[gentoo-gwn] Gentoo Weekly Newsletter 31 July 2006

[Chris Gianelloni]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of 31 July 2006.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
==============
1. Gentoo news
==============
  
Catalyst 2.0 released
---------------------
  
The Gentoo Release Engineering[1] project is pleased to announce that 
catalyst 2.0 has been released. The new catalyst version is a complete 
re-write from the aging 1.x code base, and includes several new
features 
and updates, including: 

 1. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/releng/index.xml
 
 * autoresume - attempts to resume a failed build 
 * kerncache - caches the build of the kernels to speed up
livecd-stage2 
 * seedcache - use the build output of a previous target if it exists
to 
speed up the copy 
 * snapcache - cache the snapshot so that it can be bind-mounted into
the 
chroot 
 * DIGESTS - creates digests in any format supported by shash 
 
This version is currently masked in portage under package.mask and will
be 
unmasked this week for ~arch users. Users of the 2.0_pre series of 
catalyst builds will need to perform some steps to ensure a clean
upgrade, 
especially if you wish to keep your package caches. 
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 1.1:
|
|Renaming catalyst directories
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|(Rename the cache directory)
|
|# mv -i /var/tmp/catalyst2 /var/tmp/catalyst
|
|(Rename the configuration directory)
|
|# mv -i /etc/catalyst2 /etc/catalyst
|
|# cd /etc/catalyst
|
|# sed -i -e 's/catalyst2/catalyst/' *.conf
|
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
The online documentation is being written for catalyst 2.0 and will be
in 
place before 2.0 is marked stable. For now, the example spec templates 
installed to /usr/share/doc/catalyst-2.0/examples are the best 
documentation. 
    
Third anniversary of Gentoo's Bugday
------------------------------------
  
Saturday 5th August is the third anniversary of the Gentoo/Bugday
project. 
This marks a major milestone, and it will be celebrated appropriately
with 
contests and prizes! 
 
Bugday first started out life as GLEP 6[2]. From the very beginning the 
bugday project had the potential to be a big influence on Gentoo. It
has 
certainly proved its worth in its first 3 years. Lots of new developers 
have been recruited directly from their Bugday involvement as users,
and 
others have had their first ebuild experiences from past Bugdays and
have 
since joined Gentoo projects unrelated to Bugday. 

 2. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0006.html
 
Besides being a powerful recruitment tool, users and developers have 
cooperated on fixing an astonishing number of bugs on Bugdays. Bugday
is 
one of the important cornerstones of the Gentoo community. Certainly, 
Bugday has helped bridge the often talked about gap between users and 
developers and the Bugday IRC channel has long since turned into a
channel 
where ebuild issues and fixes are discussed daily. 
 
To celebrate the third anniversary, they will have a number of 
contests. Users will battle each other for most solved bugs, most
Gentoo 
knowledge, etc. 
 
They are still working on finalizing contests and prizes, but all
details 
should be announced on the Bugday site[3] later this week. 

 3. http://bugday.gentoo.org
 
Good luck to everybody. The Bugday project hopes that this will be the 
best Bugday yet. A big thank you to everybody who has participated in
the 
last three years -- you've truly helped make Bugday the big success it
is 
today. 
    
Gentoo/Java staffing needs
--------------------------
  
As has been the case for some time, the Java team is still atrociously 
understaffed. Below, they'll outline a few 'positions' that they would 
like see filled. The term 'filled' is used really loosely, and it is
meant 
more as in the sense of 'these are things we would like people to be 
working on'. If current developers are interested, that would be great, 
but they are also willing to mentor some fresh blood for the team. 
 
 * Java generalists 
 
The Gentoo/Java team has tons of Java packages. At last count, it was 
around 400 or so packages. As one can imagine, this kind of number 
generates a pretty constant stream of bug reports and version bump 
requests. 
 
