Archive:Weekly news 101
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Welcome to issue # 101 of openSUSE Weekly News
In this Week:
- Announcing New openSUSE Board members
- Thomas Göttlicher: Install Multiple Kernel Versions using the YaST Qt Package Manager
- Ben Kevan: KDE 4.4 Beta 1 – Tabbed Windows Review – openSUSE
- Adobe Flash Vulnerabilities Affect Flash Player and Adobe AIR
- Contemplating Upgrade to 11.2
Announcements
- openSUSE News: Update to openSUSE.org
- "Over the last two weeks, we have been making some major infrastructure changes to the openSUSE landing page and wikis. The result is that users of the wiki can now expect new features, better language support, and a considerable increase in performance. Here is a quick overview of some changes that we have made:
- Wiki software upgraded to the latest version of MediaWiki (upgraded from version 1.5!)
- Moved wiki and main site onto new and much more powerful servers
- Implemented PHP bytecode caching through APC
- Increased use of memcached"
- openSUSE News: Statement of the Wiki Team on the recent MediaWiki Update
- "Related to the recent MediaWiki Update, we currently encounter some issues with the openSUSE Wiki and we’d like to make you aware of it. Wiki Senior Rajko M. posted an official statement at the opensuse-wiki ML and we’d like to forward it to News.o.o to reach out to a broader audience. As you can see, the current issues are known to the Wiki team and we’re working hard on resolving them."
- Joe Brockmeier: It goes to 100! openSUSE Weekly News hits triple digits
- "Some congratulations are in order -- openSUSE Weekly News has topped 100 issues! A newsletter is very vital for any community project, and the openSUSE Weekly News has been providing a very valuable service for the openSUSE Project since November 19, 2007. The first issue was put out by Francis Giannaros, who got the ball rolling, and it's been sustained by a cast of thousands since. OK, maybe not thousands, but several very committed openSUSE contributors who have kept up the weekly pace with only a couple of weeks missed since the inaugural issue."
- openSUSE News: Announcing New openSUSE Board Members
- "The election committee announces the three new members of the openSUSE board:
- Bryen Yunashko (non-Novell seat)
- Pavol Rusnak (Novell seat)
- Rupert Horstkötter (non-Novell seat)"
- openSUSE News: openSUSE 11.2 and its retail box
- "Retail versions of openSUSE 11.2 are once again available. For the first time, the retail box is being handled by a partner, open-slx. open-slx is founded and lead by Stefan Werden, a former SUSE employee who approached Novell this summer and proposed to take on the retail box distribution in the future. After some negotiation Stefan signed a contract with Novell and is now allowed to pursue the retail box on his own. With openSUSE 11.2 open-slx’s main goal is to keep the retail box alive and improve sales of openSUSE in the retail market."
- openSUSE Spotlight: SCALE Call for Papers Closes December 15th
- "The openSUSE project will be participating in SCALE 2010 the weekend of February 19. If you’re planning on being at SCALE, I strongly suggest submitting a talk. We’re also looking for ambassadors in the area to help staff the openSUSE booth and talk to attendees about openSUSE. If you’re local to Los Angeles or nearby, and interested in helping at SCALE, drop me a line or speak up on the openSUSE Marketing Mailing list."
Status Updates
Boosters Team
Wiki / Communication / Events
- Michael Löffler: openSUSE celebrates X-mas in Nürnberg
- "The openSUSE team in Nürnberg invites everybody interested in Linux and in particular in openSUSE to join our Christmas party on Wednesday December 16 in the basement of our office building in Nürnberg. We’ll give some presentation about openSUSE 11.2 in action, GIMP and how to participate at our project. Beside of the presentations we have some machines where especially openSUSE Education and the openSUSE Build Service will be shown but openSUSE 11.2 is available too, of course. More information. We hope to reach out to many local people in the Nürnberg area."
Tips and Tricks
For Desktop Users
- Unixmen/Zinovsky: Openoffice.org- Play starwars galaxy easter egg in Calc
- "Today i will show you the hidden game in the Openoffice Spreadsheet program Calc, the game is an Easter Egg that let’s you play a simple version of Space Invaders, titled StarWars Galaxy, so if you are working with openoffice and you need a break, you do know what to do ;)."
