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Re: Thanks for the Fedora Weekly News
by Thomas Chung 29 May '07

29 May '07

On 5/28/07, David Northrop <djn(a)unm.edu> wrote: > > Thomas and FWN staff, > > I think the Fedora Weekly News is a consistently superb example of > technical reporting. > > The synopses of discussions and issues are very clear, succinct and seem to > be remarkably even-handed. > > In the flood of technical info that washes across my screens each week, the > FWN is always interesting and worthwhile. > > I congratulate and thank you all. > > -- > David Northrop djn(a)unm.edu (505) 277-8219 > Manager, Open Systems Services its/UNM Hi David, I really appreciated your kind feedback. :) Best Regards, -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 89
by Thomas Chung 28 May '07

28 May '07

= Fedora Weekly News Issue 89 = Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 89[1] for the week of May 20th through May 26th, 2007. The latest issue can always be found here[2] and RSS Feed can be found here[3]. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue89 [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/LatestIssue [3] http://feeds.feedburner.com/fwn 1. Fedora Weekly News Issue 89 1. Announcements 1. Fedora Project Web gets a face lift 2. Fedora 7 RC2 "Fedora" spin i386 available 2. Planet Fedora 1. Spank that webpage, it's been born again 2. We're golden 3. Marketing 1. Fedora 7 at Respins.org 2. Release Announcement Talking Points 4. Developments 1. Could A Truly Minimal Install Be Added in F7 Or F8? 2. Mdraid and Hidden Partition Area Upgrade Blocker Solved 3. Status Of Support for IWP3945abg Wireless In Fedora 7 4. Fedora7RC2 Torrent 5. Upgrade FC6 To F7t4 Fails On LVM Fstab Naming 6. Guidelines For Huge SPEC Changelogs 7. IPv6 Explicitly Disabled. iwl3495 Negative Interaction With IPv6? 8. The Future Of the Bootloader 9. Wireshark Included On F7 Media 10. KDE4 For Fedora8 Draft Document Discussion 5. Maintainers 1. No More New Packages For Fedora 7 6. Documentation 1. Future of The Software Management Guide 2. Language Codes 3. Live CD Guide 7. Infrastructure 1. Image Standard 2. Pushing Updates 3. Static Content 8. Artwork 1. Fedora 7 CD/DVD Labels And Covers 9. Security Week 1. A Mighty Number Falls 2. 28% of software is unpatched 10. Security Advisories and Package Updates 1. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories and Package Updates 2. Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories and Package Updates 11. Events and Meetings 1. Fedora Ambassadors Meeting Minutes 2007-05-24 2. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-05-28 3. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-05-17 4. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-05-24 5. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-05-23 6. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-21 12. Feedback == Announcements == In this section, we cover announcements from various projects. === Fedora Project Web gets a face lift === MikeMcGrath announces in fedora-announce-list[1], "The Fedora Project website has gotten a face lift: http://fedoraproject.org/ Prior to today that site went straight to the wiki, which is largely developer content with good (but somewhat hard to find) docs. Now we're expanding on fedoraproject.org and adding some more user-centric content like that found at http://docs.fedoraproject.org/ The websites team has been hard at work at this for a while and we're all excited to release it today. Help get the word out and digg[2]." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-May/msg00006.html [2] http://digg.com/linux_unix/Fedora_Project_gets_a_web_face_lift === Fedora 7 RC2 "Fedora" spin i386 available === JesseKeating announces in fedora-devel-list[1], "I've uploaded the i386 DVD and rescue image for the "Fedora" spin of Fedora 7 RC2. You can find it at http://torrent.fedoraproject.org The x86_64 iso set is still uploading, to be followed by the PPC iso set. I'll reply to this once they are ready for torrenting. Happy testing!" [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01628.html == 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 === Spank that webpage, it's been born again === KarstenWade points out in his blog[1], "Breathing new life into this URL: http://fedoraproject.org In anticipation of heavy server loads during the upcoming Fedora 7 release, we decided to post a series of lightweight, static HTML pages as the front of fedoraproject.org. Those pages quietly went live today." [1] http://iquaid.livejournal.com/18843.html === We're golden === PaulFrields points out in his blog[1], "From the IRC buffer of #fedora-devel, looks like Fedora 7 will be in General Availability on 31 May. To all those who repeatedly tested and fed back bugs and information, a hearty and heartfelt thank you. I'm sure the actual release engineering folks will have more to say about this shortly; stay tuned." [1] http://marilyn.frields.org:8080/~paul/wordpress/?p=785 == Marketing == In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing === Fedora 7 at Respins.org === KarlieRobinson reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "On May 12, I went to a Bar``Camp at RIT [2] and Saw a presentation on F7 by Luke Macken. That reminded me of how cool the Re-spin feature on 7 is. My hope is that we can encourage the community to get creative with Fedora by giving them an outlet for their work. To that end, Webpath Technologies has created respins.org[3]." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-May/msg00064.html [2] http://barcamp.org/BarCampRochester2 [3] http://respins.org === Release Announcement Talking Points === KarstenWade reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "Please help us get these completed[2]: Um ... by tomorrow. Seriously. Or there won't be any time at all for Ambassadors et al to write up their local version[3]. " [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-May/msg00061.html [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/ReleaseAnnouncements/TalkingPoints [3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/ReleaseAnnouncements#Schedule == 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 === Could A Truly Minimal Install Be Added in F7 Or F8? === An often debated Fedora Project issue has been, which packages should be available bundled in an installable image. Many different reasons have been offered to define what are necessary packages to include, such as size. As a consequence of these protracted discussions over whether there should be "everything" installs or "Windowmaker flavored" installs, Fedora has been made more flexible to allow users to compose their own spins. This progress of customization was demonstrated when "Mark" raised a request[1] for a "minimal" install. FlorianLaRoche suggested[2] using kickstart, while JesseKeating thought[3] that redefining the Core and using Pungi (the Fedora Project's FL/OSS installation-tree/ISO composer [2a]) is the best approach. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01393.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01425.html [2a] https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/projects/pungi/wiki/PungiDocs [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01394.html After Jesse asked that Mark propose suggested changes to the comps groups for installation, Mark noted[4] that he had little programming ability. NicolasMailhot explained that this was not needed and AhmedKamal posted[5] a link to a guide for minimizing CentOS install size to circa 400MB. Nicolas posted[6] a summary of what to do in order to see a minimal-install produced. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01400.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01422.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01424.html === Mdraid and Hidden Partition Area Upgrade Blocker Solved === The summary of ReleaseEngineering's IRC meeting was posted by JohnPoelstra[1] and contained three salient issues: 1. The need for testers to be aware of a respin of the initial release candidate (see "Fedora7RC2 Torrent" below); 1. The continuing need for testers of the iwl3945 wireless (see "Status Of Support for IWP3945abg Wireless In Fedora7" below); 1. Upgrade problems with mdraid/dmraid. WillWoods identified the latter as being the most serious, since it affected a large set of committed users whom it would be good to keep. The iwl3945 issue is dealt with in a separate section of this FWN issue. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01380.html The new libata drivers caused a problem[2] for JarodWilson as they were able to read the hidden protected area[3] of one of the drives in an mdraid set, which caused a discrepancy between the partition table and what the BIOS reports as the last usable drive sector. The older PATA drivers seemed to pay attention to the information passed by the BIOS. Jarod followed up by removing the affected drive and confirming that without it he could upgrade from an mdraid'ed FC6 to F7. Jarod then investigated passing the module parameter 'libata.ignore_hpa=1' on the boot commandline and reported[4] it did not work and anyone using anaconda to upgrade a similar setup would be out of luck. However, adding "options libata libata.ignore_hpa=1" to /etc/modprobe.conf and then doing a "yum upgrade" should work[5]. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01389.html [3] http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Hidden_Protected_Area [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01572.htm [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01586.html Following on from a suggestion from BrunoWolff that users might want to look into removing the HPA before upgrading, JarodWilson found a tool called "setmax" that Bruno built with minor problems[5a], but the licensing is unknown. AlanCox cautioned[6] that this might not be a good idea, especially with laptops. Alan also noted[7] that Fedora could benefit from advance testing by Ubuntu in this area, where it seemed reasonably certain that if anaconda could be convinced to ignore HPA, then there would not be problems. [5a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01690.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01615.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01614.html JeremyKatz saved the day[8] by patching anaconda to recognize and use "libata.ignore_hpa=1" on the commandline and TonyNelson tested[9] this successfully. [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01604.html [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01695.html === Status Of Support for IWP3945abg Wireless In Fedora 7 === A query[1] from DeependraShekhawat about whether users should continue to use the ATrpms repository for drivers for IntelProWireless3945ABG was answered quickly[2] by KevinKofler with the information that Fedora would be shipping iwlwifi patched into the kernel. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01515.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01517.html A further query from SteveHill led AndyGreen and JarodWilson to attempt[3][4] to straighten out the terminology. The old version of the driver is named "ipw3945" and uses the "80211" kernel stack. An initial newwer version of the driver using the new "mac80211" kernel wireless stack was initially named "iwlwifi" and then renamed to "iwl3945". The thinking behind this is that iwlwifi is now a project name for a collection of drivers. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01521.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01534.html The problem of getting NetworkManager (NM) and IPW3945 hardware to play nice together was mentioned[5] by LamontPeterson. AndyGreen followed up on this, reporting[6] that with a specific kernel (2.6.21-1.3194.fc7) it was possible for NetworkManager to scan and detect networks, but that associating failed intitially with WPA2 requiring a restart of NM, nm-applet, and wpa-supplicant. ToddZullinger reported[7] that he had no problems with NM and the older ipw3945, but no success with the new iwl3945 driver. RalfErtzinger confirmed[8] Todd's happy experiences with the older driver but by contrast was successful with the new iwl3945 except for the issue of the LED lights not working. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01551.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01553.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01554.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01588.html Deependra and SteveHill were still having problems with the newer driver. After suggestions that testers should move to the latest kernel (available from Koji[9]) Deependra posted[10] logs of his failure with the latest kernel. JohnLinville tried[11] to help out by sacrificing some chickens, AndyGreen suggested disabling[12] the closed, proprietary hardware scan in order to reduce confusion, but Deependra still had no luck[13]. OlaThoresen reported[14] some progress, but still no working interface. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01538.html [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01549.html [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01557.html [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01563.html [13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01623.html [14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01569.html In discussion with Deependra over whether iwl3945 ought to be shipped, AndyGreen argued[15] that the old ipw3945 driver wasn't an option because of the licensing of the regulatory daemon being unacceptable to the Fedora Project. Andy offered some other compelling reasons: the iwl3945 driver, although unstable, was working well for many users, and Intel were very actively working with JohnLinville to improve it. Deependra was unhappy with this, prompting DaveHollis to share[16] a workaround that allows both drivers to be present. [15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01530.html [16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01540.html === Fedora7RC2 Torrent === JesseKeating posted[1] that the latest and greatest version of F7 available for testing was the "Fedora" spin of F7 Release Candidate 2 (F7RC2), available as a torrent. The i386 version was followed shortly by the x86_64 version and then the PPC version[1a]. Jesse clarified that this would be the final release before GA, as long as nothing really terrible was wrong[2]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01628.html [1a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01659.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01630.html A worried SteveHill wondered[3] if the 3194 kernel (which fixes a lot of problems for people using IPW3945ABG hardware as reported elsewhere in this FWN issue) would be in F7rc2. JeremyKatz confirmed[4] that it would and the reason it hadn't shown up in rawhide was because it was more recent than that. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01639.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01652.html DavidNielsen queried whether the version of anaconda fixed the RAID HPA issues (covered in this version of FWN) and was assured[5] by JeremyKatz that they were (version 11.2.0.65-1). [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01653.html SeanDarcy and ChelbanVasile appeared[6] to have found an AMD64 kernel bug. Sean further found a problem with the incorrect (older) kernel being selected as default in grub.conf when upgrading from F7t4 to F7rc2. JesseKeating confirmed that this was a known bug and WillWoods added[7] the information that it only appeared to happen with F7t4 and the Red Hat Summit Preview, but should be alright for FC6 upgraders. OttoHaliburton seemed to have contradictory[8] experience. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01718.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01717.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01719.html === Upgrade FC6 To F7t4 Fails On LVM Fstab Naming === An upgrade from FC6 to F7t4 failed[1] for SeanDarcy, necessitating the manual removal of LVM partitions from /etc/fstab until after the upgrade. Sean wanted to know[2] why the install insisted on using labels instead of the simpler /dev naming convention. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01660.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01666.html ChuckAnderson answered[3] that LABELs were unchanging, as opposed to /dev names. While Sean conceded that LABELs had advantages, he pressed[4] the point that the upgrade should not abort, and Mike agreed that it sounded like an anaconda bug. TillMaas thought[5] that LABELs could still be improved in respect of having unique names. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01671.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01679.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01703.html Addressing the immediate practical problem, MikeChambers suggested trying an upgrade to the very newest version of F7 (which was then F7RC2 instead of F7t4) and this worked perfectly[6] for Sean. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01713.html === Guidelines For Huge SPEC Changelogs === Some of the RPM packages maintained by the Fedora Project were observed[1] by MichaelSchwendt to have very large %changelog sections in their spec files due to the packages being in maintenance since the 1990s. Michael wasn't making a big deal about it, but was interested to know whether there were plans for dealing with what are sometimes bloated and inaccurate records of changes. NigelJones concurred[2], giving the specific example of anaconda's spec file being 5 times as large as the actual code. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01646.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01647.html MamoruTasaka suggested[3] copying vim's approach, which was welcomed by KarstenHopp[4] and others. RalfCorsepius pointed out[5] that this was a move from an inline changelog to a detached, separate one. JesseKeating clarified that this was only for archived changelogs and wondered if Ralf really needed all the history in the package. Ralf disavowed this and suggested manually pruning them as he does for his own packages. Karsten reiterated this point, separately adding the information[6] that F7 has approximately 20MB of changelogs in the spec files, and suggesting a similar approach to Ralf of trimming/editing the changelogs so that appropriate recent changes are easily seen through the same rpm queries as used presently. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01648.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01649.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01670.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01705.html "Nodata" wondered[7] why there couldn't be a standard (presumably networked?) place for the changelogs, which "rpm -q --changelog" would silently examine. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01673.html === IPv6 Explicitly Disabled. iwl3495 Negative Interaction With IPv6? === SteveHill observed[1] that IPv6 seemed to be disabled by default in rawhide and wondered why this was so. JesseKeating asked[2] if Steve had enabled IPv6 during install. DavidWoodhouse explained[3] that this was jsut a mixup in the initscripts for F7t4, but that the actual F7 would not suffer from this problem. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01577.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01580.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01583.html Diverging slightly from the original thread title, Steve also noted[4] a problem with IPv6 autoconfiguration when the interface required the iwl3945 driver. After examining the bugzilla entry, David suggested[5] using tcpdump to check whether all multicast packets were missing. Steve wasn't convinced and thought that the problem lay in the interface seeing its own packets and assuming that these meant the address was in use[6]. This theory seemed to be bolstered by an observation[7] from JohnDeDourek. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01600.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01618.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01637.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01644.html === The Future Of the Bootloader === Our attention was drawn by KenYang[1] to an earlier (2006) discussion[2] about whether or not Fedora could get an animated GRUB, similar to SuSE10.2. Included in this was a link to an interesting exploration[3] of the GRUB code by "TheStarman". The resulting discussion revealed that the current perceived problems with booting include a lengthy video modeswitch (needed to display a graphical boot menu), and a "timeout" that needs to be long enough so that people using ATs (assistive technologies[3a], for example, screenreaders) have time to interact easily with the machine. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01429.html [2] http://marc.info/?l=fedora-list&m=115693747626918&w=2 [3] http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/GRUB.htm [3a] http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/presentations/GUAD3C/making-apps-ac… MatejCepl pleaded[4] against using SuSE's specific animated GRUB on the grounds that it was in real-mode and thus broke Xen, and MatthiasClasen reminded us[5] that the DesktopTeam had already made plans to remove the GRUB menu from the startup, but that this depended on a lot of components being changed[6] upstream, including DRM-mode-setting being incorporated into the kernel. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01430.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01437.html [6] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureBetterStartup Responding to these plans, both NicolasMailhot[7] and AlanCox corrected one of the listed tasks that suggested setting "timeout 0" in grub.conf to avoid pausing and displaying a splash image in the GRUB menu during boot. Alan explained [8] that drivers or BIOSes could steal a keystroke leading to a need to edit grub.conf with a rescue disk. Another consideration raised[9] by Alan was accessibility (a11y) for people using text-to-speech screen readers. DavidZeuthen and JesseKeating thought that if the bootloader were completely removed[10], it would obviate the need for making it accessible. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01439.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01441.html [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01497.html [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01558.html The main case for retaining the bootmenu display seemed to be for users that were dual-booting (especially for non-technical users with dual installs of Linux and Windows). JeremyKatz noted that the GRUB bootmenu hasn't been shown during installation by default since 2004 anyway[11] and DavidZeuthen responded that it would still be a good idea to get rid of the timeout. JasonTibbitts wanted a short, interruptable timeout and drew a parallel to what happens during hibernation, to which JesseKeating responded[10a] that this was partly to prevent data corruption. David referenced[12] the manner in which other OSes, e.g. Mac OSX, require special keypresses to bring up boot menus. NicolasMailhot felt[13] that this behavior was too close to vendor lock-in. AlanCox thought that twenty years of history of hardware manufacturers showed[14] that this was a bad idea as the manuals documenting this inevitably got lost. [10a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01511.html [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01560.html [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01561.html [13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01568.html [14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01612.html ChristopherAillon spiced things up[15] by sprinkling some crack on the discussion, suggesting modifying anaconda to detect the presence of other OSes and renable the timeout if they were present, or to modify GNOME's reboot dialog to allow booting to another OS. NicolasMailhot reacted to the latter unfavourably because it would mean that to boot Windows, we'd have to first boot Fedora, prompting Christopher to clarify[16] that there could also be DavidZeuthen's secret handshake with an associated problem of non-discoverability. AdamJackson didn't think discoverability was that important, as evidenced by the fact that neither Windows nor MacOSX ship with it. AlanCox thought that this absence was due to a cynical monetary incentive to make interoperability hard[16a]. Christopher dismissed it as a failing that should not be emulated in Fedora, pointing out the dual-booting Windows for games was probably a major use-case[17]. An ensuing discussion between David and NicolasMailhot resulted[18] in competing claims as to whether removing the current defaults and moving the configurability into specialised utilities and/or secret keypresses would distress various user-cases. [15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01570.html [16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01578.html [16a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01613.html [17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01587.html [18] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01611.html === Wireshark Included On F7 Media === Wireshark[1] is a network protocol analyzer that used to be named "ethereal". SteveDickson wondered[2] why it was not on the F7test4 spin, while the inferior tcpdump was present. Steve suggested that "tshark", a text-mode version should be the default, with tcpdump made optional. [1] http://www.wireshark.org/ [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01446.html EnricoScholz pointed to the relative smallness of tcpdump, to which Steve replied[3] that this was a consequence of tcpdump having a limited functionality. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01467.html A full response[4] from WillWoods explained that Wireshark was actually available from the repositories, just not included in the comps file for the default spin. Will argued that the absence of complaints probably meant that it wasn't as appalling a choice as Steve suggested and while agreeing that the tshark suggestion was worthwhile pointed out that F7 was now in a freeze prior to final release. "SteveG" suggested[5] that the absence of complaints might have been because many testers use the rawhide network updates, not ISO images, and that essential network troubleshooting tools really had to be available on the ISO in case the network was broken. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01448.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01457.html Elaborating[6] on the advantages of wirehark over tcpdump, SteveDickson managed to convince[7] JesseKeating (Release Manager) to include Wireshark as part of the f7-desktop manifest. Jesse was at pains to point out that contrary to Steve's assertion, Wireshark had never been a default, but had rather been an optional package in the system-tools group for FC5 and FC6. Although Wireshark is now on the ISO, it will not included on the Live-CD. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01464.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01498.html NicolasMailhot and JefSpaleta were stimulated to toss around ideas about how to easily determine a full list of packages installed by default. Jef thought[8] that Pungi seemed like the likely place to obtain this information. [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01480.html === KDE4 For Fedora8 Draft Document Discussion === KevinKofler sought discussion[1] of a plan for getting KDE4 into F8. ThorstenLeemhuis thought[2] that getting release schedules for KDE4 and F8 to align properly would be difficult and that a better bet was to maintain two repositories of KDE4, one for rawhide the other for F7. These would be hosted officially within the Fedora Project. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01291.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01346.html Kevin and DennisGilmore preferred[3] the idea of trucking ahead with the KDE4 plan but having a fallback to a usable KDE3. Discussion between Kevin and JeremyKatz revealed[4] that there were potential/probable conflicts (due to clashing sonames) in the -devel packages. Jeremy thought there was no way that KDE3 and KDE4 could be installed in parallel if what Kevin reported about upstream KDE were true. Kevin was aware of the suckage and thought[5] about some possible ways around it. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01364.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01392.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01397.html Jeremy emphasized[6] that concerned people really needed to make upstream KDE understand that such conflicts were a massive problem. Kevin then proposed[7] creating a new root in which to place the -devel files. NicolasMailhot was strongly against this idea[8] as it broke the FHS and introduced a bad precedent. JeremyKatz thought[9] that the need of ordinary users to build software without mock was sufficiently great that it was worth deviating from standard practice in this case. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01402.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01403.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01428.html [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01443.html FlorianLaRoche was inspired by all the talk of file conflicts to post[10] a list of all those that he could identify in FC-devel for i386. [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01427.html == Maintainers == In this section, we cover Fedora Maintainers, the group of people who maintain the software packages in Fedora https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-maintainers === No More New Packages For Fedora 7 === With the release of Fedora 7 coming up very shortly, Jesse Keating has sent out a warning that no more "new" packages for F7-final[1] will be accepted. Those that did not get their new packages committed in time must wait for the first round of Fedora 7 updates. The final kernel built for Fedora 7[2] (kernel-2.6.21-1.3194.fc7) is also now available. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00934.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00958.html == Documentation == In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject === Future of The Software Management Guide === There has been some discussion about the future of the Software Management Guide[1], and the possibility of pushing relevant content to the Fedora User Guide and the Administration Guide[2]. This would help to separate material that new users are going to deal with, making the experience less intimidating. [1] http://docs.fedoraproject.org/yum/ [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00102.html === Language Codes === The Documentation Project is going to be updating all the current documents to use the en-US language code[1] instead of the ambigous "-en". This removes any existing inconsistencies and makes it possible to produce en-UK and en-AU versions of the documents. These change are being saved for post-Fedora 7 release to prevent any problems arising, and to allow sufficient time to talk with developers[2]. Changes would appear in CVS, the toolchain, and in publication. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00105.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00125.html === Live CD Guide === After a request for help polishing a document about creating localized spins of the Fedora KDE live CD[1], it was very quickly decided that a canonical guide about creating live CDs using Fedora's new tools is an important short-term goal[2]. The discussion then moved on to talk about creating separate user guides for each of the official spins, with the current Fedora User Guide forming the base for the GNOME live CD guide [3]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00148.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00152.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00158.html == Infrastructure == In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure === Image Standard === There was some discussion[1] this week about which image format to use project wide. There was no conclusion reached as it was decided to forward the matter to the Board for further review. However, the Project Board concluded JPEG no longer seemed encumbered, image decisions aren't their business, and you should use whatever you feel is best[2]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg0010… [2] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-May/msg00138.html === Pushing Updates === With bodhi being pushed into service shortly, BillNottingham started a thread[1] about the mechanics of how updates are/will be pushed. LukeMacken and others are hard at work this week to see the new system implemented[2]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg0014… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg0019… === Static Content === The project servers have been using puppet to distribute static content among themselves. Due to the amount of files distributed, puppet has produced a higher than comfortable load on the servers. Discussion was had[1] on possible solutions. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg0017… == Artwork == In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork === Fedora 7 CD/DVD Labels And Covers === Máirín Duffy sent her proposals for the CD/DVD labels and covers to the fedora-art-list this week [1]. They were well received [2]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00030.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00035.html == Security Week == In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora. === A Mighty Number Falls === There was much news last week regarding the factoring of a 307 digit number[1]. Wikipedia has a nice example of what factoring means for the RSA algorithm[2]. [1] http://actualites.epfl.ch/presseinfo-com?id=441 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA#Security This event is probably not newsworthy to most people, but it's a huge feat for those in the encryption industry. The researchers took 11 months to factor this number. This seems like a very long time, but when you take Moore's Law into account, this 11 months will be a couple of days in several years. The moral of the story is that data strongly encrypted today, can be broken tomorrow. === 28% of software is unpatched === Secunia published a report stating that 28% of software installed on a user's computer is unpatched[1]. [1] http://www.betanews.com/article/Secunia_28_Percent_of_Software_Unpatched/11… This can be a serious problem when you have to rely on more than one vendor for your updates. The article doesn't specify it, but it seems this survey was conducted on Windows computers. One of the problems that exists in the Windows universe is that every third party vendor has their own (if any) update system. A system such as yum, which supports multiple repositories, GPG signed packages, and a single update mechanism, can be a huge advantage. Ideally for a non-technical desktop user, their update system should automatically update software on a regular basis. This is the behavior seen when a Microsoft Windows user installs Firefox, and it has proven to be rather successful. In the above study, only 5.4% of Firefox users were not running the latest secure version. I suspect few other software projects can boast such numbers. Whether you agree with this method or not, there is no denying it does work. == Security Advisories and Package Updates == In this section, we cover Secuirity Advisories and Package Updates from fedora-package-announce. === Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories and Package Updates === * 2007-05-24 [SECURITY] libpng-1.2.10-9.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-529 * 2007-05-24 bind-9.3.4-5.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-524 * 2007-05-24 nfs-utils-1.0.10-12.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-520 * 2007-05-24 selinux-policy-2.4.6-69.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-508 * 2007-05-21 alsa-utils-1.0.14-0.2.rc1.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-511 * 2007-05-21 cups-1.2.10-7.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-497 * 2007-05-21 hal-cups-utils-0.6.9-1.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-470 * 2007-05-21 jakarta-commons-modeler-1.1-8jpp.2.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-514 * 2007-05-21 minicom-2.2-1.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-490 * 2007-05-21 screen-4.0.3-3.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-515 * 2007-05-21 tomcat5-5.5.23-0jpp.2.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-514-1 * 2007-05-21 xinetd-2.3.14-9.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-512 === Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories and Package Updates === * 2007-05-24 [SECURITY] libpng-1.2.8-3.fc5 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-528 * 2007-05-24 [SECURITY] php-5.1.6-1.6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-526 * 2007-05-21 samba-3.0.24-6.fc5 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-518 * 2007-05-21 SDL-1.2.9-6.1 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-517 == Events and Meetings == In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from various projects. === Fedora Ambassadors Meeting Minutes 2007-05-24 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-May/msg00155.h… === Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-05-28 === * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SteeringCommittee/Meetings/Minutes === Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-05-17 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00844.html === Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-05-24 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00988.html === Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-05-23 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00926.html === Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-21 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01380.html == Feedback == This document is maintained by the Fedora News Team[1]. Please feel free to contact us to give your feedback. If you'd like to contribute to a future issue of the Fedora Weekly News, please see the Join[2] page to find out how to help. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

