announce November 2007

announce@lists.stg.fedoraproject.org

10 participants
16 discussions

ATrpms for Fedora 8; EOL for Fedora Core 6
by Axel Thimm 08 Nov '07

08 Nov '07

ATrpms is officially launching Fedora 8 support for i386, x86_64 and ppc. http://ATrpms.net/dist/f8/ o The actual download location is http://dl.atrpms.net/. Mirrors are listed at http://atrpms.net/mirrors/ o "stable", "testing" and "bleeding", the three subrepos per distribution are not cumulative inclusive on the server side. E.g. you need to add "stable" for "testing", and both "stable" and "testing" for "bleeding". ATrpms is a 3rd party general purpose package repository. It currently supports o F8/i386, F8/x86_64, F8/ppc, F7/i386, F7/x86_64, F7/ppc, FC6/i386, FC6/x86_64, FC6/ppc o RHEL5/i386, RHEL5/x86_64, RHEL4/i386, RHEL4/x86_64, RHEL3/i386, RHEL3/x86_64 FC6 support will be EOL'd once the Fedora Project drops support for it (e.g. on December 7, 2007). Configuration for package resolvers (replace i386 with x86_64 or ppc as needed) o yum [atrpms] name=Fedora 8 - i386 - ATrpms baseurl=http://dl.atrpms.net/f8-i386/atrpms/stable o smart [atrpms] name=Fedora 8 - i386 - ATrpms baseurl=http://dl.atrpms.net/f8-i386/atrpms/stable type=rpm-md o apt repomd http://dl.atrpms.net f8-i386/atrpms/stable you can provide feedback or request support on the ATrpms lists (http://lists.atrpms.net/) or the common bug tracker (http://bugzilla.atrpms.net/) Enjoy! -- Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net

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rpm.livna.org repositories for Fedora 8 (Werewolf) now available
by Thorsten Leemhuis 08 Nov '07

08 Nov '07

On behalf of the Livna ( http://rpm.livna.org ) contributers I'd like to announce the availability of the Livna package repository for Fedora 8 (Werewolf). The Livna repository hosts software as RPM packages which cannot be shipped in the official Fedora repository for various reasons and supports the i386, x86_64 and ppc architectures. Using the Livna repository gives your Werewolf the ability to play all kinds of audio such as MP3 files and plays DVDs. Additionally Livna offers the ATI and Nvidia closed-source drivers in a Fedora-compatible rpm package for the Fedora users whose videocards are not yet fully supported with the stock open source drivers. You can browse the repository at http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/8/ To make it available on a freshly installed Fedora 8 system run the following command: {{{ $ su -c 'rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm' }}} Further below you'll find some more examples on getting the important bits for a modern system installed from livna. On another note, I have some sad news: Fedora 8 will be the last release livna will be offering its add-on packages for. But don't despair, the future is bright: The Livna contributers are busy working together with the guys behind dribble and freshrpms to offer a unified repository in the future bringing you games, multimedia software and other tools from a single source. This merged repository is called "RPM Fusion"; you can find more information about it at http://rpmfusion.org/ Interested? Want to help? Then don't hesitate and subscribe to the developers mailing lists at http://lists.rpmfusion.org/mailman/listinfo/rpmfusion-developers or meet us in the #rpmfusion channel on freenode. That's all folks. Thank you for your attention and we wish you a very pleasant flight with the newly released Fedora 8 together with the Livna repositories. Bye! Thorsten Leemhuis == More details == Ladies and gentleman, the pilot has informed me that we've reached our travel altitude. You can now loosen your seatbelt's and our flight attendants will be with you shortly for refreshments. Still aboard and reading? Great, here are some more informations for the curious: === Reminder for the folks that plan to yum-update to Fedora 8 === If you have livna-packages installed on your system and plan to live-update to Fedora 8 using yum then please leave the livna-repos enabled for the big "yum update" run. Then you'll get all the updated packages from livna as well, which is important, as their dependencies get fulfilled by the Fedora 8 packages -- that's not the case for the old Livna packages that might still be installed on your Fedora system. === Examples to get the most important bits from livna === Once you installed the release-rpm you can install software using the graphical software installation tool called pirut, which is part of Fedora. You as root-users can also use yum on a command line to install packages; for example: * if you'd like to install xine as a video-player run {{{ # yum install xine-lib-extras-nonfree xine }}} * if you prefer mplayer run {{{ # yum install mplayer-gui }}} * if you prefer vlc run {{{ # yum install vlc }}} * if you want to get the latest nvidia graphic drivers for modern cards and the stock Fedora kernel run {{{ # yum install kmod-nvidia }}} and restart X. * if you want to get the latest amd graphic drivers for the stock Fedora kernel run {{{ # yum install kmod-fglrx }}} and restart X. * you want to get MP3-Support in Gnome apps? run {{{ # yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly }}} * you're using KDE? Well, then run: {{{ # yum install k3b-extras-nonfree kdemultimedia-extras-nonfree }}} === Problems? === Let us know via http://bugzilla.livna.org/ === Need support? === Many people in #fedora on freenode, on fedora-list(a)redhat.com and in the forums know how to help. === Developer contact === Meet us in #livna on freenode or join the mailing list at http://livna.org/mailman/listinfo/freeworld === EOF === End of file

