[gentoo-gwn] Gentoo Weekly Newsletter 5 September 2005

[Ulrich Plate]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of 5 September 2005.
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==============
1. Gentoo news
==============
  
Gentoo developer council elected
--------------------------------
  
Developer-only polls closed last Wednesday to choose the newly created 
Gentoo Council. The Council will be made up of seven developers elected 
from a group of 25 candidates[1] on the ballot. The Council's job will be 
to support the cooperation of subprojects within Gentoo. The Council will 
have responsibility of making distribution-wide decisions that help the 
project to make unified steps forward. This election followed the Gentoo 
Metastructure election, which earlier this year chose Grant Goodyear's 
proposal[2] for a reform of Gentoo's project management, taking Ciaran 
McCreesh's amendments[3] into consideration. 
 1. http://dev.gentoo.org/~slarti/misc/nominees.html
 2. http://dev.gentoo.org/~g2boojum/proposal.html
 3. http://dev.gentoo.org/~spb/ciaranm-slacker-boot-proposal.txt
 
The voter turnout was "not too shabby", according to the election 
officials, with 148 active Gentoo developers electing the following seven 
new council members:
 
 * Seemant Kulleen[4] 
 * Mike Frysinger[5] 
 * Aron Griffis[6] 
 * Ned Ludd[7] 
 * Martin Schlemmer[8] 
 * Sven Vermeulen[9] 
 * Thierry Carrez[10] 
 4. seemant@g.o
 5. vapier@g.o
 6. agriffis@g.o
 7. solar@g.o
 8. azarah@g.o
 9. swift@g.o
 10. koon@g.o
 
Congratulations to all those who were elected to the new role (which can 
be collectively addressed as "council@g.o"[11], by the way), and 
many thanks to all the other nominees and everybody who participated in 
the vote. 
 11. council@g.o
    
Simultaneous PHP4/PHP5 support in Gentoo
----------------------------------------
  
The PHP Herd is pleased to announce that it has added new packages to 
Portage which will allow Gentoo to provide stable PHP4 and PHP5 packages 
on the same box at the same time. These packages have come from the 
successful PHP Overlay[12]. At the heart of these packages is the new 
dev-lang/php package (which will replace the existing dev-php/php, 
dev-php/php-cgi, and dev-php/mod_php packages), and the new dev-php4 and 
dev-php5 categories which allow us to provide, and support, PHP extensions 
and frameworks that are specific to each version of PHP. 
 12. http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/gentoo.php
 
These changes also leave us well-placed for the next major release of PHP 
(possibly called PHP-6), which upstream developers are currently brewing. 
We hope to move these packages to ~arch (on architectures that the PHP 
Herd supports) on Thursday 8th September, as part of our migration 
plans[13]. If you find any problems with the packages, please file bugs in 
Bugzilla as normal. 
 13. http://svn.gnqs.org/projects/gentoo-php-overlay/
 
We are aiming to remove the old dev-php/php-4* et al packages on 8 January 
2006; support for non-security issues will cease two months earlier on 8 
October 2005. The older dev-php/php-5* et al packages have been removed 
today; anyone still using these packages should move across to the new 
dev-lang/php package. 
 
Support for other architectures will follow as and when other arch teams 
can resource it; you can follow the progress in a metabug[14] set up for 
this purpose, and provide feedback to help the arch teams assess the 
stability of these packages. The PHP Overlay will continue to be the place 
where the PHP Herd does most of its development and testing. You'll find 
more packages in the Overlay than in Portage, and new versions of packages 
will be tested in the Overlay first. 
 14. http://bugs.gentoo.org/102649
    
Gentoo Forums TOR rejection policy alleviated
---------------------------------------------
  
As reported earlier[15], TOR users were recently blocked from the Gentoo 
Forums. Thanks to feedback from the TOR user community the Forums 
infrastructure lead, Tom Knight[16], has changed the TOR policy to allow 
read-only access to the Forums. All TOR users can now browse the Forums 
again without having to change any settings. TOR users who want to post to 
the forums will have to add the following to their exit policy: 
 15. 
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20050808-newsletter.xml#doc_chap1_sect2
 16. tomk@g.o
 
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| Reject Forums - TOR exit policy                                         |
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|ExitPolicy reject 140.211.166.170:80,reject 140.211.166.170:443          |
|                                                                         |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 
If you are receiving a TOR error message while trying to post to the 
Gentoo Forums and you do not use TOR please send an email to the Forum 
administrators[17] that includes the IP address that is being blocked. 
 17. forum-mods@g.o
    
