as we get closer to the deadline.
68
69
70 Gentoo Linux 1.4_rc2 to be Released on December 31st
71 The last release candidate prior to the final version of Gentoo Linux 1.4
72 is scheduled to be released on December 31st. As several Gentoo users have
73 already discovered, most of the 1.4_rc2 files have already been placed on
74 ibiblio[3]. Last minute additions to rc2 not ready at press time included
75 some finishing touches to the installation CDs (LiveCDs) and
76 documentation. New to the 1.4_rc2 release are:
77
78 * The first release of the Gentoo Reference Platform[4] (GRP) -- a
79 collection of ebuilds specifically tested for stability.
80 * New LiveCDs with increased hardware support, better technology and more
81 eye candy.
82 * Upgraded versions of gcc, binutils, portage and many other packages.
83 Users interested in living on the bleeding edge can see the new LiveCD
84 technology in action by trying out one of the experimental[5] LiveCDs.
85
86 3. http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo/releases/
87 4. http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo/releases/1.4_rc2/x86/GRP_files/
88 5. http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo/experimental/x86/livecd/
89
90
91 New Kernel Development Strategy
92 Daniel Robbins recently proposed a new kernel development strategy for
93 Gentoo Linux, with the main goals being to improve hardware support and
94 stability of the kernels used in the Gentoo project. As part of this
95 strategy, Gentoo would leverage many of the hardware patches that make
96 their way into the Red Hat kernel tree since most hardware vendors seek
97 out Red Hat as their primary/only Linux partner. In addition to taking
98 advantage of the improved hardware support in the Red Hat kernel source
99 tree, Gentoo users would also benefit from additional features and
100 functionality not normally found in the Red Hat kernel, including XFS,
101 EVMS and Win4Lin, as well as others. Furthermore, the focus of
102 gentoo-sources and xfs-sources would likely diverge somewhat, with
103 gentoo-sources focusing more on high performance and xfs-sources intent on
104 maximum hardware compatiblity and kernel functionality.
105
106
107 New Formal Release Schedule Process
108 As part of the 1.4 release process, Daniel Robbins proposed a formal
109 Release Schedule to ensure that the entire Gentoo development team knows
110 what the process and schedule is for future releases. Key to the new
111 policy is the migration away from one single "release manager", with one
112 person in charge of everything, to more of a "release process" whereby the
113 entire development team helps manage the release, based on one set of
114 common instructions. At a high level, the new Release Schedule consists of
115 5 main steps:
116
117 * Initial Decision -- The actual decision to release a new version of
118 Gentoo Linux.
119 * Package Upgrades Phase -- A period of time (generally 14 days) where
120 the developers focus on moving packages from an unstable (masked) state to
121 a stable (unmasked) state.
122 * Build and Test -- Assigned builders for each architecture build a
123 "generic CPU" set of stage tarballs using a current Portage snapshot.
124 * Release Build and Test -- A full-scale, distributed build effort begins
125 to build the full new Gentoo Linux release or release candidate including
126 GRP package sets.
127 * Release -- The new version of Gentoo Linux is released to the Gentoo
128 community.
129
130
131 2. Gentoo Security
132
133 Summary
134
135
136 * GLSA: openldap
137 * GLSA: cyrus-imapd
138 * GLSA: cyrus-sasl
139 * GLSA: KDE-3.0.x
140 * GLSA: canna
141 * GLSA: wget
142 * GLSA: perl
143 * New Security Bug Reports
144
145
146 GLSA: openldap
147 Several buffer overflows and other bugs exist that could allo remote
148 attackers to exploit to gain access to systems running vulnerable LDAP
149 servers.
150
151 * Severity: high - potential remote execution of arbitrary code.
152 * Packages Affected: openldap-2.0.25-r2
153 * Rectification: Synchronize and emerge cyrus-sasl.
