Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 145 for the week ending September
28, 2008.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue145
This week's issue brings plenty of insights into the Fedora 10 theme
decisions, as covered by longtime FWN writer, Nicu Buculei. Max Spevak
reports on several recent linux events and the Fedora acivity there, as
well as relays final Fedora 10 schedule changes and other announcements.
Oisin Feeley updates us on Fedora development activity with deactivation
of some dormant services and discussion of PackageKit. Jason Taylor
highlights the many release notes completed for the upcoming Fedora 10
release. Dale Bewley brings us up to date on activity with four separate
discussion lists in Fedora virtualization. Svetoslav Chukov, in the
marketing beat, celebrates Fedora's fifth birthday with a wonderful,
generous reflection of the project by OpenSUSE's community manager, Joe
Brockmeier, and Runa Bhattacharjee covers the freeze activities
surrounding translation and internationalization for Fedora 10.
If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see
our 'join' page[1].
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join
Contents
* 1 Fedora Weekly News Issue 145
o 1.1 Announcements
+ 1.1.1 Schedule updates for Fedora 10
+ 1.1.2 Fedora Test Day - 2008-09-25 - Live Beta Images
and FirstAidKit
o 1.2 Planet Fedora
+ 1.2.1 Events
+ 1.2.2 Tech Tidbits
o 1.3 Marketing
+ 1.3.1 Happy birthday Fedora!
+ 1.3.2 Lessons learned from five years of Fedora
+ 1.3.3 The sweet features of Fedora - Smolt
+ 1.3.4 Plug and Run Fedora on a Toshiba A300D laptop,
Part II
o 1.4 Developments
+ 1.4.1 Default Deactivation of Services
+ 1.4.2 specspo and PackageKit
+ 1.4.3 Are Other Distros Controlling Fedora through
PackageKit ?
+ 1.4.4 /sbin and /bin Linked to /usr/lib
o 1.5 Documentation
+ 1.5.1 Release Notes Galore
+ 1.5.2 Documentation Repository Changes
o 1.6 Translation
+ 1.6.1 String freeze breakage alarms
+ 1.6.2 Fedora Docs moved to git repository
+ 1.6.3 Translation schedule to be further discussed
for clarity of tasks
o 1.7 Artwork
+ 1.7.1 The desktop theme for Fedora 10 was chosen
+ 1.7.2 The fight for the theme
+ 1.7.3 The theme soap opera
+ 1.7.4 Lessons from the flamewar
+ 1.7.5 Echo icon theme and Fedora 10
o 1.8 Security Advisories
+ 1.8.1 Fedora 9 Security Advisories
+ 1.8.2 Fedora 8 Security Advisories
o 1.9 Virtualization
+ 1.9.1 Enterprise Management Tools List
# 1.9.1.1 Maximum Number of Attached CDROMs in Xen
# 1.9.1.2 Parallel Port Support in virt-manager
# 1.9.1.3 VMWare VMX Output from virt-convert
# 1.9.1.4 Disk Image Signature Verification
+ 1.9.2 Fedora Xen List
# 1.9.2.1 Continued Trouble with 32bit Fedora 9
DomU on Fedora 8 Dom0
+ 1.9.3 Libvirt List
# 1.9.3.1 Libvirt 0.4.6 Released
# 1.9.3.2 RFC: Events API
# 1.9.3.3 Windows Binaries
+ 1.9.4 oVirt Devel List
# 1.9.4.1 oVirt 0.93-1 Released
# 1.9.4.2 Modeling LVM Storage
Fedora Weekly News Issue 145
-- Announcements --
In this section, we cover announcements from the Fedora Project.
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/
Contributing Writer: Max Spevack
-- Schedule updates for Fedora 10 --
Jesse Keating announced[0] the schedule changes for Fedora 10,
"resulting in a final release date of Tuesday Nov. 25th."
[0]
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-September/msg00013.html
-- Fedora Test Day - 2008-09-25 - Live Beta Images and FirstAidKit
James Laska advertised[1] the next Fedora Test Day, which has been a
recurring theme during the Fedora 10 cycle. "Testing efforts will focus
on testing Fedora 10 Beta Live images as well as system recovery using
FirstAidKit."[2]
[1]
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2008-September/msg00016.html
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2008-09-25
-- Planet Fedora --
In this section, we cover the highlights of Planet Fedora - an
aggregation of blogs from Fedora contributors worldwide.
http://planet.fedoraproject.org
Contributing Writer: Max Spevack
-- Events --
Several Fedora Ambassadors posted about OpenExpo, in Switzerland. Joerg
Simon posted[0] some pictures of the event, and Max Spevack and Sandro
Mathys both[1] posted[2] their own trip reports.
