Archive:Weekly news 102
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Welcome to issue # 102 of openSUSE Weekly News
In this Week:
- Joe Brockmeier: openSUSE Build Service Integrates with openDesktop.org to reach 150,000 contributors
- Michal Seben: cronie daemon is openSUSE
- MakeUseOf.com/Varun Kashyap: 6 Different Ways To End Unresponsive Programs In Linux
- Joe Brockmeier: Web Winners and Losers in 2009
- h-online.com/Thorsten Leemhuis: Kernel Log: Linux 2.6.33 to include Nvidia graphics driver nouveau
Announcements
- Joe Brockmeier: openSUSE Build Service Integrates with openDesktop.org to reach 150,000 contributors
- "Yesterday Frank Karlitschek, maintainer of the openDesktop.org network, announced that first step of integration with openDesktop.org is complete. Effective immediately, developers can add their Build Service ID to projects on openDesktop.org, and all packages available from the openSUSE Build Service will automatically show up on the openDesktop.org pages.
- "This is a great shared project between openSUSE, openDesktop, KDE and GNOME to make the life of Linux users easier," said Karlitschek. "People now have faster and more direct access to the latest software independently from distribution release cycles.""
Status Updates
Distribution
- Michal Seben: cronie daemon is openSUSE
- "Maybe you already know that vixie-cron is used as default cron in openSUSE. Currently there is no chance to push our ~20 patches to upstream (it's already dead), so my suggestion is : switch to cronie[1]. I prepared simple wiki[2] page about this step and also cronie package is waiting for testing in Base:System repo. So if you want test cronie, just add Base:System repo
- (for opensuse 11.2) :
- and install cronie (vixie-cron will be deleted):
zypper in cronie
- Please let me know your opinions or suggestions :)"
Build Service
- Pavol Rusnak: Avatars in openSUSE Build Service
- "Thanks to Tom we now have avatars in openSUSE Build Service, so e.g. Involved Users list looks like this:
- If you have a shady man instead of your nice photo, go to gravatar.com and setup your own one. Donāt forget to add the email address you are using in the Build Service!"
Wiki / Communication / Events
- Sascha Manns: Winds of change & SDB
- "Since a lot of month the whole openSUSE Team is working on different things inside the Project. Iām very happy to spend time for the Project. The Boosters Team tried to make the Webpresence easyer. So they would like to give more Information in shorter Time. Since iām working for open-slx as Community and Support Agent, i work with Rupert Horstkoetter on an special Range. In the last Meeting we spoken about our new Wiki QA, Templates and an new Wiki instance.
- The Plan is, that we starting an new instance of wiki, and to there we importing the old wiki. We must proofread every time every Page, then we give this Page an new clothes (Templates). And then we importing this to an new Instance."
Tips and Tricks
For Desktop Users
- Linux.com/Joe Brockmeier: Vim 401: Extending Vim and More
- "Now that you've learned your way around Vim, I wanted to focus the last piece in the series on extending Vim with scripts and plugins, and some other features that users should be aware of.
- If you've been following this series so far, you know how to move around in Vim, setting up mappings and abbreviations, and configuring Vim and calling external commands. Now let's take a look at scripts, plugins, and the Vim GUI."
- MakeUseOf.com/Varun Kashyap: 6 Different Ways To End Unresponsive Programs In Linux
- "Most Windows users know about the utility of the Ctrl + Alt + Del keys when dealing with an unresponsive application. A program is said to be unresponsive when it doesnāt respond to any user interaction and neither does it perform its intended actions. ..."
- Techgage/Rob Williams: Ten KDE 4 Tricks Worth Knowing About
- "Since I discovered just how great KDE 4 is a couple of months ago, I've been using it full-time and am loving it. In all that time, I've discovered a few tips and tricks that I couldn't live without, and all of them are listed here. Some of these include an inline CLI, split folders, setting up a media keyboard and using advanced wallpapers."
For Developers and Programmers
- IBM developerWorks/M. Tim Jones: Inside the Linux 2.6 Completely Fair Scheduler
- "The task scheduler is a key part of any operating system, and LinuxĀ® continues to evolve and innovate in this area. In kernel 2.6.23, the Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) was introduced. This scheduler, instead of relying on run queues, uses a red-black tree implementation for task management. Explore the ideas behind CFS, its implementation, and advantages over the prior O(1) scheduler."