- LinuxPlanet/Akkana Peck: Make Your Own Holiday Cards with GIMP
- "It's the holiday season! And regardless of which holidays you celebrate, it's a good time to connect with relatives and absent friends.
- Maybe you can send them some cards! But those packaged cards ... so drab, so dull. Wouldn't it be more fun to make your own? GIMP is a great tool for that."
For Developers and Programmers
- ServerWatch/Juliet Kemp: More Special Variables in Perl: Outputs
- "After looking last week at at special Perl variables for reading things in, here are some that may be useful when you want to write things out."
- James Pyles: What do Interpreted Programming Languages have in Common? Part II
- "I begin this tutorial a few weeks (Part 1) ago with Part I and received some very nice comments correcting my (fortunately) minor errors. This isn't a tutorial about how to program in a specific language or even really about how to program. I wanted to show the common structure of interpreted programming languages in the hopes of revealing some common threads, rather than focusing on the ins and outs of one language. ..."
For System Administrators
- HowtoForge/Falko Timme: The Perfect Server - OpenSUSE 11.2 x86_64 (ISPConfig 2)
- "This is a detailed description about how to set up an OpenSUSE 11.2 server (x86_64) that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc. In the end you should have a system that works reliably, and if you like you can install the free webhosting control panel ISPConfig 2 (i.e., ISPConfig runs on it out of the box)."
- Thomas Göttlicher: Install Multiple Kernel Versions using the YaST Qt Package Manager
- "You might want to install multiple kernel versions on your system. The YaST Qt Package Selector provides a nice user interface that allows to manage multiple package versions now. yast2-qt-pkg 2.18.19 or later supports this feature. You can find packages in my Build Service repository."
Projects Corner
The corner for introducing activities of sub project *inside* openSUSE.
Mono Project
- Marek Announces Mono's C# 4.0 has been completed
- "I am very happy to announce that the Mono C# compiler is now C# 4.0 feature complete. Covariance and contravariance. The initial work was done by Scott Peterson and then I take taken over and continue developing and advancing the feature. The implementation was rather straightforward especially because C# 4.0 only supports covariance and contravariance on delegates and interfaces. The trickiest and most challenging part was to upgrade type inference to deal with variant type arguments and to provide a meaningful error reporting."
Planet SUSE
- Ben Kevan: KDE 4.4 Beta 1 – Tabbed Windows Review – openSUSE
- "I have to admit when I first thought or heard of this feature in KDE 4.4, I wasn’t really excited. I thought.. now why the hell would I want that. Then I started using it.. and found quite a few usage scenario’s for it. The first one, I realized right after I launched my VirtualBox. I had always hated how VirtualBox had a separate window for each VM and / or the main VirtualBox console, however, now with the Windows Grouping this is no longer an issue."
- Thomas Schraitle: KIWI RELAX NG Schema Explained
- "KIWI, invented by Marcus Schäfer, is a magnificent tool to build your own SUSE Linux distribution. It is also the backend of SUSE Studio. For those who has used KIWI manually already know the details: KIWI’s configuration file is XML and based on a RELAX NG schema. This article give developers a little background of the history, a short overview of some design decisions around KIWI’s RELAX NG schema, and how to customize it to your needs."
- Joe Brockmeier: Interview on DaniWeb
- "Did an interview recently with Ron Miller that is up on DaniWeb on openSUSE and social media. Always enjoy talking to Ron, even if we don't agree on the use of certain words in headlines. He also gives good advice on building your blog over on Soc Media 101."
- Sascha Manns: openFATE Proposals
- "Since a few month the openFATE Site is open for the public. Now everyone can post new Proposals and Wishes to the FATE System. One good integrated Feature in openFATE is the Tag. You can find this under the Headline. Just click on the green cross. ..."