[0]
http://kitall.blogspot.com/2008/09/open-expo-winterthur-switzerland-2008.html
[1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/66777.html
[2]
http://blog.sandro-mathys.ch/2008/09/27/openexpo-2008-zurich-in-winterthur-review/
Susmit Shannigrahi wrote[3] about the preparations for AXIS '08. "Fedora
will have a 1.5 hour session on 26th for talk and 2 hour slot with a
media lab for conducting workshops."
[3] http://susmit.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/we-are-leaving-for-axis08/
Finally, Clint Savage posted[4] about Fedora Ambassador Day North
America, which will be taking place in parallel with Ohio Linux Fest in
October.
[4] http://sexysexypenguins.com/2008/09/24/fadna-at-olf2008/
-- Tech Tidbits --
We begin this section with Jonathan Roberts, and his[5] many[6] posts[7]
about the Dell Mini and how it functions[8] with Fedora. Credit JonRob
for being tough-minded enough to get the machine to work, despite sound
and wireless problems. "I've gone ahead and created a wiki page
documenting everything you need to do, as well as joined the Fedora Mini
SIG. I've already got some packages waiting to be sorted that would be
appropriate for the SIG, so I'll attach them to their tracker bug at
some point in the near future."
[5] http://jonrob.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/dell-mini-inspiron-9/
[6] http://jonrob.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/dell-mini-inspiron-9-q-a/
[7] http://jonrob.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/final-mini-post/
[8] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Dell_Mini_Inspiron
Dimitris Glezos posted[9] about translations and release engineering.
"There are more than 400 active Fedora translators contibuting in a lot
of languages. Anaconda, the Fedora installer, is shipped to more than 60
languages (counting only those with a considerable completion
percentage). The Fedora website speaks more than 20 languages.
Considering that this is almost exclusively volunteer community work,
Iâd say our groups of translators are doing an amazing job."
[9]
http://dimitris.glezos.com/weblog/2008/09/23/release-engineering-and-translations/
Lennart Poettering wrote[10] several[11] articles[12] about the Linux
audio stack this week. His impetus: "At the Audio MC at the Linux
Plumbers Conference one thing became very clear: it is very difficult
for programmers to figure out which audio API to use for which purpose
and which API not to use when doing audio programming on Linux."
[10] http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/guide-to-sound-apis.html
[11] http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-linux-audio-stack.html
[12] http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/guide-to-sound-apis-followup.html
-- Marketing --
In this section, we cover the Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
Contributing Writer: Svetoslav Chukov
-- Happy birthday Fedora!
Five years ago this past week, the Fedora project became a reality, and
it is amazing to see how far we have come. Happy birthday, Fedora!
-- Lessons learned from five years of Fedora
Rahul Sundaram highlighted [1] the OpenSUSE Community Manager, Joe
Brockmeier, in his blog posting posting, "Lessons learned from five
years of Fedora". Brockmeier reflects on building open source community
projects, and the success Fedora has had in this regard. "The most
valuable thing Iâve learned watching Fedora is this: Patience. It takes
time and steady, incremental growth to build a solid community. If youâd
asked me two years into Fedoraâs development whether the project would
succeed, Iâd have been somewhat skeptical, but looking at the project
five years down the road, Iâm convinced."
[1] http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/?p=111
-- The sweet features of Fedora - Smolt --
The blog "Spread Fedora" offered a short story on Fedora's hardware
profiler, Smolt.[1] "It would be very beautiful and comfortable if there
were some GNU/Linux distribution that keep track of used hardware of the
users or just could provide information how the particular hardware
would perform. I know such a distribution - Fedora. "
[1]
http://spreadfedora.org/sf/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59&Itemid=52
-- Plug and Run Fedora on a Toshiba A300D laptop, Part II
The blog "Spread Fedora" also offered part II of their experience
installing and configuring Fedora on a Toshiba A300D laptop.[1] Part
I[2] was highlighted in last week's FWN. In this week, configuring the
USB to ethernet and sound card tweaking.
[1]
http://spreadfedora.org/sf/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=60&Itemid=53
[2]
http://spreadfedora.org/sf/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=51
-- Developments --
In this section the people, personalities and debates on the
@fedora-devel mailing list are summarized.
Contributing Writer: Oisin Feeley
-- Default Deactivation of Services --
Christoph HÃger initiated[1] this week's mammoth thread with a request
to disable four services currently activated by default: sendmail,
ip6tables, isdn and setroubleshootd. Christoph invited the list to "go
on and punish me" after supplying some brief reasons for the deactivations.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02197.html
Discussion mostly centered on the sendmail problem with suggestions
ranging from starting it asynchronously and late, as suggested[2] by
Alan Cox, to replacing it with one of the "send-only" MTAs such as
ssmtp. Part of the interest over this seemed to be stimulated by the
information posted[3] by Colin Walters that the "[...] desktop image no
longer installs sendmail by default." This led to a need to distinguish
between the desktop LiveCD and regular installs, as was done[4] by Bill
Nottingham. Some apparent legal threats posted by Matthew Woehlke led[5]
Seth Vidal to point him to the nearest convenient exit. Ralf Ertzinger
noted[6] the deeply entrenched nature of sendmail: "Unfortunately,
sendmail isn't just a program, it's an API. Calling /usr/lib/sendmail
has been the way to get mail out (wherever out is) in UNIX for, well, as
long as sendmail exists, which is quite some time."
