Gentoo Weekly Newsletter: 10 September 2007

1.  Gentoo News

Voting for Council 2007

The GWN staff would like to remind all Gentoo Developers that there is very little time left for voting. The elections for the 2007 Gentoo Council will close at 0000 UTC on the 17th of September. For some developers, this may be your first year voting. Dont let the process intimidate you; voting is rather simple when get right down to it. Do not miss out, make your voice count!

$ ssh dev.gentoo.org
(Create your ballot)
$ votify --new council2007
(Edit your ballot by listing the nominees in your preferred order)
$ ${EDITOR} .ballot-council2007
(Verify your ballot)
$ votify --verify council2007
(Submit your ballot)
$ votify --submit council2007

Trying to remember just who you wanted to vote for? Review the nominee manifestos or the GWN interviews.

Screenshot Contest Winners

The Gentoo Screenshot Contest has drawn to a close and we have our winners. The jury, which was formed by four Gentoo Developers (Davide Italiano, Christian Faulhammer, Christoph Mende and Dawid Weglinski), has selected seven winning screenshots from over forty submissions. While they were all impressive enough to post on the Gentoo screenshots page, the jury only awards three rankings: first, second, and third. Each judge rated the screenshots in accordance to their own personal interpretation, then awarded each screenshot a number, ranging from 0-10; those figures were tallied up to determine the winners. And here they are:

• First place, with 36 points ex aequo, was awarded to Bartek Stalewski for his GNOME screenshot, Mikolaj Klimek for his KDE screenshot, and to Robert Gerus also for his KDE screenshot.
• Second place, tieing with 35 points, was awarded to Alexander Schumacher for his pretty Gentooish screenshot, and to Massimiliano Morvillo for his KDE screenshot.
• Third place, also in a tie, with 33 points was awarded to Bartek Stalewski for his fluxbox screenshot, which was the only fluxbox screenshot within winners, and also a fellow with the nick 'Purple' for his KDE.

Congratulations!

2.  Tips and Tricks

Synergy

This weeks Tips and Tricks covers an application who's time has come: Synergy. This handy application is a software KVM, allowing you to use one keyboard and mouse across multiple machines with their individual monitors. Synergy even works cross platform (with copy and paste!) between Linux, OS X, and Windows.

Setup and use of Synergy is very basic and straight forward. Select which machine will be your primary mouse and keyboard, this will be configured as the server and the remaining as the clients.

Tip: When running synergyc (the client) on a multi-monitor machine (laptop with an external monitor for example), you will need mutiple instances of synergyc. One launched per display, one instance launched per each respective display, passing a name along with each display beyond 0:0.

Trick: Synergyc assumes the hostname of the machine when connecting to the server instance. So for any display beyond 0:0, append a number to the hostname and specify that when connecting to the server instance. Then use that syntax on each display, launching synergc from each display. Two monitors, two instances of synergc, one with no name specified running on 0:0 and the other with a name running on 0:1.

Here is a sample config which includes how to launch the instances on the dual monitor machine, which we will call wlt, along with the server, ws2, and another workstation, ws1. Please note, the Windows install includes a GUI, however for OS X and Linux a simple text file is created. This sample is that text file.

# List the computer names that Synergy will run on
section: screens
 wlt:
 wlt1:
 ws2:
 ws1:
end

# For each system, state how it correlates to the other systems
section: links
 ws2:
    left  = wlt
    right = ws1
 ws1:
    left  = ws2
 wlt:
    right = ws2
    left = wlt1
 wlt1:
    right = wlt
end

Normally Synergy wants to run "in the background." It detaches from the terminal and doesn't have a visible window, effectively disappearing from view. Until you're sure your configuration works, you should start synergy "in the foreground" using the -f command line option.

On the synergy server:
$ synergys -f --config synergy.conf

On the synergy clients:
$ synergyc -f server-host-name

On wlt 0:0: $ synergyc -f ws2
On wlt 0:1: $ synergyc -n wlt1 -f ws2

We understand that this is just a high level over view; for more information, please check out the Synergy site.

3.  Gentoo developer moves

Moves

The following developers recently left the Gentoo project:

• none this week

Adds

The following developers recently joined the Gentoo project:

• none this week

Changes

The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo project:

• none this week

4.  Gentoo security

MIT Kerberos 5: Multiple vulnerabilities

Two vulnerabilites have been found in MIT Kerberos 5, which could allow a remote unauthenticated user to execute arbitrary code with root privileges.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

5.  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:

Additions:

Last Rites:

6.  Bugzilla

Summary

• Statistics
• Closed bug ranking
• New bug rankings

Statistics

The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org) to record and track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the development team. Between 02 September 2007 and 08 September 2007, activity on the site has resulted in:

• 428 new bugs during this period
• 287 bugs closed or resolved during this period
• 12 previously closed bugs were reopened this period
• 99 closed as NEEDINFO/WONTFIX/CANTFIX/INVALID/UPSTREAM during this period
• 88 bugs marked as duplicates during this period

Of the 9769 currently open bugs: 10 are labeled 'blocker', 104 are labeled 'critical', and 341 are labeled 'major'.

Closed bug rankings

The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period are:

• Gentoo's Team for Core System packages, with 17 closed bugs
• Netmon Herd, with 13 closed bugs
• Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team, with 9 closed bugs
• Gentoo Fonts Team, with 8 closed bugs
• Gentoo Security, with 6 closed bugs
• Python Gentoo Team, with 6 closed bugs
• PPC Porters, with 6 closed bugs
• Gentoo KDE team, with 6 closed bugs

New bug rankings

The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during this period are:

• Default Assignee for New Packages, with 15 new bugs
• Gentoo Kernel Bug Wranglers and Kernel Maintainers, with 6 new bugs
• SpanKY, with 5 new bugs
• AMD64 Project, with 5 new bugs
• Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team, with 4new bugs
• Gentoo's Team for Core System packages, with 4 new bugs
• Netmon Herd, with 3 new bugs
• mips team, with 3 new bugs

7.  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.

8.  GWN subscription information

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