So, basically, the Java team is looking for some people to help out
with 
general maintenance of their packages. They would expect them to be 
familiar with Gentoo and Java (surprise!). If they are not already,
they 
will need to become familiar with the ins and outs of how Java is
handled 
on Gentoo. Familiarity with ant, which is used for a large majority of 
their packages, would also be very useful. 
 
 * JBoss maintainer 
 
JBoss is a pretty important app in the enterprise world of Java. It has 
been pretty unmaintained for some time now, and could use some love. 
Because of the nature of this beast, the Java team would want someone
that 
uses JBoss on a daily basis, preferably in an enterprise setting, to be 
the type of person to maintain this. 
 
 * Jetty maintainer 
 
Jetty is a web container, like tomcat and resin. It also has been
pretty 
unmaintained in recent times. Preferably, the person who picks this
fella 
up uses jetty on a daily basis in an enterprise type setting. 
 
 * Free Java Hackers 
 
One of illustrious users has been working on working away at getting
GCJ 
usable as a JDK, in the sense that it can be used to build our
packages. 
The Java team does have a handful of other free Java VMs in portage,
like 
kaffe, sablevm, jamvm, etc. If people were interested, it would be
great 
if they could get their packages building using these other VMs. 
 
 * Eclipse / Netbeans maintainers 
 
Eclipse and Netbeans are the primary IDEs for Java. Eclipse is well
kept 
for the moment, but the plugins haven't been. Netbeans needs a bit of
love 
though, as it hasn't been updated in awhile. 
 
So, if one or more of these sounds interesting and like something you'd 
want to do? For starters, you should take a gander over at the project 
page[4], and check out various documentation they have. If you are
still 
interested, then contact Josh Nichols[5]. 

 4. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java
 5. nichoj@g.o
 
Other things you can do: 
 
 * Join the mailing list, gentoo-java. It is pretty low-traffic. 
 * Lurk in the IRC channel, #gentoo-java on irc.freenode.net. It is
also 
fairly low-traffic, so don't expect immediate responses. 
    
Czech translation of Gentoo documentation finally official
----------------------------------------------------------
  
After more than one year of hard work, the Czech translation team is
proud to 
announce that they have finally made the Czech translation[6] official. 
That means that interested Czech-speaking users can read the
documentation 
in their native language[7]. 

 6. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/cs/
 7. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/cs/
 
Everyone who can write Czech and understand written English (yeah,
that's 
you if you read this :) ) is more than welcome to help with our
efforts. 
All the applicants who want a shiny @gentoo.org e-mail address and
aren't 
afraid of endless months of tedious work are requested to hang on at 
#gentoo-doc on freenode or just drop a mail to Jan Kundrát[8]. 

 8. jkt@g.o
    
========================
2. Developer of the week
========================
  
Joshua Kinard
-------------
  
Figure 2.1: Joshua Kinard, aka kumba
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20060731_kumba.jpg
 
Developer Joshua Kinard, known as Kumba, resides in Waldorf, MD, a
short 
drive outside Washington, D.C. He lives with his parents and has
several 
pets, including a family dog, two cats, Isis and Leto, and oddly enough,
a 
mouse. The cats obviously love the mouse. The mouse must not mind
either 
as Kumba said his family has tried to release the mouse but he just
won't 
leave. At 24, Joshua can still vividly recall some of the places he and 
his family have been stationed throughout his father's Air Force
career. 
Perhaps most memorable were the few years they lived in Spain, on a 
military base outside of Madrid. 
 
Kumba's interests include some rather uncommon music tastes, such as 
Irish/Celtic tunes (especially good bagpipes), Gregorian chants, and
some 
sub-genre's of metal like therion and blind guardian. He also moderates 
about 13 IRC channels, mostly Gentoo, and still finds the time to fit in
a 
game of Diablo 2 now and then. 
 
