Gentoo Weekly Newsletter: August 9, 2004Marking our fourth consecutive Linux World Expo, Gentoo Linux was on hand at the recent San Francisco event. As with previous shows, the Gentoo booth was located in the .org pavillion. Nominated for the Best Open Source Solution (though beaten out by Firefox), the Gentoo booth was quite busy throughout the show. With a mixture of new people wanting to find out more about Gentoo and veteran users thanking the developers for their hard work, the show allowed Gentoo to reach out to users new and old. Another benefit was the chance for many of the Gentoo developers to meet face-to-face for the first time. Also at the show, a Birds of a Feather meeting was held, which is an informal, after-hours meeting where users had a chance to interact with the developers on a one-to-one basis. This meeting drew far larger numbers than were originally expected, with over 50 people in attendance. To all the folks who stopped by the Gentoo booth, thank you for showing your support. To anyone who was unable to make it, we'll be at the next Linux World Expo in Boston, February 14th through 17th!
Update on the Gentoo Website Redesign As an update to the previously announced website redesign contest, a number of excellent submissions were received from our users. Overall, we had more than two dozen responses from which five have been selected as finalists. We are currently awaiting confirmation from those finalists that they are indeed willing to complete their design and participate in the actual project. As soon as we have those confirmations, we will post the five finalists and allow the community to select a winner. Courier: Cross-site scripting vulnerability in SqWebMail The SqWebMail web application, included in the Courier suite, is vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks. For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement libpng: Numerous vulnerabilities libpng contains numerous vulnerabilities potentially allowing an attacker to perform a Denial of Service attack or even execute arbitrary code. For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement PuTTY: Pre-authentication arbitrary code execution PuTTY contains a vulnerability allowing a SSH server to execute arbitrary code on the connecting client. For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement Opera: Multiple new vulnerabilities Several new vulnerabilities were found and fixed in Opera, including one allowing an attacker to read the local filesystem remotely. For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement 3. Featured Developer of the Week Featured Developer is on hiatus this week. DVD Burning under Linux DVD burning under Linux has become easier and easier in the past months due to the enhancements in the 2.6 kernel series. Yet, the issues are still there--but now due to the myriad of DVD-burning drives. DVD+R, DVD-R, single-layer, dual-layer, etc. Scott Taylor did the list a favor with a great write up that sums up the differences, as well as a recommendation on the type of drive he prefers. Also check out the related thread on dual-layer burners. Upgrading Perl Do you rebuild your perl libraries after an upgrade? You should! Although indispensable as a scripting and admin tool, upgrading perl involves a good number of reverse dependencies. Gentoo provides the libperl_rebuilder script (/usr/portage/dev-lang/perl/files/libperl_rebuilder) which can allieviate some of the issues and keep your perl running smoothly. However, if you happen to be using "ACCEPT_KEYWORDS" there may experience some problems. List member Holly Bostick and our resident developer Spider, help clear up the confusion and make the upgrade process easier. For Real: Realplayer 10 Real Networks announced last Monday that their latest release, RealPlayer 10 Gold, is now available to Linux users. RealPlayer 10 is identical to the fully open-sourced Helix Player 1.0 (released on the same day), but has added support for Real's own audio and video formats, MP3 and Flash playback. While Gentoo users in the Forum have greeted the news with excitement, an official RealPlayer ebuild will have to wait for Gentoo develeoper Chris White do quality checks and get Real's endorsement for inclusion of their flagship application in the Portage tree. If you want to help Chris conducting the necessary tests, contact him by email: Useful USE Tools Italian Forum user xchris has written a handy bash script that analyzes which packages have been compiled with or without a supported USE flag, available for download at his own website. In case you forgot to include an important feature in several packages, you might like to simply redirect the output of "usetool -nu [use flag] -nc" straight to emerge. And if you'd like to know what USE flags actually are being supported by packages first, try singular's concise Python script (based on gentoolkit) that puts an end to the old recursive grepping routine people had to rely on so far: Italy: MOCA Reminder, 20-22 August Ten days before MOCA, the Italian geek camp, opens its doo^H^H^Hflysheets in Pescara, and as many as seventeen Gentoo users have confirmed their participation in this event organised by Metro Olografix activists on the Adriatic coast. If you're interested in joining in the fun, check our earlier report for details, and let the others know you're coming at this forum thread (in Italian, preferrably). At DEFCON 12 this past weekend, several Gentoo Linux machines were sighted in the RootFu competition. Gentoo's "less is more" attitude for Stage1 installs makes it advantageous for security-minded folks. There were other Gentoo sightings as well: Several of the conferences used Gentoo machines for demonstrations, and many were sighted on user's laptops. The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org) to record and track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the development team. Between 31 July 2004 and 06 August 2004, activity on the site has resulted in:
Of the 7016 currently open bugs: 134 are labeled 'blocker', 201 are labeled 'critical', and 549 are labeled 'major'. The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period are:
The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during this period are:
Tips and Tricks is looking for a new owner. If you're interested in taking over this section of the GWN, please email gwn-feedback@gentoo.org. The following developers recently left the Gentoo team:
The following developers recently joined the Gentoo Linux team:
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo Linux project:
Interested in contributing to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter? Send us an email. Please send us your feedback and help make the GWN better. 11. GWN Subscription Information To subscribe to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, send a blank email to gentoo-gwn-subscribe@gentoo.org. To unsubscribe to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, send a blank email to gentoo-gwn-unsubscribe@gentoo.org from the email address you are subscribed under. The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter is also available in the following languages:
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