---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of October 20, 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
==============
1. Gentoo News
==============
Summary
-------
* An update on GLEPs
An update on GLEPs
------------------
The Gentoo Linux Enhancement Proposal (GLEP) system was announced in June
in order to track and manage large-scale proposals to the Gentoo Linux
community. Since then, sixteen GLEPs[1] have been submitted, of which
eight have been accepted. Here's a summary of some of the notable approved
proposals:
1. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20030616-newsletter.xml
* GLEP 6[2] was the proposal for a monthly Gentoo BugDay devoted to
cleaning out bugs. These are now held on the first Saturday of each month.
* GLEP 11[3] standardizes the way web applications are installed by
Portage.
* GLEP 13[4] extends and unifies documents on installation,
configuration, and other topics into a large but well-organized Gentoo
Handbook.
* GLEP 14[5] proposes to extend Portage so that it can read a GLSA and
either fix security holes automatically, notify the user of how to fix the
problem, or to merely print the GLEP.
2. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0006.html
3. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0011.html
4. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0013.html
5. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0014.html
For more information about GLEPs, read GLEP 1: GLEP Purpose and
Guidelines[6]. You can keep up on GLEPs by reading the GLEP index[7] or by
reading the gentoo-dev mailing list[8] where these and other issues are
discussed.
6. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0001.html
7. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/
8. http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml
==================
2. Gentoo Security
==================
Gentoo Security is on hiatus this week.
=================================
3. Featured Developer of the Week
=================================
Peter Johanson
Figure 3.1: Peter Johanson
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20031020_latexer.jpg
This week's featured developer is Peter Johanson[9] (latexer), who
provides a lot of the developer support for wireless connectivity drivers
and software in Gentoo. He has also contributed some of the work on IPv6
support, documentation and some continuing work on the init scripts. Peter
is also a frequent resident of the #gentoo IRC channel and often
contributes to the support discussions there.
9. latexer@g.o
Peter started using Linux in the summer of 2001 by installing Mandrake on
his 100 MHz Gateway Solo laptop. He later moved to Debian and made the
final jump to the Gentoo he had been hearing about when he acquired a 1.8
GHz laptop in September of 2002 - a computer that was "worth actually
putting Gentoo on." Peter submitted fixes and suggestions to
bugs.gentoo.org[10] before attending Linux World Expo 2003 in New York,
where he met Seemant Kulleen[11] and Daniel Robbins[12]. He was soon
invited by Seemant to join the development team. In addition to his work
on Gentoo, Peter has found an interest in driver porting and has
contributed work on the airo_mpi.c driver for the Cisco MiniPCI card found
in some laptops. He is also working an a Gnome dockapp for wireless
configuration.
10. http://bugs.gentoo.org
11. seemant@g.o
12. drobbins@g.o
Peter has a PII (500 MHz) server, Pentium (100 MHz, BSD) Firewall, and an
Ultra2 (dual 400 MHz, 128Mb) that boots Gentoo diskless over tftp from an
NFS root. However, his primary development platform is a Thinkpad T30 (1.8
GHz, 1GB). He generally works wherever he can find a wifi access point to
connect to. He is currently a Gnome user, but has frequently used fluxbox
and xfce. The first application he starts is usually xterm with AA fonts -
which he promptly employs to ssh into a server with mutt and irssi running
in a screen session. He rounds out his list of favorite apps by adding
vim, nctfp, wavemon, iwconfig, sed, pork and gaim to the list.
Peter is currently a senior at New York University, completing a
Mathematics major. He does, however, express some regret at his choice of
fields - now wishing that he had selected Computer Science instead. Peter
is also employed at the University, serving the Business School as
webmaster, programmer and general factotum. He lives in the borough of
Brooklyn, near the Franklin stop of the C-Line. And the moment, he has no
internet connectivity, and hopes that one of his neighbors will read this
and offer some line-of-site wifi. He is single and available, but the news
that Mandy Moore attends NYU fills him with hope that this will soon
change.