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#fedora-devel News Beat ready for editing
by Oisin Feeley 26 May '07

26 May '07

Hi all, I'm done with the Development News Beat. I've tried to be a bit more careful with the grammatical/typo stuff that Karsten identified, but frankly I'm exhausted. So, I'm not ignoring the need for more care Karsten, but hopefully next week I can get this finished up a bit sooner so that I have time to edit properly. Hopefully I haven't left anything really egregious there for you and Thomas. Thanks, Oisin -- Oisin Feeley oisinfeeley(a)imapmail.org -- http://www.fastmail.fm - IMAP accessible web-mail

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Translation Beat
by Jason 26 May '07

26 May '07

Wasn't anything to write about again this week. Infrastructure is ready for editor review. -Jason

2 1

Fedora 7 will support to IPF?
by Shi Weihua 24 May '07

24 May '07

Hi, everyboy My work will based on Fedora 7 (IPF,x86,x86_64). But I don't know it will support IPF or not. Who can teach me this problem? Thank you! -- A new email address of FJWAN is launched from Apr.1 2007. The updated address is: shiwh＠cn.fujitsu.com -------------------------------------------------- Shi Weihua(施　偉華) Development Dept.I Nanjing Fujitsu Nanda Software Tech. Co., Ltd.(FNST) 8/F., Civil Defense Building, No.189 Guangzhou Road, Nanjing, 210029, China TEL: +86+25-86630566-883 COINS: 79955883 FAX: +86+25-83317685 Mail：shiwh(a)cn.fujitsu.com -------------------------------------------------

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 88
by Thomas Chung 21 May '07

