Gentoo Weekly Newsletter: 13 August 2007
1.
Gentoo News
Linux World Conference and Expo - San Francisco
The 2007
Linux World Conference and Exposition was held last week at the Moscone
Center in San Francisco, CA. Sharing the show floor was the Next Generation
Data Center exposition. Gentoo held its usual booth location in the infamous
.Org Pavilion and touted a strong developer presence with thirteen developers
in attendance at the show.
On display were a variety of systems and embedded devices demonstrating
Gentoo's acclaimed flexibility. The following were showcased thanks to
Daniel Ostrow,
Chris Gianelloni,
Mike Frysinger,
Mike Doty, and
Robin Johnson: an HP zx2000 Itanium2, a Dual Opteron 248 system, a
TS-7300,
and a Blackfin.
The main draw of the Gentoo booth could easily be a toss up between Robin's
slim XXS1500, Daniel's Playstation 3 running Gentoo
with Xfce4 on a 32" LCD TV and Chris' sleek
EFIKA demonstrating
Descent 2, joystick and all.
The booth was greeted by a mixture of new people wanting to find out more about
Gentoo, long standing users happy to meet the developers and thank them in
person for their contributions, as well as a few vendors who expressed their
interest in Gentoo. The event also gave some developers the opportunity to meet
each other face-to-face for the first time which served as an added bonus.
Figure 1.1: Linux World Expo: Gentoo Booth |
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Note: (back row) codeman, musikc, tgall, kingtaco, robbat2, dostrow
(front row) wolf31o2, solar, calchan, wltjr, ramereth, vapier.
Not photographed but also in attendance was blackace.
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To all who stopped by the Gentoo booth, thank you for showing your support. To
anyone who was unable to make it, we hope to see you at the next Linux World
Expo in San Francisco, August 4th through the 7th, 2008!
Simplified Chinese Gentoo Handbook
Good news for Chinese speakers. Zhang Le
is proud to announce the Gentoo GNU/Linux handbook has been translated to
Chinese. You can find the handbook
here and the progression of
additional documentation translations
here.
These translated handbooks are being submitted to bugzilla and we hope to see
the handbooks on gentoo.org soon. They
are planning on additional documentation translations and always seeking
volunteers. Anyone who speaks both English and Chinese and would like to help
can send an e-mail to
gentoo-china.
Gentoo Screenshot Contest
The Gentoo Artwork Team kicks off a Gentoo screenshot contest. If you think
your desktop looks sharp, then take part in the competition! The three highest
rated screenshots will be uploaded to the Gentoo
Linux Screenshots page. Candidates should submit screenshots to the
artwork@gentoo.org address, but remember
to stay on track with the following rules:
- The contest starts on the day of release of this GWN issue and ends on the
31st of August 2007. Screenshots sent after this day will not take part in the
competition.
- Each person should send no more than 5 screenshots.
- Proper way of sending screenshots is a link to the online address (due to
huge mail rotation). Please upload your screenshot on your server or proper
service like imageshack.us.
- Each screenshot should be described by: WM name, icons theme (if any) and
theme name (if any).
- Jury: Dawid Węgliński,
Christoph Mende,
Davide Italiano. Still accepting
jury members, contact Dawid if you are interested.
2.
Gentoo International
Gentoo in Milan
Figure 2.1: Gentoo in Milan |
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The common misconception about Linux developers, you know the one, is put to
rest in Milan where Gentoo users and developers hold a monthly meeting in a
local pub. They meet to talk about Gentoo in an atmosphere where everyone can
participate, have a few drinks, and share ideas. These events are a good
occassion to get to know others who share your passion.
The next Gentoo Pub in Milan will be this September. Check out the
Italian forums
for more details.
3.
Gentoo in the Press
softwareblogs.intel.com (2 August, 2007)
In a recent post on http://softwareblogs.intel.com, Kevin Farnham,
who works for O'Reilly Media, wrote an article explaining how to build Thread
Building Blocks on Gentoo and on an Athlon processor.