========================
2. Developer of the week
========================
  
"Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat." -- Mike Doty (KingTaco)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
  
Figure 2.1: Mike Doty aka KingTaco
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20050905_kingtaco.jpg
 
Mike Doty, better known as KingTaco to most, is the AMD64 strategic lead, 
a contributor to developer relations/recruitment, and a part-time member 
of the infrastructure team (for torrents and as liaison to two hosting 
facilities). His role in Gentoo is, in his own words, "providing long term 
goals to the amd64 team, as well as ensuring that their efforts are 
directed where we need them most." Mike's activities at the developer 
relation project cover new developer account administration, recruitment, 
and sitting as a judge on the devrel panel. He also acts as the contact 
for the hosting provided by Loyola University Chicago[18] and Tavros 
Technology Services[19], who both provide bandwidth and equipment to 
gentoo. 
 18. http://www.cs.luc.edu
 19. http://www.tavros.net
 
In terms of PR, Mikes biggest achievement to date is the ArchTester 
project[20] which started as an experiment to help power users get more 
involved with Gentoo, quickly received wide public attention, and brought 
in several new devs to the AMD64 team. 
 20. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/amd64/tests/index.xml?part=1&chap=1
 
"Believe it or not, I was kicked out of Loyola University Chicago for not 
attending class," says Mike, who now works for Tavros Technology Services 
as a consultant. But he hasn't cut his ties with the university 
completely, working with a research group at Loyola doing research on 
cluster- and grid computing. Mike is experimenting there with complex 
topologies using commodity hardware, mostly ieee1394a ("firewire") 
interconnects. At the moment that is mostly done on an 8-node AMD64 
cluster with a cube topology, but this might be expanded to 64 nodes soon 
- and of course all these nodes run Gentoo! "Outside of work, research, 
and Gentoo I sometimes find time to play with my cats and watch South 
Park." 
 
Before being submerged into the Gentoo experience, Mike was a coder and 
admin for StrangeMUD[21], but these days his time is shared mostly between 
work and Gentoo. The hardware he keeps in his home demands some attention, 
too: an AMD Athlon64 3000+ 1280MB RAM with dual monitors serves as the 
main development box, another AMD AthlonXP 1800+ 768MB RAM as 
file/web/VoIP server and secondary router. Keeping those two company are a 
sturdy old Intel pII 350 256MB RAM (his primary router), a VIA C3/800 ITX 
384MB RAM that's destined to become the new web/email server, and two 
Intel pIII 600 laptops, one for traveling, one as a test box for other 
distros. Mikes preferred window manager is xfce4, complemented by his 
choice of applications: Emacs, Firefox, Thunderbird, beep-media-player, 
xchat, xterm, and gxine. 
 21. http://strangemud.net
    
=========================
3. Heard in the community
=========================
  
Web forums
----------
  
Gentoo events worldwide
 
The forums have had a special place in "Gentoo Chat" to try and organize 
Gentoo events and meetings. It's constantly updated, if you've got an 
event the community at large should know about, all you need to do is 
sending a personal message to the Forum moderators[22]. 
 22. moderators@g.o
 
 * Gentoo events and meetings[23] 
 23. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-250393.html
    
gentoo-dev
----------
  
x86 arch team
 
What started as a proposal to put x86 and amd64 under one shared keyword, 
causing a long and heated debate which got summarized by Chris White[24] 
in a separate thread, finally moved on to a different proposal: creating 
an x86 arch team that should focus on Quality Assurance and x86-specific 
problems. 
 24. chriswhite@g.o
 
 * combining x86 and amd64 arch keywords [25] 
 * ChrisWhite's summary [26] 
 * tentative x86 arch team GLEP [27] 
 25. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/30952
 26. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/31028
 27. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/31060
    
=======================
4. Gentoo international
=======================
  
Japan: Gentoo booth and conference participation at OSC 2005
------------------------------------------------------------
  
Figure 4.1: Router, firewall, web server: The OpenBlockS, on display at 
the Gentoo booth
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20050905_obs.jpg
 
