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Speedy Fedora updates

Last week a small rant was posted to the fedora-advisory-board mailing list, wondering why Fedora had not issued an update for security issues fixed in Firefox 1.5.0.5. For the record, updates for Fedora Core 5 were already in the works at that time. Both Firefox and Thunderbird updates were released very soon after the rant was posted.

It turns out that Red Hat has one over-worked developer handling all Mozilla products for all releases from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 through Fedora Core 6 development. Whew! It also seems that a problem with S/390 builds delayed the Fedora Core 5 update (even though that architecture is only supported by RHEL, not Fedora).

According to the LWN vulnerability report, an advisory for the RHEL 3 Seamonkey package was very timely. That update was followed closely by Firefox and Thunderbird updates for RHEL 4. Nearly a week went by before the RHEL 4 Seamonkey package was updated, and Fedora Core 5 was the last to be addressed.

From a business standpoint it makes sense for Red Hat to fix things for their paying customers first. Fedora is the community distribution, and it needs help from the community. Many interesting ideas were discussed in the ensuing thread ranging from having a Red Hat developer ask for help on the fedora-maintainers list when they need it, to better version control systems that would make it easier for community members to submit patches.

Every one did agree that Fedora should be doing better.

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New Releases

Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS released

Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS has been announced, it features more than 300 post-release package updates. "The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS, the first maintenance release of "Dapper Drake". This release includes both installable Desktop CDs and alternate text-mode installation CDs for several architectures, for Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu. Xubuntu is also included, although commercial support for it is not available from Canonical Ltd."

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Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS for UltraSPARC re-released

A new ISO image for the UltraSPARC version of Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS has been created. "Due to an unfortunate hiccup in the CD build system, the ISO image for Ubuntu Server on UltraSPARC had to be regenerated. The original image featured a set of mismatched kernel and module packages which would have prevented the installation from completing fully."

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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 4

The fourth update for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is out. The release notes contain the details. (Thanks to Scott Dowdle)

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Slackware 11.0 RC 1

Slackware 11.0 release candidate 1 was announced on the August 14 Slackware-current change log.

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openSUSE 10.2 Alpha3 Release

The third alpha release of openSUSE 10.2 is available for testing. "The codename of openSUSE 10.2 is "Basilisk Lizard". With the rename of the distribution, we renamed also the name in bugzilla.novell.com so that you have to report bugs against "openSUSE 10.2"."

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Debian Installer etch beta 3 released

The third beta release of the Debian etch installer is out.

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Distribution News

Gentoo provides social workspaces to close the gap between users and developers

The Gentoo Overlays project, together with other groups including Gentoo Infrastructure and User Relations, has announced the availability of a new service to provide a single source for development overlays. "Stuart Herbert, the founder of the project, envisions this service, overlays.gentoo.org, as a way to create social workspaces where developers can collaborate with each other and with users to improve the Gentoo experience for everyone."

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Novell Renames Community Linux Distribution 'openSUSE'

Here's a press release (click below) from Novell officially rebranding its community distribution as "openSUSE(TM)". Novell's enterprise Linux products will continue to be designated "SUSE Linux Enterprise". openSUSE now has a new mailing list server as well.

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Goodbye, Netwosix

Vincenzo Ciaglia has announced the end of the Netwosix distribution. "Linux Netwosix was originally created with the goal of providing a security environment for building and creating new security-related solutions. With the passing of time I realized that the project has failed to achieve its goals within 3 years of hard work. This, among many reasons, is the most important because I never received help from anyone. Regardless of the fact that Netwosix has been downloaded by more than 60,000 users all around the world, I'm here to announce the shutting down of my dear project. Day after day I understand that I can't create a "valid security-oriented product" alone."

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Yum config for Fedora Core 4

The Fedora Legacy project has released yum configurations for Fedora Core 4. Currently there are no Fedora Legacy updates for 4, however the latest updates as released by the Fedora Project are available.

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Bits from the DPL: Looking back

Anthony Towns covers several topics from his first few months as Debian Project Leader. "It's been a while since I've posted anything DPLish to dda, so to avoid ending up with a traditionally long aj-esque spiel, I'm splitting the stuff I want to talk about between two posts. We'll see how that works out..."

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Report of Cuba visit

David Moreno Garza reports on the state of free software and Debian in Cuba. "The first day I was in Cuba I had the chance to meet some of the active members in the free software community, precisely and as it was expected, at least as I know it, most of them are a bunch of good and big friends. We had the chance to drink some rum and to taste to nice black Cuban coffee, besides that Medardo cooked his worldwide famous spaghetti with a sauce which I still keep a wonderful memory because of its incomparable aroma."

