[gentoo-gwn] Gentoo Weekly Newsletter -- Volume 2, Issue 41

[Yuji Carlos Kosugi]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of October 13th, 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
==============
1. Gentoo News
==============
  
Summary
-------
  
 * GNOME 2.4 marked stable on x86 
    
GNOME 2.4 marked stable on x86
------------------------------
  
GNOME 2.4 has now been marked stable on x86, thanks to the efforts of the 
Gentoo GNOME team. This new release of GNOME doesn't hold very many new 
features, but much has been improved under the hood, and a few subtle 
additions have been made to the interface. These include a unified panel, 
a screen resolution control under Desktop Preferences which provides an 
interface to XRandR, the inclusion of Nautilus-cd-burner, and better 
integration with media by utilizing the gstreamer and gst-plugins. 
 
New GNOME users will have no problem installing this release by executing 
emerge gnome, but those upgrading from 2.2 should keep a few things in 
mind in order to make the transition smooth. First of all, 
bonobo-activation has been merged into libbonobo in versions after 2.4.0, 
so bonobo-activation will block the upgrade. The best method to deal with 
this problem is to emerge -u gnome until the blocking bonobo-activation is 
hit, then emerge -C bonobo-activation and then emerge -u gnome again to 
resume the upgrade. This will ensure that the bonobo-activation libraries 
remain on the system right until they are removed and then immediately 
replaced, reducing the chance of compilation problems due to missing 
libraries. Users may encounter the same problem with gnome-utils and 
gucharmap as well; the solution then is emerge -u gnome-utils at the 
blocking point before gucharmap is emerged. Another issue is the inclusion 
of the Epiphany browser in the default GNOME distribution. We provide this 
as part of the default GNOME installation as part of our effort to follow 
GNOME's packaging procedures. While Epiphany is GTK2-based and has a 
lightweight frontend, it's Mozilla-based, adding a hefty weight to the 
installation if you don't have Mozilla already. Users who use a different 
browsers and do not want to install Epiphany should run emerge inject 
net-www/epiphany-1.0 so that it will be included as installed and will not 
interfere with the upgrade. 
    
==================
2. Gentoo Security
==================
  
Summary
-------
  
 * GLSA: cfengine 
    
GLSA: cfengine
--------------
  
From the bugtraq posting:
 
There is an exploitable stack overflow in the network I/O code used in the 
cfservd daemon in Cfengine 2.x prior to version 2.0.8. Arbitrary code 
execution has been demonstrated on x86 FreeBSD and is believed to be 
possible on all platforms.
 
Cfengine 1 is not vulnerable, but downgrading is not recommended as 
version 1 is nolonger supported by the author."
 
 * Severity: High - stack overflow in cfengine network code 
 * Packages Affected: <2.0.8, 2.1.0a6-a9 
 * Rectification: emerge sync; emerge cfengine; emerge clean 
 * GLSA Announcement[1] 
 1. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-announce&m=106537022109682&w=2

New Security Bug Reports
------------------------
  
The following new security bugs were posted in the past week: 
 
 * JBoss 3.2.1 and 3.0.8 vulnerabilty[2] 
 2. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30554

    
=================================
3. Featured Developer of the Week
=================================
  
Donnie Berkholz
 
Figure 3.1: Donnie Berkholz
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20031013_spyderous.jpg
 
Our featured developer for this issue is Donnie Berkholz[3] (spyderous), 
who is the XFree herd maintainer and co-lead (along with Michael Imhof[4]) 
of the Gentoo Cluster Project[5]. He also performs the usual developer 
tasks of maintaining ebuilds for several packages in the tree, especially 
in the app-sci category. He describes his main duties as "keeping XFree 
working" and up-to-date as well as making the "Gentoo Cluster Project 
larger and more visible". 

 3. spyderous@g.o
 4. tantive@g.o
 5. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/cluster/
 
Donnie is a senior at the University of Richmond, Virginia, USA. He is a 
dual-major in biochemistry and chemistry, with a minor in journalism. He 
is originally from Plymouth, Minnesota. He works as an editor for the 
student newspaper at the University, and enjoys Ultimate Frisbee and 
fencing. He has been working at learning the guitar for the last six 
months, and is a member of a choir. He prefers nano as an editor and 
numbers Scribus, MPlayer, gAIM, XChat-2, xmms and VMWare among his 
favorite applications. 
 
