[gentoo-gmn] Gentoo Monthly Newsletter: 24 April 2008

[Anant Narayanan]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gentoo Monthly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gmn/
This is the fourth issue of the Gentoo Monthly Newsletter, for March 2008 –
April 2008.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

===============
1. Introduction
===============

This month in the GMN
---------------------

Welcome to the April issue of the Gentoo monthly newsletter! This month, we
haven't made any significant changes from the previous edition. However, we
have featured an interview, and we hope to include more of them in future
issues. You'll note that we will be interviewing not only Gentoo developers,
but also people involved in the Gentoo community at large.

We also had to delay the publication of this issue by a few days in order to
accommodate the announcement of selected projects for this year's Summer of
Code.

As usual, you can discuss any aspect of this issue of the GMN in the
corresponding forum thread[1]. We look forward to hearing from you!

   1. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-5071942.html

==============
2. Gentoo News
==============

baselayout-2 and OpenRC hit the tree
------------------------------------

After a long wait, baselayout-2 and OpenRC have finally hit the unstable
tree. For those of you who want to be on the bleeding edge, please make sure
you read the migration guide[2] before attempting to upgrade. Both packages
are in ~arch for a reason. We recommend you don't upgrade these packages on
machines where stability is of prime importance.

   2. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/openrc-migration.xml

Summer of Code 2008
-------------------

The list of selected students for the Google Summer of Code 2008 was
announced today. Gentoo is happy to mentor 6 students on proposals which were
ranked highest by our developers:

  * Using Gentoo, Seed Linux and Catalyst, provide an easy access to a
    Beowulf clustering/HPC environment[3] to everyday users: by Eric
    Thibodeau. Mentored by Donnie Berkholz[4].
  * "Automate It All[5]": by Nirbheek Chauhan. Mentored by Stephen
    Klimaszewski[6].
  * Implement OpenPAM compatible modules[7] for Linux: by Serafeim
    Mellos. Mentored by Diego Pettenò[8].
  * GNAP Love[9] (embedded framework enhancements): by Vít Vomáčko.
    Mentored by Andrey Falko[10].
  * "Setting Beacon Afloat[11]": by Nandeep Mali. Mentored by Anant
    Narayanan[12].
  * revdep-rebuild reimplementation[13]: by Carl Lucian Poston. Mentored
    by Marius Mauch[14].

   3. http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gentoo/appinfo.html?csaid=79DB497BA0D95148
   4. dberkholz@g.o
   5. http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gentoo/appinfo.html?csaid=4718E0E515B5040C
   6. steev@g.o
   7. http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gentoo/appinfo.html?csaid=32B8E902DEB30EE5
   8. flameeyes@g.o
   9. http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gentoo/appinfo.html?csaid=E5B8B348752D9FB4
  10. andrey@××××××.net
  11. http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gentoo/appinfo.html?csaid=1948EE5DE88D2087
  12. anant@g.o
  13. http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gentoo/appinfo.html?csaid=93F051D573756C5A
  14. genone@g.o

We will be featuring interviews with all our students in the coming months.
All the best to our students!

Gentoo is always looking for new contributors. You can help us in a variety
of ways, not all of which are technical. Check out our guide[15] to becoming
a new developer for more information.

  15. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=1&chap=2

Council Meeting Summary
-----------------------

The Gentoo Council[16] held its monthly meeting on April 10, 2008. The items
put up for discussion were:

  16. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/

  * Minimal activity for ebuild devs: Current activity required is 1
    commit every 60 days. Should it be higher? Agreement was hard to find.
    Some people thought it should be 1 commit / week, others said that people
    have busy lives and questioned the benefits. A number of people did agree
    that we should trust the judgment of the undertakers[17], and that the
    number of commits is not the only activity indicator.
  * Initial comments on PMS[18]: Are there any major changes needed, or
    just tuning details? The council voted that kdebuild-1 and other
    unapproved EAPIs could not be in an approved PMS document. The spec isn't
    a place for proposals or things that will never be submitted for approval
    by the council. It's a specification, a reference of what is allowed in
    the main tree.

  17. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/undertakers/index.xml
  18. http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/pms.git

Some items were rolled over from the previous meeting:

  * GLEP 46 (Allow upstream tags in metadata.xml): Approved.
  * Document of being an active developer: No updates.

Coming Up
---------

  * Bugday[19]: Looking for a way to help out Gentoo without investing a
    lot of time? Join us on May 03 for our monthly bugday, and help us squash
    some bugs[20].
  * Trustees Meeting: There will be a single topic trustees meeting on
    May 04 - #gentoo-trustees on irc.freenode.net at 1900 UTC - with the aim
    of adopting the bylaws. All are welcome to attend.
  * Council Meeting[16]: The Gentoo Council meets every month to discuss
    important technical issues that affect Gentoo as a whole. This month's
    meeting is scheduled to be held on May 08, and everyone is welcome to
    participate - #gentoo-council on irc.freenode.net at 2000UTC.
  * LinuxTag Berlin[21]: The biggest European Linux event is on again. On
    the Berlin Fairgrounds, Gentoo will be featured again. Join developers
    and users on the booth between May 28 and 31, we hope it'll be as much
    fun as Chemnitz was!