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02410.html
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02203.html
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02308.html
[5]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02384.html
[6]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02505.html
The problem of lack of local delivery with the proposed replacements was
brought up[7] by Patrice Dumas. This was seen as a stumbling block
because cron needs it and led Jesse Keating to argue[8]: "[W]e shouldn't
be using local delivery for this stuff. Instead we should ask in
firstboot where you'd want the mail delivered to." Matt Miller
replied[9] with a link to a bugzilla entry in which he had proposed just
such a thing in 2004. Other aspects of the problem of disentangling
potentially important log data from the mail delivery mechanism were
touched[10] upon in other parts of the thread. Deep in the thread Arjan
van de Ven pointed[11] to aliases generation as the reason for sendmail
being slow to start up.
[7]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02246.html
[8]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02253.html
[9]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02349.html
[10]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02411.html
[11]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02217.html
The complaint about setroubleshootd was addressed[12] by Steve Grubb. He
explained that he had intended it to be a plugin to audispd it but had
ended up being implemented as a standalone daemon by another author.
[12]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02322.html
ip6tables was defended on two fronts. On the first Daniel P. Berrange
explained[13] how accessible IPv6 was and how likely it was that all
machines on a network could automatically acquiring IPv6 addresses.
Typical of the reaction on the other front Gregory Maxwell was
startled[14] at the idea of being exposed without firewalling upon
plugging into an IPv6 enabled network. He added the statistic that
"About 4% of the web browsers hitting English language Wikipedia are
IPv6 enabled. IPv6 enabled web clients may even become more numerous
than Linux desktops this year, almost certainly by next year, so be
careful what you call rare. :)" Stephen John Smoogen also explained[15]
that if there were no IPv6 firewall a ping6 -I eth0 ff02::1 would enable
an attacker to "walk the hosts with no firewalls." He suggested that
completely disabling IPv6 would be preferable but might affect IPsec and
related components.
[13]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02286.html
[14]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02271.html
[15]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02206.html
No one seemed particularly concerned at the idea of disabling isdn by
default as it explicitly requires further configuration to be useful.
-- specspo and PackageKit --
A quick query was posted[16] by Richard Hughes asking whether PackageKit
should dump its dependency on specspo[17]. The advantage would be a
savings of 27Mb installed size and 6.9Mb download size. Tim Lauridsen
was against a hard dependency and argued[18] that as specspo was part of
the @base group it would be installed by default on a normal desktop and
could then be used, whereas on the LiveCD its absence was desired due to
the space constraints.
[16]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02026.html
[17] "specspo" is the rpm package which contains all the portable object
catalogues which provide translations for Fedora packages.
[18]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02034.html
An interesting discussion about alternate methods to provide translated
package descriptions ensued when Seth Vidal suggested[19] that instead
of using specspo "translating pkgs might best be served by translating
the metadata in external files." In response to Bill Nottingham's
skepticism that this was just moving bloat to a new location Seth
explained[20] that it would allow only the data specific to the
requested language to be fetched. In a further explanation he
provided[21] an overview of the ideal mechanism which would allow
translations only for the language in use to be installed. This involved
yum downloading translations from a language-segmented repodata and
inserting those translations into the local rpmdb. A further reason to
find an alternative to specspo was advanced[22] by Stepan Kaspal when he
drew attention to its lack of friendliness to third-party repositories:
"the specspo solution is not extensible at all; if you add a third part
repository, the messages just are not there. And the repository cannot
install another catalogue, rpm uses just 'the catalogue'."
[19]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02058.html
[20]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02125.html
[21]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02164.html
[22]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02160.html
Bill Nottingham's objections seemed[23] to involve both the resource
intensiveness of doing this during the composition of the repodata and
also that "[...] this is all stuff that exists."
[23]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02165.html
-- Are Other Distros Controlling Fedora through PackageKit ? --
A thread initiated[24] by Thorsten Leemhuis explored some details on how
information on packages is created and stored at the distribution level
and the challenges this presents both to independent repositories and to
tools which wish to use this data. One heated aspect of this discussion
concerned the manner in which the PackageKit[25] application installer
defines and presents groupings of packages. PackageKit is designed to be
a distribution-independent tool and it appeared to some in the
discussion that its direction was inimical to the best
release-engineering practices of the Fedora Project. The central issue
appeared to be that PackageKit developers were not spending time helping
to refine the comps.xml file which defines how packages are bundled
during installation and is used by every other tool.