=========================
4. Heard in the Community
=========================
gentoo-user
-----------
Gnome or KDE
Most Linux distros favor KDE over Gnome, or Gnome over KDE. What's
Gentoo's slant? According to this thread[13] Gentoo leaves the ultimate
decision up to the user to customize it how he or she pleases.
13.
http://news.gmane.org/onethread.php?group=gmane.linux.gentoo.user&root=%3C2
00310171137.32539.hallstevenson%40mindspring.com%3E
Clustering High-Volume Mail Servers
Despise some of the risks of using a bleeding-edge distro in
high-availability solution, there's always ways to circumvent possible
problems, and clustering several physical servers is one of them. This
pretty big thread[14] covers some of the solutions and problems that one
could encounter.
14.
http://news.gmane.org/onethread.php?group=gmane.linux.gentoo.user&root=%3C2
00310161856.06415.haimat%40lame.at%3E
gentoo-dev
----------
GTK and GTK2
Ever wondered the difference between these two USE flags? Well here[15] is
a short post explaining the use and history (and future?) of the two.
15. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/13076/
Is your system shutting down too fast?!
Eric Sammer raised this issue when his init system stopped processes a bit
too aggressively, making life difficult. This was especially true for some
of the nameservers and other related internet services. Take a look
here[16] at some of the suggestions and comments made.
16. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/13018/
=======================
5. Gentoo International
=======================
Japan: Raising a Gentoo Penguin
Even to people with modern pan-global awareness standards, Japan is a
strange country. Who can explain why penguins are among the country's most
popular zoo animals, depicted in a multitude of pop culture settings,
generally cuddly and kawa-ii - yet the Open Source Software mainstream
continues to flow towards *BSD and its slightly more belligerent
iconography? In an attempt to reconcile the imagery, Hagihara Yoshiaki, a
Gentoo-JP activist of advanced seniority and notoriousness, is busy
preparing for next Friday's presentation of Gentoo Linux in Tokyo's
splendid Electric Town, the Akihabara district. Titled "Let's raise a
Gentoo penguin", his introduction to installation and maintenance of
Gentoo Linux will be held at Plat'home[17] (try pronouncing this
"platform", the pun is intended), Akihabara's most imminent vendor and
systems integrator of *NIX-related hard- and software. Plat'home has
teamed up with a training facility by the name of Begi.net[18] for
regularly scheduled "@home seminars" about Linux and related subjects,
falling in line with Begi.net's mission statement of "lowering the
threshold and broadening the market" for open source software. While the
organisers seem to know what they're doing, Hagihara-san himself -
needlessly, needless to say - feigns nervousness about his presentation
software skills... If you happen to be in Tokyo that day, cheer him on and
grab after-talk drinks and snacks on Friday, 24 October 2003, from 19:00
(doors open 18:45) to 21:00. Registration isn't compulsory, but seats are
limited to 30 people, so please sign up here (site in Japanese)[19].
You'll have to pay 1000 JPY at the door, unless you're a student or
someone who purchased more than 2000 Yen worth of merchandise at Plat'home
that same day...
17. http://www.plathome.co.jp
18. http://www.begi.net
19. http://www.plathome.co.jp/hqsales/seminer/index_home031024.html
Germany: Gentoo User Meeting in Oberhausen
On 8 October (as announced in the GWN) almost twenty Gentooists had left
their computers at home and went to meet at the "Brauhaus Zeche Jacobi" in
Oberhausen's CentrO. Long-term Linux-users and freshmen talked about
advantages of Gentoo Linux, other distributions and their eventual
benefits, the new KDE alpha branch, and lots of other amusing things.
Since it was such an interesting and outright funny meeting they finally
agreed to meet again, on 10 December. The venue and other details are
subject to discussion in this Forum thread[20].
20. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=94915
Germany: Practical Linux Day Report Vol. 2
The last GWN was published before all the information from the Gentoo
booth participants in Gie??en had actually trickled in, so here's an
update on what you've missed if you weren't there last week... On early
Friday afternoon tantive, pYrania, stkn and beejay had set up the booth,
went on to meet TG, ian! and dertobi123 at the youth hostel which turned
out to be a nasty surprise leading to a group decision to book a hotel
next year... Having spent the evening (and important parts of the night)
in a Greek restaurant with other exhibitors, organisers of the show, and
late-arrival pylon.
Mild public interest in the early hours developed into a big rush on the
Gentoo booth in the afternoon. Hanno joined the group of devs sitting
around the table, and Cybersystem and a nameless Gentoo user performed a
live installation of Gentoo Linux on an Apple Powerbook. Somehow the
number of people looking over their shoulders with more than just mild
interest must have achieved critical mass. The ice thusly and visibly
broken, the Gentoo booth the dominant location in the exhibition area for
the remainder of the Practical Linux day. When the doors closed at dusk,
the visitors went away with lots of answers to their questions, and a
LiveCD to ease their way into future Gentooism.
Last but not least, now that the show is over beejay has made copies of
his presentation available as a Flash Movie (72kb)[21] and as a PDF file
(223kb)[22]. Enjoy.
21. http://www.judas-merlau.de/gentoo2.swf
22. http://www.judas-merlau.de/gentoo2.pdf
================
6. Portage Watch
================
Portage Watch is on hiatus this week.
===========
7. Bugzilla
===========
Summary
-------
* Statistics
* Closed Bug Ranking
* New Bug Rankings
Statistics
----------
The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[23]) to record and
track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the
development team. Between 03 October 2003 and 09 October 2003, activity on
the site has resulted in:
23. http://bugs.gentoo.org
* 503 new bugs during this period
* 313 bugs closed or resolved during this period
* 16 previously closed bugs were reopened this period
Of the 4152 currently open bugs: 109 are labeled 'blocker', 196 are
labeled 'critical', and 343 are labeled 'major'.
Closed Bug Rankings
-------------------
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period
are:
* Heinrich Wendel[24], with 30 closed bugs[25]
* Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team[26], with 19 closed bugs[27]
* Perl Devs[28], with 17 closed bugs[29]
* Gentoo Games[30], with 16 closed bugs[31]
* Media-Video Herd[32], with 12 closed bugs[33]
24. lanius@g.o
25.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10-09&resolution=FIX
ED&assigned_to=lanius@g.o
26. gnome@g.o
27.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10-09&resolution=FIX
ED&assigned_to=gnome@g.o
28. perl@g.o
29.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10-09&resolution=FIX
ED&assigned_to=perl@g.o
30. games@g.o
31.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10-09&resolution=FIX
ED&assigned_to=games@g.o
32. media-video@g.o
33.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10-09&resolution=FIX
ED&assigned_to=media-video@g.o
New Bug Rankings
----------------
The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during
this period are:
* Media-Video herd[34], with 14 new bugs[35]
* Net-Mail Packages[36], with 12 new bugs[37]
* Martin Schlemmer[38], with 12 new bugs[39]
* Portage team[40], with 10 new bugs[41]
34. media-video@g.o
35.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10
-09&assigned_to=media-video@g.o
36. net-mail@g.o
37.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10
-09&assigned_to=net-mail@g.o
38. azarah@g.o
39.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10
-09&assigned_to=azarah@g.o
40. dev-portage@g.o
41.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-10-03&chfieldto=2003-10
-09&assigned_to=dev-portage@g.o
==================
8. Tips and Tricks
==================
Using the Gentoo Log Parser (genlop)
This week's tip introduces the Gentoo Log Parser (genlop), which is a
utility to create useful reports from your /var/log/emerge.log file. To
get started with genlop, you'll need to install it using the following
command: emerge app-portage/genlop.