154 * GLSA Announcement[6]
155 * Advisory[7]
156
157
158 6. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27735
159 7. http://www.suse.de/de/security/2002_047_openldap2.html
160
161
162 GLSA: cyrus-imapd
163 Cyrus' Sieve implementation contains a couple of classic string based
164 buffer overflows in script parsing code. Anyone who can execute Sieve
165 scripts can exploit these bugs. Versions up to libSieve 2.1.2 and Cyrus
166 IMAP 2.1.10 are affected.
167
168 * Severity: high - potential remote execution of arbitrary code.
169 * Packages Affected: cyrus-imapd 2.1.10 and earlier
170 * Rectification: Synchronize and emerge cyrus-imapd.
171 * GLSA Announcement[8]
172 * Advisory[9]
173
174
175 8. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27733
176 9. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=bugtraq&m=103886433123554&w=2
177
178
179 GLSA: cyrus-sasl
180 Insufficient buffer length checking in user name canonicalization may
181 allow attacker to execute arbitrary code on servers using Cyrus SASL
182 library.
183
184 * Severity: high - potential remote execution of arbitrary code.
185 * Packages Affected: cyrus-sasl 2.1.9
186 * Rectification: Synchronize and emerge cyrus-sasl.
187 * GLSA Announcement[10]
188 * Advisory[11]
189
190
191 10. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27720
192 11. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=bugtraq&m=103946297703402&w=2
193
194
195 GLSA: KDE-3.0.x
196 KDE-3.0.x sometimes fails to quote command parameters in calls to the
197 shell. This means that a carefully crafted emails and web pages may permit
198 the attacker to pass arbitrary commands using the victim's system
199 privileges. Exploits are known to exist.
200
201 * Severity: high - potential remote execution of arbitrary code under
202 victim's privileges.
203 * Packages Affected: kde-3.0.4 and earlier in the kde-3.x series.
204 * Rectification: Synchronize and emerge kde.
205 * GLSA Announcement[12]
206 * Advisory[13]
207
208
209 12. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27299
210 13. http://www.kde.org/info/security/advisory-20021220-1.txt
211
212
213 GLSA: canna
214 The canna server versions 3.6 and earlier expose a heap overflow that
215 permits a remote exploit that has been demonstrated, but not reported in
216 the wild. In addition, the same server versions fail to validate some
217 request cases.
218
219 * Severity: moderate to high - DOS attack and information exposure,
220 remote exploit permits execution with same privileges as the canna server.
221 * Packages Affected: canna-3.6
222 * Rectification: Synchronize and emerge canna.
223 * GLSA Announcement[14]
224 * Advisory[15]
225
226
227 14. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27118
228 15. http://canna.sourceforge.jp/sec/Canna-2002-01.txt
229
230
231 GLSA: wget
232 Wget could permit a malicious ftp site operator to overwrite certain key
233 files and potentially gain privileges on the target computer through
234 replacing executable files. No cases in the wild have been reported.
235
236
237 * Severity: moderate - DOS and remote exploit mitigated by requirement
238 for victim participation.
239 * Packages Affected: wget-1.8.2-r1 and earlier
240 * Rectification: Synchronize and emerge wget.
241 * GLSA Announcement[16]
242
243
244 16. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27117
245
246
247 GLSA: perl
248 Perl's Safe module (Safe.pm) exposes a potential vulnerability in that, if
249 a safe compartment is reused it is no longer safe (due to an inability to
250 alter operation masks).
251
252 * Severity: moderate - somewhate obscure and requires code that reuses
253 safe compartments.