Joshua currently works as a System Administrator for a non-profit 
organization near Washington, D.C. The environment ranges among
Netware, 
HP-UX, Linux, and even Windows. As for the future, he admits that he's
not 
the biggest fan of the corporate world and has considered pursuing grad 
school or even a career change. 
 
As for Kumba's start with Gentoo, he claims a rather simple beginning. 
While using various flavors of Linux, he looked for something that he 
could use on his recently acquired 64-bit SPARC, and that search
quickly 
led to Gentoo. He has been a Gentoo developer since 2004 and currently
is 
the team lead for the MIPS team, though he also enjoys helping with 
baselayout, toolchain, and SPARC teams. 
 
The rumors are true, Kumba's home Workstation, a Dual Pentium III, is 
indeed running Windows Server 2003 and boasts a hot-swappable RAID5
SCSI 
array. The first application any IRC moderator launches is obviously
mIRC 
and Kumba follows that with AIM/DeadAIM, Winamp, and Firefox. He's also 
know to track unusual weather events using Stormlab and to dabble
inside 
of NASA's WorldWind application. Kumba's other home machines include a 
dual Athlon MP 2000, acting as a web server, an old SPARC machine, used 
for testing, and several SGI boxes: an Octane used for development, two 
O2's, one for package testing and one for kernel testing, and an IP28.
He 
even has an old SGI Indy, from the early 90's, which he still uses to
do 
kernel testing!
    
=========================
3. Heard in the community
=========================
    
planet.gentoo.org
-----------------
  
#gentoo-db
 
Another IRC channel has just opened its (virtual) doors. #gentoo-db is 
intended to provide a platform for discussions and development around 
database support within Gentoo. Currently MySQL and PostgreSQL people
hang 
out there, developers maintaining other database-related packages for 
Gentoo and users are encouraged to join the channel. 
 
 * #gentoo-db[9] 
 9. http://chtekk.longitekk.com/?p=25

 
State of Gentoo in 5 minutes
 
Donnie Berkholz[10] held a lightning talk about Gentoo's current state
at 
this year's OSCON[11] covering Portage 2.1, the upcoming 2006.1 release 
(including a new Installer version) and support for multiple overlays.
His 
talk is also mentioned in a recent NewsForge[12] article. 

 10. dberkholz@g.o
 11. http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2006/
 12. http://business.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/07/27/161239
 
 * State of Gentoo in 5 minutes[13] 
 13. http://spyderous.livejournal.com/77772.html

 
Wanted: PowerPC Release Testers
 
The call for Release Testers[14] about a month ago wasn't that
successful 
for Gentoo's PowerPC team. Only less then a handful of people with 
supported machines responded. Lars Weiler[15] now started another call
for 
Release Testers - if you can help out (he listed a list of supported 
machines in his blog entry) please contact Roger Miliker[16]. 

 14. 
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20060626-newsletter.xml#doc_chap1_sect1
 15. pylon@g.o
 16. roger55@g.o
 
 *  Wanted: PowerPC Release Testers[17] 
 17. 
http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/pylon/2006/07/27/wanted_powerpc_release_testers

    
=========================
4. Gentoo developer moves
=========================
  
Moves
-----
  
The following developers recently left the Gentoo project: 
 
 * Henrik Brix Andersen (brix) 
 * Michael Kohl (citizen428) 
    
Adds
----
  
The following developers recently joined the Gentoo project: 
 
 * Wolf Giesen (frilled) Security 
    
Changes
-------
  
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo
project: 
 
 * none this week 
    
==================
5. Gentoo security
==================
   
Wireshark: Multiple vulnerabilities
-----------------------------------
  
Wireshark (formerly known as Ethereal) is vulnerable to several
security 
issues, potentially allowing the execution of arbitrary code by a
remote 
attacker. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[18] 

 18. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200607-09.xml
    
Samba: Denial of Service vulnerability
--------------------------------------
  
A large number of share connection requests could cause a Denial of 
Service within Samba. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[19] 

