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Gentoo Linux Enhancement Proposal #42

Gentoo Linux Enhancement Proposal (GLEP) #42 proposes a new way of informing Gentoo users about important updates and critical news. Although Gentoo already has several methods of informing their users of critical information, it is clear that many users are not getting the message. Instead, the mailing lists and forums get clogged with irate users who have failed updates and broken systems. A second draft of this GLEP proposes a solution that pushes the news items out to the user via the ``rsync`` tree.

An ideal solution would make sure that users are told of changes *before* they break the user's system, with no subscription or monitoring required. Notices should be relevant to the user receiving it. If a user gets every notice, including those specific to packages they don't have installed, they are more likely to miss something that they really did need to see. The solution should not require or assume that everyone has an MTA, web browser, email client, cron daemon or text processing suite available on their system and it should not require the user to give up private information. Multiple delivery methods should be supported so that each user has a choice in how to receive the information.

Ideally a method for supplying each message in multiple languages would be beneficial, and there should be quality control to insure that the messages are coherent, understandable, concise, and relevant.

The proposal favors the use of the Portage tree to disseminate this critical information. On the server side, the news items would reside in the repository under directories named 'yyyy-mm/' to make it easier to find new news. On the client side, an emerge command will copy or symlink the news file into /var/lib/gentoo/news/ and inform the user.

The proposal is still under discussion and some details of its implementation have not been addressed. Still this proposal makes a good start at solving some very real communications problems.

Comments (7 posted)

New Releases

FreeBSD Project Launches FreeBSD 6.0

The FreeBSD Foundation has announced the availability of FreeBSD 6.0. "One of the new features in FreeBSD 6.0 is a multithreaded file system, which greatly improves data access times for local disks, RAID configurations, network file systems, and SANs. Recent performance benchmarks show that FreeBSD 6.0 outperforms Linux in raw data throughput. Additionally, FreeBSD 6.0 extends support for wireless devices such as Intel Centrino and adds supports for the popular new WPA wireless security protocol." So much for the hyped up press release. This release announcement provides more useful information with less hype.

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NetBSD 2.1

The NetBSD Project has announced the release of NetBSD 2.1. "NetBSD 2.1 is the first maintenance release of the netbsd-2 release branch. This release provides numerous functional enhancements, including support for many new devices, hundreds of bug fixes, patches and updates to kernel subsystems, and many enhancements to the user environment. In addition, all of the security fixes and critical bug fixes from the NetBSD 2.0.3 update are included as well."

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Distribution News

Fedora Core 5 test1 delayed

The Fedora schedule has slipped a couple of weeks. The major change created by modular X is the primary reason for the slip. (Click below for more on that.) The current schedule shows the Fedora Core 5 test 1 development freeze set for November 14, 2005, with a release of test 1 set for November 21.

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DebConf6

A Hot and Spicy DebConf6 has been scheduled for May 14 - 22, 2006, in Oaxtepec, Mexico. The conference is free for anyone who wants to attend. There are sponsorships available for those who need some financial assistance. The call for papers and presentations is open now. The deadline for proposals is December 6, 2005, 23h59 UTC.

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Bits from the Debian armeb port

Lennert Buytenhek reports that the armeb port is nearing a Sarge release. "For most packages, the vanilla debian sources are used. Some packages need patching for armeb, in which case we put the patched sources in a different component while we submit patches to the bug tracking system and wait for those to be merged. The armeb support patches for a number of packages have been merged already, and more will hopefully follow soon."

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Ubuntu Below Zero

Scott James Remnant has posted some of the specifications that were approved at UBZ. This In post looks at Ubuntu Express issues, LVM, media checks, booting from USB, automatic network detection and configuration, video playback, faster GNOME startup, Kubuntu 6.04 roadmap, and more.

A partitioning tool for Ubuntu Express leads the second post, along with Live CD performance improvements, Unionfs support in the live CD, support for OpenLDAP and Active Directory, hiding admin tools from non-sudoers, audio improvements, Rhythmbox iPod integration, and best bug handling practices.

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Oldenburg DevJam meeting

The Oldenburg DevJam hosted a Debian Java Meeting, held in Oldenburg, Germany last September. Here's a report from that meeting. "At DevJam several Java people from different distributions meet for the first time. This way there was the possibility to talk about how the different distributions currently handle java packages. Furthermore there are several discussions how the distributions can join efforts in their task of maintaining java packages."