254 * Packages Affected: perl-5.8.0-r5 and earlier
255 * Rectification: Synchronize and emerge perl or (less drastic) emerge
256 Safe.
257 * GLSA Announcement[17]
258 * Advisory[18]
259
260
261 17. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27103
262 18. http://use.perl.org/articles/02/10/06/1118222.shtml?tid=5
263
264
265 New Security Bug Reports
266 The past week has not seen any significant new security bugs posted to
267 bugzilla. Therefore, we will use this section to provide a summary of
268 currently open security bugs on the system (we should note that most of
269 these 'bugs' have been fixed in packages that are currently in testing,
270 and could be unmasked and emerged now):
271
272 * evolution[19]
273 * glibc[20]
274 * freeswan[21]
275 * libpng[22]
276 * cups[23]
277
278
279 19. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9209
280 20. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10421
281 21. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11536
282 22. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12447
283 23. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12450
284
285
286 3. Heard In The Community
287
288 Web Forums
289
290 Forums Crashed - Back Online
291
292
293 Nitro writes[24] that the Forum's backbone, the MySQL server that makes
294 the phpBB surface ripple, was unreachable on Christmas Eve (probably out
295 having an eggnog somewhere warm and cozy). The downtime was caused when a
296 new server being brought online crashed. Things have since been migrated
297 back to the old server and the new server is undergoing further stress
298 testing. Fortunately, nothing has gone missing, the entire database has
299 been restored, and only those few people who created new accounts during
300 the brief period of downtime will have to do so again.
301
302 24. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27427
303
304
305 Dual boot alert!
306
307
308 People have been unwrapping their Christmas presents, and this may well be
309 the reason behind the current wave of dual boot configurations reflected
310 in the forums. This at least is the impression one gets from the sudden
311 flurry of activity documented in the threads listed below. For people
312 planning on setting up Gentoo in a dual configuration with a legacy
313 operating system, these are as good a place as any to start from:
314 * EVMS and dual booting[25]
315 * Setting up Dual Boot?[26]
316 * yaboot problem Dual USB iBook[27]
317 * Grub + Winnt[28]
318
319 25. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27406
320 26. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27545
321 27. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=4889
322 28. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=22198
323
324 Gentoo Linux Users Everywhere
325
326 What is one to do with an optimized Gentoo system after all the emerging
327 is done? Several active topics have formed as centers for the organization
328 of Gentoo teams for such diverse distributed computing projects as
329 SETI@home, distributed.net's RC-5-72, Folding@home, and
330 ClimatePrediction.Net. Properly niced(nice is used to run a program with
331 modified scheduling priory), clients for these projects can use systems'
332 spare CPU cycles, doing (potentially) constructive work without any
333 adverse effect on performance. The SETI@home team[29]is currently the
334 largest, with 85 users from all over the world and a whopping 76 CPU
335 years, but the Folding@home team[30] is quite active as well. For more
336 information about setting up the clients, joining the teams, and the
337 effects of SETI@home participation on one enthusiastic user's electric
338 bill, among other things, see the following threads:
339
340 * SETI: Gentoo Linux Users Everywhere (85 users)[31]
341 * folding@home and Gentoo Linux Users Everywhere[32]
342 * RC-5-72 started yesterday[33]
343
344
345 29. http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_149448.html
346 30. http://folding.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/teampage.detailed?q=11298
347 31. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=13450
348 32. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=16826
349 33. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=25088
350
351
352 gentoo-user
353 Gentoo vs. FreeBSD
354
355 Portage, Gentoo's package management system, undoubtedly resembles the
356 ports system found in FreeBSD. So, which is better? Gentoo advocates will
357 argue that newer is of course better, as exemplified by evolution. FreeBSD
358 loyalists remind us of Marlon Brando in the Godfather, things were better
359 back then. Truthfully it would be silly to draw such simple conclusions.
360 Charles Burns posted an excellent response[34] comparing the two different
361 OSes. When it comes to desktops or less popular hardware, there is no
362 substitute for Gentoo.
363
364 34. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-user&m=104094576224242&w=2
365
366 Don't fear the downgrade
367
368 Every once in awhile an emerge preview will notify you that it is going to
369 downgrade an important package. For instance, emerging edb may downgrade
370 freetype, instilling an instant fear of losing those good looking fonts.
371 Fear not. Many packages coexist happily with each other and the newer
372 versions will not be removed after the 'downgrade'. For example, Glib2 and
373 Glib1 also behave well on the same system. Jean Smith has posted a
374 suggestion[35] that will hopefully clear up this confusion.
