Distributions
News and Editorials
Packaging qmail for Debian
An effort to get the qmail mail transfer agent (MTA) into Debian repositories has run aground due to various concerns, but the overriding one seems to be a distaste for qmail itself. Distributions make package availability decisions based on "taste" all the time, but they are generally made strictly on technical grounds, which does not seem to be the case here. While it has its share of detractors, qmail is a relatively popular MTA—with an excellent security track record—and one of the main impediments, its license, has changed in the last year. Because of that, it makes it a bit hard to understand why qmail would be kept out of Debian.
More than six months ago, Gerrit Pape had uploaded qmail and related packages to the ftp-master system, but they have yet to be added to the official Debian archive. He recently outlined his efforts in a post to debian-devel trying to see if he could break a kind of standoff between him and the ftpmasters, who are the folks that decide which packages get moved into the official archives. More than two months after his first upload of the packages, Pape got a reply from Joerg Jaspert outlining multiple technical reasons why the packages were being opposed, but also containing the following disheartening verdict:
After that, Pape addressed some, but not all, of the technical complaints and uploaded updated packages along with a reply to Jaspert's rejection on September 1. Since that time, there has been no action on the packages nor any further communication from the ftpteam, which is what led to the debian-devel post. Responses there mostly backed the ftpmaster's "decision"; qmail, it seems, is not very popular with many Debian developers.
Unfortunately, some of the complaints are based on old or faulty information. There is a reasonably active upstream and, since Daniel J. Bernstein (aka djb) released the code into the public domain, there is no longer the need to patch qmail to get a sensible MTA. There are some legitimate concerns, in particular the backscatter that gets created by the default qmail configuration, but it is rather disingenuous to list security as one of those problems.
While not as bulletproof as djb would have it, qmail does have a long record of few security problems. In response to claims that the Debian security team would have more work because of qmail's inclusion, Moritz Muehlenhoff makes it clear that the team won't block qmail. Florian Weimer puts it this way:
I can understand that people have strong feelings. I'm willing to provide security support, but it's extremely unlikely that I'll run qmail on production MTAs ever again. 8-/
In the end, it comes down to emotions, largely. People generally feel strongly about qmail, either hating it or loving it, with few who know much about it anywhere in between. Clearly the ftpteam has the responsibility to reject packages on technical grounds, but are they the arbiters of taste for Debian as well?
An earlier thread about including qmail, from shortly after djb freed the code, showed a fair amount of interest in qmail, along with some opposition. It is unlikely that all Debian developers are happy with all of the packages currently supported by the distribution, so singling qmail out seems rather arbitrary. As Wouter Verhelst notes:
Whether or not it's a good MTA, the fact is that it's a *popular* MTA. That alone should be a good reason to package it.
Installing qmail has always been painful; it is a package that cries out for distribution integration, which Pape is trying to provide. Whether it gets into the official repositories or not, unofficial qmail packages do exist. If the problems with qmail are largely packaging-related, it is hard to see how they will get fixed by staying unofficial. But if the problems are based on an emotional response to qmail itself—whether based in technical concerns or not—it is hard to see how a developer can overcome them.
New Releases
Fedora 10 Cambridge Spins : Other Planetary Systems
Along with Fedora 10, seven additional spins were released. They are: Fedora Electronic Lab, Fedora KDE, Fedora Edu-Math, Fedora XFCE, Fedora AOS, Fedora Developer, and Fedora BrOffice. "While astronomers took first ever pictures of other planetary systems last month, the fedora community was building its own planetary systems. Some say one planet isn't enough, other strive to enlarge their own planet. While F-10 Cambridge elevates the performance barrier and much more, other planetary spins have been geared to specific applications."
FreeBSD 6.4-RELEASE Available
FreeBSD has announced the availability of FreeBSD 6.4, which is expected to be the last of the 6-STABLE releases. New features include a much-improved NFS lock manager, boot loader changes to allow booting from USB, KDE 3.5.10, GNOME 2.22.3, and more. Click below for the full announcement.Development Release: openSUSE 11.1 RC 1 Now Available
The first release candidate for openSUSE 11.1 is available now. "We all want openSUSE 11.1 to be the best release yet, and we need your help to get there. This release is ready for widespread testing, and we're encouraging everyone to download and work with the testing releases to find any critical bugs before release. Please run the release through your usual routine, and let us know about any bugs or other issues that you find. Remember that this is a release candidate, and is not suitable for use on production systems, however."