We can now use genlop to look at the merge history for a package (or your
entire system), and to calculate the merge times for various packages. The
following example looks at the merge history for Mozilla.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 8.1: |
| Using genlop |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
|% genlop -t mozilla |
| |
| * net-www/mozilla |
| |
| Merged at Fri Jan 3 19:29:16 2003 (mozilla-1.2.1-r4) |
| merge time: 1 hour, 35 minutes and 6 seconds. |
| |
| Merged at Fri Mar 21 20:59:45 2003 (mozilla-1.2.1-r5) |
| merge time: 2 hours, 53 minutes and 4 seconds. |
| |
| Merged at Thu Jun 12 15:55:58 2003 (mozilla-1.3-r1) |
| merge time: 3 hours, 28 minutes and 37 seconds. |
| |
| Merged at Wed Jun 25 16:29:38 2003 (mozilla-1.3-r2) |
| merge time: 2 hours, 43 minutes and 47 seconds. |
| |
| Merged at Wed Jul 23 18:36:58 2003 (mozilla-1.4) |
| merge time: 2 hours, 2 minutes and 24 seconds. |
| |
| Merged at Wed Oct 1 14:49:31 2003 (mozilla-1.4-r3) |
| merge time: 3 hours, 20 minutes and 38 seconds. |
| |
| merged totally 6 times in 16 hours, 3 minutes and 36 seconds. |
| average merge time: 2 hours, 40 minutes and 36 seconds. |
| |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Type genlop to see the other options availble.
==========================
9. 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:
* Lance Albertson (ramereth) -- system administration
* Sven Blumenstein (bazik) -- sparc
Changes
-------
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo Linux
project.
* none this week
=====================
10. Contribute to GWN
=====================
Interested in contributing to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter? Send us an
email[42].
42. gwn-feedback@g.o
================
11. GWN Feedback
================
Please send us your feedback[43] and help make the GWN better.
43. gwn-feedback@g.o
================================
12. 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.
===================
13. Other Languages
===================
The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter is also available in the following languages:
* Dutch[44]
* English[45]
* German[46]
* French[47]
* Japanese[48]
* Italian[49]
* Polish[50]
* Portuguese (Brazil)[51]
* Portuguese (Portugal)[52]
* Russian[53]
* Spanish[54]
* Turkish[55]
44. http://www.gentoo.org/news/be/gwn/gwn.xml
45. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
46. http://www.gentoo.org/news/de/gwn/gwn.xml
47. http://www.gentoo.org/news/fr/gwn/gwn.xml
48. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ja/gwn/gwn.xml
49. http://www.gentoo.org/news/it/gwn/gwn.xml
50. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pl/gwn/gwn.xml
51. http://www.gentoo.org/news/br/gwn/gwn.xml
52. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt/gwn/gwn.xml
53. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ru/gwn/gwn.xml
54. http://www.gentoo.org/news/es/gwn/gwn.xml
55. http://www.gentoo.org/news/tr/gwn/gwn.xml
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <carlos@g.o> - Editor
AJ Armstrong <aja@...> - Contributor
Brian Downey <bdowney@...> - Contributor
Cal Evans <cal@...> - Contributor
Chris Gavin <gubbs@...> - Contributor
Luke Giuliani <cold_flame@...> - Contributor
Shawn Jonnet <shawn.jonnet@...> - Contributor
Michael Kohl <citizen428@g.o> - Contributor
Kurt Lieber <klieber@g.o> - Contributor
Rafael Cordones Marcos <rcm@...> - Contributor
David Narayan <david@...> - Contributor
Gerald J Normandin Jr. <gerrynjr@g.o> - Contributor
Ulrich Plate <plate@g.o> - Contributor
Mathy Vanvoorden <matje@...> - Dutch Translation
Hendrik Eeckhaut <Hendrik.Eeckhaut@...> - Dutch Translation
Jorn Eilander <sephiroth@...> - Dutch Translation