  16. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/
  19. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/bugday/index.xml
  20. http://bugday.gentoo.org/
  21. http://www.linuxtag.org/2008/

=========================
3. Heard in the Community
=========================

Interview: Gentoo in a production environment
---------------------------------------------

This month, we had the opportunity to catch up with Ramon van Alteren[22],
team leader of the system engineering department at Hyves[23]. Hyves is a
European social networking site akin to MySpace, FaceBook or Orkut.

  22. http://ramon71.hyves.nl/
  23. http://www.hyves.net/

GMN: Please give us a brief introduction of yourself and your role at Hyves.

Ramon: I'm a long time Gentoo user both personally and professionally and
started using Gentoo somewhere in 2002 coming from Mandrake. Before that I'd
been using Linux for about 5 years.

Hyves is a social network site akin to MySpace, FaceBook, Orkut etc. The
website was originally started by Koen, Floris and Raymond, I joined the
company in November 2005 as the first paid sysadmin to help with managing the
40+ Gentoo linux servers.

The System Engineering department currently is a team of 9 people who manage
all servers from bare-metal provisioning up to the application software
including the network infrastructure. The website itself is created by the
developers (a team of 14 people).

GMN: What is the scale of your website?

Ramon: We currently have over 6 million registered users and counting, peak
performance is currently at 150+ million page views per day (13 million per
hour). These are filtered page views, raw http requests on our web farm are
well over 20.000 req/sec.

On our mysql database backend, we serve roughly 100.000 actions/sec at peak
performance. Aside from the web frontend and the database backend we have a
very large file-storage for media that our users upload. The total used
storage totals around roughly about 280 Terabytes. All in all with all hosts
accounted for we have 1800 servers most of them with 2 or 4 cores each. All
of these run Gentoo Linux. :-)

GMN: Why did you choose Gentoo Linux to power your infrastructure? What
features in particular made you choose Gentoo over all the other
distributions out there?

Ramon: We've been running on Gentoo Linux since the inception of the website.
There has been a very short period at the very beginning when the company
owned two colocated servers which came with Fedora but that was a very long
time ago. Our main reasons to switch to Gentoo were:

  * USE flags (the ability to easily switch additional functionality on
    or off)
  * Extreme customizability (custom ebuilds, install locations etc.)
  * Close tracking of upstream (speed of updates)
  * Good community support
  * Excellent documentation

We're using some very bleeding edge software in some cases to run our website
with fairly extensive customizations in general to adjust for scale and/or
performance. Portage, overlays and the ebuild system in general go a long way
to achieve that while staying within the Gentoo distribution framework for
all the other stuff.

The fact that a bare-bones Gentoo install doesn't come with all kinds of
cruft and distribution-centric customizations, helps to keep our systems mean
and lean.

In upgrading from php-4 to php-5 we've found slotting to be an invaluable
feature which eased the migration a great deal. Additionally we had to stay
on php-4 for some time after Gentoo deprecated support for it, pulling in
security patches with an ebuild turned out to be fairly simple, enabling us
to migrate at our own pace.

GMN: Please describe how you used the tools Gentoo offers to make maintaining
such a huge pool of servers easier.

Ramon: Most of our system administration is not done using Gentoo tools but
by using an automated configuration management system for Unix hosts called
puppet[24]. It uses eix[25] to build a package database.

  24. http://www.reductivelabs.com
  25. http://eix.sourceforge.net/

Among the tools Gentoo offers:

  * We use catalyst[26] to build our own stage3 and stage4 tarballs.
  * We use quickinstall by Andrew Gaffney[27] as part of our provisioning
    framework
  * Catalyst relies on genkernel[28] to build our kernel
  * We use Portage's binary package support for critical fixes

  26. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/releng/catalyst/
  27. agaffney@g.o
  28. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/genkernel.xml

GMN: Have you been through any major "stumbling blocks" while setting up your
infrastructure? If so, how did you go about resolving them? Did you find the
various support avenues that Gentoo offers to be helpful at the time?

Ramon: Several of course! Most of them had absolutely nothing to do with
Gentoo but more with bugs and performance issues in various software
packages.

With respect to community support, we actively search and query IRC, bugzilla
and sometimes the forums as well. Additionally we track the gentoo-dev list
for changes. The forums tend to be a valuable source of information for
desktop issues we might have had (most of the system engineering team runs
Gentoo as desktop OS). However for large-scale server issues it has a bit too
high noise/content ratio because of its desktop oriented nature.

We try to give stuff that we learned back to the community by filing bugs, if
possible with patches. However we find that most of the stuff we customize is
of fairly limited interest to the larger community because of its focus on
our own environment.

Running a server park this large is usually eats away most of the time
available, so there is little left to clean up patches and/or ebuilds to make
them more generally usable. We do try to file amd64 keyword stabling reports
on stuff we deploy in our server park that hasn't been marked stable (yet).

GMN: Is there a feature that you wish Gentoo had?