Distribution News
Debian GNU/Linux
Call for Talks for the Debian Developers' room at FOSDEM
Wouter Verhelst is looking for speakers for the Debian developers' room at FOSDEM, which will be held in Brussels, Belgium on February 7 and 8, 2009. "As has become a habit now over the years, I've again requested a developers' room for the Debian project, and have just received an acceptance of that request. This means we'll be able to hold talks at FOSDEM for one and a half day: during the afternoon on saturday, and the whole day on sunday. So, if you're interested in holding a talk at FOSDEM, now is the time. As usual, talks will be accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis; that is, of course, as long as they are suitable for a Debian venue."
Fedora
Fedora 8 end-of-life is January 7
The Fedora Project has announced that support for the Fedora 8 distribution will end on January 7, 2009. That is actually a little later than the support policy allows for, but sticking to the policy would have ended support on Christmas day, which, perhaps, was not the sort of holiday gift Fedora users were looking for. So users of Fedora 8 have a little more than a month to upgrade to a newer release.Fedora 11 naming process begins
The Fedora project is soliciting suggestions for the release name of Fedora 11. The name must have some relationship to "Cambridge", the release name for Fedora 10. "We're doing the name collection differently this year than in the past. Contributors wishing to make a suggestion are asked to go to the F11 naming wiki page, and add an entry to the suggestion table found there: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Name_suggestions_for_Fedora_11 The naming submissions are open starting now until Dec 8. The rest of the schedule is outlined on the wiki page."
FUDCon F11 Boston
Paul Frields has an update on the Fedora User and Developer conference (FUDCon) F11 which will be held January 9-11, 2009 at MIT in Cambridge, MA. "And here's some further news to sweeten the pot -- the One Laptop Per Child and SugarLabs communities will be joining us for FUDCon, to address areas of common interest like packaging and building for these unique projects, and to talk to Fedora community members about getting involved. This should make FUDCon a very exciting event and I look forward to seeing everyone there who can make it!" Click below for his full message.
Mandriva Linux
Losses at Mandriva
Two Mandriva contractors - Adam Williamson and Oden Eriksson have announced that their contracts are being terminated. These two developers are responsible for a great deal of the work which goes into the Mandriva distribution; as Oden notes: "Someone, or a couple of people will get their hands full (or not) maintaining the 1200+ source rpm packages I currently maintain. This is mostly server related stuff. For example the (L)AMP stack, to my knowledge the most complete on the planet, constantly growing and alive." The Mandriva community seems less than pleased; an online petition has been launched in an effort to get Mandriva to reconsider in Adam Williamson's case.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Performance tuning guides for RHEL
Two performance tuning guides for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 are available. One covers I/O tuning, looking at both performance analysis and tuning for the I/O subsystem. The other covers power management: "It discusses different techniques that lower power consumption (for both server and laptop), and how each technique affects the overall performance of your system." (thanks to Komal Shah).
Slackware Linux
Slackware 12.2 is coming
The December 2 Slackware Changelog includes the following: "While there are still some docs that need updating and probably a few more tweaks and updates here and there, everything is mostly in place for the next stable release, Slackware 12.2. The versions of major components like X and the kernel can be considered frozen. Anything major that we haven't done yet will probably wait for the release after this next one." This is, they say, the first release candidate for Slackware 12.2.
SUSE Linux and openSUSE
openSUSE Board Meeting Minutes, Nov19
The openSUSE board met on November 19, 2008. Items discussed were adding an advisory board, a board blog, as well as an openSUSE conference. Click below for the minutes of the meeting.
New Distributions
Glendix
Glendix is a Plan9/Linux distribution. It combines Plan9 user space with the Linux kernel. This paper (PDF) contains more information. "We believe Plan 9 has a lot to offer in terms of features and functionality to the end-user. However, while the Plan 9 kernel is an excellent example of kernel design, it lacks in terms of device drivers. Plan 9 does not run on several commodity hardware, thereby severely reducing its adoption rate. Most people run Plan 9 in virtual machines, not on actual hardware. Linux, on the other hand has had years of work by thousands of developers put into it. It runs on significantly larger amounts of hardware than the Plan 9 kernel."