375
376 35. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-user&m=104074984711425&w=2
377
378
379 gentoo-dev
380 Final Release of Gentoo?
381
382 M. Zuelsdorff wrote[36] to say: "I am following the the discussion in the
383 gentoo-dev group for more than a year now. All I see is "a problem with
384 this" and "a problem with that". Some days ago, something even appeared to
385 be "really fucked up". My question: When do you expect Gentoo to become a
386 final usable release?". Most of the answers in the thread agreed in that
387 human nature might play some role here and make us take time to complain
388 more often than we do to say things work for us. Arthur Britto chipped
389 in[37] with: "You've just highlighted one of the biggest problems with
390 Gentoo: manual problem discovery and resolution. When a package breaks,
391 someone must (1) manually discover it, (2) search mailing lists for Gentoo
392 and the application, (3) search the forums for Gentoo and the application,
393 (4) attempt reasonable diagnostics to insure the problem is not just with
394 their system, (5) if they are competent they might try to solve the
395 problem, and (6) share their problem with the community." Finally, Daniel
396 Robbins (Chief Architect of Gentoo Linux) closed the thread with the
397 steps[38] being taken in order to improve quality control.
398
399 36. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/6236
400 37. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/6250
401 38. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/6277
402
403 USE Flags Selector.
404
405 John Nilsson wrote an e-mail[39] in which he exposed his interest in
406 writing an interface for selecting USE flags and GCC flags. Turns out,
407 this interface already exists in the form of ufed[40] and kportage[41].
408 But, as always, with free software[42], there is room for improvements! ;-)
409
410 39. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/6207
411 40. http://www.gentoo.org/dyn/pkgs/app-admin/ufed.xml
412 41. http://www.gentoo.org/dyn/pkgs/app-admin/kportage.xml
413 42. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
414
415
416 4. Gentoo International
417
418 Yet Another French Linux Documentation
419
420 The French Gentoo community is very excited[43] about a brand new Linux
421 installation and configuration guide by Christian Casteyde. Not exactly
422 built to order for Gentooists (he appears to be a SuSE and Slackware man
423 himself), it is a very extensive and up-to-date documentation, with a
424 strong emphasis on additional features of XFree86 4.x and kernel 2.4.x. He
425 calls it Yet Another "Guide d'Installation de Linux"[44], or YAGIL, and it
426 certainly looks like enough of a reason to brush up your French.
427
428 43. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=27366
429 44. http://casteyde.christian.free.fr/system/linux/guide/
430
431
432 Gentoo Shinnenkai - New Year's Party at Gentoo-JP...
433
434 In what can only be called an effort at Doing The Right Thing, the
435 Japanese Gentoo activists have agreed on a date for the first get-together
436 of the year 2003. With the precise location still to be announced, all of
437 Japan's Gentoo users and developers present in Tokyo on that date will
438 meet on 17 January 2003, starting at 19:00. The easiest way to tell them
439 you're coming is probably the IRC channel, #gentoo-ja on irc.freenode.net,
440 or you can drop a mail to the organizers.
441
442
443 5. Portage Watch
444
445 Security Updates (see above)
446
447
448 * openldap - fixed in openldap-2.0.27 and above
449 * cyrus-imapd - fixed in cyrus-imapd-2.1.11 and above
450 * cyrus-sasl - fixed in cyrus-sasl-2.1.10 and above
451 * Perl - fixed in perl-5.6.10-r10 / perl-5.8.0-r6 and above
452 * wget - fixed in wget-1.8.2-r2 and above
453 * canna - fixed in canna-3.6-r1 and above
454 * kde-3.0.x - fixed in kde-3.0.5a and above
455
456
457
458 The following stable packages were added to portage this week
459
460
461 * app-crypt/keylookup : "A tool to fetch PGP keys from keyservers."
462 http://www.palfrader.org/keylookup/
463 * app-games/gnurobots : "Game/diversion where you construct a program for
464 a little robot then set him loose and watch him explore a world on his
465 own" http://www.gnu.org/directory/games/gnurobots.html
466 * app-games/gnushogi : "Japanese version of chess (commandline +
467 X-Version)" http://www.gnu.org/directory/games/gnushogi.html
468 * dev-java/xdoclet : "A code-generation engine primarily for EJB"
469 http://xdoclet.sf.net/
470 * dev-perl/File-Temp : "File::Temp can be used to create and open
471 temporary files in a safe way."
