Gentoo Weekly Newsletter: 24 September 2007

Chris Gianelloni  Editor
Chrissy Fullam  Editor
David Beckingsale  Author
Ferris McCormick  Author
Shyam Mani  Author

Updated September 24, 2007

1.  Gentoo News

Council election results

We are pleased to give you the results of this years Council elections. As you know, Gentoo uses the Condorcet method of voting, where voters rank candidates in order of preference. Our election officials (Hans de Graaff, Sven Vermeulen, and Shyam Mani) have collected and counted the votes. Please welcome our new Council members:

Thank you everyone for participating and for your patience on the results. The full result sheet is viewable here. Our best wishes go out to the new Council members.

Gentoo Sparc team seeking arch testers

Recently Sparc instituted a Sparc AT (architecture testing) subproject to help with the general testing process associated with the normal bug fixing and package upgrade processes. This subproject currently has three members and is proving to be quite successful. Consequently, we would like to expand the AT team to provide more coverage. While no specific hardware is required (other than a Sparc64 system, of course), nor any specific application, we are especially interested in expanding the capability to test:

The general requirements are Sparc hardware, demonstration of some Sparc experience, and enthusiasm. In becoming an AT, you will go through a mentoring process, and at the end will successfully complete Gentoo's ebuild quiz, which is here.

If you are interested, please review the Sparc AT documentation, and then contact either Jorge Vicetto or Ferris McCormick for further information and processing. Note that if you are interested in becoming a Sparc developer, the path AT --> developer is not only reasonable but also encouraged.

2.  Tips and Tricks

KDE Transparency

Just because you have an older computer or a laptop doesn't mean you have miss out on some eye candy. The Translucency feature in KDE lets you have transparent windows, windecos and kicker, and drop shadows. This is real transparency, it doesnt just capture your desktop and use that. Any windows you have behind the transparent windows can be seen and changes reflected in real-time.

Anyway, let's talk about getting this configured. The xcomposite USE flag is what you need to get the compositing support, so if you didn't have it when you installed KDE, you will need to put it in your make.conf then "emerge --newuse kwin kicker". Next you will need to make sure you have support for compositing in you xorg.config, just add these lines:

Code Listing 2.1: Configure xorg.config

	Section "Extensions"
    		Option "Composite" "Enable"
	EndSection

Restart your X and the use "xdpyinfo | grep Composite" to make composite is working. If all goes well, go over to Control Center -> Desktop -> Window Behavior then click on the translucency tab, and enable the effects you want. You may have to restart KDE for the changes to take effect.

3.  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:

4.  Gentoo security

PhpWiki: Authentication bypass

A vulnerability has been discovered in PhpWiki authentication mechanism.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

GDM: Local Denial of Service

GDM can be crashed by a local user, preventing it from managing future displays.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

Poppler: Two buffer overflow vulnerabilities

Poppler is vulnerable to an integer overflow and a stack overflow.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

rsync: Two buffer overflows

Two user-assisted buffer overflow vulnerabilities have been discovered in rsync.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

ClamAV: Multiple vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities have been discovered in ClamAV allowing remote execution of arbitrary code and Denial of Service attacks.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

BEA JRockit: Multiple vulnerabilities

BEA JRockit contains several vulnerabilities, some of which may allow the execution of arbitrary code.

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:

Package: Removal date: Contact:
net-im/micq 17 Sep 2007 Markus Ullmann
media-plugins/vdr-weatherng-images 19 Sep 2007 Joerg Bornkessel
games-arcade/smclone 21 Sep 2007 Tristan Heaven

Additions:

Package: Addition date: Contact:
net-im/climm 17 Sep 2007 Markus Ullmann
dev-libs/libx86 17 Sep 2007 Alon Bar-Lev
sys-power/suspend 17 Sep 2007 Alon Bar-Lev
media-sound/jokosher 17 Sep 2007 Samuli Suominen
app-crypt/gifshuffle 18 Sep 2007 Timothy Redaelli
app-pda/jpilot-Mail 18 Sep 2007 Wulf Krueger
games-arcade/smc 21 Sep 2007 Tristan Heaven
dev-ruby/png 21 Sep 2007 Aggelos Orfanakos
net-misc/s3cmd 23 Sep 2007 Josh Glover
app-emacs/fff 23 Sep 2007 Ulrich Müller
app-emacs/mic-paren 23 Sep 2007 Ulrich Müller

Last Rites:

Package: Removal date: Contact:
sys-auth/bioapi 08 Oct 2007 Mike Frysinger
sys-auth/pam_bioapi 08 Oct 2007 Mike Frysinger
net-irc/xdcc-fetch 18 Oct 2007 Matti Bickel
app-emacs/junkbust 20 Oct 2007 Christian Faulhammer
dev-util/bk_client 20 Oct 2007 Robin H. Johnson
media-sound/pd 20 Oct 2007 Samuli Suominen
media-sound/supercollider 20 Oct 2007 Samuli Suominen
app-emacs/eieio 22 Oct 2007 Ulrich Mueller
app-emacs/semantic 22 Oct 2007 Ulrich Mueller
net-print/hpijs 23 Oct 2007 Denis Dupeyron

6.  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 16 September 2007 and 22 September 2007, activity on the site has resulted in:

Of the 9580 currently open bugs: 11 are labeled 'blocker', 101 are labeled 'critical', and 338 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:

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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