Distribution Newsletters
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 280
The DistroWatch Weekly for December 2, 2008 is out. "This week's DWW feature story looks at the global economic crisis and its impact on Linux distributions and businesses. It turns out that the release of Fedora 10 isn't the only good news for Red Hat as a major Wall Street analyst sees a bright future for the company. Meanwhile Mandriva is struggling financially and a well-known and well-respected member of the Linux community was axed by the Paris-based company sparking a truly harsh reaction. Novell took a step to address community concerns by changing the openSUSE license. In other news, Phoronix published the results of benchmark tests comparing the performance of the newly released Fedora 10 with Ubuntu 8.10, a new distribution called Glendix brings Plan 9 to Linux, a detailed case study examines Pardus Linux, and the new graphical installer in VectorLinux 6.0 Beta 1 gets a close look. Finally, we get a progress update on FreeBSD 7.1 and some tantalizing hints about the release of Slackware 12.2."
Debian Project News available
The December 2, 2008 issue of Debian Project News is available. It covers the "Etch-and-a-half" installation image update, the GNU Affero GPL is now suitable for Debian "main", the Security Team meeting in Essen, and more.Fedora Weekly News #154
The November 30, 2008 edition of Fedora Weekly News is available. "This week many of us enjoyed Thanksgiving turkey and we all enjoyed a full helping of Fedora 10 and were left stunned and satisfied. In Announcements the availability of third-party repositories and end-of-life of Fedora 8 are detailed. Developments catches up with 'Power Management and Filesystem Parameters' and a promising initiative to bring the man pages up-to-date. Artwork passes on some kudos for the 'Release Banner for the Website' and the demo of some awesome 'Stickers'. Don't forget to peruse the SecurityAdvisories!"
openSUSE Weekly News, Issue 48
This issue of openSUSE Weekly News looks at openSUSE 11.1 RC 1, the YaST mascot winner, bashdb, MonoDevel, and the Linux kernel magic SysRq key. Click below for links to translations into multiple languages.Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #119
The Ubuntu weekly newsletter for November 29 covers: "Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase II, Archive of Interviews, New MOTU: Onkar Shinde, Ubuntu Tamil Team, Ubuntu Tunisia Team, Ubuntu-NL release party, Launchpad 2.1.11 and Open ID Support, RSS feeds for Ubuntu Forums, Ubuntu Podcast #13, Full Circle Magazine #19, Community Interview of Nicolas Scerpella, Hardening the Linux Desktop, Coming Soon: Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference, 50 amazing Ubuntu time-saving tips, 50 of the best looking Gnome/Ubuntu desktop themes, Team meeting summaries, and much, much more!"
Distribution reviews
What's new in Fedora 10 (Heise)
Heise has a detailed review of Fedora 10, written by Fedora contributor Thorsten Leemhuis. "Compared with other distributions, Cambridge uses a rather sparingly extended Linux version 2.6.27.5 kernel. The largest of the patches used in the Fedora kernel's source RPM provide support for KMS [kernel mode setting], squashfs and utrace as well as the Atl2, At76, Lirc and Nouveau drivers. In addition, the Fedora developers have updated the Ext4 support to largely match that of the main development branch of Linux which is currently due to produce the 2.6.28 kernel; with this kernel version, the kernel hackers will complete the file system's main development phase."
Fedora 10 Review (Montana Linux)
Scott Dowdle at Montana Linux takes a look at Fedora 10. He installed F10 on multiple computers, trying both the GNOME and KDE desktops. "Fedora 10 has a lot of impressive features and a large library of software. The install is very easy and fast especially from the LiveCD. I believe there are still some compatibility issues with Xorg (that are probably not Linux distribution specific) on some newer hardware so the LiveCD option is great for pain free hardware compatibility testing. Fedora 10 doesn't offer a lot in the way of new major features but offers a lot of pretty impressive minor ones."
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