21 May '07

= Fedora Weekly News Issue 88 = Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 88[1] for the week of May 13th through May 19th, 2007. The latest issue can always be found here[2] and RSS Feed can be found here[3]. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue88 [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/LatestIssue [3] http://feeds.feedburner.com/fwn 1. Fedora Weekly News Issue 88 1. Announcements 1. Deep Freeze coming for Fedora 7 2. Announcing fedora-cs-list for Czech and Slovak Fedora users 3. Fedora Rawhide Live Images (20070517) 2. Planet Fedora 1. Summary from the Red Hat Summit 2. F7 Firstboot and EULA 3. 'Play Ogg': FSF launches free audio format campaign 3. Marketing 1. OLPC on CBS 60 Minutes 4. Developments 1. New Suspend Quirks Functionality of F7 Explained 2. XChat Package Maintenance: First Post-Merge Co-Maintenance? 3. PowerTOP Release Opens Up New Directions In Power Saving 4. Massive size increase in some packages 5. Rawhide Report 17 May 2007:Liberated Fonts, Corrupt Metadata 6. Making Beagle Optional 7. Legality of Fedora In Some Jurisdictions Contd. 8. Making Koji A Complete rpmfind Replacement 5. Maintainers 1. Why Not Build For EPEL Too? 2. Fedora 7 Deep Freeze 3. Help Wanted: Package Co-maintainers 4. Improving Fedora Package Documentation 6. Documentation 1. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee Meeting 2. Welcome Wizard 3. Hardware Solutions Knowledge Base 7. Infrastructure 1. Fedora Mirror System 2. Koji 3. Proxy Server 8. Artwork 1. Ambassador Program Banner 2. Shutdown and Logout Icons 9. Security Week 1. Samba 10. Security Advisories 1. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories 2. Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories 11. Events and Meetings 1. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-14 2. Fedora French Ambassadors Meeting 2007-05-13 3. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee 2007-05-10 12. Feedback == Announcements == In this section, we cover announcements from various projects. === Deep Freeze coming for Fedora 7 === JesseKeating announces in fedora-maintainers[1], "We're planning on entering "Deep Freeze" this Thursday. From that point on we'll only be accepting build tag requests for builds that are fixing release blockers. See Fedora Release Criteria[2] for current release criteria." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00351.html [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/ReleaseCriteria === Announcing fedora-cs-list for Czech and Slovak Fedora users === MarekMahut announces in fedora-ambassadors-list[1], "Let me introduce you our new mailing list [2] for Czech and Slovak Fedora users. If you are speaking one of those languages, feel free to join." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-May/msg00104.h… [2] http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-cs-list === Fedora Rawhide Live Images (20070517) === JeremyKatz announces in fedora-test-list[1], "First set of post-merge rawhide live images. These are based off of yesterday's rawhide (packages tagged f7-final in koji). You can get the torrent file from Fedora Project Torrent[2]. Available images are i386, x86_64, i386 KDE and also an x86_64 KDE image. Note that the x86_64 images require DVD media, the i386 images will fit on 700 meg CD media. Please file any issues against product Fedora Core, version devel and against the relevant component or LiveCD if you're unsure." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2007-May/msg00558.html [2] http://torrent.fedoraproject.org. == 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 === Summary from the Red Hat Summit === ChristopherBlizzard points out in his blog[1], "We announced a pile of things at the Red Hat Summit[2]. Lots of confusing articles have been written. Lots of press releases have been sent out filled with warnings about forward looking statements. Maybe you just want the run down on all the things that happened. This is your simple cheat sheet. Here's the list:.." [1] http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=289 [2] http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2007/news/ === F7 Firstboot and EULA === MaxSpevack points out in his blog[1], "In an attempt to have some transparency and no surprises, I've sent an email[2] to Fedora Advisory Board that details some of the changes we've made to firstboot and the EULA in Fedora 7. My personal opinion is that the changes are good for Fedora, and also relatively innocuous." [1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/16260.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-May/msg00111.html === 'Play Ogg': FSF launches free audio format campaign === ThomasChung points out in his blog[1] "The Free Software Foundation (FSF)[2] today launched Play``Ogg.org[3], a campaign to encourage use of the patent- and license-free standard Ogg Vorbis as an ethically, legally and technically superior audio alternative to the proprietary MP3 format." [1] http://fedora-tchung.blogspot.com/2007/05/play-ogg-fsf-launches-free-audio-… [2] http://www.fsf.org/news/playogg.html [3] http://playogg.org/ == Marketing == In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing === OLPC on CBS 60 Minutes === ThomasChung reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "CBS 60 Minutes[2] will air OLPC[3] story on Sunday, May 20, 2007 (7PM ET/PT)" "ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD – MIT Prof. Nicholas Negroponte's dream is to put a laptop computer into the hands of every child as an educational aid. Lesley Stahl reports on his progress in Cambodia and Brazil. Catherine Olian is the producer." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-May/msg00057.html [2] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/08/60minutes/main13502.shtml [3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OLPC UPDATE: The video is now available from CBS News Video archive[1]. You may need to install Real Player[2]. Here is the transcript for the entire show[3]. You may need to click on 'Print' button from main page. [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2830221n [2] http://www.real.com/linux [3] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/20/60minutes/printable2830058.shtml == 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 === New Suspend Quirks Functionality of F7 Explained === A "heads up" was announced by RichardHughes with regard to the changes in power management and HAL for Fedora 7, which would probably affect suspension [1]. Richard summarised the implications as "Some machines that suspended in FC6 might not work in F7; Lots of machines that did not suspend in FC6 might work in F7". [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01065.html These changes are as a result of trying to make suspend and resume Just Work by using a modular hal-info DMI whitelist which is being updated regularly. Explaining this on a separate page [2] Richard noted that the ability to share specific rules for specific hardware allows one user to figure out the "quirks" and then share the appropriate rule with other users that have the exact same hardware. [2] http://people.freedesktop.org/~hughsient/temp/quirk/quirk-intro.html This page explains how to see what quirks exist for your laptop, and how to help in creating an fdi file to share with other users. JefSpaleta wanted to know [3] at what point this had all happened so that he could investigate the actual effect that it had on his machines. PeterJones was able to answer very specifically [4] that the code had entered the tree on March 13, but had some problems until April 25th (pm-utils-0.99.2-1, hal-0.5.9-0.git20070304). [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01071.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01090.html In further testing Jef was isolated an unwanted interaction between NetworkManager and gnome-power-manager which RichardHughes and PeterJones agreed could be easily eliminated [5]. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01203.html ThorstenLeemhuis suggested [6] that Richard's webpage for gathering user data should also ask about the proprietary ATI driver "fglrx" and that it should solicit information as to whether the user selected a plain vga console or a framebuffer, both of which suggestions Richard willingly incorporated. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01123.html === XChat Package Maintenance: First Post-Merge Co-Maintenance? === A discussion was initiated, by an apparently testy [1] KevinKofler, around the apparent radio-silence of XChat-maintainer ChristopherAillon to Kevin's bug reports, which asked for X-Chat to be kept in sync with upstream. Kevin was willing to become co-maintainer, but pointed out [1a] that a lot of good work had already been done by RemiCollet. Kevin wondered if the AWOL-maintainers policy [1b] would be applied post-merge. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01201.html [1a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01208.html [1b] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras/Policy/AWOL_Maintainers A few things transpired from this: first, Chrisopher noted that the upstream Xch at developers are apparently unresponsive [3] to patches; second, that Xchat-gnome may have responsive upstream developers [4]. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01204.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01210.html Additionally WarrenTogami noted [5] that there are problems with XChat's ability to use multilinugal input methods such as SCIM or IM [6]. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01206.html [6] http://www.scim-im.org/ A brief exchange over the respective merits of Xchat-gnome [7] versus Xchat [8] saw both groups of believers unshaken in their faith, although CallumLerwick revealed himself as an apostate heretic user of Irssi. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01222.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01207.html The upshot of all this was that RemiCollet expressed interest [9] in being a co-maintainer and wondered if this could be a paradigm for The Merge. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01226.html === PowerTOP Release Opens Up New Directions In Power Saving === Reporting on his work on decreasing power wastage on laptops, ArjanvandeVen (ex-Red Hat, now Intel) suggested that we might want to try [1] his new tool that allows individual analysis of power consumption. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00796.html JoshBoyer was excited enough to want to package it [2], but AdamJackson (ajax) had already done that. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00799.html After DominikMierzejewski (Rathann) and "Dragoran" reported a lack of functional ity on AMD64 and x86_64 (Intel Core 2 Duo) repectively, JesseBarnes pointed out [3] that x86_64 tickless support in the kernel is an essential pre-requisite and this is not yet available in the rawhide kernels, necessitating a manual patch by anyone interested. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00838.html DavidTimms wanted to know [4] if it would help in finding out what was causing disk-accesses. Arjan replied that this was a frequent request which he was going to attempt to accomodate in the next version, possibly using blktrace. BillNottingham cautioned [5] that blktrace was not currently shipped in Fedora. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00811.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00932.html ThorstenLeemhuis followed up [6] on DavidTimms' question with some general queries about how Fedora, and more specifically gnome-power-manager, handles spinning down inactive hard-drives. Thorsten remembered RichardHughes' 2005 attempts to get a patch into HAL to allow similar functionality to that which WinXP was alleged to have. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00818.html Richard answered [7] that Fedora does not currently spin down drives by default and that one had to balance a significantly increased spin-up power drain compared to that saved by spinning down. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00820.html Thorsten wondered [7a] whether or not the new Robson/TurboMemory and hybrid drives would change that equation. [7a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00822.html JonathanUnderwood shifted the focus [8] to considering drive longevity, worrying that attempts to save power by spinning up-and-down would shorten drive life. Richard agreed, and AndyGreen provided some figures [9] which suggested that laptop drives (2.5") could be power spun 6 times per hour, whereas server (3.5") drives could only do 1 times per hour if one estimated a 5 year lifespan. [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00850.html [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00861.html TomLondon posted some early observations [10], in which PowerTOP revealed that if Firefox were displaying GMail there were about 60 wakeups-per-second, but that activating the "Gmail Talk" pushed the rate to 300 wakeups-per-second. NicolasMailhot responded that this was AJAX at work. [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00826.html MartinSourada was puzzled [11] by what appeared to be an unnaturally low power usage of 1.2W reported by PowerTOP, compared to an expected 16W reported by the /proc subsystem. JonBurgess explained that what was being reported was "present rate" in milliamperes (e.g. current) and showed how to calculate the power in Watts from that. TillMaas thought [12] that some notebooks actually reported the present rate in mW instead of mA. [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00831.html [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00835.html In a discussion of the packaging PatriceDumas suggested that the spec file be modified to preserve timestamps. AdamJackson wondered why [13] and ThorstenLeemhuis answered that it was necessary for multilib [14] and would make things easier for presto. MatthiasClasen agreed with DavidWoodhouse that including timestamps in file identity tests was not a good idea [15]. MichaelSchwendt and "nodata" thought that in contrast that it was nice to know when a file was several years old especially for documentation and scripts [16]. AdamJackson (ajax) said [17] that it wasn't a multilib package, but "sure why not". [13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01011.html [14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01017.html [15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01018.html [16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01025.html [17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01024.html === Massive size increase in some packages === The eagle eyed OrionPoplawski maintains python-numarray, and in the course of rebuilding the package from its Fedora Extras 6 version to Fedora 7 spotted [1] that the size had increased by an order of magnitude. He also noted that a subsequent rebuild now, produced packages of a normal size. Further investigation revealed by Orion suggested that this was due to the shared libraries, and a comparison of FE6 to FE-devel turned up some other candidates which had increased in size by at least a factor of two. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01161.html The first possible culprit was guessed to be debug symbols by BillNottingham who asked [2] whether debug packages had been turned off for these builds, but Orion reported that he'd just done a straightforward rebuild. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01164.html Orion posted an objdump [3] which showed that although the shared-object files appeared to have been stripped, the large one was possibly including the whole of the libpython shared-object instead of linking it dynamically at runtime, which might explain the bloat. A diff of the two objdumps appeared to also show different glibc versions [4]. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01168.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01170.html One conclusion drawn from this [5] was that all non-arch python packages built within the timeframe of Dec 8th 2006 to Jan 6th 2007, (or prior to python-2.5.3-8) should be rebuilt. Another conclusion was drawn by AxelThimm, who revisited [6] the mass-rebuild debate (reported in FWN84 [7],[8]) and argued that this backed up his viewpoint that mass rebuilds were useful. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01171.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01174.html [7] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue84 [8] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue85 === Rawhide Report 17 May 2007:Liberated Fonts, Corrupt Metadata === On Thursday 17th May 2007, the rawhide report [1] listed 5 new packages: gsm, kde-settings, liberation-fonts, mcpp and php-pear-HTML-QuickForm-ElementGrid. The Liberation-fonts package is a result of Red Hat contracting Ascender Corp. to develop replacements for proprietary Microsoft fonts, including but not limited to Times New Roman, Arial and Courier New. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01111.html [2] http://www.press.redhat.com/2007/05/09/liberation-fonts/ MilesLane was first off the block to report [3] that "yum update" was not picking up an updated version of control-center, but that it could be seen to be present at its URL in the repository. The usual "yum clean all" had been tried first. RoddClarkson reported related problems [4], which indicated to JeremyKatz [5] that the something was misaligned with the tree. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01114.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01133.html NicolasMailhot suspected [6] proxies as the problem, but NigelJones refuted this possibility with some data [7]. MattDomsch suggested that the frequently-updated content at mirrors.fedoraproject.org was a better argument to mirrorlist than fedora.redhat.com, but this still didn't help Miles. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01118.