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New Distributions

Arudius

Arudius is a live CD Linux distribution based on Minislack and Linux Live scripts. It contains an extensive set of software tools used by IT security professionals for penetration testing and vulnerability analysis. Its goal is to include the most complete set of useful security tools and still maintain a small footprint. Version 0.1 was released November 4, 2005.

Comments (1 posted)

Distribution Newsletters

Debian Weekly News

The Debian Weekly News for November 8, 2005 covers problems (and solutions) for KDE packages in testing, is Debian participating in the GPLv3 process?, a Linux-Info-Tag Dresden event report, the Debian GNU/kFreeBSD Live CD, how to create SSL certificates on Debian, Debconf6 call for papers, Debian at Systems Exhibition, and several other topics.

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 21

This week's edition of the Fedora Weekly News covers a Vote against software patents in an Internet poll, the Livna Repo Availability Issue, a Using Rawhide and Fedora Testing Guide, Kennards shifts 400 desktops to Linux (Fedora), Fedora Extras Steering Committee Meeting and more.

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Gentoo Weekly Newsletter

The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of November 7, 2005 looks at how GLEP aims to manage important update information, an interview with Jacob Lindberg at Brenntag Nordic, GeCHI conference in Italy, and much more.

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DistroWatch Weekly

The DistroWatch Weekly for November 7, 2005 is out. "As expected, the three main BSD releases stole the limelight of most open source news sites last week, with especially FreeBSD 6.0 looking like a truly excellent product. We will take a closer look at some of the issues discussed on the FreeBSD mailing lists shortly after the release and share our experiences with upgrading the DistroWatch server. Also in this issue: a comment on the events of the past week affecting SUSE Linux and Kubuntu, and a link to an interesting sub-project by Linux From Scratch - for the fans of cross-compiling. Our featured distribution of the week is the OpenSolaris-based BeleniX live CD, while the amaroK project is the one that gets our US$300 October 2005 donation."

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Package updates

Fedora updates

Fedora Core 4 updates: eclipse (Eclipse 3.1.1 natively-compiled for FC4), eclipse-cdt (build 3.0.0 for FC4), x86info (update to 1.17), wireless-tools (update to wireless-tools 28pre10), NetworkManager (rebuild for FC4), tar (bug fix), openldap (merge changes from rawhide and upgrade to 2.2.29), lm_sensors (fixed pwmconfig patch), kudzu (backport corrected kernel version handling), hwdata (add migration for mptfusion), hwdata (fix typo in PCMCIA config file), audit (enhancements).

Fedora Core 3 updates: evolution (bug fix), lm_sensors (fixed pwmconfig patch), glibc (update to glibc 2.3.6 release).

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Mandriva update

Mandriva update MDKA-2005:049 provides updated mandriva-release packages with a fixed CREDITS file. Click below for the complete advisory.

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Slackware updates

Slackware Linux received several security and bug fixes this week. Security fixes are available for several versions Slackware and the advisories can be found on this week's Security page. Details can always be found in the slackware-current changelog.

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Distribution reviews

OpenLab: The other African distribution (LinuxOnline)

Linux Online reviews OpenLab 4. "Some articles I had read about OpenLab mentioned that it would run fairly well on older hardware, so I trotted out my trusty old AMD K6 II and gave it a try. When you plunk the CD in the drive and boot, start up is really fast, so it would seem it doesn't disagree with my aging hardware. Also, I have often had problems with other distributions with this machine. It has something to do with the video card and frame buffer problems, but with OpenLab, I didn't have any problems. What I did miss, at this point, was the possibility to get support for my Spanish keyboard layout. Typing 'lang=es' at the boot prompt usually does the trick, but this did nothing here. Actually, this is no big deal, since OpenLab boots into KDE and you can change this very easily by just clicking on the US flag in the taskbar."

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Introducing GoboLinux 012 (NewsForge)

Linux.com looks at GoboLinux 012. "Contrary to most Linux distributions, GoboLinux chooses not to follow the Free Standards Group's Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. Gobo's authors thought the traditional Unix directory tree was unsuitable for a modern desktop Linux distribution and decided to take the path that another desktop-oriented operating systems has been following for years -- namely, Mac OS X."

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