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Fedora 8
by Max Spevack 07 Nov '07

07 Nov '07

On Thursday November 8th (about 3:00 PM GMT), Fedora 8 will go live to the world, and you will be able to download it at http://fedoraproject.org. The bits are all finalized, the mirrors are synced, and the torrents are primed. But until we flip the switch, you will have to tide yourself over with this -- my personal Fedora 8 release announcement. Fortunately, it's pretty long, so if you read it all, Fedora 8 might be released by the time you have finished! ---- Fedora Core 1 was released on November 6, 2003. That is almost exactly 4 years ago to the date. There are a lot of people reading this who were users, developers, or both of Fedora Core 1. I wasn't even a part of the Fedora community back then -- I remember reading about it on Slashdot and thinking "Red Hat would be a fun place to work some day". I have been part of the Fedora Project for a little less than 2 years, but I know enough of the people who have been there since day 1 to recognize the tremendous strides that have been taken between version 1 and version 8 of this distribution. Our community has grown, both the folks within Red Hat who are lucky enough to spend their days working on Fedora and the folks in our volunteer community who give so generously of their time and talents. We have seen Fedora Extras go from an idea to a reality to such a tremendous success that it led to the complete restructuring of Fedora's development processes. We have seen the emergence of infrastructure and translation teams that are world-class in their abilities and achievements. We have seen many of the brightest software engineers anywhere, some as Red Hat employees and some as volunteers, continue to produce innovative work with an "upstream first" mentality that benefits not just Red Hat and Fedora but the entire free software community. The Fedora Project on the whole -- not just the Linux distribution that it produces -- today is consistent, reliable, and moving in the right direction. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to be a part of that. ---- One of the goals that we specifically chose for Fedora 8 was to use it as the release that gets us back on track in terms of predictability. We picked two dates -- Halloween and May Day -- that are 6 months apart, and for the foreseeable future it is Fedora's goal to release as close to those two dates as possible. Fedora 7 was released on May 31st. Fedora 8 arrives on November 8th. In the software world, getting within one week of a date that was picked six months earlier is considered successful, and I think that everyone in our development and contributor community should be proud of the fact that we put together a quality release that includes lots of new features in exactly 23 weeks. ---- Fedora's development priorities tend to come in cycles. If you think back to the Fedora Core 6 release cycle, you will remember that a significant portion of the engineering goals for that release were driven by the knowledge that Fedora Core 6 would be the upstream for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. Everyone knew going in that Fedora Core 6 would be more "corporate" than "community". And that was ok, because we also knew that once Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 was released, the Fedora Project would be able to spend its next several releases focused on its community-related priorities. Fedora 9 will probably start to see the pendulum swing back in the other direction, as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 starts to materialize on the horizon. Fedora 7 and Fedora 8 need to be thought of together in that context -- the community's goals and priorities being paramount. The overarching goal for both of these releases has been in the realm of custom spins. We debuted this model in Fedora 7 with pungi, livecd-creator, and revisor. Fedora 8 has expanded this further, and has proven the hypothesis of "if we give people the tools, they will come". Fedora 8 brings with it a developer spin, a games spin, and an electronic lab spin, in addition to the GNOME and KDE desktop spins that were first part of Fedora 7. Additionally, we have seen organizations like Creative Commons use the Fedora build tools in the past year as the basis for their own custom Linux projects, built using Fedora as its foundation. ---- There are a tremendous number of new features in Fedora 8 -- too many for me to list here. But there is an excellent release summary on the Fedora Project wiki that I encourage you to read if you want more specifics about Fedora 8. * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/ReleaseSummary If you are interested in running Fedora 8 entirely off of a USB key, we have an article in Red Hat Magazine that can help you. * http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/11/07/i-am-fedora-and-so-can-you/ We also have a series of interviews with some of the developers who worked on these features, which offer interesting insights. * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Interviews If you check out my blog, you can see our ongoing "lesser-known Fedora contributors" series: * http://spevack.livejournal.com/tag/fedora And finally, for those of you who can't get enough and want to know what is being planned for Fedora 9, I am here to help. * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/9/FeatureList ---- My sincere thanks to all of our developers, users, testers, writers, translators, and ambassadors -- in short, our Community, wherever you happen to live or work. You are Fedora. None of this would exist without you. Max Spevack Fedora Project Leader

