Distributions

Problems with Fedora 10

LWN has received several emails regarding bugs in Fedora. These are serious bugs that can prevent you from installing new updates, or new packages of any kind. Fedora users may want to be aware of the following and, perhaps, wait until things settle down a bit.

The start things off, bug #475068 was reported for Fedora 9 with x86_64. This bug is present in Fedora 10 and also affects x86 systems. There was a workaround for this bug, for Fedora 10 users, involving using yumdownloader to install an older version of dbus. Unfortunately the older packages won't show up on all mirrors. It is still possible to recover from this bug by manually editing /etc/dbus-1/system.conf and rebooting the system. Fedora 9 users will need this version of PackageKit. For Fedora 10 you'll want this version of PackageKit.

Bug #475069 covers a dbus access problem with bluez. If you are seeing the error message: "Agent registration failed: A security policy in place prevents this sender from sending this message to this recipient, see message bus configuration file (rejected message had interface "org.bluez.Adapter" member "RegisterAgent" error name "(unset)" destination "org.bluez").", this may help. Fedora 9 users will want bluez-utils-3.36-3.fc9. Fedora 10 users should grab bluez-4.22-2.fc10. If you are still running Fedora 8 the proper package to get is bluez-utils-3.35-5.fc8.

Another bug that may be troubling you is bug #469434, in which subnetmask settings are not saved. For some people this has been fixed. That fix did not seem to work for everyone though. The system-config-network-1.5.94-2.fc10 update does seem to work.

If you run into the error "PackageKit failed to get a TID" you will want to see this forum thread which affected several people on December 7, 2008. So far, no fix seems to be forthcoming.

Bugs in PackageKit are especially troubling for some, since you can't install an update using the GUI tools. Your editor completed a fresh install of Fedora 10 last weekend on an aging Thinkpad laptop. After the usual update she could no longer find or update any packages. A manual yum update did not help. It would appear that bug #475656 addresses the error "failed to get a TID: A security policy in place prevents this sender from sending this message to this recipient...". No doubt a SELinux expert could edit the offending policy. The rest of us will have to wait for a fix.

Editors note: as noted in the comment below, this is a DBus security problem and has nothing to do with SELinux. This last bug was reported December 9, and by December 10 a fix was already being tested.

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Omega 10 Preview Release

Omega is a Fedora remix suitable for desktop and laptop users. It is a installable Live CD for regular PC (i686 architecture) systems. It has all the features of Fedora 10 and a number of additional multimedia players and codecs by default. You can play any multimedia content (including MP3) or commercial DVD's out of the box. The preview release is available for download.

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Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Optimized for XO Laptop

Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) has been optimized for the XO laptop. This version uses the kernel from OLPC release 8.2.0. USB boot fix in ramdisk is the only change that was applied to OLPC-distributed files. There are many other optimizations to make Ubuntu work on this OLPC laptop.

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New ftpteam member

Debian has a new FTP team member, Frank Lichtenheld. That should help with that particular bottleneck. "Ok, now, stop hating us and go on, fix RC bugs and help Lenny please. :)"

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Fedora 11 release schedule set

The Fedora project has approved the Fedora 11 release schedule. It appears that the proposal to lengthen this development cycle was adopted in the end; Fedora 11 is currently scheduled for release on May 26, 2009. Work has begun on the proposed feature list, but that list can be expected to grow considerably over the next month or two.

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Unofficial Fedora FAQ Updated for Fedora 10!

The Unofficial Fedora FAQ has been updated for Fedora 10. There are lots of new changes and additions. "With the combination of Fedora 10 and the new RPMFusion repository, there doesn't need to be a special fedorafaq.org yum configuration anymore! There are still instructions in the FAQ on how to configure yum to access rpmfusion, though."

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Fedora Board appointment and voting information

Elections are underway for several seats in the Fedora Advisory Board, Fedora Ambassadors and the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee. The closing date for voting is December 20, 2008. "The two appointed seats on the Board are nominated by Red Hat and chosen by the FPL. One appointment is held back until after the elections so that the Board's composition can be balanced as needed. The balance of the appointments are announced before elections." Chris Aillon will return to the Board as an appointee. See this post for more voting information.

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Gentoo 2008 open seat election

Gentoo had an open seat on the council. Tiziano Müller (dev-zero) was chosen to join the current Gentoo Council for term 2008/2009.

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openSUSE 11.1 status

It is now possible to pre-order the openSUSE 11.1 release, currently scheduled for December 18. But interested parties may also want to look at this status report posted to the mailing list. "The status of 11.1 is pretty short: it's cursed." It seems that the release managers have been running into some difficulties and will be scrambling to make that release date.