Ramon: Let's see [rumbles around desk for the long list of features we'd wish
gentoo had]. More seriously, the list is actually surprisingly short:

  * Currently I'm working on getting stackless python[29] working in an
    agreeable fashion with the rest of the python framework in Gentoo. We've
    rolled out a preliminary stackless ebuild which basically installs it
    side by side with the normal python setup in /opt but I consider this to
    be sub-optimal at the least. We haven't finished it yet, but I think it
    will be doable.
  * I'd really really like to see a release-based Portage snapshot
    released together with the actual release. However, that is not of much
    use without a snapshot from the distfiles mirrors at the same time. This
    would make Gentoo less of a moving target and a more reliable base to
    build servers on. There has been talk about this on several mailing lists
    where people invariably object that this would create a false sense of
    stability because no one would port security patches and/or issues but as
    far as we are concerned that would not be necessary. I understand the
    constraints placed on the mirror system by such a setup. We are doing
    this internally for our stage4 files at the moment and that's pretty
    doable, but then, we only mirror the distfiles part (that we actually use
    in our stage4 builds) and not the entire Gentoo release with all the
    related desktop software.
  * We depend fairly heavily on the binary package support in Gentoo, and
    we need to separate packages over multiple ServerOS images (stage4
    builds) if we need them with different USE flags. I would like proper USE
    flag support for binary packages.
  * A little less aggressive pruning of ebuilds in the Portage tree would
    help. A lot of people are probably still running apache-2.0.x versions,
    as we are. They've left the Portage tree which is kind of sad, I miss
    them!

  29. http://www.stackless.com/

GMN: Any concluding comments?

Ramon: The beauty of Gentoo is that it offers a flexible framework for
building a highly customizable linux base to run your application on without
getting in the way. That flexibility and customizability brings its own
complexity but as far as I'm concerned it has been worth the trouble.

Running this kind of infrastructure with just 9 people is a form of highly
organized madness! If there are any developers or sysadmins out there with a
healthy interest in high-performance large-scale infrastructures and
Amsterdam I'd like to talk to them. We have open positions in both
development and system engineering and would prefer to hire people from the
Gentoo community.

We welcome feedback from the community, you can reach me personally by
email[30] or poke me on IRC (My nick is Innocenti on the Freenode network).
If you're interested in working with us, please don't contact me directly but
send mail to: jobs.sysadmin@×××××.nl.

  30. mailto:ramon@×××××.nl

And last but not least I'm really pleased to make the following announcement:

Based on a recent discussion with Robin H. Johnson[31] and Alex Howells[32]
from gentoo-infra, Hyves will sponsor the Gentoo community by helping out
with new servers for Bugzilla. We are putting up two large AMD64, 16Gb
servers with fast SCSI disks for the database backend and 2 beefy webservers
to improve the current bugzilla situation. We're currently working with infra
to get the stuff up and running and I hope the servers to go live soon.

  31. robbat2@g.o
  32. astinus@g.o

GMN: Thank you, Ramon, for your time and for speaking with us!

Figure 3.1: The team at Hyves (L-R): Jeffrey Lensen, Marlon de Boer, Eugene
Molenaar, Ramon van Alteren, Gerwin Scheeve, Maarten van der Bogaard, Stefan
van der Wiele and Frank Zwart
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gmn/20080424/hyves-team.png

Planet Gentoo
-------------

The good user: Ben de Groot[33] explains to us in a series[34] of posts, how
one can become a successful[35] Gentoo user[36] and stay[37] that way.

  33. yngwin@g.o
  34. http://ben.liveforge.org/2008/03/18/how-to-be-a-successful-gentoo-user
  35. http://ben.liveforge.org/2008/03/19/gentoo-documentation-sources
  36. http://ben.liveforge.org/2008/03/20/gentoo-features
  37. http://ben.liveforge.org/2008/04/02/get-better-help

Baselayout status: Doug Goldstein[38] informs us about the status[39] of the
new baselayout[40].

  38. cardoe@g.o
  39. http://blog.cardoe.com/archives/2008/03/20/openrc-baselayout-2/
  40. http://blog.cardoe.com/archives/2008/03/28/openrc-hits-the-tree/

Translations: Translations are an important part and free software has spread
into markets because of translation into some uncommon languages. Diego
Pettenò[8] shares his thoughts[41] on ebuild internationalization.

   8. flameeyes@g.o
  41. http://blog.flameeyes.eu/articles/2008/03/20/some-thoughts-about-internationalisation-and-common-strings

Alternative package search engine: Steve Dibb[42] implemented the old design
of packages.gentoo.org[43] with new code[44].

  42. beandog@g.o
  43. http://packages.gentoo.org/
  44. http://wonkabar.org/archives/417

Workplaces: Ever wanted to know where Gentoo is hand-crafted with lots of
love? Some[45] developers setups are presented[46] in a few[47] blog posts.

  45. http://tsunam.org/2008/03/23/setups/
  46. http://www.faulhammer.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=243
  47. http://blog.flameeyes.eu/articles/2008/03/24/setups

Man pages with Vim: Ali Polatel[48] tells us how to view man pages from your
Vi-like editor[49].

  48. hawking@g.o
  49. http://hawking.nonlogic.org/archives/2008/04/06/viewing_man_pages_with_vim/

Playstations and Gentoo: Although older Playstations are MIPS based, Stuart
Longland[50] tells us why they are not supported[51].