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Fedora Unity releases updated Fedora 7 Re-Spins
by Jeroen van Meeuwen 07 Nov '07

07 Nov '07

The Fedora Unity Project is proud to announce the release of new ISO Re-Spins (DVD and CD Sets) of Fedora 7. These Re-Spin ISOs are based on Fedora 7 and all updates released as of October 30th, 2007. The ISO images are available for i386 and x86_64 architectures via jigdo starting Wednesday, November 7th, 2007. We have included CD Image sets for those in the Fedora community that do not have DVD drives or burners available. Fedora Unity has taken up the Re-Spin task to provide the community with the chance to install Fedora with recent updates already included. These updates might otherwise comprise more than 1.91GiB of downloads for a full install. This is a community project, for and by the community. You can contribute to the community by joining our test process. A full changelog of the packages that have been updated in this Re-Spin can be reviewed on http://spins.fedoraunity.org/changelogs/20071030/ This Re-Spin will obsolete the previous Re-Spin released by Fedora Unity, namely '20070912'. If you are interested in helping with the testing or mirroring efforts, please contact the Fedora Unity team. Contact information is available at http://fedoraunity.org/ or the #fedora-unity channel on the Freenode IRC Network (irc.freenode.net) Go to http://spins.fedoraunity.org/ to get the bits! To report bugs in the Re-Spins please use http://bugs.fedoraunity.org/ Kind regards, Jeroen van Meeuwen Fedora Unity Founder kanarip(a)fedoraunity.org -- Fedora is a trademark of Red Hat, Inc.

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 108
by Thomas Chung 05 Nov '07

