Archive:weekly news 103
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Welcome to issue # 103 of openSUSE Weekly News
In this Week:
- openSUSE News: Linux for Education Updated
- The Geek Stuff/Sasikala: Unix Sed Tutorial: 6 Examples for Sed Branching Operation
- Ben Kevan: Blogilo – The Blog Gigolo – KDE 4.4
- openSUSE Forums: X Not Starting (11.2)
- h-online/Thorsten Leemhuis: Kernel Log: Linux 2.6.33 enters test phase
Announcements
- openSUSE Spotlight: Calls for papers: SCALE ends this week, Texas Linux Fest starts
- "Two calls for papers that openSUSE contributors and ambassadors should be aware of. The CFP for SCALE closes on December 24th. Since most folks are going to be heading out for the holidays before then, be sure to put your paper in soon!
- A new Linux Fest is hitting Texas next year! They’re putting out the call for papers now, the deadline is February 15. If you’re in or near Austin, or can get there for TLF, get your talk in right away."
- openSUSE News: Under Construction: New Wiki Underway
- "You may have noticed we have some exciting work going on to revamp the openSUSE wiki, and if you’re interested in helping with that, we have some requests to make. We’ve seen several attemps to improve the wiki piecemeal, to varying degrees of success. In order to achieve the goals we’ve set this time, we’ve decided to start from scratch with a core team of passionate wiki contributors."
- openSUSE News: Linux for Education Updated
- "The openSUSE Education team is proud to announce the availability of the updated Li-f-e hybrid ISO. Unlike the official openSUSE release, the Edu project’s Li-f-e flavor will get updated almost on a monthly basis. These minor releases will contain all the official openSUSE 11.2 updates, some important package version updates and may be addition of new features too. With these gradual improvements we are hoping to make one of the best Education OS even better."
Status Updates
Distribution
- Greg Kroah-Hartman: Staging tree status for the .33 kernel merge
- "This was originally sent to the linux-kernel and driver-devel mailing lists. Might as well post it here to get a wider audience as the last report was received well. Here's a summary of the state of the drivers/staging/ tree, basically what will be coming in the 2.6.33 merge, and what the status of the different drivers are so far. Sorry it's late (after the merge), but hey, better late than never. Again, drivers/staging/ is NOT a dumping ground for dead code. If no one steps up to maintain and work to get the code merged into the main portion of the kernel, the drivers will be removed. Also, drivers can now be merged from mailing into the staging directory, providing a path out of the kernel for some obsolete and/or broken drivers. So, here's some drivers that will be removed in the 2.6.33 kernel: ..."
Build Service
- Thomas Schmidt: openSUSE Buildservice appliances
- "The openSUSE Buildservice will be released with version 1.7 soon next year. We are already building beta packages in the openSUSE:Tools:Unstable project."
- Adrian Schröter: OBS version 1.7 Beta 1 release
- "For us developers this mean we shall not create large changes anymore until version 1.7 got released. Instead we shall complete the new APIs and fix them because they need to stay stable after 1.7"
Wiki / Communication / Events
- Klaas Freitag: openSUSE Wiki Changes
- "There was a lot of dicussion in the openSUSE project about the project wiki which was suffering from something all successful projects in some point of time experience: There is a huge amount of documentation in the Wiki, however it seems a bit unstructured, sometimes outdated or not really maintained.
- The brave openSUSE wiki team stepped up to change that. The decision is to set up a new wiki with a well selected set of extensions and now the content of the old wiki is going to be transfered to the new wiki. Of course there will be a rigorous quality check of the articles, as well as a new thought through structure. The goal of this huge amount of work is to provide a outstanding good and well consumable source of information for all people in and interested in the openSUSE project. That is a high goal and I admire the energy and dedication of the wiki team."
Tips and Tricks
For Desktop Users
- MakeTechEasier/Tavis J. Hampton: Two ways to Edit Multiple Photos with digiKam
- "digiKam is a powerful and complete photo management tool for KDE. Among its many features is the ability to run batch processes, thanks to the Kipi plugin set, which is also used in other KDE software like Gwenview. With a few simple clicks, users can manipulate multiple photos simultaneously, without having to remember long command line strings or taking countless hours to edit each file."
- Linux Journal/Ross Larson: Custom Transitioning Backgrounds in KDE4
- "In this series of articles, we've gone over making custom transitioning slide-show backgrounds in different desktop environments. So far, we've gone over GNOME, KDE3, and XFCE. This time, we'll do the same task in KDE4. I think that it is easiest to do this KDE4 compared to all of the other desktop environments."