Bernard Kerckenaere <bernieke@...> - Dutch Translation
Peter ter Borg <peter@...> - Dutch Translation
Jochen Maes <linux@...> - Dutch Translation
Roderick Goessen <rgoessen@...> - Dutch Translation
Gerard van den Berg <gerard@...> - Dutch Translation
Matthieu Montaudouin <mat@...> - French Translation
Xavier Neys <neysx@g.o> - French Translation
Martin Prieto <riverdale@...> - French Translation
Antoine Raillon <cabec2@...> - French Translation
Sebastien Cevey <seb@...> - French Translation
Jean-Christophe Choisy <mabouya@...> - French Translation
Thomas Raschbacher <lordvan@g.o> - German Translation
Steffen Lassahn <madeagle@g.o> - German Translation
Matthias F. Brandstetter <haim@g.o> - German Translation
Lukas Domagala <Cyrik@g.o> - German Translation
Tobias Scherbaum <dertobi123@g.o> - German Translation
Daniel Gerholdt <Sputnik1969@g.o> - German Translation
Marc Herren <dj-submerge@g.o> - German Translation
Tobias Matzat <SirSeoman@g.o> - German Translation
Marco Mascherpa <mush@...> - Italian Translation
Claudio Merloni <paper@...> - Italian Translation
Christian Apolloni <bsolar@...> - Italian Translation
Stefano Lucidi <stefano.lucidi@...> - Italian Translation
Yoshiaki Hagihara <hagi@...> - Japanese Translation
Katsuyuki Konno <katuyuki@...> - Japanese Translation
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <carlos@g.o> - Japanese Translation
Yasunori Fukudome <yasunori@...> - Japanese Translation
Takashi Ota <088@...> - Japanese Translation
Radoslaw Janeczko <sototh@...> - Polish Translation
Lukasz Strzygowski <lucass.home@...> - Polish Translation
Michal Drobek <veng@...> - Polish Translation
Adam Lyjak <apo@...> - Polish Translation
Krzysztof Klimonda <cthulhu@...> - Polish Translation
Atila "Jedi" Bohlke Vasconcelos <bohlke@...> - Portuguese
(Brazil) Translation
Eduardo Belloti <dudu@...> - Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Jo??o Rafael Moraes Nicola <joaoraf@...> - Portuguese (Brazil)
Translation
Marcelo Gon??alves de Azambuja <mgazambuja@...> - Portuguese
(Brazil) Translation
Otavio Rodolfo Piske <angusy@...> - Portuguese (Brazil)
Translation
Pablo N. Hess -- NatuNobilis <natunobilis@...> - Portuguese
(Brazil) Translation
Pedro de Medeiros <pzilla@...> - Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Ventura Barbeiro <venturasbarbeiro@...> - Portuguese (Brazil)
Translation
Bruno Ferreira <blueroom@...> - Portuguese (Portugal)
Translation
Gustavo Felisberto <humpback@...> - Portuguese (Portugal)
Translation
Jos?? Costa <jose_costa@...> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Luis Medina <metalgodin@...> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Ricardo Loureiro <rjlouro@...> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Sergey Galkin <gals_home@...> - Russian Translator
Sergey Kuleshov <svyatogor@g.o> - Russian Translator
Alex Spirin <asp13@...> - Russian Translator
Dmitry Suzdalev <dimsuz@...> - Russian Translator
Anton Vorovatov <mazurous@...> - Russian Translator
Denis Zaletov <dzaletov@...> - Russian Translator
Lanark <lanark@...> - Spanish Translation
Fernando J. Pereda <ferdy@...> - Spanish Translation
Lluis Peinado Cifuentes <lpeinado@...> - Spanish Translation
Zephryn Xirdal T <ZEPHRYNXIRDAL@...> - Spanish Translation
Guillermo Juarez <katossi@...> - Spanish Translation
Jes??s Garc??a Crespo <correo@...> - Spanish Translation
Carlos Castillo <carlos@...> - Spanish Translation
Julio Castillo <julio@...> - Spanish Translation
Sergio G??mez <s3r@...> - Spanish Translation
Aycan Irican <aycan@...> - Turkish Translation
Bugra Cakir <bugra@...> - Turkish Translation
Cagil Seker <cagils@...> - Turkish Translation
Emre Kazdagli <emre@...> - Turkish Translation
Evrim Ulu <evrim@...> - Turkish Translation
Gursel Kaynak <gurcell@...> - Turkish Translation
|