Donnie does much of his development work on an Athlon 2000+ MP 
workstation, nicely modded with a clear side panel, green cold cathode 
light and round bundle cables. He also has a Pentium 4 (2.4 GHz) laptop 
for traveling. A former fluxbox user (he liked the tabs), Donnie has 
recently moved to Gnome 2.4. When his computer boots, it automatically 
brings up four tabs of gnome-terminal and two instances of gkrellm2. He 
prefers evolution for his mail client. 
 
Donnie first started using Linux three years ago, with Red Hat. He heard 
about Gentoo last spring, and started using it almost immediately. Once he 
had joined the community, he became aware of a need for more information 
about direct rendering and took up the task of creating some documentation 
about it. This got him noticed and invited to join the development team. 
He is particularly pleased with the progress he and Seemant Kulleen[6] 
have made in splitting up the XFree build, and is most proud of the 
Hardware 3D Acceleration Guide[7] he wrote over the summer. He directed us 
to games-misc/fortune-mod-gentoo-dev as a source of favorite quotes. He 
conclude our conversation with the statement that: "Gentoo's given me 
opportunities I never suspected I would have had". 

 6. seemant@g.o
 7. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/dri-howto.xml
   
=========================
4. Heard in the Community
=========================
  
Web Forums
----------
  
PPC Worries on their Way Out
 
Dialogues with the devs have always been more frequent in the PPC section 
of the Forums than elsewhere. Small wonder that pvdabeel, Gentoo lead 
developer for the PowerPC architecture, chose a couple of threads in the 
PPC forum to announce LiveCD updates that'll quite possibly fix a few of 
the problems that have been discussed in those same threads:
 
 * Update to Mac OS 10.2.8[8] 
 * Powerbook shuts down after pmac_init/openpic[9] 
 8. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=88188
 9. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=94439
    
gentoo-user
-----------
  
Gentoo Killed My PC? 
 
Most users of Gentoo know that it's demanding on system hardware. One of 
the most stressful jobs a CPU can do is compile source code, and Gentoo 
does have loads of it (unless you're a GRP user!). Because of this, many 
people with hardware problems do not become aware of them until Gentoo 
gets installed. Once such user on the community mailing list discovered 
that Power Supplies can have a lot to do with system performance, and  
many users [10] pitched in with helpful (and some life-saving) ideas. 

 10. 
http://news.gmane.org/onethread.php?group=gmane.linux.gentoo.user&root=%3C2
00310090100.53561.mathieu%40depardo.ch%3E
    
gentoo-dev
----------
  
Three Tiers for Portage!
 
Ian Leitch (re)raised this[11] interesting idea about having three tiers 
for portage. Stable, unstable and testing were one of the proposals, among 
other discussions about the existing system. 

 11. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/12810/
    
=======================
5. Gentoo International
=======================
  
Germany: Pictures from the Practical Linux Day in Gie??en
 
A few hundred visitors had found their way to the show at the 
Fachhochschule, some of them to get a good look at the open source 
projects in the exhibition area, others in order to attend some of the 
lectures and workshops in the meeting rooms around the house. The 
obligatory Gentoo lecture was held by Benjamin Judas (beejay) before an 
audience of several dozen interested people, while Cybersystem, Tantive, 
Pyrania and stkn were the devs on duty at the Gentoo booth downstairs. 
Here are two shots as a short impression from last Saturday's event, more 
(and bigger) pictures are at pyrania's pages[12].