For System Administrators
- TechRepublic/Vincent Danen: Learn to use extended file attributes in Linux to boost security
- "With all the talk of enhanced file system security and security frameworks, some of the basic file protection enhancements provided by the Linux kernel have been forgotten. While there is certainly a distinct place for security applications like SELinux, GrSecurity and others, there are simple means for securing files as well. ACLs and extended attributes for files are simple and easy to use, and can go a long way in securing files."
- MakeTechEasier/Joshua Price: A Quick Guide to Linux Partition Schemes
- "What partition setup should you use when dual-booting Windows and Linux? Should you have a separate partition for /home? Why do some people put /boot into its own partition? These are the questions that have plagued mankind since the dawn of time (or thereabouts). This guide aims to answer some of those questions and demonstrate some partition schemes that may save you some space, hassle, or data loss down the line."
- Linux.com/unnikrishnan: Udev: Introduction to Device Management In Modern Linux System
- "Modern Linux distributions are capable of identifying a hardware component which is plugged into an already-running system. There are a lot of user-friendly distributions like Ubuntu, which will automatically run specific applications like Rhythmbox when a portable device like an iPod is plugged into the system.
- Hotplugging (which is the word used to describe the process of inserting devices into a running system) is achieved in a Linux distribution by a combination of three components: Udev, HAL, and Dbus."
- Masim Sugianto: Installing Zimbra 5.0.21 on openSUSE 11.2 32 bit ā Part 1
- "Well, it would be a quick note. Iāve successfully installing Zimbra 5.0.21 on openSUSE 11.1 and openSUSE 11.2 32 bit and also Zimbra 6.0.3 on openSUSE 11.1 and openSUSE 11.2 64 bit (Currently testing Zimbra 6.0.4 on openSUSE 11.1 & openSUSE 11.2 64 bit). Part 2"
New/Updated Applications @ openSUSE
- Petr Mladek: OpenOffice_org 3.2 beta4 available for openSUSE
- "Iām happy to announce OpenOffice.org 3.2 beta4 packages for openSUSE. They are available in the Build Service OpenOffice:org:UNSTABLE project and include many upstream and Go-oo fixes. See also overview of integrated features and enhancements. Please, look for more details about the openSUSE OOo build on the wiki page."
- Sascha Manns: Updated Package for openSUSE: python-icalendar 2.1
- "Iām pleased to announce my updated Package python-icalendar for openSUSE. It is available in openSUSE:Factory:Contrib. Whats happend since the last Version? Changes.txt tells us:..."
- Sascha Manns: Updated openSUSE Package: lynis 1.2.9
- "Iām pleased to announce a new Version of our Package lynis. Now we have the Version 1.2.9. The Package is reachable in the openSUSE:Factory:Contrib Repository. This release adds several fixes and improvements for Squid, a few new tests, and improved logging and reporting."
- Packman: kaffeine 0.8.8-1.pm
- Available in Packman
Projects Corner
The corner for introducing activities of sub project *inside* openSUSE.
KDE Project
- Jonathan Thomas (JontheEchidna): The Weather Wallpaper in KDE SC 4.4
- "Any avid followers of the weather wallpaper probably noticed that in KDE 4.3.80 the weather wallpaper configuration page sported an āAdvancedā¦ā button that opened up a dialog that looked something like this:
- You may have also noticed, as attentive as you are, that the custom-wallpaper-for-different-weathers feature does not work. :(
- The story behind that is that this summer right after trunk opened after KDE 4.3 I committed the initial code for that dialog and then went on a road trip with the family. I knew that the code had a few bugs in it, and it didnāt save the custom pairings at all, but figured I would get around to fixing it later. The trip was over in a week or two, but I found myself busy over the summer and fall with one thing or the other, and pretty soon it was KDE 4.4 beta time. Well, I wish I had gotten around to fixing it before KDE SC 4.3.80, but I didnāt and nothing can change that. The good news is that things should work reasonably better for KDE SC 4.4 beta 2."