[24]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01813.html
[25] http://packagekit.org/pk-intro.html
Thorsten asked a series of questions about the correct use of comps.xml
and how it interacted with anaconda, PackageKit and yum. Thorsten was
concerned that there appeared to be 1711 packages missing from comps.xml
in order that "[...] people can find and select them right during
install with anaconda. Do we care?"
After some investigation with the latest PackageKit, which Rahul
Sundaram pointed out[26] uses comps.xml, Thorsten deduced[27] in
discussion with Tim Lauridsen that "[...] adding packages to a group in
comps.xml as '<packagereq type="optional">' is only worth the trouble if
you want to make the package selectable in anaconda, as that information
is not used by pk-application." Tim Lauridsen explained[28] that
PackageKit used the comps.xml groups as "meta-packages" but James Antill
disagreed[29] that they were similar.
[26]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01819.html
[27]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01861.html
[28]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01859.html
[29]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01889.html
Alex Lancaster agreed[30] with Thorsten's concern that many packagers
were not using comps.xml and posted a link that showed that both he and
Toshio Kuratomi had been thinking about using PackageDB to generate
comps.xml for some time[31].
[30]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01893.html
[31] See also
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue136#Application.Installer..22Amber.22.Provides.Browser.Interface.to.Packages
and
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue82#Presto.Server.Back.Up...Interesting..25doc.Behaviour..Presto.Now.in.Extras.21
In sustained discussion with Kevin Kofler a defense of PackageKit was
mounted[32] by Richard Hughes using the argument that it was intended to
be a compliment to yum rather than a replacement. Its intent is to
occupy a very narrow niche for the specific type of user identified by
"profiles" produced by the PackageKit developers.
[32]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02015.html
James Antill had done[33] some investigation of the difference between
how PackageKit and yum presented groups of packages and was not
impressed: "In short it's arbitrarily different, hardcoded and just
plain wrong. But hey, you've done "substantial user research" while
we're just lowly developers, so feel free to keep ignoring us."
[33]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02008.html
The evolution of comps.xml to its current complexity was advanced[34] by
Nicolas Mailhot as the result of multiple constraints of engineering,
maintenance and legality, he argued that "[i]t's always easy to present
one-shot specialized solutions. The difficulty is scaling because
separate maintenance of specialized overlapping package collections is
not efficient). When you refuse to look at scaling problems you're
missing the core of the problem."
[34]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02089.html
When it seemed that PackageKit was being designed[35] to take the needs
of other distributions into account and that this might have a negative
effect on Fedora there was a great deal of disapprobation expressed[36]
by Jesse Keating: "If I'd known that upstream was actively looking to
destroy our package classifications, rather than actually work with us
to clean them up a bit maybe I would have joined the conversation. A
heads up might have been in order. I fear that any conversation now will
just be too little too late." Matthias Clasen characterized[37] this as
Jesse being more interested in confrontation than making things better
but Nicolas Mailhot also saw[38] the decisions being made about
PackageKit's design as "non-representative" of developers focused on
Fedora. Interestingly he tied this in with an observation on "[...]
desktop team mislike for the common distro communication channel [.]" A
slight rapprochement seemed[39] to be in effect towards the end of the
thread as tempers cooled.
[35]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01957.html
[36]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01974.html
[37]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01976.html
[38]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02012.html
[39]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02022.html
The issue of binary packages (several of which can be produced from any
single source package) was attacked when Toshio Kuratomi listed[40]
PackageDB, amber, koji,comps.xml, repoview and Fedora collection as all
"[...] doing a subset of the work in this area." He asked for some
clarity as to the storage, interface and presentation layers. Kevin
Fenzi agreed but added[41] mash as another player and suggested that
perhaps all the developers of the respective systems could meet to hash
out some agreed plan. Jesse Keating confirmed[42] Kevin's description
and elaborated: "it's mash that pulls comps out of cvs and 'makes' it
and uses it when generating repodata. Mash is used during rawhide
production and during update repo generation. When we make releases,
that uses pungi which consumes the comps data that mash generated and
merges in data from any other repo pungi is configured to use. Then
pungi calls repoview to create data based on that merged comps."
[40]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg01949.html
[41]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02182.html
[42]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02185.html
-- /sbin and /bin Linked to /usr/lib --
Steve Grubb posted[43] the output from a utility which he had authored
to check whether applications in the /bin and /sbin directories link
against anything in the /usr directory. In the ensuing discussion Bill
Crawford suggested[44] that one of the listed applications, /bin/rpm was
useful in its present location because of the "[...](admittedly quite
odd situations) where you need to, say, reinstall grub or a kernel
because you broke something[.]" He added that a "rescue" initrd would
help for machines without optical drives.