- Pascal Bleser: Packman: deleting 10.3 packages
- "openSUSE 10.3 has been EOL (end of life) since end of october, and we (Packman) are still hosting our packages for 10.3, even though we don't maintain them any more.Hence we will remove them from our primary server and our mirrors, but will give you some time to make a copy if you need those packages for whatever reason (it is strongly discouraged to keep using an end of life distribution though,"
- Ben Kevan: Chrome Beta for Linux 4.0.249.30 on openSUSE
- "I forgot my laptop at home today, so I was unable to install Chrome while I was at work. (yes, that’s an embarrassing story). But now I’ve gotten home and installed the RPM using zypper:
- sudo zypper in google-chrome-beta_current_`uname -i`.rpm
- After doing this, I launched Chrome using google-chrome and it put a smile in my face just knowing that it was in “beta”. Now lets hope that Google can get out of their 100 year beta cycle, and have a “stable” version out by mid next year."
openSUSE Forums
- KDE4.4 Beta Experiences
- "It's worth keeping track of this thread if only to watch the progress of KDE4 as it makes another big step forward. You might of course consider the move yourself, though such a move is not for the faint hearted."
- 11.1 to 11.2 zypper upgrade fails.
- "Possibly, this emphasises the need to be careful and perhaps too the saturation of information that exists. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out. If you are planning a zypper dup upgrade - Make sure you get the latest info: Zypper Upgrade to 11.2"
- Covert Install to Image
- "Actually this is an interesting question, which really should have a simple answer. But actually, making a image of a full OS is never easy whatever OS we are talking about."
- Contemplating Upgrade to 11.2?
- "Should I? Shouldn't I? Typical scenario, except the OP says current 11.1 is perfect! But just as typically, Linux users like the 'Latest and Greatest'. I wonder which way it will go..?"
On the Web
Announcements
- Linux Foundation Announces “Get One, Give One” Holiday Membership Program
- "SAN FRANCISCO, December 9, 2009 – The Linux Foundation (LF), the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that for every new individual member who joins the organization between today and January 31, 2010, the Linux Foundation will give a free membership to a student for one year."
Reports
- Joe Brockmeier: Real Linux advocates educate, not humiliate
- "Checking Twitter yesterday I caught a link to "Command Line Idiocy," a post that rips apart an article on "10 powerful CLI tools." Here's a short sample of the flavor of the piece: It would seem Linux users can’t catch a break. Every year, blow-hard journalists will try out a Linux LiveCD, decide it’s actually worthwhile, and declare date +%Y to be the year of Linux on the Desktop, only to run around screaming about how Linux isn’t ready for mainstream users after they manage to screw their system over while fiddling with sudo."
- ostatic/Joe Brockmeier: Google Takes on HTTP with SPDY
- "Google Chrome has been dominating the headlines this week, but what might have escaped notice is Google taking a crack at the "tubes" of the Internet itself. As part of Google's "let's make the Web faster initiative, it is working on SPDY (pronounced "speedy"), a protocol that's supposed to improve on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). SPDY's goals are to reduce page load time by 50%, make it easy to deploy, and ensure that there's no need for content changes. Changes would be required on the client end and the server end, but the content itself would require no change."
- Andrew Brampton: Google DNS Benchmarked
- "Today Google announced a public DNS service they are hosting. They claim that their DNS infrastructure is faster and more secure, because their servers do some clever things. I wanted to test their performance claims, so I wrote a little script to measure a lookup times for different domains across a number of DNS servers."
- The Register/Gavin Clarke: Mozilla lights fire under Thunderbird
- "Mozilla will step up the pace of on its Thunderbird mail and communications platform next year, to re-invigorate a "stagnant" email client scene."
- Linux Magazine/Anika Kehrer: Google Buys Wave Competitioner
- "This past Friday, Appjet and Google made it known that the five-person team will now be working on the Wave communication platform. This means that the freely-accessible Etherpad service as well as the commercial variation will be discarded as of April 2010. In the following 48 hours, a plethora of disappointed comments popped up (i.e. “not cool Google”) in response to the announcement. In reaction to these responses, Appjet is currently negotiating with Google to try to preserve Etherpad (in Open Source form). The service is to stay online, at least until the code is open sourced, according to a new announcement from Saturday. The new comments are more favorable: “What a cool thing to do!”"