05 Nov '07

= Fedora Weekly News Issue 108 = Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 108 for the week of October 29th. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue108 In Announcements, we have "Fedora Core 6 End of Life" In Planet Fedora, we have "Fedora 8 Release is on its Way Out", "Fedora 8 Release Summary", "Upgrading from Rawhide to Final Release" and "Codec Buddy Interview" To join or give us your feedback, please visit http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join. 1. Announcements 1. Fedora Core 6 End of Life 2. Planet Fedora 1. Fedora 8 Release is on its Way Out 2. Fedora 8 Release Summary 3. Upgrading from Rawhide to Final Release 4. Codec Buddy Interview 3. Marketing 1. Fedora struggles with harm reduction via CodecBuddy 2. PulseAudio by default in Fedora 8! 3. New Display Tool Coming In Fedora 9 4. Developments 1. Package EVR Problems 2. MP3 Licensing Issues 3. KDE Flamewar Warms Up Night Of Final Freeze 4. Filesystem Mounts: UUIDs or LABELs? 5. Split KDE Packages 6. IcedTea Plugin On x86_64 7. SecondLife Exposes Mesa Licensing Problem? 5. Advisory Board 1. Fedora Board Meeting 6. Fonts 1. Fedora Fonts SIG TODO List 7. Infrastructure 1. The Wiki 8. Security Week 1. IBM Plans Major Security Initiative 9. Advisories and Updates 1. Fedora 7 Security Advisories 10. Events and Meetings 1. Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-10-30 2. Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-MM-DD 3. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee (Log) 2007-10-28 4. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD 5. Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Report 2007-MM-DD 6. Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-11-01 7. Fedora KDE-SIG Meeting 2007-10-30 8. Fedora Localization Meeting 2007-MM-DD 9. Fedora Marketing Meeting 2007-MM-DD 10. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-10-30 11. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-10-29 [[Anchor(Announcements)]] == Announcements == In this section, we cover announcements from Fedora Project. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-announce-list Contributing Writer: ThomasChung === Fedora Core 6 End of Life === BillNottingham announces in fedora-announce-list[1], "A reminder to users: Fedora Core 6 will reach its end of life for updates on Friday, December 7, 2007." "Fedora 7 will remain supported until one month past the release of Fedora 9 (as things stand, this would be roughly through the end of May, 2008)." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-November/msg00000… [[Anchor(PlanetFedora)]] == Planet Fedora == In this section, we cover a highlight of Planet Fedora - an aggregation of blogs from world wide Fedora contributors. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Planet Contributing Writers: ThomasChung === Fedora 8 Release is on its Way Out === JeremyKatz points out in his blog[1], "As a few other people have mentioned, we finished up Fedora 8 on Friday and it's currently on its way to the mirror masters so that the mirrors should be able to start picking it up tomorrow (just pending getting the export control bits into place) and we'll be releasing on Thursday. Overall, I'm feeling pretty good about the release -- we got some good things in and I think that a lot of the improvements should be pretty visible to most of our users. Doesn't mean there are things that could be better or that we could do better from a process perspective. But for the moment, I think I'm going to try to enjoy the fact that the release is done." [1] http://katzj.livejournal.com/408520.html === Fedora 8 Release Summary === JonathanRoberts points out in his blog[1], "Fedora 8 is out in 5 days now and as part of our final marketing efforts we've been putting together a release summary. Take a look at it, and if there's a new feature that you really like and we've missed, add a section on it! And if there's a feature you really like that we haven't done justice too, (please remember, we're trying to keep it brief) expand and improve on what we've done!" [1] http://blog.questionsplease.org/2007/11/04/release-summary/ === Upgrading from Rawhide to Final Release === MaxSpevack points out in his blog[1] "Every release cycle, there seems to be confusion about how to transition over from Rawhide (the nightly build of Fedora) to whatever the final release is (in this case, Fedora 8). This confusion is understandable, because at first glance the process is a bit magical. Let's see if I can explain it a little bit. The short answer is this: you don't have to do anything! It will Just Work." [1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/33314.html === Codec Buddy Interview === JonathanRoberts points out in his blog[1], "Starting to pick up the pace a bit to make sure I get all the interviews covered before Fedora 8's release. Any how, with that aside, the latest interview is up: this time it's about Codec Buddy and unlike previous interviews is with two of the primary developers behind this feature - ThomasVanderStichele and BastienNocera; like always it's a really great read as they discuss many different topics, and you can even find some screenshots showing the process of enabling MP3 playback with Codec Buddy." [1] http://blog.questionsplease.org/2007/11/02/codec-buddy-interview/ [[Anchor(Marketing)]] == Marketing == In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing Contributing Writer: ThomasChung === Fedora struggles with harm reduction via CodecBuddy === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list "In public health, harm reduction is a practice that, rather than trying to eradicate potentially dangerous choices like prostitution, tries to minimize their effects. Often, the practice involves a limited condoning of the practice, such as safe injection sites for addicts. Harm reduction is the path that Fedora 8 has chosen on the issue of MP3 and other non-free codecs in the form of CodecBuddy, a Codeina-based program that tries to educate users about free software while giving them easy legal access to codecs by linking to the commercial Fluendo site. It's a decision about which the Fedora Board and community leaders feel considerable ambivalence." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-November/msg0000… === PulseAudio by default in Fedora 8! === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list, "PulseAudio is a next-generation sound server for GNU/Linux, creating the possibility of enabling all sorts of "ear-candy": it's possible to dynamically control the volume of individual applications, and hot-plugging works great with it. Read on for more details, including what can be expected in the future." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-October/msg00430… === New Display Tool Coming In Fedora 9 === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list, "There's less than two weeks now until the release of Fedora 8, which has been codenamed Werewolf. However, it's not too early to start thinking about Fedora 9. One of the items that has already been brought up for this next release cycle is a new display utility. While there is the rather basic system-config-display utility from Red Hat, Fedora is currently lacking a graphical tool to change or enable display devices (such as LCDs or TVs) in real-time." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-October/msg00421… [[Anchor(Developments)]] == Developments == In this section, we cover the problems/solutions, people/personalities, and ups/downs of the endless discussions on Fedora Developments. http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list Contributing Writer: OisinFeeley === Package EVR Problems === The recent series of automated reports from the buildsystem showing problems with the EVR[1] of packages prompted RolandMcGrath to suggest[2] that updates pending in bodhi, but not yet pushed should be considered by the script generating the reports in order to either suppress the complaint or to notify release-engineering instead of the maintainer. [1] EVR stands for Epoch, Version, Release. See http://www.redhat.com/archives/rpm-list/2004-August/msg00117.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02810.html This was answered by MichaelSchwendt with the suggestion that bodhi could have an interface for anonymous users added and with a link to the script generating the reports, to which Michael has contributed substantially suggesting that patches were welcome. JesseKeating added[3] that there is a command line interface for bodhi in the works. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00022.ht… Some brief confusion occurred when DouglasWarner pointed out[4] that if a package is sitting in updates-testing and has not been pushed into stable then that constitutes a broken upgrade path and the maintainer should be notified. Douglas thought that Roland was asking for the notification to be suppressed. JesseKeating corrected[5] this however with the information that the party responsible for the push was release-engineering and not the maintainer and that Roland wished the emails to no longer go to maintainers as they had already done their part. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00023.ht… [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00032.ht… There were objections from TillMaas and RalfCorsepius about the schemes for choosing the NEVR (Name, Epoch, Version, Release) of RPM packages. These detailed arguments center around what is understood to be the purpose of the testing, stable and development repositories. The varied interpretations have the practical result of differing upgrade capabilities from one repository (and distro version) to another. There are also implications for the amount of work which maintainers would have to do, and this was highlighted[6] by Till. MichaelSchwendt countered[7] this with the observation that currently the ''upgradepathcheck'' script will soon have to consider more than one updates-testing repository and that ignoring what it reports has historically resulted in less preparation of updates for the most recent test release. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00075.ht… [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00080.ht… RalfCorsepius argued[8] that testing should be limited to specific distros due to their unique environment and that the testing repositories should contain experimental packages which may not end up in ''updates''. A detailed discussion between Michael, Ralf and KevinKofler followed[9] with Ralf apparently arguing that their vision of using a consistent EVR scheme which allows concurrent release and testing of packages in multiple distributions is flawed. Ralf's assertions about Michael's vision of how EVR naming should interplay with the different repositories were described as "ridiculous" in a lengthy and thoughtful post[10] from Michael. In it Michael repeated that it was necessary to test updates in all the possible distribution environments and promised that the next report would once again exclude F-7 updates-testing from the check. Michael also argued that Ralf was being overly negative and unhelpful. [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00081.ht… [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00092.ht… [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00098.ht… JesseKeating later joined[11] the discussion and argued that Ralf was not considering the reality that packages in testing are frequently promulgated into the stable release. It's a detailed and confusing thread which does not lend itself to easy summary and ended[12] in Jesse claiming that Ralf was mis-characterizing the situation as a disagreement between himself and Jesse, whereas in fact it was between Ralf and the majority of maintainers.. [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00115.ht… [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00120.ht… === MP3 Licensing Issues === The issue of whether it is legal to include mp3 decoders (in the form of ''mpg123'') and possibly add support for ''join stereo coding'' was floated[1] by PeterLemenkov who had been reading around and noticing that the core patent was due to expire in a month. Peter stated his understanding of the situation to be that ''OGG Vorbis'' (erroneously referred to simply as Ogg) may violate patents, that there were non-commercial exceptions made , that many of the patents referred to encoding rather than decoding and thus were not applicable and finally that the Frauenhofer patents had expired in the EU. He wondered if they also had expired in the USA. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00012.ht… The status of the freedom of the rights granted under the non-commercial exceptions was foregrounded[2] by RahulSundaram who stated that they were incompatible with the GPL. Rahul also asked for evidence that OGG Vorbis violated patents. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00013.ht… SimoSorce felt[3] that part of Rahul's reply was not precise enough when it cited the GPL and despite TomCallaway concurring with Rahul's interpretation Simo disagreed that the GPL made it necessary for an author to also supply a written non-limiting patent grant. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00029.ht… The answer to the US-centric question on expiry dates was supplied[4] by TomCallaway with a list of the patents which mostly expire within the next decade. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00028.ht… === KDE Flamewar Warms Up Night Of Final Freeze === A mostly happy and appreciative StefanGrosse reported[1] that the KDE ''logout'' dialogue was missing the ''shutdown'' and ''hibernation'' buttons while running a system upgraded to Rawhide from Fedora 8 Test 3. There was solely an ''end session'' button which led back to the ''login'' screen where it was then possible to shutdown. SebastianVahl suggested that it was necessary to use ''KDM'' as the login manager and Stefan asked[2] for details on how to do this. He also remembered that upgrading from Fedora 7 to Rawhide saw these buttons disappear, but that they had been present even when using GDM in Fedora Core 6. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02616.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02621.html Sebastian answered that it was necessary to create a ''/etc/sysconfig/desktop'' containing ''DESKTOP="KDE" and DISPLAYMANAGER=KDE'' and suggested that the question was not appropriate to @fedora-devel. RahulSundaram thought[3] that it was because it was odd that the Fedora DVD image was installing GDM if the user had selected KDE. KevinKofler traced[4] this back to ''desktop unification'' in Red Hat Linux 8.0. BillNottingham stated[5] that ''GDM'' was the default login manager in the base X group and couldn't be removed from it. Rahul wondered[6] why GDM was not in the GNOME package group instead of the X package group. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02624.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02627.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02640.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02650.html Later Bill argued[7] that ''xdm'' was inappropriate as a default display manager because it was so bad and MatthiasClasen responded to Rahul that associating a display manager with a desktop environment was illogical anyway. Rahul was un-swayed[8] and argued for either a neutral display manager, or else for the display manager to reflect the chosen desktop environment. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02653.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02652.html The first sparks of a flamewar appeared when Bill felt that Rahul was dismissing his argument without considering the context and Rahul asked[9] why it would be a problem to either install XDM or the desktop-appropriate display manager. MatthiasClasen suppled[10] the argument that due to the security importance of a display manager it would be necessary to do unneeded extra work if more than one were shipped. When JesseKeating amplified this point by noting the choice between duplicating each feature or else confusing users there was a certain amount of irritation expressed by KDE developers KevinKofler and VikramGoyal [11] who noted that KDE had supported some features first and that the unpleasant logical conclusion was that KDE integration was going to be ignored. Rahul countered[12] Matthias by noting that KDM is already the default for the KDE spin and that as the repositories already carry various display managers there is no security or work advantage in avoiding its use. KevinKofler made the same point, with the addition[13] that the KDE SIG had clearly decided that they wanted to use KDM. ChristopherAillon shared[14] the information that work was being done on a unified generic login manager (by William Jon McCann) and asked that instead of internecine Fedora fighting energy would be directed to convince upstream KDM developers of the advantages. RexDieter promised to see what he could do in that direction. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02658.html [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02659.html [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02697.html [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02662.html [13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02686.html [14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02723.html BillNottingham argued[15] that although there was a regression in functionality it would be better to investigate the bug instead of suggesting that long-established practice be changed on the night of the final freeze. The thread continued[16] to get toasty when Bill told Rahul that the change was a one line patch to make ''kdebase'' point to the correct FIFO to communicate with GDM. Rahul's insistence that he had raised and discussed this issue in Bugzilla in the past led to Bill accusing[16] him of pushing an agenda under the cover of a bug which he was not interested in solving. Bill closed[17] with a restatement of the problem and the use of GDM as a default (which can be unchecked) during install. [15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02664.html [16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02670.html [17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02796.html MatthiasClasen disagreed with Rahul that this change was a regression and Rahul's disavowal of certainty about the term led ChristopherAillon to be aware that if he was "going to play the non-native speaker card" that it was also held by many other participants. Christopher asked[18] Rahul to "curb the hostility and try a different argument". Rahul wondered what he meant, and a Christopher referenced[19] a separate strand of the thread in which Rahul had cautioned[19] that throwing accusations around about the KDE maintainers was counterproductive and added some links to show evidence of how he had earlier been accused of being anti-KDE. Christopher appeared bemused as to what this had to do with