For Developers and Programmers
- The Geek Stuff/Sasikala: Unix Sed Tutorial: 6 Examples for Sed Branching Operation
- "This article is part of the on-going Unix Sed Tips and Tricks series. Like any other programming language, sed also provides special branching commands to control the flow of the program."
For System Administrators
- Masim Sugianto: Installing Zimbra 5.0.21 on openSUSE 11.2 32 bit – Part 3, Installing Additional Package and Library
- "We have successfully installing base OS and local DNS server on previous tutorial, so we can going forward to the Zimbra installation. Beside the base OS, Zimbra need some additional package and this part of tutorial will cover all the Zimbra requirement for successful installation :..." Part 4
- Masim Sugianto: Installing VirtualBox 3.1.2 on openSUSE 11.2
- "VirtualBox released in 2 edition, the Open Source Edition (OSE) that available in openSUSE repository or openSUSE Build Service (OBS) and the Personal Use and Evaluation License (PUEL), which closed source but free for personal use. The main different between both edition are the RDP Server, USB support and USB Support over RDP.
- Below is the step-by-step tutorial covering installation of VirtualBox PUEL Edition version 3.1.2 on openSUSE 11.2"
New/Updated Applications @ openSUSE
- Petr Mladek: OpenOffice_org 3.2 rc1 available for openSUSE
- "I’m happy to announce OpenOffice.org 3.2 rc1 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.
- The packages are release candidates. Though, they have not passed the full QA test and might still include even serious bugs. Therefore they are not intended for data-critical usage. A good practice is to archive any important data before an use, …"
- Packman: imagination 2.1-0.pm.2.9 (openSUSE 11.2)
- "Imagination is a lightweight and simple DVD slide show maker written in C language and built with the GTK+2 toolkit. I noticed a lack on the Linux platform of a user-friendly DVD slide show maker, so I started developing Imagination. True, there are some other GUIs which do the job, but they usually require a lot of dependencies to be installed first. Imagination has been designed from the ground up to be fast, light and easy-to-use. It requires the ffmpeg encoder ONLY to produce the movie file - to be burned to DVD then with another application. Yes you don't need any other third-party software, I like the KISS principle :)"
- OBS openSUSE:11.2:Update/MozillaFirefox r2 commited
- Updated to 3.5.6
Planet SUSE
- Miguel de Icaza: C# String Interpolation
- "We have discussed in the past adding support to C# to support string interpolation. I have cooked a patch that allows C# developers to embed expressions inside strings, like this:
var a = 'Hello {name} how are you?'; - Ben Kevan: Blogilo – The Blog Gigolo – KDE 4.4
- "I’ve recently come across the application Blogilo, which I from here on out will reference as the Blog Gigolo. Most of my blog posts I do in the wordpress backend, in a web browser since it’s what I knew.
- However, recently I found this awesome application which is supposed to be shipping along side with KDE 4.4. The name Blogilo comes from unknown source to me, although I’m sure there is quite a compelling story behind it, and I’d love to know it."
- Masim Sugianto: Installing BitDefender Anti Virus & Malware Scanner on openSUSE 11.2
- "Installing anti virus on my computer running openSUSE 11.2 might not be my priority list but sometimes I need the anti virus scanner for removing virus from the USB flash disk with FAT32 or NTFS partition, or even on the Windows PC infected by viruses. Installing an anti virus on Windows PC might be a smart choice but how if we need to clean the virus with our Linux system, so we will not be worries with the possibility of infection from contaminated system ?"
openSUSE Forums
- Banshee Doesn't Recognise ipod
- "Integration of plugin media and other multi-media hardware/applications need some perfecting. Because as yet it's not always a happy ending."
- X Not Starting (11.2)
- "Setting up X in 11.2 continues to be an issue for some users, particularly some ATI users. I'm happy I don't use ATI (never will either)."
- Updater Wants to Uninstall Half My Machine.
- "Get a look at this one and the repo list this user had. Lessons need to be learned early on in a Linux Users Life. 'Don't go on a OneClick frenzy'."
- Keyboard Not Working in One User Account.
- "If you get unusual behaviour in one account login but not another, this tells you: That this issue is down to user config settings."
On the Web
Call for participation
- DesktopLinux/Eric Brown: O'Reilly seeks proposals for July open source conference
- "The O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) has issued a call for proposals for its annual conference. Scheduled for July 19-23, at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, OSCON 2010 is looking for sessions and tutorials covering everything from open source developments in smartphones to virtualization to open source in education."