Kevin states that he prefers Gentoo "because the portage package manager lets
me easily install exactly what I want to install, and nothing more. The result
is that I have a very "clean" system to work with. While installing the
operating system, I had to be sure to include the options for multithreading;
as usual, the Gentoo documentation is very thorough, making it easy to find the
switches you need and activate them."
4.
Gentoo developer moves
Moves
The following developers recently left the Gentoo project:
Adds
The following developers recently joined the Gentoo project:
Changes
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo project:
5.
Gentoo security
Macromedia Flash Player: Remote arbitrary code execution
Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in Macromedia Flash Player,
allowing for the remote execution of arbitrary code.
For more information, please see the
GLSA Announcement
Xvid: Array indexing vulnerabilities
Several array indexing vulnerabilities were discovered in Xvid, possibly
allowing for the remote execution of arbitrary code.
For more information, please see the
GLSA Announcement
libarchive (formerly named as bsdtar): Multiple PaX Extension Header Vulnerabilities
Multiple vulnerabilities were found in libarchive (formerly named as
app-archive/bsdtar), possibly allowing for the execution of arbitrary code
or a Denial of Service.
For more information, please see the
GLSA Announcement
ClamAV: Denial of Service
A vulnerability has been discovered in ClamAV, allowing for a Denial of
Service.
For more information, please see the
GLSA Announcement
GD: Multiple vulnerabilities
Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in GD, allowing for the
execution of arbitrary code.
For more information, please see the
GLSA Announcement
Net::DNS: Multiple vulnerabilities
Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Net::DNS Perl module,
allowing for a Denial of Service and a cache poisoning attack.
For more information, please see the
GLSA Announcement
Xfce Terminal: Remote arbitrary code execution
A vulnerability has been discovered in the Xfce Terminal program, allowing
for the remote execution of arbitrary code.
For more information, please see the
GLSA Announcement
SquirrelMail G/PGP plugin: Arbitrary code execution
Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in SquirrelMail, allowing for
the remote execution of arbitrary code.
For more information, please see the
GLSA Announcement
6.
Gentoo package moves
This section lists packages that have either been moved or added to the tree
and packages that have had their "last rites" announcement given to be removed
in the future. The package removals come from many locations, including the Treecleaners and various developers. Most
packages which are listed under the Last Rites section are in need of some love
and care and can remain in the tree if proper maintainership is established.
Removals:
| Package: |
Removal date: |
Contact: |
| app-admin/gentoo-bugger |
06 Aug 2007 |
Michael Cummings |
| media-gfx/bootsplash |
06 Aug 2007 |
Michael Januszewski |
| media-sound/sonic-rainbow |
08 Aug 2007 |
Samuli Suominen |
| media-libs/janus |
08 Aug 2007 |
Samuli Suominen |
| games-strategy/bos |
10 Aug 2007 |
Michael Sterrett |
Additions:
Last Rites:
7.
Bugzilla
Summary
Statistics
The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org) to record and track
bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the
development team. Between 05 August 2007
and 11 August 2007, activity on the site has resulted in:
- 437 new bugs during this period
- 231 bugs closed or resolved during this period
- 19 previously closed bugs were reopened this period
- 92 closed as NEEDINFO/WONTFIX/CANTFIX/INVALID/UPSTREAM during this period
- 103 bugs marked as duplicates during this period
Of the 9916 currently open bugs: 12 are labeled 'blocker', 101 are labeled
'critical', and 355 are labeled 'major'.
Closed bug rankings
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period are:
New bug rankings
The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during this
period are:
8.
GWN feedback
The GWN is staffed by volunteers and members of the community who submit ideas
and articles. If you are interested in writing for the GWN, have feedback on an
article that we have posted, or just have an idea or article that you would
like to submit to the GWN, please send us your feedback and help make the GWN
better.
9.
GWN subscription information
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10.
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