Tokyo's annual Open Source Conference[28] is scheduled for 17 September 
this year, and the GentooJP[29] activists are gearing up for a hands-on 
seminar that will present a complete 2005.1 stage 3 installation, and a 
display of their own: the OSC Gentoo booth is placed under the motto 
"Actually, this runs Gentoo, too..." and will be predominantly showing off 
pocekt-sized systems like the OpenBlockS[30], some individually assembled 
no-name x86 PCs, and other hardware. Books about Gentoo will be on sale, 
and CDs of the 2005.1 release will be distributed to visitors, of course. 
If you're in Tokyo on 17 September, don't miss this event. 
 28. http://www.ospn.jp:16080/osc2005-fall/
 29. http://www.gentoo.gr.jp
 30. http://www.plathome.co.jp/products/openblocks/openblocks266/index.html
    
======================
5. Gentoo in the press
======================
  
Linux User & developer (September 2005)
---------------------------------------
  
In their current issue, the British Linux User & Developer[31] magazine 
published an enthusiastic review of Genesi's Open Desktop Workstation with 
pre-installed Gentoo Linux for PPC (that can be purchased via Gentoo's 
vendors page[32], with ten percent of each sale going to the Gentoo 
foundation). The article gives full marks to the "powerful yet inexpensive 
PowerPC workstation aimed squarely at the Linux market," calls Gentoo and 
the handful of other Linux/PPC distributions that come pre-installed on 
the ODW "robust and basically identical to their Intel counterparts," 
although one of the cons among a majority of pros in this review is that 
"PowerPC Linux still lags being x86 Linux in terms of popularity," and 
concludes that - at least for PPC developers - "it's hard to see the Open 
Desktop Workstation as anything other than perfect." The magazine is 
available to subscribers only, but Gentoo sponsor Genesi has a reprint 
permission, and the full article can be downloaded from their website.[33] 
 31. http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/
 32. http://vendors.gentoo.org/index.cgi?page=1&comGroup=1
 33. http://genesi.pegasosppc.com/press.php?date=20050901
    
==================
6. Tips and tricks
==================
  
Searching for kernel features
-----------------------------
  
If you cannot find what you are looking for in the kernel then there is a 
minimal search function provided by the "/" (slash) key. Just 
 
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 6.1:                                                       |
| make menuconfig                                                         |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                         |
|# make menuconfig Hit the slash key, then your search term               |
|                                                                         |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 
and try it out, perhaps with something easy first, like DMA. 
    
===========================
7. Moves, adds, and changes
===========================
  
Moves
-----
  
The following developers recently left the Gentoo team: 
 
 * None this week 
    
Adds
----
  
The following developers recently joined the Gentoo Linux team: 
 
 * Edgar Hucek (gimli) - Xbox 
 * Stefaan De Roeck (stefaan) - OpenAFS filesystem 
 * Marco Morales (soulse) - netmon herd 
    
Changes
-------
  
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo Linux 
project:
 
 * None this week 
    
==================
8. Gentoo Security
==================
   
lm_sensors: Insecure temporary file creation
--------------------------------------------
  
lm_sensors is vulnerable to linking attacks, potentially allowing a local 
user to overwrite arbitrary files. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[34] 
 34. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200508-19.xml
    
phpGroupWare: Multiple vulnerabilities
--------------------------------------
  
phpGroupWare is vulnerable to multiple issues ranging from information 
disclosure to a potential execution of arbitrary code. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[35] 
 35. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200508-20.xml
    
phpWebSite: Arbitrary command execution through XML-RPC and SQL injection
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
phpWebSite is vulnerable to multiple issues which result in the execution 
of arbitrary code and SQL injection. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[36] 
 36. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200508-21.xml
    
pam_ldap: Authentication bypass vulnerability
---------------------------------------------
  
pam_ldap contains a vulnerability that may allow a remote attacker to gain 
system access. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[37] 
 37. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200508-22.xml
    
MPlayer: Heap overflow in ad_pcm.c
----------------------------------
  
A heap overflow in MPlayer might lead to the execution of arbitrary code. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[38] 
 38. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200509-01.xml
    
Gnumeric: Heap overflow in the included PCRE library
----------------------------------------------------
  
Gnumeric is vulnerable to a heap overflow, possibly leading to the 
execution of arbitrary code. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[39] 
 39. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200509-02.xml
    
===========
9. Bugzilla
===========
  
Summary
-------
  
 * Statistics 
 * Closed bug ranking 
 * New bug rankings 
    
Statistics
----------
  
The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[40]) to record and 
track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the 
development team. Between 21 August 2005 and 28 August 2005, activity on 
the site has resulted in: 
 40. http://bugs.gentoo.org
 
 * 791 new bugs during this period 
 * 391 bugs closed or resolved during this period 
 * 51 previously closed bugs were reopened this period 
 
Of the 8038 currently open bugs: 103 are labeled 'blocker', 198 are 
labeled 'critical', and 529 are labeled 'major'. 
    