Reports
- h-online/Thorsten Leemhuis: Kernel Log: Linux 2.6.33 enters test phase
- "With the end of the next kernel version's main development phase, the most important new features of Linux 2.6.33 have been determined: DRBD, Nouveau, support of the Trim ATA command and a bandwidth controller for block devices. The developers have also improved the Radeon drivers and the support of Intel Wi-Fi chips. Furthermore, new stable kernels fix a vulnerability in the code of Ext4, but will shortly be superseded by even more current versions"
- Ars Technica/Ryan Paul: Mozilla Messaging building nest for Thunderbird 3.1
- "Mozilla Messaging has published a proposed schedule for Thunderbird 3.1, the next release of the popular e-mail client. The organization is refining its development process and could potentially shift towards shorter release cycles and a more incremental approach to development."
- h-online/Chris von Eitzen: Microsoft promises not to press charges against Moonlight users
- "As announced a week ago when version 2 of the Moonlight plug-in for Firefox was announced by Novell developer Michael de Icaza, Microsoft has published a new Moonlight patent agreement. Now, Microsoft says that it will not press charges against Moonlight users who employ a patented technology in Moonlight 3 or 4."
- The Register/Timothy Prickett Morgan: Novell stacks Linux and Mono for mainframes
- "When IBM announced its Linux-only Enterprise Linux Server variants of the System z mainframe two weeks ago, what the company did not say is that software partner Novell had cooked up software bundles specifically for these boxes.
- IBM has 100 per cent share of the IBM-compatible mainframe market at this point, and Linux is one of the fastest growing workloads at mainframe shops; Novell claims to have 85 per cent share of Linux installations on IBM mainframes with its SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, which is the kind of market share that Red Hat enjoys on x64 platforms and probably on Itanium platforms, too, at least until El Reg discovered that Red Hat doesn't plan to support Itanium machinery with next year's RHEL 6 release."
Reviews and Essays
- OStatic/Joe Brockmeier: Google's Meaning of Open: Is It Yours?
- "Google has made some headlines recently about its stance on privacy. This week the company is taliking about what "open" means to Google. Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president of product management for Google, says that "open will win" across the Internet and "then cascade across many walks of life." It might be a good idea for other businesses in the open business to think about what open means to them as well."
- DaniWeb/Ken Hess: 10 Linux-based Technologies to Look for in 2010
- "Everyone has posted their predictions for 2010 but here's the real scoop on what's going to happen in 2010 with Linux and Linux-oriented hardware and software products. Get ready to see the biggest increase in Linux adoption in history. You can say you saw it here first. These are in no particular ranking or order."
- Computerworld/Peter Wayner: Software development's winners and losers, 2009 edition
- "In 2009, the computers got smaller, the databases got bigger, and HTML's dominance grew. None of these trends are new, and some of these changes are as old as computers themselves, but the magnitudes are greater or smaller than ever before. Here are the winners and losers we spotted on the software development landscape in 2009. For the programmers, alas, many of the year's ups had downsides."
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: Mozilla Firefox (SUSE-SA:2009:063)
- Package: Mozilla Firefox
- Announcement ID: SUSE-SA:2009:063
- Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:00:00 +0000
- SUSE Security Announcement: Flash Player (SUSE-SA:2009:062)
- Package: flash-player
- Announcement ID: SUSE-SA:2009:062
- Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:00:00 +0000
Statistics
Numbers in brackets show the changes compared to the previous week.
opensuse.org
Communication
lists.opensuse.org has 37349 (-16) non-unique subscribers to all mailing lists.
The openSUSE Forums have 39525 (+356) registered users - Most users ever online was 15292, 16-Nov-2009 at 21:20.
Contributors
4083 (+17) of 10583 (+56) 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 9731 (+106) projects, 90394 (+202) packages, 17706 (+170) repositories by 20069 (+133) confirmed users.
openFATE
Feature statistics for openSUSE 11.3:
- total: 414 (+4)
- unconfirmed: 267 (+4)
- new: 42 (+0)
- evaluation: 71 (-1)
- candidate: 1 (+0)
- done: 10 (+1)
- rejected: 14 (+0)
- duplicate: 9 (+0)
Bugzilla
The numbers for all openSUSE project products are this week:
- All Open Reports: 5209 (-98)
- Blocker: 4 (-1)
- Critical: 267 (+9)
- Major: 888 (+6)
- Normal: 3010 (-47)
- Minor: 442 (-24)
- Enhancements: 598 (-41)
- 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 Möller (Chief-Editor)
- saigkill Talk - Contributions Sascha Manns (Second Chief-Editor, Main-Newsletter)
- STS301 Talk - Contributions Sebastian Schöbinger (Tips/Tricks)
- HeliosReds Talk - Contributions Satoru Matsumoto (Editorial Office)
- Caf4926 Talk - Contributions Carl Fletcher (Main-Newsletter, Forums Sec.)
- Okuro Talk - Contributions Thomas Hofstätter (Events & Meetings)
- add translators