[43]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02315.html
[44]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-September/msg02458.html
-- Documentation --
In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
Contributing Writer: Jason Taylor
-- Release Notes Galore --
With the approaching F10 release[1] the Docs team spent time this week
getting release note beats updated and organized. A lot of progress was
made updating the beats to include pertinent package information as well
as all the new features[2] and it looks like there may be a new format
for the release notes as well[3]. There has also been a lot of work on
getting the release-note structure to be compatible with publican[4].
Once compatible with publican the release-notes will support additional
formats (HTML, PDF, etc.).
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/10/Schedule
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/10/FeatureList
[3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Release_notes_structure_for_F10
[4] https://fedorahosted.org/publican
-- Documentation Repository Changes --
The Docs Project has been working to convert from CVS as the main
repository for published documents to git[1]. More progress on that
front was made this week as the Install-Guide[2] was moved over. The
implementation of git and trac[3] allows for better group communication
and work flow management with contributors.
[1] http://git.or.cz/
[2] https://fedorahosted.org/install-guide/
[3] http://trac.edgewall.org/
-- Translation --
This section covers the news surrounding the Fedora Translation (L10n)
Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N
Contributing Writer: Runa Bhattacharjee
-- String freeze breakage alarms --
Noriko Mizumoto reported[1] about suspected string freeze breakage for a
few modules, during the week that modified the translation status
figures[2]. These modifications (except for one: comps) turned out to be
the result of delayed creation of new template files which caused
confusion about the string freeze. The template files are generally
scheduled for creation by the respective package maintainers before the
start of the string freeze period.
Fedora packages are currently string frozen for Fedora 10[3] i.e. no new
translated messages can be added without the prior permission of the
Fedora Localization Team as per the String Freeze Policy[4].
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00053.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00076.html
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2008-September/msg00013.html
[4] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/StringFreezePolicy
-- Fedora Docs moved to git repository --
The Fedora documentation (including the Installation Guide, Release
Notes etc.) were moved to the Fedora git repo[5]. Translation
submissions can be continued via the Transifex interface[6]. However,
Piotr Drag writes in that the statistics page will not be able to
present the status for these documentation modules, as documents
compiled with publican are not supported by Damned Lies yet[7]. As per
Dimitris Glezos, support for publican documents could be achieved if
patches for this functionality can be developed by interested volunteers[6].
[5]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00084.html
[6]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00099.html
[7]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00093.html
-- Translation schedule to be further discussed for clarity of tasks --
John Poelstra and Dimitris Glezos are scheduled to meet on Monday 29th
September 08[8], to discuss about the details of the Fedora 10
translation schedule to clearly define all the tasks and integrate them
in the schedule. The meeting is open for others to join in.
[8]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-September/msg00100.html
-- Artwork --
In this section, we cover the Fedora Artwork Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork
Contributing Writer: Nicu Buculei
-- The desktop theme for Fedora 10 was chosen
Mairin Duffy announced[1] the vote for the default theme in Fedora 10 on
@fedora-art "Nigel Jones set up a vote for us to vote on round 3. You
must be a member of the art group in the accounts system to be eligible
to vote" and after the voting process ended, Michael Beckwith
announced[2] the winner, the Solar theme[3] "We weren't feeling
completely InvinXble. However, being the FOSS advocates we are, and with
our support of Fedora, we were not afraid of of the unknown frontier.
The Gears of time shown bright with a healthy Neon glow, but neither of
these had very much effect on the course of destiny. Come join us as we
sail into the Solar future for Fedora 10 later this year" and Max
Spevack drew the conclusion: "They are all beautifully done pieces of
artwork, and I really hope that everyone in the Art Team is proud of
what the group has collectively achieved. I say 'congrats' to everyone
on the Art Team."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00364.html
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F10Themes/Solar
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00455.html
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00456.html
-- The fight for the theme --
As the vote for the Fedora 10 theme was closed to the members of the Art
Team, a lot of people tried to vote even if they weren't members of the
team, as Mairin Duffy noted[1]: "Since i announced the F10 theme vote,
we've received a deluge of art group membership requests, some clearly
approveable but many not" and she reminded the requirements to become a
member, which are listed on the project's page[2]. David Nielsen tried
an appeal on her blog[3] "Maybe the solution is to open the vote, even
if we are not inclined to contribute in your area of Fedora we might
still have an opinion. Do you want other contributors to make decisions
on the projects collective future without including you?" but Mairin
remained firm "As an artist, I don't expect to have a vote on many
technical decisions. I wonder how someone without both the experience
and inclination to provide artwork for Fedora would have the expertise
necessary to make an informed decision" and concluded "Everyone has an
opinion. Not everyone is willing to put their money where their mouth
is. It is a shame."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00371.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork#First_Steps
[3] http://mihmo.livejournal.com/62031.html
-- The theme soap opera --
While the vote for the Fedora 10 theme was ongoing, Seth Kenlon
reminded[1] an old issue with one of the contenders and asked for an
update "I am not clear, is this to be the final katana or is it still
being swapped out with a newly photographed one? I recall there being an
issue with licensing, and thought we would be seeing a different
sword...but maybe I missed the thread in which all of this was solved"
on which Nicu Buculei expressed[2] his remaining doubts "Honestly, I
have some doubts about that: sstorari *claimed* he remade the image
using his own (Free) photo as a base and he posted the reference photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sstorari/2826852493/ While it looks pretty
much like a katana (just like the photos used previously), the sword in
the photo is not at the same angle as the sword in the wallpaper (so the
hilt looks different), which make me have some doubts", which raised an
angry answer[3] from Samuele Storari, the theme author, who claimed
innocence "If u take a look in the source before write something u can
see that the problem was solved creatin' the blade from 0."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00369.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00383.html
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00386.html
When the discuss started to look like a classic flamewar, Paul Frields
dropped a bomb by showing[4] a movie poster identical with the theme
discussed "Samuele, I'm a big fan of Quentin Tarantino, and collected
some desktop backgrounds when Kill Bill Vol. 1 was going to be released.