472 http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/File/File-Temp-0.12.readme
473 * dev-perl/Graph : "Graph is a module to create graphs."
474 http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Graph/Graph-0.20101.readme
475 * dev-perl/Heap : "Heap - Perl extensions for keeping data partially
476 sorted." http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Heap/Heap-0.50.readme
477 * dev-perl/MIME-Lite : "low-calorie MIME generator"
478 http://search.cpan.org/src/ERYQ/MIME-Lite-2.117.readme
479 * dev-perl/SOAP-Lite : "Provides a simple and lightweight interface to
480 the SOAP protocol (sic) both on client and server side."
481 http://cpan.valueclick.com/modules/by-module/SOAP/SOAP-Lite-0.55.readme
482 * dev-perl/Text-Shellwords : "Provides shellwords() routine which parses
483 lines of text and returns a set of tokens using the same rules that the
484 Unix shell does."
485 http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Text/Text-Shellwords-1.00.readme
486 * dev-perl/Time-modules : "A Date/Time Parsing Perl Module"
487 http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Time/MUIR/modules/Time-modules-2002.1
488 001.readme
489 * media-libs/lib3ds : "overall software library for managing 3D-Studio
490 Release 3 and 4 .3DS files" http://lib3ds.sourceforge.net/
491 * media-libs/libjsw : "provide a uniform API and user configuration for
492 joysticks and game controllers" http://wolfpack.twu.net/libjsw/
493 * media-sound/aseqview : "ALSA sequencer event viewer/filter."
494 http://www.alsa-project.org/~iwai/alsa.html
495 * net-analyzer/wepattack : "WLAN tool for breaking 802.11 WEP keys"
496 http://wepattack.sourceforge.net/
497 * net-misc/bwwhois : "Perl-based whois client designed to work with the
498 new Shared Registration System" http://whois.bw.org/
499 * app-emacs/yc : "YC - Yet another Canna client on Emacsen."
500 http://www.ceres.dti.ne.jp/~knak/yc.html
501
502
503 Updates to notable packages
504
505
506 * sys-apps/portage - portage-2.0.47_pre1.ebuild;
507 portage-2.0.47_pre2.ebuild;
508 * kde-base/kde - kde-3.0.5a.ebuild;
509 * sys-kernel/* - development-sources-2.5.53.ebuild;
510 lolo-sources-2.4.20.1_pre6.ebuild; lolo-sources-2.4.20.1_pre7.ebuild;
511 lolo-sources-2.4.20.1_pre8.ebuild; openmosix-sources-2.4.20-r1.ebuild;
512 usermode-sources-2.4.19-r36.ebuild; usermode-sources-2.4.19-r37.ebuild;
513 usermode-sources-2.4.19-r38.ebuild; usermode-sources-2.4.19-r39.ebuild;
514 usermode-sources-2.4.19-r40.ebuild; xfs-sources-2.4.20_pre1.ebuild;
515 xfs-sources-2.4.20_pre2.ebuild;
516 * sys-devel/perl - perl-5.8.0-r7.ebuild;
517
518
519 6. Bugzilla
520
521 Summary
522
523
524 * Statistics
525 * Bugs of Note
526
527
528 Statistics
529 The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[45]) to record and
530 track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the
531 development team. In the last 7 days, activity on the site has resulted
532 in:
533
534 * 190 new bugs this week
535 * 1166 total bugs currently marked 'new'
536 * 535 total bugs curently assigned to developers
537 * 54 bugs that were previously closed have been reopened.
538 There are currently 1755 bugs open in bugzilla. Of these: 29 are labelled
539 'blocker', 74 are labelled 'critical', and 104 are labelled 'major'.