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01121.html The was identified by BillNottingham [8] as a partially synced tree (primary.xml.gz was the only thing missing) and BrendanConoboy added [9] that repomd.xml needed to be regenerated too. [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01146.html [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01150.html === Making Beagle Optional === In response to frequent bugs in Beagle (a desktop search tool) causing CPU and memory stress, AlexanderLarsson made it optional [1] in the default install. While regretting that this was a regression in terms of features he pointed out that Beagle was still available for those who wanted it. There was a mild amount of satisfaction expressed in response to the decision. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00887.html DavidNielsen thought [2] that Tracker was superior because Beagle consumed 100% CPU without tweaking. KevinKofler mentioned that Strigi would be part of KDE4, which will ship in Fedora 8, and worried about multiple desktop search daemons. David pointed out the Xesam Project [3] from Freedesktop which may mitigate this, and noted that there was a real need for desktop improvements using the technology which weren't simply replacements of the search dialog. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00914.html [3] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/XesamAbout In response to Alexander's proposal JesseKeating reported [4] that the Release Team agreed with this late regression, with the caveat that Beagle must be in the manifest of the "Fedora" spin of F7 so that upgraders from FC6 to F7 will not suffer. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00942.html A few people were disappointed. DavidNielsen pointed out [5] that hard testing and stabilization would ensure that Beagle would return in F8, and AlexanderLarsson pointed to some specific bugs that those with an interest in running Beagle on Fedora could help [6] to fix. JefSpaleta expanded on the rationale behind why Beagle had to be removed due to failing QA, but could still be installed from a repository [7]. RahulSundaram and DejiAkingunola [8] re-emphasized that Beagle was being removed from the default-install, not removed altogether, and that it is still in the official Fedora repositories for those who like it. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00964.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01008.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01053.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01054.html In response to a suggestion by MatejCepl that Beagle was not greatly admired due to being built on Mono [9], Alexander hastened to clarify [10] that this was not the reason and that the problems on display were going to be faced by any indexer. In fact, Alexander thought that Mono might have advantages by being (as all managed runtimes are) harder to crash. DavidNielsen was largely in agreement with this and also pointed out that Beagle had excellent documenation [11]. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00992.html [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01007.html [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00992.html === Legality of Fedora In Some Jurisdictions Contd. === Last week's discussion [1] of the need to be able to show a "Certificate of Authenticity" to the IP police in some countries, continued [2] with RalfCorsepius arguing forcefully that it was necessary to have a specific limitation on what language was acceptable for software packaged by Fedora. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00697.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00810.html JoshBoyer thought that Ralf should make a proposal about this to the Packaging Committee as he is a member, but Ralf thought [3] that responsibility was split between FESCo and GregDeKoenigsberg. Josh pointed out that no rule existed to say that Ralf shouldn't do this, and that he appeared to have a good understanding of the issue [4], and that something along these lines would need to augment the packaging guidelines in the future anyway. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00908.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00924.html Rahul also agreed with Ralf that bugs should be filed against packages with non-English licenses [5], but disagreed that non-English licenses were unreadable. Rahul sought further non-English examples from Ralf. One that had been previously discussed was "mecab", maintained by MamoruTasaka. Mamoru mentioned [6] that he had sent a translation of a Japanese license for another package to TomCallaway who had then queried the FSF and was awaiting a reply from them. Mamoru had unsuccesfully requested the developer to use the GPL and had previously followed the same process [7] of going through TomCallaway and the FSF. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00906.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00910.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00913.html AndrewHaley thought that license translation wasn't the FSF's job, but Rahul pointed out that they had done so whenever asked in the past [8]. [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00912.html NicolasMailhot took exception [9] to the idea that English was more blessed than other languages and an exchange between Rahul and Nicolas followed which revolved around the US (hence English speaking) nature of Fedora (via Red Hat), the need to define what is an official translation, and the cost burden of producing these translations. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00915.html SimoSorce thought [10] that placing the onus on non-English speaking developers to provide English translations of their licenses to Fedora was burdensome. He also argued [11] that mere translation to English was not enough, but rephrasing to take account of the local legal context was essential. At this point the conversation appeared to return to a familiar place, where Rahul argued that non-US contributors would need to accept a US legal framework [12], or else the Fedora Project would have to regretfully decline their code. [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00926.html [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00943.html [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00947.html === Making Koji A Complete rpmfind Replacement === During the blip with syncing rawhide, NicolasMailhot explored one of Koji's less appreciated abilities. Koji [1] is a package build system developed for the Fedora Project , but Nicolas pointed out that with a little work [2] it could also fill the functional role that rpmfind fills on the web, making it easier for users to find specific RPMs. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Koji [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01057.html Agreeing with Nicolas that adding resolution of dependency links and display of rpm metadata, NigelJones added [3] that it would be nice to also see build-requires, so that packagers could contact other affected maintainers. In response MikeBonnet pointed to where this information appeared to be already provided by Koji [4] and asked for some more information. Nicolas advised looking at rpmfind.net to see what he meant. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01058.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01064.html An offer of help [5] was received from OliverFalk, who had explored similar ideas, and JoshBoyer noted that "patches [were] welcome"! [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01059.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01060.html == Maintainers == In this section, we cover Fedora Maintainers, the group of people who maintain the software packages in Fedora https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-maintainers === Why Not Build For EPEL Too? === ThorstenLeemhuis sent out a start signal[1] this week to let Fedora contributors know they can also help out with EPEL, or Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux. The invitation was made by Thorsten for Fedora packagers to build their packages for EPEL, which will allow RHEL and CentOS users (and other RHEL-based distributions) access to the vast array of packages found in the Fedora repository. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00323.html === Fedora 7 Deep Freeze === This past Thursday, May 17, marked Fedora 7 entering a deep freeze[1]. With this period now in effect, only build tag requests for builds that fix release blockers will be permitted until the May 31st launch of Fedora 7. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00351.html === Help Wanted: Package Co-maintainers === JochenSchmitt has put out a request for co-maintainers on a variety of different packages from blender to luma. If you have some time to help out another Fedora contributor, check out his message[1] for a list of packages needing another maintainer. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00380.html === Improving Fedora Package Documentation === JonathanUnderwood has also put out a request, but this time it's for improving the Fedora packaging documentation[1]. The packaging documentation is in need of rewriting and then making it known and easy to find, and Underwood is initiating a movement to fix this area in despair. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00598.html == Documentation == In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject === Fedora Documentation Steering Committee Meeting === The FDSCo meeting was rescheduled last week and took place on Tuesday 15th May[1]. The meetings log was posted to the docs-list[2]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00061.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00068.html === Welcome Wizard === The idea of creating a Welcome Wizard was submitted to the docs-list[1]. Following discussions it was decided that if such an addition were to be made to Fedora it would be best suited as its own piece of software, separate from the First Run Wizard[2]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00066.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00081.html === Hardware Solutions Knowledge Base === A long desired addition to the Fedora Project is a community contributed database of hardware compatibility and solutions. It is thought that a knowledge base solution would be most appropriate but the best method for implementation remains undiscovered[1]. Some people believe that integration with Smolt will be possible to an extent, helping to automate the creation of much of the content[2]. Anybody interested in seeing this become a reality should post a message to the docs-list. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00072.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00080.html == Infrastructure == In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure === Fedora Mirror System === Thanks to MattDomsch for following news contribution[1]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-news-list/2007-May/msg00012.html Fedora is fortunate to have nearly 200 volunteer mirror sites globally which helps distribute CD and DVD images, OS installs and updated packages to nearly 3 million systems [1]. Managing the list of mirror sites and their content had been a tedious manual process. In late October 2006, the Fedora Infrastructure team recognized the need to automate managing the mirror list. In January 2007, MattDomsch started working on code in earnest with the goal of being in production by the Fedora 7 release. With help from the entire Infrastructure team, especially ToshioKuratomi, MikeMcGrath, SethVidal, and LukeMacken, that system is now in place. Mirrormanager[2] is licensed under the MIT/X11 license and is written using the Turbo``Gears web application framework. It includes: * a database of mirror sites, individual mirror hosts, content carried such as Core, Extras, EPEL, and soon the Fedora Releases. Mirrors may choose to carry whichever subsets of the whole tree they wish. * an administration web app for mirror admins to manage detail about their own site. * a web crawler that crawls each mirror site several times a day updating the database with what they carry * the yum mirrorlist handler which tells yum the list of mirrors to try. With this system in place, users should begin to see faster yum downloads, from a mirror in your country if possible. You can see the whole list of mirrors by country and content[3]. We're always looking for additional mirrors. If you would like to provide a public Fedora mirror, please see [4]. Troubles with new system should be reported to fedora-infrastructure-list redhat com or #fedora-admin on Free``Node. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics [2] https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/projects/mirrormanager [3] http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist [4] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/Mirroring === Koji === Koji[1] (buildsystem software) was upgraded this week to a new version and moved to heavier duty hardware. The upgrade went well, though the outage lasted longer than initially anticipated. MikeMcGrath has more here[2]. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Koji [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg0007… === Proxy Server === The proxy servers[1] were upgraded[2] this week to RHEL 5. All went well and no outages were reported. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/Architecture [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg0009… == Artwork == In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork === Ambassador Program Banner === After a posting to the art-list requesting a new banner for the Ambassador Program's websites[1], one was quickly forwarded[2] and is now part of the Ambassador's websites. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00010.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00011.html The Ambassadors are still looking for some print banners[1], however, for LinuxTag Germany, and work is underway[2] but new contributions are always welcome. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00013.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00014.html === Shutdown and Logout Icons === A discussion was prompted about the usability of Fedora's current approach to logging out and shutting down, the functions respective icons and menu locations[1]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00024.html == Security Week == In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora. === Samba === Last week a round of Samba flaws were fixed[1]: This update fixed three security flaws, all of which could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code with the same permissions of the Samba server. Some of these flaws are especially dangerous as they allow an anonymous attacker on the network to compromise the Samba server. The anonymous part is what makes the flaws the most scary. If an attacker has to be authenticated against the Samba server, you have a known number of attackers. If anyone attached to the network is able to attack Samba, there can be a near infinite number of attackers depending on the network setup. The lesson one should take away from this, is that proper network setup is important. Sane firewall rules can go a long way. If you only need one machine to talk to the Samba server, you should only allow that machine access, not the whole network. Spending some time thinking about your network needs can make a big difference when a security flaw is found. [1] http://news.samba.org/releases/samba_3_0_25_release/ == Security Advisories == In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce === Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories === * 2007-05-15 nfs-utils-1.0.10-10.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-510 * 2007-05-14 [SECURITY] freeradius-1.1.3-2.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-499 * 2007-05-14 [SECURITY] php-5.1.6-3.6.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-503 * 2007-05-14 [SECURITY] samba-3.0.24-5.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-507 * 2007-05-14 [SECURITY] squirrelmail-1.4.10a-1.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-505 * 2007-05-14 firefox-1.5.0.10-6.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-500 * 2007-05-14 foomatic-3.0.2-39.5.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-446 * 2007-05-14 logrotate-3.7.4-13.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-504 * 2007-05-14 openldap-2.3.30-2.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-467 * 2007-05-14 procps-3.2.7-10.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-495 * 2007-05-14 ypbind-1.19-7.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-502 === Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories === * 2007-05-14 [SECURITY] samba-3.0.24-5.fc5 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-506 * 2007-05-14 openldap-2.3.30-2.fc5 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-468 * 2007-05-14 procps-3.2.7-2.fc5 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-494 * 2007-05-14 SDL-1.2.9-6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-498 == Events and Meetings == In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from various projects. === Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-14 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01192.html === Fedora French Ambassadors Meeting 2007-05-13 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-May/msg00094.h… === Fedora Engineering Steering Committee 2007-05-10 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00474.html == Feedback == This document is maintained by the Fedora News Team[1]. Please feel free to contact us to give your feedback. If you'd like to contribute to a future issue of the Fedora Weekly News, please see the Join[2] page to find out how to help. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