Closed bug rankings
-------------------
  
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period 
are: 
 
 * AMD64 Porting Team[41], with 47 closed bugs[42]  
 * PHP Bugs[43], with 29 closed bugs[44]  
 * Gentoo Science Related Packages[45], with 18 closed bugs[46]  
 * Gentoo Security[47], with 16 closed bugs[48]  
 * Xavier Neys[49], with 15 closed bugs[50]  
 * Gentoo net-p2p team[51], with 15 closed bugs[52]  
 * Gentoo KDE team[53], with 15 closed bugs[54]  
 * Gentoo Games[55], with 15 closed bugs[56]  
 41. amd64@g.o
 42. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=amd64@g.o
 43. php-bugs@g.o
 44. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=php-bugs@g.o
 45. sci@g.o
 46. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=sci@g.o
 47. security@g.o
 48. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=security@g.o
 49. neysx@g.o
 50. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=neysx@g.o
 51. net-p2p@g.o
 52. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=net-p2p@g.o
 53. kde@g.o
 54. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=kde@g.o
 55. games@g.o
 56. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=games@g.o
    
New bug rankings
----------------
  
The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during 
this period are: 
 
 * Default Assignee for New Packages[57], with 22 new bugs[58]  
 * Perl Devs @ Gentoo[59], with 20 new bugs[60]  
 * media-video herd[61], with 13 new bugs[62]  
 * Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team[63], with 11 new bugs[64]  
 * AMD64 Porting Team[65], with 8 new bugs[66]  
 * Gentoo Toolchain Maintainers[67], with 7 new bugs[68]  
 * Gentoo Sound Team[69], with 7 new bugs[70]  
 * Net-Mail Packages[71], with 7 new bugs[72]  
 57. maintainer-wanted@g.o
 58. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&assigned_to=maintainer-wanted@g.o
 59. perl@g.o
 60. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&assigned_to=perl@g.o
 61. media-video@g.o
 62. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&assigned_to=media-video@g.o
 63. gnome@g.o
 64. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&assigned_to=gnome@g.o
 65. amd64@g.o
 66. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&assigned_to=amd64@g.o
 67. toolchain@g.o
 68. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&assigned_to=toolchain@g.o
 69. sound@g.o
 70. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&assigned_to=sound@g.o
 71. net-mail@g.o
 72. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-08-21&chfieldto=2005-08-28&assigned_to=net-mail@g.o
    
================================
10. GWN subscription information
================================
   
To subscribe to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, send a blank email to 
gentoo-gwn+subscribe@g.o. 
 
To unsubscribe to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, send a blank email to 
gentoo-gwn+unsubscribe@g.o from the email address you are 
subscribed under.
    
===================
11. Other languages
===================
   
The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter is also available in the following languages:
 
 * Danish[73]  
 * Dutch[74]  
 * English[75]  
 * German[76]  
 * French[77]  
 * Japanese[78]  
 * Italian[79]  
 * Polish[80]  
 * Portuguese (Brazil)[81]  
 * Portuguese (Portugal)[82]  
 * Russian[83]  
 * Spanish[84]  
 * Turkish[85]  
 73. http://www.gentoo.org/news/da/gwn/gwn.xml
 74. http://www.gentoo.org/news/nl/gwn/gwn.xml
 75. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
 76. http://www.gentoo.org/news/de/gwn/gwn.xml
 77. http://www.gentoo.org/news/fr/gwn/gwn.xml
 78. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ja/gwn/gwn.xml
 79. http://www.gentoo.org/news/it/gwn/gwn.xml
 80. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pl/gwn/gwn.xml
 81. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt_br/gwn/gwn.xml
 82. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt/gwn/gwn.xml
 83. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ru/gwn/gwn.xml
 84. http://www.gentoo.org/news/es/gwn/gwn.xml
 85. http://www.gentoo.org/news/tr/gwn/gwn.xml
   
Ulrich Plate <plate@g.o> - Editor
Aron Griffis <agriffis@g.o> - Author
Stuart Herbert <stuart@g.o> - Author
Patrick Lauer <patrick@g.o> - Author
Curtis Napier <curtis119@g.o> - Author

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