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Introducing automatic crash reporting in Edgy

Ubuntu has added automatic crash reporting to the upcoming Edgy release. "with today's ubuntu-meta change (which added the 'apport-gtk' package to ubuntu-desktop), Edgy now has automatic crash reporting. It is not yet quite as automatic as it could be, since we do not yet have a proper bug reporting tool, but it should already help developers to track down crashes more efficiently"

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Distribution Newsletters

Debian Weekly News

The Debian Weekly News for August 15, 2006 covers Debian's 13th birthday, the etch song, Wotomae - the distribution-wide tracker tool, a release update, a Python transition status report, a report from the Project Leader, Debian-Installer Etch Beta 3 released, and more.

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 59

This edition of the Fedora Weekly News looks at Fedora @ LinuxWorld SF 2006, Fedora Core 6 Test 2, Fedora Core 4 Transferred to Fedora Legacy, Fedora Core 4 Support and Yum Config, Fedora usability was born!, Review: Fedora Core 6 - First Impressions, and more.

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Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue #9

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for August 6 - 12, 2006 covers the 6.06.1 point release, Welcoming Jono Bacon, the new Ubuntu community manager, the Ubuntu web universe, MOTU School, Ubuntu New User Mentors Classroom, and several other topics.

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DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 164

The DistroWatch Weekly for August 14, 2006 is out. "The openSUSE project celebrated its first year in existence last week and it has a lot to be proud of: two great releases, many new users and a solid base for Novell's enterprise products. In the meanwhile, the founder of Gentoo Linux Daniel Robbins is once again working on his old project, while the creator of Mandrake Linux Gaël Duval keeps on hacking on the mysterious Ulteo distribution. But not all is good news this week - we are sad to say good-bye to Shawn Milo and the podcast edition of DistroWatch Weekly. Finally, if you live in Central America, don't miss the statistical table summarising visits to DistroWatch from your region."

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Package updates

Fedora updates

Updates for Fedora Core 5: kernel (update to 2.6.17.8), evolution (rebuild), libsoup (update to 2.2.96), evolution-connector (update to 2.6.3), gtkhtml3 (update to 3.10.3), evolution-data-server (update to 1.6), cvs (bug fixes), netpbm (update to 10.34), libwnck (update to 2.14.3), gnome-desktop (update to 2.14.3), gnome-menus (update to 2.14.3), gnome-panel (update to 2.14.3), gnome-screensaver (update to 2.14.3), nautilus-cd-burner (update to 2.14.3), eel2 (update to 2.14.3), file-roller (update to 2.14.4), gnome-session (update to 2.14.3), eog (update to 2.14.3), gnome-applets (update to 2.14.3), gnome-utils (update to zenity 2.14.3), nautilus (update to 2.14.3), gtksourceview (update to 1.6.2), gnome-games (update to 2.14.3), yelp (update to 2.14.3), gnome-themes (update to 2.14.3), createrepo (bug fix), cairo-java (new upstream version), libgtk-java (new upstream version), glib-java (new upstream version), libgnome-java (new upstream version), libgconf-java (new upstream version), libvte-java (new upstream version), libglade-java (new upstream version)

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rPath updates

Updates for rPath Linux 1: MySQL-python (bug fix), pycrypto (remove patented algorithms), conary, conary-build, conary-repository (Conary 1.0.28 maintenance release), conary, conary-build, conary-repository, conary-policy (Conary 1.0.29 maintenance release).

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Trustix update

Trustix has fixed various bugs in distcache and pvm for TSL 3.0.

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Newsletters and articles of interest

Gentoo Portage secrets (Linux.com)

Linux.com looks at Gentoo's Portage package management system. "Gentoo Linux is perhaps the most-used source-based Linux distribution. One secret to its success is the powerful and handy Portage package management system. While Gentoo comes with extensive documentation covering most aspects of using Portage, the techniques described in Gentoo's handbook and other documentation are not always the most effective ones. Here are some insider tips that can greatly increase your productivity."

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Everything you always wanted to know about Linux distros (Linux-Watch)

Linux-Watch looks at the Wikipedia article, Comparison of Linux Distributions. "Want to know who created Arch Linux? It's in there. Want to know what version of the Linux kernel the Lycoris Desktop/LX reached before it was folded into Mandriva? That's there too. Do you hanker to know what desktop manager PCLinuxOS uses by default? You can find that there, too."

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Debian Server Setup (DebianHelp)

DebianHelp provides step-by-step tutorials for setting up Debian servers. This includes Debian Installation, FTP Server Setup, Webserver Setup, Samba Server Setup, Database Server Setup, Time clock sync, Mail Server Configuration, VNC Server setup, Proxy Server Setup, SSH Server Setup, tftp Server Setup, DHCP Server Setup, IPtables Configuration, DNS Server Setup, and more.

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