One of the backgrounds features a katana sword which looks to me to be
identical to the one in your source .XCF file" and outlined the
importance of having all of the elements of a design Free in order to
have the result Free "When we talk about having an entirely free desktop
theme, it means that *all* the elements must be created from free sources."
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00394.html
As Samuele continued to deny any wrongdoing "the Blade wasn't the same
cos the blade was totally recreated. Take a look to the source file and
please post something similar", Nicu Buculei created and posted[6] a
short video[7] revealing the similarities "What can I say? rotate the
image 180 degrees and the resemblance is, uh..., uncanny"
[5]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00397.html
[6]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00398.html
[7] http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/invinxible.ogv
During the heated debate, Martin Sourada expressed[8] his doubts
regarding the allegations against the two themes proposed by Samuele.
"First, I have an impression that Mo and Nicu are somehow biased against
Samuele's work. First, some weeks ago, Mo kept asking Samuele about Moon
brushes in the Solar theme, when the Moons were already removed from the
artwork, next there is the problem in katana. As nicu pointed out, the
original design indeed resembles the Kill Bill poster, but even though I
saw the .ogv file he provided, I am not 100% convinced Samuele used that
katana" and "I believe both Mo and Nicu are just trying to prevent any
legal issues that might arose in the future otherwise" but after seeing
additional evidence provided by Mairin Duffy[9] and Charlie Brej[10] he
changed his position "Mo and Nicu, I'd like to apologize for accusing
you from being biased and pointing out outdated issues. It was me who
was wrong and I should have checked the sources first. While part of the
sword was replaced, the tilt was indeed from the same source image and I
was wrong in arguing otherwise."
[8]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00436.html
[9]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00437.html
[10]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00438.html
After the vote ended and after a long and heated debate, Samuele Storari
apologised for his misunderstandings about licensing "First of all I
want to apologize with all art-team and mailing list member for last two
days mails. This is my first work in FOSS environment and I didn't
understand all implication and I saw your continue checking on my work
as a way to find something wrong" and started to work fixing his two
themes proposals and remove a number of tainted graphic elements from
them. At the moment of this report, Samuele is closely collaborating
with other members of the team on this task and the Solar theme cleaned
almost completely.
[11]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00463.html
-- Lessons from the flamewar --
In parallel with the debate surrounding the license of a couple of theme
proposals for Fedora 10, Mairin Duffy opened a debate[1] about the
policy to apply when finding license infringements "Here are the options
as I see them and/or as have been suggested to me: 1 - disqualify
invinXble as a theme, even if invinXble wins, the 2nd-place winner will
win 2 - if invinXble (or any theme that has photos we aren't able to
source) wins, replace any sourced photographs in it with
properly-licensed ones 3 - disqualify any themes that use images we
cannot find properly-licensed photo source references for", she noted
the pros and contras for each option and expressed her option for one of
the first two. David Nielsen raised the case[2] for a written policy "I
would favor option 2 with the understanding that a proper policy be
written and must be agreed upon when submitting artwork for Fedora in
the future. This way we do not lose the two most developed themes this
late in the game and we still get to correct the problem. This at least
would be similar to what we have done in other parts of the distro when
such unfortunate issues have arisen", a policy considered not needed[4]
by Nicu Buculei "Well, I propose a simple guideline: 'Don't like. When
people ask about the source of your work, be honest and tell the truth.'
That would have solved all of our problems *weeks* ago, but I think it
is common-sense and we should not have to have this as a written
guideline. "
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00425.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00432.html
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00460.html
As a lesson from the happening, Mairin Duffy asked[4] on @fedora-art
about unclarities some member of the team may have about licensing: "Did
any of you joining the art team have doubts/questions/confusion over
copyright law and licensing as it pertains to the usage of
externally-sourced images used in artwork? Were you unsure of what
licenses were acceptable to use in Fedora artwork? What kinds of
questions / uncertainties did you have, if any?" and proposed a few
measures, on which David Nielsen completed[5] with a couple of simple
guidelines "* Unsure about source licensing terms, don't use it. *
Unable to document source licensing terms, don't use it."