  50. redhatter@g.o
  51. http://stuartl.longlandclan.yi.org/blog/2008/04/06/gentoomips-ps/

Book review: For our German readers, Christian Faulhammer[52] posted a little
review[53] on the second German Gentoo book by Gunnar Wrobel[54].

  52. opfer@g.o
  53. http://www.faulhammer.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=245
  54. wrobel@g.o

Go for Gold: Maybe you have heard about the new linker in binutils. Bernard
Cafarelli[55] tells us how to[56] use it beside a stable version for your own
projects.

  55. voyageur@g.o
  56. http://blog.cafarelli.fr/post/2008/04/09/Testing-the-new-gold-linker-from-binutils

Gentoo in the News
------------------

PC Magazine: An article featuring the Zonbu PC mentions that it runs Gentoo
Linux - "Though sold through a nontraditional channel there's no hard drive,
so you pay monthly for online storage the Zonbu PC is a good alternative to
the traditional desktop PC. It runs Gentoo Linux, which is a lot more usable
than the gOS Linux on the gPC. This is the EPEAT Gold and Energy Star 4.0
certified PC to buy if your computing needs run mainly on the Web. It's the
first PC Mag Green Approved product ever". For more information, check out
the complete article[57].

  57. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2153829,00.asp

Linux Devices: PC-Doctor, a well known software vendor has developed a new
Network Factory appliance, which is currently in the prototype phase. The
device runs Gentoo, on an undisclosed hardware platform. The company chose
the Gentoo distro, "because we know it," said van Aman. "We chose a
source-based distribution because we only need to support a few hardware
configurations, and we want to squeeze the maximum performance out of the
hardware that we have". For more information, check out the complete
article[58].

  58. http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7542896830.html

ITWire: A news item on the website describes how a user used Gentoo to create
his own distribution - Kororaa[59]. Check out the complete article[60] for
more information.

  59. http://www.kororaa.org/
  60. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/17519/1090/

==================
4. Tips and Tricks
==================

Speedup Boot Time
-----------------

Are you impatient when booting your computer? If yes, try the following:

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 4.1                                                           |
| Tell Gentoo's startup system to turn on services in parallel               |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| $ $EDITOR /etc/conf.d/rc                                                   |
| (Change)                                                                   |
| RC_PARALLEL_STARTUP="no"                                                   |
| (To)                                                                       |
| RC_PARALLEL_STARTUP="yes"                                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 4.2                                                           |
| Prevent the kernel from displaying status messages                         |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| (Assuming you are using GRUB and /boot is mounted correctly)               |
| $ $EDITOR /boot/grub/grub.conf                                             |
| (Append the 'quiet' option to the kernel you use, for example:)            |
| kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.23.9 root=/dev/hda2 quiet                         |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 4.3                                                             |
| Remove services that you do not need                                         |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| (View what services are currently activated on boot)                         |
| $ rc-status boot                                                             |
| (Check what is good with a default runlevel)                                 |
| $ rc-default default                                                         |
| (For example, you probably won't need keymap if you're building a carputer:) |
| $ rc-update del keymap                                                       |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you build your kernel with no modules, you can remove modules from boot.

Note: If you do not understand what a particular service or module does, do
not remove it!

You may also like to install BootChart[61], a tool for performance analysis
and visualization of the Linux boot process.

  61. http://www.bootchart.org/

IRSSI and BitlBee
-----------------

Irssi and BitlBee are both great for simple chat clients. If you have a shell
available, we recommend you run them off the server, since you will never
logoff.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 4.1                                                           |
| Installing                                                                 |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| # emerge irssi bitlbee screenie                                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

A previous GMN featured tips and tricks on screenie[62]. Now, configure
bitlbee to your taste, and start it:

  62. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gmn/20080218-newsletter.xml#doc_chap4

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 4.2                                                           |
| Starting bitlbee                                                           |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| $ /etc/init.d/bitlbeed start                                               |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Now start screenie and start an irssi session:

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 4.3                                                           |
| Creating an IRSSI session                                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| $ /connect 127.0.0.1                                                       |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Now follow the instructions and connect into your IM accounts and IRC, never
worrying about logging off.

=========================
5. Gentoo developer moves
=========================

Summary
-------

Gentoo is made up of 259 active developers, of which 44 are currently away.
Gentoo has recruited a total of 637 developers since its inception.

Moves
-----

The following developers recently left the Gentoo project:

  * None during this period

Adds
----

The following developers recently joined the Gentoo project:

  * Ahmed Ammar (b33fc0d3) - amd64
  * Josh Glover (jmglov) - CJK

Changes
-------

The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo project:

  * Alfredo Tupone (tupone) joined the net-zope herd
  * Ben de Groot (yngwin) joined the desktop-misc herd

==========
6. Portage
==========

Summary
-------

This section summarizes the current state of the Portage tree.