 12. http://dev.gentoo.org/~pyrania/PLD/
   
================
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[13]) 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: 

 13. 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[14], with 30 closed bugs[15]  
 * Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team[16], with 19 closed bugs[17]  
 * Perl Devs[18], with 17 closed bugs[19]  
 * Gentoo Games[20], with 16 closed bugs[21]  
 * Media-Video Herd[22], with 12 closed bugs[23]  
 14. lanius@g.o
 15. 
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
 16. gnome@g.o
 17. 
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
 18. perl@g.o
 19. 
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
 20. games@g.o
 21. 
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
 22. media-video@g.o
 23. 
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[24], with 14 new bugs[25]  
 * Net-Mail Packages[26], with 12 new bugs[27]  
 * Martin Schlemmer[28], with 12 new bugs[29]  
 * Portage team[30], with 10 new bugs[31]  
 24. media-video@g.o
 25. 
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
 26. net-mail@g.o
 27. 
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
 28. azarah@g.o
 29. 
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
 30. dev-portage@g.o
 31. 
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
==================
  
Introducing the -- flag
 
This week's tip introduces the -- flag. This flag is supported by many 
utilities but isn't always documented in the man pages. However, it can be 
very useful, especially when dealing with malformed filenames. 
 
Note:  Most programs that make use of --option also support the -- flag 
since it is a standard feature of GNU getopt(). 
 
The -- flag forces everything passed in after it to be an argument to the 
command. This can be extremely useful when dealing with filenames that 
start with a - which would normally indicate an option or flag passed to 
the command. 
 
For example, assume that for some reason, there is a file named -file that 
needs to be deleted. Normally you would use the command rm to delete a 
file, but this doesn't work since the file in question starts with a -. 
But by using the -- flag, we force rm to recognize -file as an argument 
and not an option. 
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 8.1:                                                       |
|Using the -- flag                                                        |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                         |
|Attempting to use rm results in an error as rm tries to                  |
|process all of the letters as options (f,i,l,e). It fails                |
|on 'l' since that isn't a valid option for rm.                           |
|% ls                                                                     |
|-file                                                                    |
|                                                                         |
|% rm -file                                                               |
|rm: invalid option -- l                                                  |
|Try `rm --help' for more information                                     |
|                                                                         |
|% rm -- -file                                                            |
|% ls                                                                     |
|                                                                         |
|-file was successfully removed                                           |
|                                                                         |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Note:  For more technical information, see man 3 getopt. 
   
==========================
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:
 
 * none this week 
    
Changes
-------
  
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo Linux 
project.
 
 * none this week 
    
=====================
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=====================
  
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 32. gwn-feedback@g.o
   
================
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================
  