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00426.html
[5]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00434.html
-- Echo icon theme and Fedora 10 --
Bill Nottingham raised[1] a cross-question to @fedora-art and
@fedora-desktop about the status of the Echo icon theme "When we
approved Echo as the default icon theme for F10, I was under the
assumption that this was already more or less known as a feature to the
Desktop group, and they were OK with the coverage provided and the
experience given. Is that the case?" on which William Jon McCann
expressed[2] his opposition to the new theme "I strongly disagree with
the decision to use the Echo icon theme. For one, there is simply not
enough time before Fedora 10 to fix the problems that you point out.
There is also the fact that the quality of the artwork is noticeably
lower than the upstream GNOME and Tango icon themes" and preference for
the Tango set "Encourage Fedora artists to become involved with the
upstream GNOME and Tango artist communities" while Mairin Duffy
pointed[3] the inclusion of Echo as a default in Rawhide as a means to
enable wider testing and accelerate development |I also was under the
understanding that Echo was set as the default in rawhide to enable the
folks working on it a chance to get fuller coverage, and that if it was
deemed to not have appropriate coverage, it would be pulled."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00441.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00442.html
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00443.html
Martin Sourada pointed[4] that some of the concern raised in Bill's
original questions are also valid for the current situation "With Mist,
there are still new gnome styled icons, old gnome styled icons and
bluecurve. In some places we reduced the old gnome and bluecurve to
minimum, in others not yet. Check the System -> Administration menu as
an example" and reminded there is still development time until the final
decision about inclusion will be made "Our general idea is that some
time around the final freeze it will be decided by art and desktop teams
whether we are ready. If not, echo will be pulled back and submitted
again for F11. I'd be for voting, enabled for art and desktop fas groups
members regarding this issue" and Jaroslav Reznik showed the enthusiasm
of the KDE SIG[5] regarding the new set and his openness to work for
getting it in a good shape "We (KDE SIG) are trying to use Echo theme as
default for KDE but currently there are still some icons missing. We are
preparing list of to-be-done icons. So can we fill it as ticket for
echo-icon-theme and edit Todo on Wiki?"
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00457.html
[5]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-September/msg00471.html
-- Security Advisories --
In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce
Contributing Writer: David Nalley
-- Fedora 9 Security Advisories --
* viewvc-1.0.6-1.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/msg01101.html
* initscripts-8.76.3-1 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/msg01135.html
* rkhunter-1.3.2-5.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/msg01204.html
* phpMyAdmin-2.11.9.1-1.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/msg01290.html
* phpMyAdmin-2.11.9.2-1.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/msg01228.html
-- Fedora 8 Security Advisories --
* viewvc-1.0.6-1.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/msg01142.html
* phpMyAdmin-2.11.9.1-1.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/msg01137.html
* phpMyAdmin-2.11.9.2-1.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/msg01155.html
* rkhunter-1.3.2-5.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-September/msg01279.html
-- Virtualization --
In this section, we cover discussion on the @et-mgmnt-tools-list,
@fedora-xen-list, @libvirt-list and @ovirt-devel-list of Fedora
virtualization technologies.
Contributing Writer: Dale Bewley
-- Enterprise Management Tools List --
This section contains the discussion happening on the et-mgmt-tools list
-- Maximum Number of Attached CDROMs in Xen --
Alexander Todorov asked[1] why only 3 CDROM devices could be attached in
virt-manager.
Cole Robinson replied[2] "Xen uses a forked qemu for HVM device
emulation" and the version on RHEL is limited to 4 IDE devices. The
newer qemu found in Fedora 9 allow attaching SCSI disks and CDROMs, and
thereby more devices. This ability already in libvirt is not yet exposed
in the virt-manager GUI.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00062.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00065.html
-- Parallel Port Support in virt-manager --
Bob Tennent asked if virt-manager supports adding a parallel port to a
guest OS. Cole Robinson answered[2] this functionality is[3] in libvirt,
but not exposed in virt-manager yet.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00048.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00051.html
[3] http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsConsole
-- VMWare VMX Output from virt-convert --
Joey Boggs posted[1] a patch which provides VMWare vmx[2] output from
virt-convert. "This will replace the virt-pack command and supplemental
Unware.py file and integrate them into virt-convert directly as a module."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00057.html
[2] http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html
-- Disk Image Signature Verification --
Joey Boggs posted patches for virtinst[1] and for virt-convert[2] that
"will add in disk signature support for ISV's and others folks that wish
to verify the disk has not been altered prior to running virt-image.