General Statistics
Architectures      15
Categories         151
Packages           12565
ebuilds            24548

Keyword Distribution
Architecture         StableTestingTotal% Packages
alpha                3629435406432.34%
amd64                696938671083686.24%
arm                  159572166713.27%
hppa                 2660488314825.05%
ia64                 3223552377530.04%
m68k                 493165094.05%
mips                 1104671177514.13%
ppc                  62392858909772.40%
ppc64                3431621405232.25%
s390                 12014712489.93%
sh                   141545146011.62%
sparc                48051275608048.39%
sparc-fbsd           03163162.51%
x86                  932730541238198.54%
x86-fbsd             02493249319.84%

Figure 6.1: Package distribution by keyword
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gmn/20080424/keywords.png

The following section lists packages that have either been moved or added to
the tree. The package removals come from many locations, including the
Treecleaners[63] and various developers.

  63. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/qa/treecleaners/

Removals:
---------

Package:                  Removal date: Contact:
dev-java/cryptix          24 Mar 2008   Vlastimil Babka[64]
dev-java/cryptix-asn1-bin 24 Mar 2008   Vlastimil Babka[64]
dev-java/cryptix-jce-bin  24 Mar 2008   Vlastimil Babka[64]
dev-java/javamake-bin     24 Mar 2008   Vlastimil Babka[64]
dev-java/minml2           24 Mar 2008   Vlastimil Babka[64]
dev-java/jasmin-sable     24 Mar 2008   Vlastimil Babka[64]
www-servers/orion         24 Mar 2008   Petteri Räty[65]
dev-java/jsx              24 Mar 2008   Petteri Räty[65]
app-laptop/smcinit        25 Mar 2008   Michele Noberasco[66]
sys-apps/tcb              27 Mar 2008   Diego Pettenò[8]
sys-apps/baselayout-lite  30 Mar 2008   Mike Frysinger[67]

   8. flameeyes@g.o
  64. caster@g.o
  65. betelgeuse@g.o
  66. s4t4n@g.o
  67. vapier@g.o

Package:                     Removal date: Contact:
x11-themes/gtk-engines-mist  31 Mar 2008   Rèmi Cardona[68]
dev-libs/tinyq               31 Mar 2008   Raúl Porcel[69]
net-ftp/gtkfxp               31 Mar 2008   Raúl Porcel[69]
net-libs/libhttpd-persistent 31 Mar 2008   Raúl Porcel[69]
app-admin/ctcs               31 Mar 2008   Raúl Porcel[69]
net-ftp/swiftfxp             31 Mar 2008   Raúl Porcel[69]
x11-misc/xnview              01 Apr 2008   Samuli Suominen[70]
mail-client/ciphire-mail     04 Apr 2008   Torsten Veller[71]
media-gfx/gimp-print         05 Apr 2008   Stefan Schweizer[72]
app-vim/ant                  06 Apr 2008   Ali Polatel[48]

  48. hawking@g.o
  68. remi@g.o
  69. armin76@g.o
  70. drac@g.o
  71. tove@g.o
  72. genstef@g.o

Package:                       Removal date: Contact:
media-video/x264-svn-encoder   07 Apr 2008   Ben de Groot[33]
media-libs/x264-svn            07 Apr 2008   Ben de Groot[33]
dev-lang/smalltalkx            09 Apr 2008   Luis Francisco Araujo[73]
media-sound/opmixer            09 Apr 2008   Samuli Suominen[70]
app-misc/pastemecli            09 Apr 2008   Raúl Porcel[69]
sys-kernel/suspend2-sources    12 Apr 2008   Krzysiek Pawlik[74]
sys-apps/suspend2-userui       12 Apr 2008   Krzysiek Pawlik[74]
media-fonts/skinenigmang-fonts 13 Apr 2008   Matthias Schwarzott[75]

  33. yngwin@g.o
  69. armin76@g.o
  70. drac@g.o
  73. araujo@g.o
  74. nelchael@g.o
  75. zzam@g.o

Package:                Removal date: Contact:
sys-fs/cryptsetup-luks  14 Apr 2008   Doug Goldstein[38]
dev-scheme/mit-scheme   14 Apr 2008   Marijn Schouten[76]
dev-lisp/gcl-cvs        14 Apr 2008   Marijn Schouten[76]
virtual/postgresql-libs 15 Apr 2008   Tiziano Müller[77]