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Wanted: Participants for usability tests of SUSE Studio

If you are in the Nuremberg (Nürnberg) area and interested in testing SUSE Studio click below for more information.

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Ubuntu Privacy Remix

Ubuntu Privacy Remix (UPR) is a modified live CD based on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. UPR is not designed for installation on a hard drive, instead it provides an environment where private data can be dealt with safely and securely. "The risk of theft of such private data arises not only from "conventional" criminals, trojans. rootkits, keyloggers etc. In many countries, measures are taken or being prepared aiming at spying and monitoring its citizens. Ubuntu Privacy Remix is a tool to protect your data against unsolicited access." UPR 8.04 r1 was released December 4, 2008. This is the first stable version and features a new kernel, minor bugfixes and the DTP program Scribus.

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DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 281

The DistroWatch Weekly for December 8, 2008 is out. "This week's feature story takes a first look at VectorLinux 6.0 beta 2. Following up on last week's feature story about the impact of the global financial crisis on Linux distributions, Mandriva CEO Hervé Yahi responds to the community regarding the recent dismissals at the Paris-based distribution while Novell posts mixed sales results for SUSE Linux. In other news, Phoronix publishes the results of benchmark tests comparing the performance of the newly released OpenSolaris 2008.11 with the previous version, 2008.05, Ars Technica names Foresight Linux and openSUSE as its distributions of the year, and DragonFly BSD gets a closer look. Finally, we get progress updates on Linux Mint 6 and a preview release of Fedora-based Omega 10 Desktop."

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Misc. Debian developer news (#11)

This issue of the Developer News includes CD/DVD images for Lenny, License AGPL v3.0 is suitable for main, Building CD/DVD images made easier, Mono 2.0 transition in progress, SOAP interface to the PTS, Tracking GCC 4.4 related build errors, and Mirror of git repositories on Alioth.

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Fedora Weekly News #155

The Fedora Weekly News for December 7, 2008 is out. "FWN is pleased to announce the return of the Planet Fedora beat. Among other items Adam Batkin lists some "Howtos and Tips" gleaned from blogs. In Announcements the "Fedora 11" naming scheme is discussed. In Developments "The PATH to CAPP" exposes disquiet with some security infrastructure. Translation provides updates on the cancellation of FLSCo elections. Artwork is again bursting at the seems with a "T-Shirt Logo Design Tool" and "Improved Document Templates". SecurityAdvisories lists this week's essential updates. Finally Virtualization continues to race the shocking pace of developments including the "Release of libvirt 0.5.0 and 0.5.1" There's plenty more a mere mouse click away!"

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Gentoo Monthly Newsletter

The November edition of the Gentoo Monthly Newsletter is out, with the latest Gentoo news.

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openSUSE Weekly News, Issue 49

This issue of the openSUSE Weekly News covers: Andreas Jaeger: openSUSE 11.1 Goes RC2, Joe Brockmeier: Mounting remote directories using FUSE and sshfs on openSUSE, Henne Vogelsang: What's Working Well and What To Do With It, RedDwarf: Check your multimedia problem in ten steps, arstechnica.com: Distro(s) of the Year: OpenSUSE and Foresight, and several other topics. Click below for links to several translations.

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Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #120

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for December 6, 2008 covers: Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase, Jono Bacon on UDS, MOTU, Tamil Team - Intrepid introduced at Udhagamandalam, Ubuntu Zimbabwe, Launchpod #13, Meet Henning Eggers, Launchpad hiring bug tracker, Ubuntu Podcast #14, Vibuntu 1.0, Lazy Linux: 10 essential tricks for admins., Ilumina TV runs on Ubuntu, George Wright responds to backstage questions(Video), and much more.

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Protecting networks with SmoothWall Express (Linux.com)

Linux.com reviews Smoothwall Express. "SmoothWall Express 3.0, from August 2007, is an open source firewall distribution released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It provides all the features commonly found in a modern system, but also a few that you might not expect. Stateful inspection, dynamic and static NAT, egress controls, demilitarized zone (DMZ) segmentation, and a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server are de rigueur in today's world. However, this package adds a selection of proxy servers for the Web (content filtering is available in the commercial editions), POP3 mail, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Domain Name System (DNS), and instant messaging. You can configure the proxies to further protect networks with antivirus scanning and forensic logging, and Snort intrusion-detection software is built in for logging suspicious events. However, real-time alerting via email or SMS text messages is not available on the Express version. SmoothWall also features a simple quality of service (QoS) management that business and home users alike should find valuable."

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