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edit start for the week
by Karsten Wade 20 May '07

20 May '07

A bit remiss, but I'm going to do an edit run through FWN starting in a few minutes. I have to finish the FDSCo minutes for this morning's meeting, which will give me content for FWN/Beats/Documentation. I'll send heads up when I'm done, or watch the Wiki edits. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

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development news beat ready for editing
by Oisin Feeley 19 May '07

19 May '07

Hi, Please take a look at: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Beats/Developments#preview Best, Oisin -- Oisin Feeley oisinfeeley(a)imapmail.org -- http://www.fastmail.fm - IMAP accessible web-mail

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FWN Infrastructure topic - mirrormanager
by Matt Domsch 19 May '07

19 May '07

Thomas, here's one for FWN for the Infrastructure page. There's lots more going in with koji, the build systems, etc. that I haven't been involved with that'd be good to include too. * Fedora Mirror System Fedora is fortunate to have nearly 200 volunteer mirror sites globally which helps distribute CD and DVD images, OS installs and updated packages to nearly 3 million systems [1]. Managing the list of mirror sites and their content had been a tedious manual process. In late October 2006, the Fedora Infrastructure team recognized the need to automate managing the mirror list. In January 2007, MattDomsch started working on code in earnest with the goal of being in production by the Fedora 7 release. With help from the entire Infrastructure team, especially Toshio Kuratomi, Mike McGrath, Seth Vidal, and Luke Macken, that system is now in place. Mirrormanager[2] is licensed under the MIT/X11 license and is written using the TurboGears web application framework. It includes: * a database of mirror sites, individual mirror hosts, content carried such as Core, Extras, EPEL, and soon the Fedora Releases. Mirrors may choose to carry whichever subsets of the whole tree they wish. * an administration web app for mirror admins to manage detail about their own site. * a web crawler that crawls each mirror site several times a day updating the database with what they carry * the yum mirrorlist handler which tells yum the list of mirrors to try. With this system in place, users should begin to see faster yum downloads, from a mirror in your country if possible. You can see the whole list of mirrors by country and content[3]. We're always looking for additional mirrors. If you would like to provide a public Fedora mirror, please see [4]. Troubles with new system should be reported to fedora-infrastructure-list(a)redhat.com or #fedora-admin on FreeNode. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics [2] https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/projects/mirrormanager [3] http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist [4] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/Mirroring Thanks, Matt Fedora Mirror Wrangler -- Matt Domsch Software Architect Dell Linux Solutions linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux Linux on Dell mailing lists @ http://lists.us.dell.com

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 87
by Thomas Chung 14 May '07