  38. cardoe@g.o
  76. hkbst@g.o
  77. dev-zero@g.o

Additions:
----------

Package:                      Addition date: Contact:
gnome-base/gvfs[78]           24 Mar 2008    Mart Raudsepp[79]
dev-libs/libgweather[80]      24 Mar 2008    Gilles Dartiguelongue[81]
media-plugins/vdr-atscepg[82] 24 Mar 2008    Joerg Bornkessel[83]
dev-util/gtk-doc-am[84]       24 Mar 2008    Daniel Gryniewicz[85]
sys-cluster/pypvm[86]         24 Mar 2008    Donnie Berkholz[4]
sys-cluster/pbs-python[87]    24 Mar 2008    Donnie Berkholz[4]
media-fonts/proggy-fonts[88]  24 Mar 2008    Ben de Groot[33]
media-fonts/webby-fonts[89]   24 Mar 2008    Ben de Groot[33]
sci-mathematics/lybniz[90]    25 Mar 2008    Sebastien Fabbro[91]
sys-boot/mbr-gpt[92]          25 Mar 2008    Robin H. Johnson[31]
x11-libs/openmotif-compat[93] 25 Mar 2008    Ulrich Müller[94]
net-p2p/frostwire[95]         25 Mar 2008    William Thomson[96]
dev-python/rdflib[97]         25 Mar 2008    Rob Cakebread[98]
app-misc/iguanaIR[99]         26 Mar 2008    Joerg Bornkessel[83]
gnome-extra/mousetweaks[100]  26 Mar 2008    Gilles Dartiguelongue[81]
sys-auth/tcb[101]             27 Mar 2008    Diego Pettenò[8]
net-misc/mediatomb[102]       27 Mar 2008    Diego Pettenò[8]
sci-libs/parmetis[103]        27 Mar 2008    Sebastien Fabbro[91]
app-emacs/grep-edit[104]      27 Mar 2008    Ulrich Müller[94]
media-plugins/vdr-extb[105]   27 Mar 2008    Joerg Bornkessel[83]
dev-java/jazzy[106]           28 Mar 2008    Petteri Räty[65]
net-analyzer/centreon[107]    28 Mar 2008    Benedikt Boehm[108]
dev-libs/ossp-uuid[109]       28 Mar 2008    Tiziano Müller[77]
media-sound/miniaudicle[110]  29 Mar 2008    Cédric Krier[111]
media-sound/audicle[112]      30 Mar 2008    Cédric Krier[111]
media-sound/sndpeek[113]      30 Mar 2008    Cédric Krier[111]
media-sound/tapestrea[114]    30 Mar 2008    Cédric Krier[111]

   4. dberkholz@g.o
   8. flameeyes@g.o
  31. robbat2@g.o
  33. yngwin@g.o
  65. betelgeuse@g.o
  77. dev-zero@g.o
  78. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/gnome-base/gvfs
  79. leio@g.o
  80. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-libs/libgweather
  81. eva@g.o
  82. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-plugins/vdr-atscepg
  83. hd_brummy@g.o
  84. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-util/gtk-doc-am
  85. dang@g.o
  86. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/sys-cluster/pypvm
  87. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/sys-cluster/pbs-python
  88. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-fonts/proggy-fonts
  89. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-fonts/webby-fonts
  90. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/sci-mathematics/lybniz
  91. bicatali@g.o
  92. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/sys-boot/mbr-gpt
  93. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-libs/openmotif-compat
  94. ulm@g.o
  95. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-p2p/frostwire
  96. wltjr@g.o
  97. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-python/rdflib
  98. pythonhead@g.o
  99. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-misc/iguanaIR
 100. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/gnome-extra/mousetweaks
 101. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/sys-auth/tcb
 102. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-misc/mediatomb
 103. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/sci-libs/parmetis
 104. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-emacs/grep-edit
 105. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-plugins/vdr-extb
 106. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-java/jazzy
 107. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-analyzer/centreon
 108. hollow@g.o
 109. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-libs/ossp-uuid
 110. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-sound/miniaudicle
 111. cedk@g.o
 112. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-sound/audicle
 113. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-sound/sndpeek
 114. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-sound/tapestrea

Package:                     Addition date: Contact:
dev-ruby/revolution[115]     31 Mar 2008    Hans de Graaff[116]
xfce-extra/xfmpc[117]        01 Apr 2008    Christoph Mende[118]
app-office/homebank[119]     01 Apr 2008    Denis Dupeyron[120]
dev-java/dsiutils[121]       02 Apr 2008    Alistair Bush[122]
app-vim/vim-spell-el[123]    02 Apr 2008    Aggelos Orfanakos[124]
dev-ruby/osmlib-base[125]    02 Apr 2008    Hanno Boeck[126]
dev-python/virtualenv[127]   03 Apr 2008    Rob Cakebread[98]
dev-util/gitosis-gentoo[128] 04 Apr 2008    Robin H. Johnson[31]
net-print/gutenprint[129]    05 Apr 2008    Stefan Schweizer[72]
kde-misc/kgrab[130]          05 Apr 2008    Wulf Krueger[131]
kde-misc/kgraphviewer[132]   05 Apr 2008    Wulf Krueger[131]
kde-misc/kio_gopher[133]     05 Apr 2008    Wulf Krueger[131]
kde-misc/libksane[134]       05 Apr 2008    Wulf Krueger[131]
dev-ruby/mkrf[135]           06 Apr 2008    Hans de Graaff[116]
app-text/xournal[136]        06 Apr 2008    Robert Buchholz[137]
app-vim/ant_menu[138]        06 Apr 2008    Ali Polatel[48]

  31. robbat2@g.o
  48. hawking@g.o
  72. genstef@g.o
  98. pythonhead@g.o
 115. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-ruby/revolution
 116. graaff@g.o
 117. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/xfce-extra/xfmpc
 118. angelos@g.o
 119. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-office/homebank
 120. calchan@g.o
 121. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-java/dsiutils
 122. ali_bush@g.o
 123. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-vim/vim-spell-el
 124. agorf@g.o
 125. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-ruby/osmlib-base
 126. hanno@g.o
 127. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-python/virtualenv
 128. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-util/gitosis-gentoo
 129. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-print/gutenprint
 130. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/kde-misc/kgrab
 131. philantrop@g.o
 132. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/kde-misc/kgraphviewer
 133. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/kde-misc/kio_gopher
 134. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/kde-misc/libksane
 135. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-ruby/mkrf
 136. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-text/xournal
 137. rbu@g.o
 138. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-vim/ant_menu