GNOME Project
- Andrew Cowie: Lovely Inconsolata
- "Frederico writes that heās recently discovered Raph Levienās Inconsolata font and really liking it.
- I likewise discovered Inconsolata not too long ago (it was packaged in Gentoo and I was really pleased to discover it also available in Debian), and have been using it as the constant-width font in Quill and Parchment for program listings in technical writing."
Mono Project
- Aaron Bockover: Mono 2.6 + MonoDevelop 2.2 on openSUSE 11.2
- "Fantastic news ā Mono 2.6 and MonoDevelop 2.2 are out! Be sure to read the detailed Mono 2.6 release notes. If you are running openSUSE 11.2, itās quite simple to safely update your entire Mono stack and stay up to date with any 2.6 updates: ..."
- Miguel de Icaza: Nine Months Later: Mono 2.6 and MonoDevelop 2.2
- "About nine months ago we released MonoDevelop 2.0 and Mono 2.4. Today we are releasing the much anticipated upgrades to both. Mono 2.6 and MonoDevelop 2.2. ..."
- Miguel de Icaza: Debugging Silverlight/Moonlight Apps on Linux
- "A little hidden feature from our release of MonoDevelop 2.2 and Mono 2.6 earlier this week was MonoDevelop's support for debugging Moonlight applications:..."
- Miguel de Icaza: Releasing Moonlight 2, Roadmap to Moonlight 3 and 4
- "Today we are making a few of announcements: Moonlight 2 is complete: Moonlight 2, our open source implementation of Silverlight 2 is done. An updated collaboration agreement between Microsoft and Novell to bring Silverlight 3 and 4 to open source Unix. Microsoft has an updated patent covenant that will covers third party distributions. Update: Sean Michael Kerner covers the announcement and talks to Brian Goldfarb from Microsoft."
Planet SUSE
- Cornelius Schumacher: Virtual easter eggs
- "Easter eggs are fun. A special kind of them are winter easter eggs (do you still call this easter egg?). In the spirit of this tradition we added some snow to SUSE Studio last week. Now when booting a virtual appliance in SUSE Studio's testdrive today, the openSUSE boot screen was all snow with some penguins wandering around. What a splendid coincidence. I guess you can call this a virtual easter egg. Fun :-)"
- Aaron Bockover: Banshee Grid View
- "Spread out over a number of hours over the last few weeks Iāve been working on making our high-performance list view in Banshee also handle grid-style layouts. That is, all the benefits of our polished list widget with a new look and feel! Iām making the widget more clever and abstracted about layout and rendering so it can be more inviting to users. In fact, you can even live-toggle between layout modes (e.g list and grid) without losing any state."
- Joe Brockmeier: Web Winners and Losers in 2009
- "Break out the Champagne and get ready to celebrate the winners of the Web in 2009, and give a few shots to the losers. Looking back on 2009 on the Web, we saw some tectonic shifts in the market and major developments that are going to make 2010 very interesting indeed. Grab your tickets and weāll see if you picked the winners for 2009, but if you bet heavy on Microsoft, you might be disappointed."
- Ben Kevan: KDE 4 Dolphin Terminal Integration Introduction
- "If you follow my blog youāll know that Iāve recently switched backed to KDE from GNOME, and I recently found a feature that I really have fallen in love with, when it comes to Dolphin usage.
- The feature I will talk about today is Dolpin and Terminal Integration. First I must admit, I found this feature on accident as usually if I wanted to open a shell while in a directory to do certain tasks, I typically just did a āShift+F4ā³, which opened a terminal of my current location. However, one time to my enjoyment I guess I didnāt press the āShiftā key, and went directly to āF4ā³. This brought up a new panel rightfully named Terminal."
openSUSE Forums
- VLC Playback Quality
- "Not unusual to get this question, but the solution always seems to vary. nVidia users often find X11 output works for them. Of course you need to make sure you are using Packman's versions too."
- Partition question - Using Win7?
- "Just to show we are totally impartial here at openSUSE, yes we can even help you if Windows is going to be your main OS. Some sensible prep work being done by this user."
- Wine Gaming Problem
- "We often have questions about using Wine, but most of us are not experts at this. Herein lies the beauty of the whole community. Solutions are often forthcoming!"