him and pointed out that it put him on the defensive. Rahul apologized for seeming to complain and Christopher again responded that Rahul had made his point several times and although it was reasonable to requested KDM as a default when KDE is selected from the Fedora DVD there had been unrefuted technical answers from BillNottingham and JesseKeating as to why this was not going to happen for Fedora 8. Jesse had also suggested much earlier that the KDE release notes should simply tell users to uncheck GDM[19a] [18] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02761.html [19] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02722.html [19a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02676.html A detailed response[20] from KevinKofler outlined two possible ways in which the problem could be solved without modifying ''anaconda'' and one way in which anaconda could be hacked. Kevin was very clear that KDM is the preferred display manager and will continue to be so in KDE4.0. Later he promised[21] that KDM would only be pried from "my cold dead hands." [20] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02793.html [21] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02690.html DaveAirlie agreed with Bill that "[XDM] is a horror" although JoachimFrieben thought[23] that it could provide a plain X environment without the encumbrances of all the package dependencies of GNOME and KDE and that foisting GDM on advanced users was undesirable. ChristopherAillon thought that such advanced users could probably do what they wanted with kickstart or re-spinning. [22] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00019.ht… Final thoughts on the thread came from the KDE developers who expressed[23] distrust due to the way in which KNetworkManager had been handled. It seemed that although it is possible to use NetworkManager via a dummy package that installs several gnome libraries[24] it has not been possible to adapt the KNetworkManager frontend to use the very rapidly improved NetworkManager backend. [23] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00036.ht… [24] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00039.ht… === Filesystem Mounts: UUIDs or LABELs? === An inquiry[1] from AmitakhyaPhukan about why all detected filesystems are automatically mounted (on a rawhide machine) with desktop icons led to a discussion of the use of PolicyKit in Fedora 9. DavidZeuthen explained[2] that Rawhide mounts fixed drives only when root has made some changes. Apparently there is not yet a GUI to undo help with undoing these administrator initiated changes, but David suggested using ''polkit-grant --delete <username>''. KevinKofler suggested[3] that Amitakhya should check that ''usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/99-redhat-storage-policy-fixed-drives.fdi'' existed with the same contents as in Fedora 8. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00010.ht… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00052.ht… [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00037.ht… RoddClarkson had also seen some filesystems (which hadn't been visible in Fedora 7) show up in the disk mounter applet for Rawhide. David explained[4] that these were from previous OSes and are now shown in Fedora 8. He agreed that the text shown in the UI might be a little misleading due to the labels chosen, and also wondered why the anaconda team had chosen to use LABELs over UUIDs. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00128.ht… David followed up by apologizing for his rant and providing[5] bugzilla entries where these issues could be discussed. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00129.ht… === Split KDE Packages === "Axel" wondered[1] whether it would be possible to split KDE packages into multiple smaller sub packages. The reasoning behind this is that KDE install currently pull in many unwanted programs leading to an unnecessarily bloated system. Axel acknowledged that Fedora was primarily a "GNOME based distribution" but preferred to use KDE. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00000.ht… The official position of the KDE SIG was regretfully conveyed[2] by KevinKofler. The issue has been discussed in the SIG's IRC meetings and the consensus has been that the maintenance burden would be too high. A compromise position which sees the splitting out of less used components into "-extras" sub packages has been adopted. This allows the production of a LiveCD. Kevin also replied that if the same programs appear in more than one place in the KDE menus then this a bug and it would be appreciated if those finding them would search Bugzilla before opening a new bug. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00001.ht… === IcedTea Plugin On x86_64 === A non-functioning IcedTea java plugin for Firefox led MarkeBidewell to wonder[1] if the problem was because the plugin directory was named "amd64" while he was using an Intel system. RexDieter confirmed the problem and provided a solution which was symlinking the IcedTea plugin to the Firefox plugins subdirectory[2]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02774.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02779.html MarkBidewell and JefSpaleta agreed[3] that the problem was probably an incorrect search path for Mozilla. BillNottingham suggested[4] running ''mozilla-plugin-config -i -f'' as root. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02788.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02798.html === SecondLife Exposes Mesa Licensing Problem? === A bunch of OpenGL headers had attention drawn to their licensing because due to a bug opened against SecondLife. CallumLerwick grepped through several and found[1] that they were using "SGI Free Software License B" which seemed to be explicitly not acceptable in Fedora. HansdeGoede agreed[2] with Callum and said that they had been allowed as an exception due to their essential nature, but that since talks with SGI were stagnating it would be good to start working on removing and replacing the troublesome pieces. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02706.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02709.html Callum later added[3] that the problem seemed to have been fixed in the version of Mesa which was included in Fedora 8, but TomCallaway was unsure about the validity of the relicensing and asked[4] AdamJackson for information. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02713.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02732.html HansdeGoede (as could be expected of someone maintaining so many game packages) had done some research and found[5] that ownership of the OpenGL standard had been transferred to "The Khronos Group" and appear to have been committed legitimately. Hans and Tom were in agreement that the problem was bigger than this and remained unsolved however. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02735.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02736.html [[Anchor(AdvisoryBoard)]] == Advisory Board == In this section, we cover discussion in Fedora Advisory Board. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-advisory-board Contributing Writer: MichaelLarabel === Fedora Board Meeting === With Fedora 8 coming out in just a few days, this past week's Fedora Board Meeting[1] was about the Fedora 8 Blocker List[2]. Among the outstanding issues affected NetworkManager, LiveCD/USB testing, Python/Turkish, and dmraid. The final day to have the Fedora 8 tree completed was Friday, and fortunately everything was completed in time. Find out more in the fedora-advisory-board message[3]. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Meetings/2007-10-30 [2] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/showdependencytree.cgi?id=235703&hide_resolved=1 [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-October/msg00051… [[Anchor(Fonts)]] == Fonts == In this section, we cover discussion in Fedora Fonts. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-fonts-list Contributing Writer: MichaelLarabel === Fedora Fonts SIG TODO List === If you've been wanting to help out with the Fedora Fonts, but are unsure of what you would like to work on, NicolasMailhot has created a TODO list[1] for this special interest group, The Fonts TODO List[2] lists one-time tasks as well as recurring tasks along with those that have been completed. If you've been wanting to help out or are curious where the Fedora Fonts SIG stands today, check out the list. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-fonts-list/2007-November/msg00045.ht… [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Fonts/Todo [[Anchor(Infrastructure)]] == Infrastructure == In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor === The Wiki === There was more discussion this week[1][2] about what to do about the wiki, whether to move to a new software or keep the existing and patch it as needed. The jury is still out, we will see what happens after F8 is released. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-October/msg… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-November/ms… [[Anchor(SecurityWeek)]] == Security Week == In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora. Contributing Writer: JoshBressers === IBM Plans Major Security Initiative === http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iSFxylj-4ojpf44zNT6k01yBY5RgD8SKHH781 IBM announced last week that they plan to spend 1.5 billion ( with a big B ) dollars on security research in 2008. Information Security is becoming a very serious business. I suspect the biggest issue now is going to be finding employees to fill these positions. [[Anchor(AdvisoriesUpdates)]] == Advisories and Updates == In this section, we cover Security Advisories and Package Updates from fedora-package-announce. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce Contributing Writer: ThomasChung === Fedora 7 Security Advisories === * tar-1.15.1-28.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * subversion-1.4.4-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * python-2.5-14.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * ruby-1.8.6.111-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * openvrml-0.16.6-3.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * galeon-2.0.3-12.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg004… * Miro-0.9.8.1-4.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg004… * chmsee-1.0.0-1.25.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg004… * xen-3.1.0-8.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * nagios-plugins-1.4.8-9.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * pidgin-2.2.2-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * cups-1.2.12-6.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * xscreensaver-5.03-14.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * liferea-1.2.23-4.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * flac-1.2.1-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * phpMyAdmin-2.11.2-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… [[Anchor(EventsMeetings)]] == Events and Meetings == In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from various projects. Contributing Writer: ThomasChung === Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-10-30 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-October/msg00051… === Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Documentation Steering Committee (Log) 2007-10-28 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-October/msg00168.html === Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Report 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-11-01 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-November/ms… === Fedora KDE-SIG Meeting 2007-10-30 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02615.html === Fedora Localization Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Marketing Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-10-30 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02797.html === Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-10-29 === * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/Meetings/2007-oct-29 -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

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Fedora Core 6 End of Life
by Bill Nottingham 01 Nov '07

01 Nov '07

A reminder to users: Fedora Core 6 will reach its end of life for updates on Friday, December 7, 2007. Fedora 7 will remain supported until one month past the release of Fedora 9 (as things stand, this would be roughly through the end of May, 2008). - The Fedora Board

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