Package:                               Addition date: Contact:
media-fonts/skinenigmang-fonts[139]    07 Apr 2008    Matthias Schwarzott[75]
dev-tex/mh[140]                        07 Apr 2008    Alexis Ballier[141]
dev-libs/librelp[142]                  07 Apr 2008    Tiziano Müller[77]
app-admin/eselect-unison[143]          07 Apr 2008    Alexis Ballier[141]
app-admin/rsyslog[144]                 07 Apr 2008    Tiziano Müller[77]
media-libs/x264[145]                   07 Apr 2008    Ben de Groot[33]
media-video/x264-encoder[146]          07 Apr 2008    Ben de Groot[33]
x11-themes/pekwm-themes-hewphoria[147] 08 Apr 2008    Ben de Groot[33]
rox-base/rox-launch[148]               08 Apr 2008    Jim Ramsay[149]
dev-util/debhelper[150]                09 Apr 2008    Mike Frysinger[67]
sys-apps/edac-utils[151]               09 Apr 2008    Tiziano Müller[77]
x11-misc/xnots[152]                    10 Apr 2008    Krzysiek Pawlik[74]
x11-plugins/wmtime[153]                11 Apr 2008    Michele Noberasco[66]
dev-tcltk/tkimg[154]                   11 Apr 2008    Sebastien Fabbro[91]
sci-astronomy/skycat[155]              11 Apr 2008    Sebastien Fabbro[91]
media-video/ksubtitleripper[156]       11 Apr 2008    Ben de Groot[33]
media-sound/lastfmproxy[157]           11 Apr 2008    Ben de Groot[33]
dev-java/sblim-cim-client[158]         12 Apr 2008    Alistair Bush[122]
app-laptop/kthinkbat[159]              12 Apr 2008    Ryan Hill[160]
net-analyzer/pnp4nagios[161]           12 Apr 2008    Caleb Tennis[162]
net-analyzer/nagircbot[163]            12 Apr 2008    Caleb Tennis[162]
media-fonts/pigiarniq[164]             13 Apr 2008    Ben de Groot[33]
games-server/greenhouse[165]           13 Apr 2008    Josh Glover[166]
media-fonts/vdrsymbols-ttf[167]        13 Apr 2008    Matthias Schwarzott[75]

  33. yngwin@g.o
  66. s4t4n@g.o
  67. vapier@g.o
  74. nelchael@g.o
  75. zzam@g.o
  77. dev-zero@g.o
  91. bicatali@g.o
 122. ali_bush@g.o
 139. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-fonts/skinenigmang-fonts
 140. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-tex/mh
 141. aballier@g.o
 142. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-libs/librelp
 143. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-admin/eselect-unison
 144. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-admin/rsyslog
 145. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-libs/x264
 146. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-video/x264-encoder
 147. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-themes/pekwm-themes-hewphoria
 148. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/rox-base/rox-launch
 149. lack@g.o
 150. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-util/debhelper
 151. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/sys-apps/edac-utils
 152. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/xnots
 153. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-plugins/wmtime
 154. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-tcltk/tkimg
 155. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/sci-astronomy/skycat
 156. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-video/ksubtitleripper
 157. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-sound/lastfmproxy
 158. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-java/sblim-cim-client
 159. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-laptop/kthinkbat
 160. dirtyepic@g.o
 161. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-analyzer/pnp4nagios
 162. caleb@g.o
 163. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-analyzer/nagircbot
 164. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-fonts/pigiarniq
 165. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/games-server/greenhouse
 166. jmglov@g.o
 167. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-fonts/vdrsymbols-ttf

Package:                          Addition date: Contact:
net-misc/ethercard-diag[168]      14 Apr 2008    Mike Frysinger[67]
media-sound/aqualung[169]         15 Apr 2008    Ben de Groot[33]
app-admin/eselect-postgresql[170] 15 Apr 2008    Tiziano Müller[77]
dev-java/sux4j[171]               15 Apr 2008    Alistair Bush[122]
dev-db/postgresql-docs[172]       15 Apr 2008    Tiziano Müller[77]
dev-db/postgresql-base[173]       15 Apr 2008    Tiziano Müller[77]
dev-db/postgresql-server[174]     15 Apr 2008    Tiziano Müller[77]
virtual/postgresql-base[175]      15 Apr 2008    Tiziano Müller[77]
dev-util/guilt[176]               16 Apr 2008    Ingmar Vanhassel[177]
net-dns/fpdns[178]                16 Apr 2008    Wolfram Schlich[179]
sci-libs/xylib[180]               18 Apr 2008    Sebastien Fabbro[91]
app-forensics/zzuf[181]           19 Apr 2008    Diego Pettenò[8]
media-gfx/icns2png[182]           19 Apr 2008    Samuli Suominen[70]
dev-perl/File-SearchPath[183]     19 Apr 2008    Robin H. Johnson[31]
dev-perl/Sphinx-Config[184]       19 Apr 2008    Robin H. Johnson[31]
dev-perl/Sphinx-Search[185]       19 Apr 2008    Robin H. Johnson[31]
app-accessibility/speakup[186]    19 Apr 2008    William Hubbs[187]
dev-embedded/openocd[188]         20 Apr 2008    Mike Frysinger[67]
dev-java/json-simple[189]         20 Apr 2008    Petteri Räty[65]
net-misc/twitux[190]              20 Apr 2008    Peter Weller[191]
app-crypt/elettra[192]            20 Apr 2008    Luca Barbato[193]