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 33. gwn-feedback@g.o
   
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===================
  
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Yuji Carlos Kosugi <carlos@g.o> - Editor
AJ Armstrong <aja@×××××××××××××.com> - Contributor
Brian Downey <bdowney@×××××××××××.net> - Contributor
Cal Evans <cal@××××××××.com> - Contributor
Chris Gavin <gubbs@××××.org> - Contributor
Luke Giuliani <cold_flame@×××××.com> - Contributor
Shawn Jonnet <shawn.jonnet@×××××××.net> - Contributor
Michael Kohl <citizen428@g.o> - Contributor
Kurt Lieber <klieber@g.o> - Contributor
Rafael Cordones Marcos <rcm@×××××××.net> - Contributor
David Narayan <david@×××××××.net> - Contributor
Gerald J Normandin Jr. <gerrynjr@g.o> - Contributor
Ulrich Plate <plate@g.o> - Contributor
Mathy Vanvoorden <matje@×××××××.be> - Dutch Translation
Hendrik Eeckhaut <Hendrik.Eeckhaut@×××××.be> - Dutch Translation
Jorn Eilander <sephiroth@××××××××.nl> - Dutch Translation
Bernard Kerckenaere <bernieke@××××××××.com> - Dutch Translation
Peter ter Borg <peter@××××××.nl> - Dutch Translation
Jochen Maes <linux@××××.be> - Dutch Translation
Roderick Goessen <rgoessen@××××.nl> - Dutch Translation
Gerard van den Berg <gerard@××××××.net> - Dutch Translation
Matthieu Montaudouin <mat@××××××××.com> - French Translation
Martin Prieto <riverdale@×××××××××.org> - French Translation
Antoine Raillon <cabec2@××××××.net> - French Translation
Sebastien Cevey <seb@×××××.net> - French Translation
Jean-Christophe Choisy <mabouya@××××××××××××.org> - 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@××××××.net> - Italian Translation
Claudio Merloni <paper@×××××××.it> - Italian Translation
Christian Apolloni <bsolar@×××××××.ch> - Italian Translation
Stefano Lucidi <stefano.lucidi@×××××××××××××.org> - Italian Translation
Yoshiaki Hagihara <hagi@×××.com> - Japanese Translation
Katsuyuki Konno <katuyuki@××××××××.jp> - Japanese Translation
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <carlos@g.o> - Japanese Translation
Yasunori Fukudome <yasunori@××××××××××××××××.uk> - Japanese Translation
Takashi Ota <088@××××××××××.jp> - Japanese Translation
Radoslaw Janeczko <sototh@×××.pl> - Polish Translation
Lukasz Strzygowski <lucass.home@××.pl> - Polish Translation
Michal Drobek <veng@××.pl> - Polish Translation
Adam Lyjak <apo@××××××××××××××××××××.pl> - Polish Translation
Krzysztof Klimonda <cthulhu@×××××××××.net> - Polish Translation
Atila "Jedi" Bohlke Vasconcelos <bohlke@×××××××××.br> - Portuguese 
(Brazil) Translation
Eduardo Belloti <dudu@××××××××.net> - Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Jo??o Rafael Moraes Nicola <joaoraf@×××××××××.br> - Portuguese (Brazil) 
Translation
Marcelo Gon??alves de Azambuja <mgazambuja@×××××××××.br> - Portuguese 
(Brazil) Translation
Otavio Rodolfo Piske <angusy@××××××××.org> - Portuguese (Brazil) 
Translation
Pablo N. Hess -- NatuNobilis <natunobilis@××××××××.org> - Portuguese 
(Brazil) Translation
Pedro de Medeiros <pzilla@××××××××.br> - Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Ventura Barbeiro <venturasbarbeiro@××××××.br> - Portuguese (Brazil) 
Translation
Bruno Ferreira <blueroom@××××××××××××.net> - Portuguese (Portugal) 
Translation
Gustavo Felisberto <humpback@××××××××××.net> - Portuguese (Portugal) 
Translation
Jos?? Costa <jose_costa@×××××××.pt> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Luis Medina <metalgodin@×××××××××.org> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Ricardo Loureiro <rjlouro@×××××××.org> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Sergey Galkin <gals_home@××××.ru> - Russian Translator
Sergey Kuleshov <svyatogor@g.o> - Russian Translator
Alex Spirin <asp13@××××.ru> - Russian Translator
Dmitry Suzdalev <dimsuz@××××.ru> - Russian Translator
Anton Vorovatov <mazurous@××××.ru> - Russian Translator
Denis Zaletov <dzaletov@×××××××.ru> - Russian Translator
Lanark <lanark@××××××××××.ar> - Spanish Translation
Fernando J. Pereda <ferdy@××××××.org> - Spanish Translation
Lluis Peinado Cifuentes <lpeinado@×××.edu> - Spanish Translation
Zephryn Xirdal T <ZEPHRYNXIRDAL@××××××××××.net> - Spanish Translation
Guillermo Juarez <katossi@××××××××××××××××.es> - Spanish Translation
Jes??s Garc??a Crespo <correo@××××××.com> - Spanish Translation
Carlos Castillo <carlos@×××××××××××××.com> - Spanish Translation
Julio Castillo <julio@×××××××××××××.com> - Spanish Translation
Sergio G??mez <s3r@××××××××××××.ar> - Spanish Translation
Aycan Irican <aycan@××××××××.tr> - Turkish Translation
Bugra Cakir <bugra@×××××××××.com> - Turkish Translation
Cagil Seker <cagils@××××××××××.tr> - Turkish Translation
Emre Kazdagli <emre@××××××××.tr> - Turkish Translation
Evrim Ulu <evrim@××××××××.tr> - Turkish Translation
Gursel Kaynak <gurcell@××××××××.tr> - Turkish Translation