- Grub with SUSE//Kbuntu Chainloading/Booting?
- "We are going to have to get familiar with Grub 2 now with some distros using it, so I plan to look out for these threads, to help keep everyone informed. Actually the issue here was interesting: The boot flag was getting switched. It will be interesting to see how this issue works out."
On the Web
Announcements
- KDE.NEWS/Andreas Pakulat: Team Sets Seventh Beta of KDevelop4 Loose
- "The KDevelop team is proud to announce the seventh beta of KDevelop4. At the same time we're a bit sad as this beta also marks our drop-out of the KDE SC 4.4 release cycle. We feel that we didn't manage to get the needed features for the 4.4.0 release working properly and that we'll need a longer freeze period than what is available in the release cycle. We're now concentrating on getting the existing features shaped up and ready for release as well as fixing as many of the bugs as we can. No new features will be introduced into KDevelop anymore until the first release, which is currently aimed at end of March."
Reports
- h-online/Thorsten Leemhuis: Kernel Log: New stable kernels, 2.6.33 with DRBD and RT2800PCI
- "Kernel versions 2.6.27.40, 2.6.27.41 and 2.6.31.7 offer minor improvements and correct several bugs ā including one security hole. Torvalds has already incorporated more than 5,000 changes for Linux 2.6.33. Its merge window will probably be open for just over another week. Various developers are working on significant improvements to the open source Radeon graphics drivers."
- Pwnage.ca: Gnome to Split Off from GNU Project?
- "According to a recent posting from Philip Van Hoof, he suggests that Gnome split off from the GNU Project and proposes a vote. He has been informed he will need 5% of members to agree for there to be a vote put forth (10% is the real number). At the same time David Schlesinger (on the Gnome Advisory Board) has agreed on a vote."
- h-online.com/Thorsten Leemhuis: Kernel Log: Linux 2.6.33 to include Nvidia graphics driver nouveau
- "Linus Torvalds has merged the kernel code for the GeForce-compatible nouveau open source graphics driver as a staging driver into the Linux main development tree ā from which kernel version 2.6.33 will emerge in around two and a half months. The 2.6.33 kernel should therefore support kernel-based mode setting on the bulk of Nvidia graphics chips (GPUs/graphics processing units) in addition to existing support for AMD and Intel chips."
- Linux Magazine/Ulrich Bantle: Novell Reorganizes
- "In January 2010 Novell will consolidate four business units down to two and eventually say farewell to managers Jeff Jaffee and Roger Levy."
Reviews and Essays
- h-online/Interview: Joe Brockmeier, openSUSE Community Manager
- "Despite some downsizing in response to the fragile economic climate Novell have managed to keep up the pace of new development. The H Open spoke to openSUSE's Community Manager Joe Brockmeier for his views on the recent changes at Novell and his take on the future of openSUSE."
- Computerworld/Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Review: 3 top Linux distros go for different users
- "Computerworld - At first glance, there's little to differentiate between the latest releases of the top Linux distributions: Red Hat's Fedora 12, Novell's openSUSE 11.2 and Canonical's Ubuntu 9.10. They each use the latest releases of open-source applications and are based on recent Linux kernels. Each of the distros also includes open-source applications such as OpenOffice and Firefox. However, a closer look reveals real differences -- in fact, each is meant for a different audience.
- Underneath the hood, each of the three uses the 2.6.31 Linux kernel, but above that, their differences begin to surface. Fedora and Ubuntu, for example, use GNOME 2.28 (the latest version) for their default desktop, while openSUSE uses KDE 4.3.1."
- HowtoForge/Falko Timme: The Perfect Desktop - OpenSUSE 11.2 (GNOME)
- "This tutorial shows how you can set up an OpenSUSE 11.2 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge."
- OStatic/Joe Brockmeier: Linux Powers Christmas Lights for Charity
- "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, especially if you happen to live within a few miles of Alek Komarnitsky's house and the massive Christmas display he puts on every year in the name of charity. While most neighborhoods have a Christmas overachiever, Komarnitsky is in a special league of his own: His display can be remote-controlled and is powered by open source."