   8. flameeyes@g.o
  31. robbat2@g.o
  33. yngwin@g.o
  65. betelgeuse@g.o
  67. vapier@g.o
  70. drac@g.o
  77. dev-zero@g.o
  91. bicatali@g.o
 122. ali_bush@g.o
 168. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-misc/ethercard-diag
 169. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-sound/aqualung
 170. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-admin/eselect-postgresql
 171. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-java/sux4j
 172. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-db/postgresql-docs
 173. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-db/postgresql-base
 174. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-db/postgresql-server
 175. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/virtual/postgresql-base
 176. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-util/guilt
 177. ingmar@g.o
 178. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-dns/fpdns
 179. wschlich@g.o
 180. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/sci-libs/xylib
 181. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-forensics/zzuf
 182. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-gfx/icns2png
 183. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-perl/File-SearchPath
 184. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-perl/Sphinx-Config
 185. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-perl/Sphinx-Search
 186. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-accessibility/speakup
 187. williamh@g.o
 188. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-embedded/openocd
 189. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-java/json-simple
 190. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-misc/twitux
 191. welp@g.o
 192. http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-crypt/elettra
 193. lu_zero@g.o

===========
7. Bugzilla
===========

Statistics
----------

The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[194]) to record and track
bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the development
team. The following chart summarizes activity on Bugzilla between 16 March
2008 and 20 April 2008.

 194. http://bugs.gentoo.org

Figure 7.1: Bug activity split-up
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gmn/20080424/activity.png

Of the 10812 currently open bugs: 15 are labeled blocker, 106 are labeled
critical, and 361 are labeled major.

Closed bug ranking
------------------

The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period are
as follows.

Rank Developer/Team                         Bug Count
0    Others                                 1316
1    Gentoo's Team for Core System packages 128
2    Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team        87
3    Gentoo Security                        73
4    AMD64 Project                          70
5    Portage team                           58
6    Java team                              45
7    Gentoo Games                           44
8    Gentoo Sound Team                      41
9    Gentoo non-Linux Team                  38

Figure 7.1: Bug closed rankings
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gmn/20080424/closed.png

Assigned bug ranking
--------------------

The developers and teams who have been assigned the most bugs during this
period are as follows.

Rank Developer/Team                         Bug Count
0    Others                                 952
1    Default Assignee for New Packages      116
2    Gentoo's Team for Core System packages 64
3    Java team                              54
4    Gentoo Security                        50
5    Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team        50
6    Gentoo Games                           44
7    Gentoo Release Team                    38
8    Default Assignee for Orphaned Packages 37
9    Python Gentoo Team                     30

Figure 7.1: Bugs assigned rankings
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gmn/20080424/opened.png

===================
8. Getting Involved
===================

The GMN relies on volunteers and members of the community for content every
month. If you are interested in writing for the GMN, do write in to
gmn-writers@g.o with your articles in plaintext or GuideXML format.

Note: The deadline for articles to be published in the next issue is May 16,
2008.

We solicit feedback from all our readers on the newsletter. If you have any
ideas for articles, sections, or have anything to say about the GMN, don't
hesitate to email us at gmn-feedback@g.o.

You can also give us your feedback and comment on this particular issue of
the GMN on the forum thread[1].

   1. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-5071942.html

===============================
9. GMN subscription information
===============================

To subscribe to the Gentoo Monthly Newsletter, send a blank e-mail to
gentoo-gmn+subscribe@g.o.

To unsubscribe to the Gentoo Monthly Newsletter, send a blank e-mail to
gentoo-gmn+unsubscribe@g.o from the e-mail address you are subscribed
under.

===================
10. Other languages
===================

The Gentoo Monthly Newsletter is available in the following languages:

  * English[195]
  * German[196]
  * Italian[197]
  * Polish[198]
  * Spanish[199]
  * Simplified Chinese[200]

 195. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gmn/index.xml
 196. http://www.gentoo.org/news/de/gmn/index.xml
 197. http://www.gentoo.org/news/it/gmn/index.xml
 198. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pl/gmn/index.xml
 199. http://www.gentoo.org/news/es/gmn/index.xml
 200. http://www.gentoo.org/news/zh_cn/gmn/index.xml

Anant Narayanan <anant@g.o> - Editor
Joshua Saddler <nightmorph@g.o> - Copy Editor
Christian Faulhammer <opfer@g.o> - Author
RGK <rgk@××××××××.com> - Author
Joseph <syscon@×××××××××.com> - Author
Andrey Falko <andrey@××××××.net> - Author
Robert Buchholz <rbu@g.o> - Author