14 May '07

= Fedora Weekly News Issue 87 = Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 87[1] for the week of May 6th through May 12th, 2007. The latest issue can always be found here[2] and RSS Feed can be found here[3]. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue87 [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/LatestIssue [3] http://feeds.feedburner.com/fwn 1. Fedora Weekly News Issue 87 1. Announcements 1. Fedora 7 -- what, when, and why 2. Fedora 7 Deep Freeze/GA release schedule change 3. Post-merge howto and FAQ 2. Planet Fedora 1. Red Hat Summit - Update from the Left Coast 2. Red Hat Summit - Fedora Unity, Custom Spins of Fedora 3. Red Hat Summit - ATI and Open Source 4. Java One and OpenJDK 5. Red Hat Summer Intern: Python Web Programming 3. Marketing 1. Liberations fonts from Red Hat 2. Distrowatch on Fedora Repo Merge 4. Developments 1. Rawhide Merge Status 2. AlphaCore Project Gets Help Patching The Kernel Spec File 3. Zope. A Tale Of Two Threads 4. Avoid Inane Regulatory Licensing Shakedowns By Printing Your Own Official Fedora License 5. Missed Contributor Returns 6. Fedora Standards For Contents Of /etc/pki 7. Sun's GPL'ed Java To Arrive Soon In Fedora 8. DeltaRPM, YUMPresto plans 9. Wireless Test Request for ipw3945 etc Users 10. Why Does Nautilus Create Folders in ~ By Default ? 5. Translation 1. Completion Summary 6. Infrastructure 1. Cacti 2. System Flux 7. Security Advisories 1. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories 2. Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories 8. Events and Meetings 1. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-05-08 2. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-07 3. Event Report: 2007 Upstate Hamfest - South Carolina, USA 4. Event Report: LinuxTag at Fachhochschule Salzburg - Salzburg, Austria 9. Editor's Note: Red Hat Summmit 2007 10. Feedback == Announcements == In this section, we cover announcements from various projects. === Fedora 7 -- what, when, and why === MaxSpevack announces in fedora-announce-list[1], "The next version of Fedora will be released on May 24th. It will be called "Fedora 7" -- not "Fedora Core 7". It's the most ambitious release of Fedora that we've undertaken, and I hope that when we look back at Fedora 7 one or two years down the road, the decisions that we made for this release will have proven to be as impactful as anything we've done in the Fedora space since the start of the Fedora Project." In one sentence: "Fedora 7 has been about improving the manner in which all future Fedora releases will be made." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-May/msg00002.html === Fedora 7 Deep Freeze/GA release schedule change === JoshBoyer announces in fedora-maintainers[1], "The bulk of the Core/Extras merge has now been finished, and the Release Engineering team has been working hard to get things back in shape for the final F7 release. However, due to the massive nature of this undertaking, we are not coming back online as fast as we had hoped." "While this slip is unfortunate, it is also in the best interest for the quality of the release. Please bear with us as we strive to make this the best release of Fedora to date!" [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00236.html === Post-merge howto and FAQ === JoshBoyer announces in fedora-maintainers[1], "Due to popular demand, I sat down and wrote up a brief howto for handling packages in the merged world. Given that I'm almost guaranteed to have not answered all the questions, it's living under the wiki[2] for the moment. Hopefully it will give the package maintainers a high level overview of what to do and how to do it. Feel free to ask questions and I (or others) will try to address them." [1]https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00220.html [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JoshBoyer/MergeHOWTO == 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 === Red Hat Summit - Update from the Left Coast === PaulFrields points out in his blog[1], "In the afternoon a bunch of Fedora folks (including your humble reporter) gathered in a posh executive conference room, complete with snazzy lighting and decor, for a video interview conducted by Kim Jokisch and mainly shot by Red Hat filmmaker extraordinaire Tim Kiernan[2]. Tim pops up again later in this post. We talked about all the cool things going on in Fedora, including but not limited to the new release. We also talked about what is so fricking cool about working on Fedora. Why do we do it, beyone the simple "scratch an itch" answers? I'm hoping some of this interview will make it out into public space at some point." [1] http://marilyn.frields.org:8080/~paul/wordpress/?p=778 [2] http://www.redhat.com/magazine/006apr05/departments/red_hat_speaks/ === Red Hat Summit - Fedora Unity, Custom Spins of Fedora === MaxSpevack points out in his blog[1], "So I'm sitting here in the first big Fedora talk at the Red Hat Summit[2]. Jon Steffan. Bob Jensen, and Jesse Keating talking about how to build custom versions of Fedora. The tools that they used? Pungi, LiveCD Creator, and Revisor. In my opinion, the ability to generate customized versions of Fedora is one of the most important pieces of Fedora 7[3]." [1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/14639.html [2] http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2007/ [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-May/msg00002.html === Red Hat Summit - ATI and Open Source === ChristopherBlizzard points out in his blog[1], "The (AMD) ATI[2] marketing guy on stage (Henri Richard) at the Red Hat Summit[3] just committed to fixing the ATI problems with open source. To paraphrase "most people are worried about what they will lose…IP, etc…we're worried about what we can win." They know it's a problem and they are committed to fixing it." [1] http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=288 [2] http://ati.amd.com/ [3] http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2007/ === Java One and OpenJDK === TomTromey points out in his blog[1], "Java One[1] is huge, much huger than I'd imagined. The opening keynote had a steady stream of corporate luminaries onstage to talk about their Java-related plans. Many thanks to Bruno for saving us some great seats — and also to Tom Marble for making the effort to include me in the various goings on. The big news is that OpenJDK[3] sources are available, and that Dalibor is on the initial OpenJDK governance board. Next step: replace the remaining binary blobs with free software." [1] http://tromey.com/blog/?p=350 [2] http://java.sun.com/javaone/sf/index.jsp [3] http://openjdk.java.net/ === Red Hat Summer Intern: Python Web Programming === WarrenTogami points out in his blog[1], "Paid Intern Job through runs through May 14th and August 14th. This position requires use of the Python programming language with the Turbogears web application framework and a RDBMS database backend. This position would be responsible to drive not just the implementation of software deliverables, but also the creation of a community project that works on its design and implementation. Location: Red Hat's Westford, MA or Raleigh, NC office. Work Remote over Internet is possible if you have the ability to work closely with our engineers located in the American EDT timezone." [1] http://wtogami.livejournal.com/16659.html == Marketing == In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing === Liberations fonts from Red Hat === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "Red Hat has released Liberation fonts[2] under the GPL+ fonts exception license. Liberation fonts are metric equivalent to key Microsoft fonts. This is a major milestone and significantly enhances the interoperability of documents and content under these Microsoft fonts in Linux." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-May/msg00020.html [2] http://www.press.redhat.com/2007/05/09/liberation-fonts/ === Distrowatch on Fedora Repo Merge === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "The long-promised merge of Fedora's core and extras repositories is finally under way: "Merge is going well now. A bunch of hiccups early on as we moved our test scripts into acting with real bits and databases and such, but now that that's over..." As for the hiccups, Jesse Keating explains: "We're scrambling to create ppc64 builds of all the extras packages, as those didn't exist before, but now they will be built for ppc64. Also we need to hook up some software to make rawhide appear. It may just be in package repo form (not installable) to begin with, we'll see. I wouldn't expect anything this weekend." For more information about the merge and other Fedora topics, please check out the latest issue of Fedora Weekly News." "Digg this up folks[2]." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-May/msg00013.html [2] http://digg.com/linux_unix/Fedora_merging_Core_and_Extras_repositories_today == 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 === Rawhide Merge Status === BillNottingham gave us a heads-up [1] that a huge merged rawhide tree had been pushed out to the master mirror. MichaelSchwendt wanted to know [2] if the wiki had been updated to document the merge process and whether the tool was available publically. DavidNielsen suggested liquid celebrations [3]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00776.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00786.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00782.html DennisGilmore and JoshBoyer explained that the rawhide compose tools were publically available in the form of "pungi" and "mash" and that a rawhide report could be generated using "treediff" just as with the old rawhide. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00793.html === AlphaCore Project Gets Help Patching The Kernel Spec File === OliverFalk gauged the busyness of the kernel team by posting [1] a request for help to patch the kernel .spec file so that Fedora can continue to be ported to the Alpha architecture. JoshBoyer asked [2] for the patches, which DavidWoodhouse then reviewed thoroughly [3]. JoshBoyer and Jarod Wilson also took the time to provide detailed feedback [4]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00680.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00682.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00683.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00699.html === Zope. A Tale Of Two Threads === Last week we reported [1] on the problems that the Zope package is facing in living up to the packaging requirements of Fedora, and a changed Python API. The thread was replete with high emotion from Zope users who felt that a compatability package for the EOL'ed Python-2.4 should be included in the distro. A separate thread about a tool for reading the SMBIOS sparked a discussion about what the people maintaining packages should do and should be called [2]. The issues discussed in both threads overlapped considerably, having at heart the issue of exactly who is responsible for what work and in which manner. And so, it was natural that the threads would eventually merge and overlap. There are two main threads buried in here. One of them contains all sorts of technical goodies about SELinux and packaging, the other contains stuff to do with the random electrical activity performed by the soft, squishy material in our heads. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue86#head-9d00b6b611ad698b385581e36902… [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue86#head-ab47d69eeea718f121b101726542… Disappointment with the decision not to pursue the maintenance burden led JoshBoyer to clarify [3] that this was a decision by the Fedora python maintainer, backed by the community in the form of FESCo. DavidMackay still wanted to know why the responsibility was being pushed onto the Zope maintainers when, as he saw it, the problem was caused by the Python developers. JesseKeating answered [4] that the responsibility was theirs because this had been flagged over 9 months in adavance as a major change by the Python developers. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00372.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00391.html JonathanSteffan made his position as Fedora Zope maintainer clear in no uncertain way [5] when he posted references from upstream Zope development that suggested that there would never be support for Zope-2 with Python-2.5. Jonathan asked rhetorically whether he should really be expected to take on the massive and potentially futile task that some were suggesting. Following this DavidWoodhouse acknowleged Jonathan's work and opened up a larger discussion about what it meant to be a package maintainer [6]. David had taken a fair amount of criticism for some of his earlier statements about package maintainers and he took the opportunity to try to explain what he had been thinking: namely that in order to produce a coherent collection of separate codebases that worked together (e.g. a distro) it was exactly necessary for maintainers to take on the sort of task to which Jonathan referred. "Dragoran" was particularly in agreement [7] with a part of this post of David's in which he mentioned that it was necessary for packagers to deal with SELinux issues. Dragoran, David and ManuelWolfshant were in agreement [8] that the package review guidelines should be changed to make SELinux compliance necessary. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00294.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00306.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00308.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00311.html HansdeGoede expressed irritation at DavidWoodhouse's apparent attitude to package maintainers [9] and thus began a part of the thread, Gentle Reader, into which you may not wish to delve. Suffice to say it involved accusations of bedwetting, political correctness, Californianism and disrespect. David's essential point seemed to be that a higher standard and expectations should be applied to packagers, while others thought that a higher standard of courtesy was needed. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00317.html There were, however, some very enlightening and useful parts to the thread. TillMaas drew attention several times [10][11] to the paucity of good SELinux packaging documentation, and the problem of getting help. These points were acknowleged by David [12] who suggested that packagers could file a bug against their package CC'ing DanielWalsh, while noting that Dan might not be able to do all of this on his own. [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00322.html [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00427.html [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00549.html JakubJelinek replied to Till's specific problem with the information [13] that DC_TEXTREL shared libraries should fixed not by massaging SELinux contexts, but by compiling with the appropriate position-independent code flags. TillMaas referenced some material from UlrichDrepper suggesting that it wasn't simply an "-fpic" problem and KarlMacMillan agreed with this [14]. Further probing from Till and JonathanUnderwood led to a wealth of information from PaulHowarth [15] and KarlMacMillan [16] about where SELinux contexts should be set. [13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00554.html [14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00565.html [15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00587.html [16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00643.html Jakub's expertise was further drawn out by a question from Hans about the difference between "-fpic" and "-fPIC" which led to yet more nuggets of information [16]. [16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00561.html === Avoid Inane Regulatory Licensing Shakedowns By Printing Your Own Official Fedora License === A Russian contributor, DmitryButskoy, opened a thread [1] about potential temporary confiscation of hardware running Free software due to new regulations. Apparently in Russia it is necessary for a business to be able to show a "certificate" attesting to the origin of the software so that the police can determine that it is not pirated. Obviously as Fedora is downloaded for "free" this is a little difficult to obtain. JoshBoyer sympathised but wasn't sure what this had to do with the Fedora Project, pointing out that the licenses for all packages were available. Dmitry answered [2] that it was an extra hurdle for those that wished to deploy Fedora in a production environment and that failure to address such problems could mean less testing, which would in turn affect RHEL. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00697.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00721.html In response to RandyWyatt's suggestion of simply printing the GPL, NicuBuculei pointed out that such regulations are usually carefully worded at the behest of the BSA to make this difficult. Nicu also reported that Romania has a registry of acceptable programs and that one is not supposed to use any software not on that list! [3]. AlanCox thought [4] that this was a violation of EU single-market laws and hoped that the law was thus now obsolete. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00705.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00714.html Suggesting that the print-your-own license was a plausible route, AlanCox noted that other people faced with similar situations often made a hard-copy of the GPL, and also suggested [5] that as Dmitry had a boxed-set supplier that they might be able to do something. The idea was further expanded [6] to include a webpage of the Fedora Project auto-generating a suitably official looking license and text. All the usual disclaimers about not being lawyers were applied by participants to the discussion. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00710.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00722.html BenjaminKosnik volunteered [7] to be responsible for producing an impressive and accurate document, and further discussion with Dmitry about which shiny metal seals would make policemen happy turned up some pertinent counter-examples from the UK [8]. In response to RickVinyards suggestion that official Fedora cover images be available for CD/DVDs, JeremyKatz pointed [9] to those which are already available on the wiki and JefSpaleta suggested that they be bundled with the torrents. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00719.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00730.html [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00748.html RahulSundaram and others provided a link to the Fedora Project EULA, but AndyShevchenko responded [10] out that what was needed was a Russian-language version which could be approved by the police. SimoSorce had an inside scoop [11] that promised further information from one of the prominent Russian distributors (of ALTLinux) and suggested that collaboration and co-operation with other such distributors would be mutually beneficial for Free Software. MatejCepl warned of the dangers of meddling with legal matters [12]. [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00749.html [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00745.html [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00760.html === Missed Contributor Returns === Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams made a return to the list [1] after an unscheduled absence and was greeted warmly, not least by an offer from DonRussell of a tasty bug in mgetty [2]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00613.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00633.html === Fedora Standards For Contents Of /etc/pki === RichardJones wanted [1] details of what it was acceptable to put into the /etc/pki directory as he was writing an application which needed to generate and store some TSL certificates. DavidWoodhouse objected [2] to the length of Richard's signature (which was a Red Hat UK corporate one) igniting not so much a flamewar, as a brief brush fire which culminated in AlanCox suggesting that the proper place to put such information was in an "Organisation:" header [3] and that IBM had succesfully sorted out issues like this in the past [4]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00580.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00590.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00639.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00788.html Directly addressing the substance rather than the form of the original email, JoeOrton replied [5] that there was at present no standard being enforced and asked for further details about the requirements of the application. Joe futher suggested that it would be best to put TLS certificates in "/etc/pki/tls/appname". Richard provided links to the background of his problem [6], which is the libvirt toolkit for interacting with Xen, QEMU and KVM. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00645.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00662.html === Sun's GPL'ed Java To Arrive Soon In Fedora === Welcoming the release of (most of) Sun's Java SDK HansdeGoede wondered [1] what strategy should be followed to integrate it into Fedora. AndrewOverholt and TomTromey [2] thought that platform coverage was going to be an important issue as was the ability to remove the remaining non-Free encumbrances. BillNottingham wanted to know whether these non-Free pieces could just be ripped out, or whether they needed replacements coded [3]. Responses identified variously: font-rendering [4], color-management and parts of Java 2D rendering [5]. TomTromey pointed out that Sun were keen to do all of this and AndrewHaley is going to figure out a more detailed answer to the question. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00497.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00528.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00535.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00539.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00566.html Addressing the issue of platform-coverage, RahulSundaram [6] argued that x86 and x86_64 constituted about 80% of current users, based on the statistics gathered with the smolt-profiler. DimiPaun suspected [7] that it was more like 98%. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00529.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00531.html === DeltaRPM, YUMPresto plans === ValentTurkovic wanted to know [1] whether yum-presto and deltarpm would be installed by default in Fedora7. JoshBoyer was able to quickly respond in the negative [2], citing the late (frozen) stage of the release cycle, while acknowleging the apparent advantages of the software. Valent posted a couple more examples of the bandwidth savings obtainable and ManuelWolfshant pointed out again that there was no doubt that it was useful, but that F7 was now in a freeze for new features. Manuel suggested [3] that rawhide might see the inclusion of the software, and Josh clarified [4] that this would probably be so, but that the repositories might not get changed to enable them to work with the tools. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00483.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00485.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00521.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00524.html WillWoods pointed out [5] encouragingly that in a mere six to seven months Fedora 8 would be under way, but that the repository mirrors would have to be considered. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00527.html JonathanDieter drew attention [6] to the fact that yum-presto and deltarpm were both officially present in (what was called Extras for FC6 and F7 prior to the merge of the Core and Extras repositories ), but just wasn't included in any spins. In a completely separate thread about the merged rawhide push, Jonathan also noted [7] that i386 updates were available using yum-presto, except for packages that were in the old "Extras" repository. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00534.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00789.html === Wireless Test Request for ipw3945 etc Users === A request from JohnLinville to test [1] a new wireless driver for the ipw3945 drew lots of responses. (In an earlier issue [2] we covered earlier investigations of whether iwlwifi or iwl3945 worked best). John wanted specifically to know the version of the last best working kernel, and whether the new DaveJones kernels worked better. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00441.html [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue83#head-288d7145f160acc3f8f3febf5b42… ThomasBaker initially found the new driver (iwl3945) worked better, but then had to report failure [3]. JohnLinville suggested [4] the appropriate bugzilla entry [4]. RichardHughes had a similar experience, which led AndrewBartlett to suggest [4a] possible problems with interrupt handling. Richard started trying to track down the problem by rebuilding iwlwifi. He rebuilt succesfully using a custom linus kernel, but failed with Fedora [4b], with what looked like an incorrect include. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00473.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00474.html [4a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00543.html [4b] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00576.html Both YuanYijun [5] and AndyGreen [6] reported instability but still thought it was stable enough to use, comparing favourable to e.g. earlier bcm43xx stability. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00446.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00450.html A detailed log from TomLondon seemed to indicate a possible renaming issue [7] as a result of running both drivers alternately. This was confirmed in a follow up post by another user. DennisGilmore and AndrewBartlett had more negative experiences, leading DanWilliams to request the output from "lshal". RalfCorsepius and JarodWilson did as asked, leading Dan to enquire about whether SELinux was in enforcing mode, and explaining the interaction between HAL and NM which might cause this failure. Unfortunately Jarod had already tried to take this into account [8] and had to still report a failure. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00466.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00575.html === Why Does Nautilus Create Folders in ~ By Default ? === Rubin was searching [1] for the knob that turned off the automatic creation of three directories in his home directory. JesseKeating and BrianPepple suggested [2] that there might have been discussion about this on @fedora-desktop or in blog entries in Planet GNOME or Fedora People. "Nodata" was able to point to an @fedora-devel thread [3] which discussed the issue, and agreed with Rubin. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00318.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00321.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00323.html RahulSundaram provided a fix [4] (editing ~/.config) and DavidNielsen came out swinging as an unabashed defender [5] of the technology that does this, Fedora 7's implementation of the freedesktop.org XDG-Base-Directory specification: xdg-user-dirs. RonYorston was unimpressed and mentioned [6] his partially succesful efforts to remove this new feature. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00327.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00326.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00332.html MatthiasClasen hastened [7] to clear nautilus of any responsibility and suggested to simply remove the directories, although Rubin reported that this didn't work, but that ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs could be edited. Further down the thread AlexanderLarsson suggested and RahulSundaram confirmed [8] that it is necessary to re-run xdg-user-dirs after blowing away the unwanted directories with a "rm". [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00330.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00394.html Rubin also thought that this change should be presented and explained to people a bit better. Others echoed this sentiment [8] in separate parts of the thread, and KarstenWade pointed out the Release Notes [9] [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00331.html == Translation == This section, we cover the news surrounding the Fedora Translation (L10n) Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N === Completion Summary === This week saw the translation deadline for FC7 (2359 10 May 2007). PaulFrields had a status[1] report ready for the translation team. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-May/msg00024.html == Infrastructure == In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure === Cacti === Cacti (provides system status/usage information) has been in use for a while by the infrastructure team. MikeMcGrath reconfigured[1] it so that the public can now see the information as well. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg0000… === System Flux === This week saw a wiki [1]crash and some Xen issues[2]. The team has been able to track down some possible causes and will be looking to get fixes implemented forthwith. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg0002… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg0002… == Security Advisories == In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce === Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories === * 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] evolution-data-server-1.8.3-6.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-484 * 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] gimp-2.2.14-5.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-489 * 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] vim-7.0.235-1.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-492 * 2007-05-07 eclipse-3.2.2-5.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-488 * 2007-05-07 eclipse-cdt-3.1.2-3.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-450 * 2007-05-07 elfutils-0.127-1.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-460 * 2007-05-07 gstreamer-plugins-base-0.10.11-1.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-476 * 2007-05-07 libxml2-2.6.28-1.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-459 * 2007-05-07 man-pages-fr-2.39-7.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-496 * 2007-05-07 policycoreutils-1.34.1-9.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-479 * 2007-05-07 smartmontools-5.37-1.1.fc6 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-474 === Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories === * 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] dovecot-1.0-0.beta8.4.fc5 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-493 * 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] evolution-data-server-1.6.3-4.fc5 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-485 * 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] gimp-2.2.14-5.fc5 - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-491 == Events and Meetings == In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from various projects. === Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-05-08 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00252.html === Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-07 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00415.html === Event Report: 2007 Upstate Hamfest - South Carolina, USA === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-May/msg00069.h… === Event Report: LinuxTag at Fachhochschule Salzburg - Salzburg, Austria === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-May/msg00066.h… == Editor's Note: Red Hat Summmit 2007 == It was a great experience at Red Hat Summit 2007[1] for three days (May 9th-11th) in San Diego. This was my first time in Red Hat Summit and wish I had attended last two summits[2]. I had a chance to meet Matthew Szulik[3] in person as well as GregDeKoenigsberg, MaxSpevack and MikeMcGrath[4]. The highlight for this entire trip was being a part of such a wonderful group called Fedora[5]. [1] http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2007/ [2] http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2006/ and http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2005/ [3] http://picasaweb.google.com/fedora.tchung/RedHatSummit07/photo#506397469643… [4] http://picasaweb.google.com/fedora.tchung/RedHatSummit07/photo#506397470072… [5] http://picasaweb.google.com/fedora.tchung/RedHatSummit07/photo#506397498849… == Feedback == This document is maintained by the Fedora News Team[1]. Please feel free to contact us to give your feedback. If you'd like to contribute to a future issue of the Fedora Weekly News, please see the Join[2] page to find out how to help. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

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