Reviews and Essays
- Jean-Christophe Baptiste: ModSecurity 2.5 review
- "I found a lot of interest reading it as I was already using ModSecurity – and I think anyone exposing an Apache web server should. I was actually using it partially. It is not trivial to secure a web application, and the rule engine of ModSecurity is very powerful but it is also quite complex."
- The VAR Guy: Reality Check: Novell’s Quarterly SUSE Linux Sales
- "Novell announced quarterly results on December 3. So how are the company’s individual solutions groups performing — particularly the SUSE Linux solutions group? And what’s the latest with Novell’s partner program? The VAR Guy got some perspectives from Novell Chief Marketing Officer John Dragoon. Here’s a recap."
- ars technica/Ryan Paul: Hands-on: Plasma, KWin improve in KDE SC 4.4 beta 1
- "The developers behind KDE have announced the release of KDE Software Compilation 4.4 beta 1. We conducted hands-on testing to see what the new version brings to the desktop."
Warning!
- US-CERT Cyber Security Alert SA09-343A -- Adobe Flash Vulnerabilities Affect Flash Player and Adobe AIR
- "Adobe has released Security Bulletin APSB09-19, which describes vulnerabilities affecting Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR."
- OMG! UBUNTU!/Joey Alexithymia: Yet More Malware Found on Gnome-Look
- "Yesterday we were the first to bring you the news about malware being targeted at Ubuntu users, and today, sadly, another malicious file was uploaded to gnome-look, this time masquerading as a theme called 'Ninja'."
Past Events & Meetings
Upcoming Events & Meetings
Security Updates
To view the security announcements in full, or to receive them as soon as they're released, refer to the openSUSE Security Announce mailing list.
Statistics
Numbers in brackets show the changes compared to the previous week.
opensuse.org
Communication
lists.opensuse.org has 37391 (-59) non-unique subscribers to all mailing lists.
The openSUSE Forums have 38808 (+364) registered users - Most users ever online was 15292, 16-Nov-2009 at 21:20.
Contributors
4033 (+69) of 10455 (+109) registered contributors in the User Directory have signed the Guiding Principles. The board has acknowledged 395 (+0) members.
Build Service
The Build Service now hosts 9433 (+166) projects, 86634 (+612) packages, 17145 (+449) repositories by 19787 (+143) confirmed users.
openFATE
Feature statistics for openSUSE 11.3:
- total: 399 (+24)
- unconfirmed: 255 (+22)
- new: 41 (-1)
- evaluation: 73 (+3)
- candidate: 1 (+0)
- done: 8 (+0)
- rejected: 13 (+0)
- duplicate: 8 (+0)
Bugzilla
The numbers for all openSUSE project products are this week:
- All Open Reports: 5326 (+22)
- Blocker: 5 (+0)
- Critical: 262 (+1)
- Major: 875 (-7)
- Normal: 3074 (+20)
- Minor: 475 (-2)
- Enhancements: 635 (+10)
- Detailed Bugzilla Report – Submitting Bug Reports – Bug Reporting FAQ
Localization
- Daily updated translation statistics are available on the openSUSE Localization Portal.
- Trunk Top-List – Localization Guide
openSUSE for your ears
- The openSUSE Weekly News are available as Livestream or Podcast in the German Language. You can hear it or download it on http://blog.radiotux.de/podcast .
Feedback / Communicate / Get Involved
Do you have comments on any of the things mentioned in this article? Then head right over to the news.opensuse.org story comment section and let us know! Communicate with or get help from the wider openSUSE community -- via IRC, forums, or mailing lists -- see Communicate.
If you would like to be a part of the openSUSE Weekly news, then please send an email over to opensuse-marketing@opensuse.org (you need to subscribe first). Or you can go to the channel #opensuse-newsletter on irc.freenode.net.
Credits
- Jan-Simon Möller (Chief-Editor)
- Sascha Manns (Second Chief-Editor, Main-Newsletter)
- Sebastian Schöbinger (Tips/Tricks)
- Satoru Matsumoto (Editorial Office)
- Carl Fletcher (Main-Newsletter, Forums Sec.)
- Thomas Hofstätter (Events & Meetings)
- add translators