Supports MD5 and SHA1 signatures."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00068.htmlk
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2008-September/msg00096.html
-- Fedora Xen List --
This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-xen list.
-- Continued Trouble with 32bit Fedora 9 DomU on Fedora 8 Dom0 --
Fred Brier followed[1] up on a thread[2] from June 2008. It seems that
on a 32bit system running Fedora 8 dom0, the shutdown or restart of a
Fedora 9 domU results in that guest being inaccessible to libvirt tools
until a dom0 reboot or xend restart. There are at least two similar
bugs[3],[4] filed for this issue.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2008-September/msg00029.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2008-June/msg00029.html
[3] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=429403
[4] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=453276
-- Libvirt List --
This section contains the discussion happening on the libvir-list.
-- Libvirt 0.4.6 Released --
Daniel Veillard announced[1] the release of libvirt 0.4.6. "There is no
major change in this release, just the bug fixes a few improvements and
some cleanup".
Improvements include:
* add storage disk volume delete (Cole Robinson)
* KVM dynamic max CPU detection (Guido GÃnther)
* spec file improvement for minimal builds (Ben Guthro)
* improved error message in XM configuration module (Richard Jones)
* network config in OpenVZ support (Evgeniy Sokolov)
* enable stopping a pool in logical storage backend and cleanup
deletion of pool (Chris Lalancette)
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2008-September/msg00380.html
After finding no F8 build newer than 0.4.4 in Bodhi, Dale Bewley
asked[2] if the Xen users stuck[3] on Fedora 8 could expect an update[4].
Daniel Veillard responded[5] it was unclear the release would fix
anything for Xen users and "It was looking more risky than potentially
useful to update there."
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2008-September/msg00400.html
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue137#kernel-xen_is_Dead
[4] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/libvirt
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2008-September/msg00401.html
-- RFC: Events API --
David Lively began[1] a discusion on implementation of events in libvirtd.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2008-September/msg00321.html
-- Windows Binaries --
Richard W.M. Jones pointed[1] out that -- while not an official
distribution -- binaries for libvirt-0.dll and virsh.exe are
available[2] in the mingw32-libvirt package.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2008-September/msg00393.html
[2] http://www.annexia.org/tmp/mingw/fedora-9/
-- oVirt Devel List --
This section contains the discussion happening on the ovirt-devel list.
-- oVirt 0.93-1 Released --
Perry N. Myers [1]
both the oVirt Node and oVirt Server Suite.
New features in this release include:
* Addition of 'Smart Pools' in the Web user interface for
organizing pools on a per user basis.
* Additions to the Edit VM screen to allow re-provisioning of a
guest as well editing other guest settings.
* oVirt Appliance manages VMs directly on the host it is running
on. This eliminates the 'fake nodes' used in previous versions.
* oVirt API (Ruby Bindings)
* Support for configuring more than one NIC per Node. UI support
for this will be integrated shortly.
* Support for bonding/failover of NICs. UI support for this will be
integrated shortly.
* SELinux support on oVirt Node
* Rewrite of performance graphing visualization
Instructions for configuring yum to point to the ovirt.org repository:
http://www.ovirt.org/download.html
Instructions for using the Appliance and Nodes:
http://www.ovirt.org/install-instructions.html
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/ovirt-devel/2008-September/msg00491.html
-- Modeling LVM Storage --
Chris Lalancette described[1] the outcome of a IRC chat about carving up
storage with LVM.
The existing StoragePool in the current model contains zero or more
StorageVolumes. Chris described adding a StorageVolume of type LVM which
contains one or more iSCSI StorageVolumes and presumably fiberchannel in
the future.
After the model is modified and the backend "taskomatic" code is in
place, then while provisioning a guest VM the user will either choose an
entire LUN guest, choose an existing logical volume, or create a new volume.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/ovirt-devel/2008-September/msg00313.html
Scott Seago clarified[2] that "volumes must be of the same 'type' as the
pool". An IscsiStoragePool contains IscsiStorageVolumes an
LvmStoragePool contains LvmStorageVolumes. "In additon, for
LvmStoragePools, we have a new association defined between it and
StorageVolumes. an LvmStoragePool has 1 or more "source storage
volumes""... "which for the moment must be IscsiStorageVolumes."
"When determining which storage volumes are available for guests, we'll
have to filter out storage volumes which are connected to LvmStoragePools."
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/ovirt-devel/2008-September/msg00315.html
Steve Ofsthun asked[3] how will oVirt distinguish between logical
volumes created on a whole disk assigned to a guest versus volumes used
by the host. Daniel P. Berrange suggested[4] this could accomplished by
creating a partition on the disk and assigning this to the guest,
thereby making the guest LVM one step removed from the host.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/ovirt-devel/2008-September/msg00317.html
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/ovirt-devel/2008-September/msg00322.html
--- End FWN 145 ---
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