 19. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200607-10.xml
    
TunePimp: Buffer overflow
-------------------------
  
A vulnerability in TunePimp has been reported which could lead to the 
execution of arbitrary code. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[20] 

 20. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200607-11.xml
    
OpenOffice.org: Multiple vulnerabilities
----------------------------------------
  
OpenOffice.org is affected by three security vulnerabilities which can
be 
exploited to allow the execution of arbitrary code by a remote
attacker. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[21] 

 21. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200607-12.xml
    
Audacious: Multiple heap and buffer overflows
---------------------------------------------
  
The adplug library included in Audacious is vulnerable to various 
overflows that could result in the execution of arbitrary code. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[22] 

 22. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200607-13.xml
    
===========
6. 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 23 July 2006 and 30 July 2006, activity on
the 
site has resulted in: 

 23. http://bugs.gentoo.org
 
 * 679 new bugs during this period 
 * 289 bugs closed or resolved during this period 
 * 19 previously closed bugs were reopened this period 
 
Of the 10687 currently open bugs: 52 are labeled 'blocker', 134 are 
labeled 'critical', and 533 are labeled 'major'. 
    
Closed bug rankings
-------------------
  
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this
period 
are: 
 
 * Gentoo Games[24], with 22 closed bugs[25]  
 * Java team[26], with 19 closed bugs[27]  
 * Portage team[28], with 15 closed bugs[29]  
 * Default Assignee for Orphaned Packages[30], with 14 closed bugs[31]  
 * Gentoo KDE team[32], with 10 closed bugs[33]  
 * Gentoo Security[34], with 8 closed bugs[35]  
 * Python Gentoo Team[36], with 6 closed bugs[37]  
 * Xavier Neys[38], with 6 closed bugs[39]  
 24. games@g.o
 25. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=games@g.o
26. java@g.o
 27. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=java@g.o
 28. dev-portage@g.o
 29. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=dev-portage@g.o
 30. maintainer-needed@g.o
 31. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=maintainer-needed@g.o
 32. kde@g.o
 33. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=kde@g.o
 34. security@g.o
 35. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=security@g.o
 36. python@g.o
 37. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=python@g.o
 38. neysx@g.o
 39. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=neysx@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[40], with 33 new bugs[41]  
 * Gentoo Sound Team[42], with 9 new bugs[43]  
 * AMD64 Project[44], with 9 new bugs[45]  
 * Gentoo Kernel Bug Wranglers and Kernel Maintainers[46], with 8 new 
bugs[47]  
 * media-video herd[48], with 7 new bugs[49]  
 * Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team[50], with 7 new bugs[51]  
 * Netmon Herd[52], with 6 new bugs[53]  
 * Gentoo Games[54], with 6 new bugs[55]  
 40. maintainer-wanted@g.o
 41. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&assigned_to=maintainer-wanted@g.o
 42. sound@g.o
 43. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&assigned_to=sound@g.o
 44. amd64@g.o
 45. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&assigned_to=amd64@g.o
 46. kernel@g.o
 47. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&assigned_to=kernel@g.o
 48. media-video@g.o
 49. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&assigned_to=media-video@g.o
 50. gnome@g.o
 51. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&assigned_to=gnome@g.o
 52. netmon@g.o
 53. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&assigned_to=netmon@g.o
 54. games@g.o
 55. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-23&chfieldto=2006-07-30&assigned_to=games@g.o

    
===============
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===============
   
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 56. gwn-feedback@g.o
    
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==================
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==================
   
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Ulrich Plate <plate@g.o> - Editor
Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@g.o> - Author
Tobias Scherbaum <dertobi123@g.o> - Author
Jan Kundrát <jkt@g.o> - Author
Bryan Østergaard <kloeri@g.o> - Author
Josh Nichols <nichoj@g.o> - Author
Chrissy Fullam <musikc@×××××××.com> - Author



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