- TuxRadar: Get the best KDE Linux distro
- "Not all distros are made equal, particularly if you're a KDE user. KDE has had something of a rough time over the last couple of years. The transition from version 3.5 to 4.x hasn't been easy, and over this period many distributions have decided to use either Gnome or stick with KDE 3.5 as their default desktop.
- But we feel KDE 4 has now matured to a point where most KDE users can safely dump their old desktop and move on to the new one. There are very few stability issues, and most of the functionality found in 3.5 has been migrated to 4.3. The question is, which Linux distro provides the best experience for KDE users?"
- ZDNET/J.A. Watson: Personal Financial Management Software for Linux - Continued
- "During the past week I was able to look at a few more candidates in the Personal Financial Management area, and to gain some experience with the one that I have decided to use for now. Please keep in mind that what I am presenting here is intended only to give you an idea of what is available, with a very brief overview of each package, and give you a link that you can follow if you want to investigage further or try one of them yourself."
- Datamation/Bruce Byfield: Ubuntu's Jono Bacon: Managing an Open Source Community
- "For the past three years, Jono Bacon has worked as community manager for Ubuntu, one of the largest and most diverse projects in open source software. Consequently, when he recently published his thoughts on building and managing communities, people listen. More unusually, as I found out in a recent interview, when people like me critique his book, he listens, too, with a view to improving the second edition."
- ExtremeTech/Jim Lynch: Fun with SUSE Studio
- "There are a lot of desktop Linux distros out there that you can try for free. But have you ever wondered what it would be like to simply roll your own distro? Tech-savvy developers can do this fairly easily, but Joe and Jane Desktop User really couldn'tāuntil now."
Warning!
- US-CERT Current Activity - Mozilla Releases Firefox 3.5.6 and Firefox 3.0.16
- "Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5.6 and Firefox 3.0.16 to address multiple vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code, cause a denial-of-service condition, operate with escalated privileges, or mislead users. These vulnerabilities may also affect SeaMonkey and Thunderbird."
- The latest MozillaFirefox packages for openSUSE are available from mozilla repo in OBS.
- US-CERT Current Activity - Adobe Reader and Acrobat Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
- "Adobe has released a security advisory to address a vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat. By convincing a user to open a specially crafted PDF file, an attacker may be able to execute arbitrary code. Public reports currently indicate active exploitation of this vulnerability."
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.
- SUSE Security Announcement: Linux kernel (SUSE-SA:2009:061)
- Package: Linux Kernel
- Announcement ID: SUSE-SA:2009:061
- Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:08:07 +0100
Statistics
Numbers in brackets show the changes compared to the previous week.
opensuse.org
Communication
lists.opensuse.org has 37365 (-26) non-unique subscribers to all mailing lists.
The openSUSE Forums have 39169 (+361) registered users - Most users ever online was 1916, 27-Apr-2009 at 15:16.
Contributors
4066 (+33) of 10527 (+72) 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 9625 (+192) projects, 90192 (+3558) packages, 17536 (+391) repositories and 19936 (+149) confirmed users.
openFATE
Feature statistics for openSUSE 11.3:
- total: 410 (+11)
- unconfirmed: 263 (+8)
- new: 42 (+1)
- evaluation: 72 (-1)
- candidate: 1 (+0)
- done: 9 (+1)
- rejected: 14 (+1)
- duplicate: 9 (+1)
Bugzilla
The numbers for all openSUSE project products are this week:
- All Open Reports: 5307 (-19)
- Blocker: 5 (+0)
- Critical: 258 (-4)
- Major: 882 (+7)
- Normal: 3057 (-17)
- Minor: 466 (-9)
- Enhancements: 639 (+4)
- 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
- dl9pf Talk - Contributions Jan-Simon Mƶller (Chief-Editor)
- saigkill Talk - Contributions Sascha Manns (Second Chief-Editor, Main-Newsletter)
- STS301 Talk - Contributions Sebastian Schƶbinger (Tips/Tricks)
- HeliosReds Talk - Contributions Satoru Matsumoto (Editorial Office)
- Caf4926 Talk - Contributions Carl Fletcher (Main-Newsletter, Forums Sec.)
- Okuro Talk - Contributions Thomas HofstƤtter (Events & Meetings)
- add translators