540
541 45. http://bugs.gentoo.org
542
543 The developers and teams with the highest apparent bug-related workload
544 are:
545
546 * Nicholas Jones[46], with 260 open bugs
547 * Martin Schlemmer[47], with 120 open bugs
548 * Brandon Low[48], with 105 open bugs
549 * The KDE Team[49], with 106 open bugs
550 * The Gnome Team[50], with 60 open bugs
551 Please lend them (and the entire development team) your best wishes,
552 toothbrush and continuing support.
553
554 46. mailto://carpaski@g.o
555 47. mailto://azarah@g.o
556 48. mailto://lostlogic@g.o
557 49. mailto://kde@g.o
558 50. mailto://gnome@g.o
559
560
561 Bugs of Note
562 Each week, we will single out a few bugs for special mention, because they
563 have been provoking significant discussions, they are particularly
564 problematic, they are amusing or simply because they struck our fancy.
565 This week's featured bugs are (in no particular order):
566
567 * Bug 9459[51] discusses apparent problems with intermittent file
568 corruption after incorrect shutdowns on ReiserFS using Gentoo-Sources.
569 * Bug 12537[52] discusses problems with the latest baselayout changing
570 the gid of smmsp - which provokes problems with sendmail.
571 * Bug 8324[53] critiques the lack of a keyboard language select (for
572 non-US keyboards) in the 1.4 install CD release candidate. Daniel Robbins
573 has indicated that this will be resolved by the final release.
574 * Bug 11384[54] discusses a problem compiling glibc using
575 -march=pentium4. The issue is apparently inherent in the current gcc code,
576 so it cannot be fixed. However, the bug is an excellent example of
577 interaction between the reporter and the developer.
578 * Bug 9633[55] indicates a problem with booting the 1.4 install CD
579 release candidate on certain architectures (Fujitsu P2000) without the
580 ability to specify boot parameters. Apparently,the resolution may require
581 a modification to the install kernel, which seems likely.
582
583
584 51. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9459
585 52. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12537
586 53. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8324
587 54. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11384
588 55. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9633
589
590
591 7. Tips and Tricks
592
593 Getting information about installed packages
594
595 New Gentoo users often ask how to get a list of installed packages from
596 the Portage tree, but what many of those who give answers might not know
597 is the abundance of tools that can be used to do so. From Portage's
598 pkglist, the gentoolkit's qpkg and epm(an rpm work-alike), to walking the
599 /var/db/pkg/ directory structure yourself, there are definitely quite a
600 few choices. Here are two ways to list all installed packages, first using
601 pkglist (found in /usr/lib/portage/bin/, which is often not in $PATH), the
602 second running find on /var/db/pkg/:
603
604 Code Listing 7.1:
605 pkglist
606
607 Code Listing 7.2:
608 find /var/db/pkg/ -mindepth 2 -maxdepth 2 -printf "%P\n"
609
610 A list of files that belong to a package can be generated by either epm or
611 qpkg; to find out which files belong to the xmms package, try one of:
612
613 Code Listing 7.3:
614 epm -ql xmms
615
616 Code Listing 7.4:
617 qpkg -l xmms
618
619 And lastly, if you want to know to which package a file belongs, here are
620 two ways:
621
622 Code Listing 7.5:
623 epm -qf /usn/bin/namei
624
625 Code Listing 7.6:
626 qpkg -f /usr/bin/namei
627
628
629 8. Moves, Adds and Changes
630
631 Moves
632 The following developers recently left the Gentoo team:
633
634 * none this week
635
636
637 Adds
638 The following developers recently joined the Gentoo team:
639
640 * Jan Seidel (tuxus) -- MIPS
641 * John Lennard (yakmoose) -- win4lin
642 * Christian Birchinger (joker) -- Sparc
643
644
645 Changes
646 The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo project.
647
648 * none this week
649
650
651 9. Contribute to GWN
652 Interested in contributing to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter? Send us an
653 email[56]
654
655 56. gwn-feedback@g.o
656
657
658 10. GWN Feedback
659 Please send us your feedback[57] and help make GWN better.
660
661 57. gwn-feedback@g.o