openSUSE Weekly News, Issue 192 is out!

We are pleased to announce the openSUSE Weekly News 192.

openSUSE Weekly News

### openSUSE Weekly News Team

192 Edition

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Published: 2011-09-10

Table of Contents

openSUSE Conference 2011 Status Updates

Team Reports In the Community

Postings from the Community Events & Meetings openSUSE for your Ears Communication Contributors Security Updates Kernel Review Tips and Tricks

For Developers and Programmers For System Administrators On the Web

Reports Reviews and Essays Feedback Credits Acknowledgements Copyrights

List of our Licenses Trademarks Translations

We are pleased to announce our 192 issue of the openSUSE Weekly News.

You can also read this issue in other formats here.

Enjoy reading :-)

openSUSE Conference 2011▼

“

Jos Poortvlieet: Sponsors present at openSUSE Conference 2011

The openSUSE Conference 2011 team is happy to announce the partners for this year’s conference. Aside from sponsoring, there are contributions in terms of sessions, media coverage and network bandwidth. Let’s look at what our sponsors contribute, what sessions they’ll present and thank them for their support! (…)

”

“

Jos Poortvlieet: Bretzn at oSC

So there is the cool Bretzn project which was about creating a plugin for IDE’s to compile and publish code via the Open Build Service and the Open Collaboration Services and then letting the user install, rate and comment on apps via a desktop client. (…)

”

“

Kai-Uwe Behrmann: Oyranos @ rwx³

We will meet there and can discuss ICC colour management for the openSUSE distribution, KDE and Qt.

Sebastian Oliva will be there too. I hope we can hack together a Oyranos connection to his newly created ICC DB. The ICC DB project, done during GSoC 2011, shall be used to search for ICC profiles by terms of colour device configurations. This means a printer can obtain a fitting ICC profile for a special driver without the need to have all the canned profiles packaged. Independent vendors can easily upload their ICC data and get their optimised profile selected automatically - if all works. Sebastian and Joseph Simon have done fair bits to get there in a clean way, without hacking the whole system. (…)

”

Status Updates▲▼

Team Reports

Build Service Team

Build Service Statistics. Statistics can found at Buildservice

KDE Team

“

      [Aaron Seigo: Plasma Active entering beta](//aseigo.blogspot.com/2011/09/plasma-active-entering-beta.html)

At the beginning of this year, the Plasma team was itching to extend Plasma’s coverage of the device spectrum. We already had Desktop and Netbook interfaces, and while maintaining and incrementally improving those, we wanted to show case the possibilities of Plasma by creating a full fledged touch interface for devices.

After being shown the concept of Activities, Eva, founder of Basyskom (who is now a major supporter and investor in our efforts), had an epiphany as how they could be applied to a touch based device like a tablet. She christened the concept “Contour”. OpenSLX was looking for a new halmark feature to help expand its appeal and so we found a home for packaging efforts and OS.

We also wanted to start working with the newest QtQuick technologies without disturbing the Desktop or Netbook interfaces with our experimentation. It all came together at the right time and Plasma Active was born. (…)

”

“

Sebastian Kügler: Plasma Active: Crunching towards One

Plasma Active aims at creating a desirable user experience for a spectrum of devices, based on a fully Free software stack, developed in the open. The first release is planned for October. In the following article, you can read about the latest status and recent improvements made.

One our way to our first release (begin of October as it currently looks like), we’re in serious make-it-work mode, crunching bugs left and right and filling in gaps of the workflows we want to suppport in our first release of Plasma Active. As we’re a month away from that, it’s a good point in time to give an update of our progress towards Plasma Active One. So where do we stand today? What has been the progress lately? (…)

”

openFATE Team

Top voted Features

“

        [decouple download and installation (Score: 365)](https://features.opensuse.org/120340)

Network installation could be improved by running package download and package installation in parallel.

”

“

        [Look at plymouth for splash during boot (Score: 192)](https://features.opensuse.org/305493)

I wanted to open a fate feature about this when I first heard of plymouth, but reading //fedoramagazine.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/interview-fedora-10s-better-startup/ really makes me think we should go this way.

Ray’s comment starting with “Every flicker and mode change in the boot process takes away from the whole experience.” is especially interesting. Is it okay to track the “don’t show grub by default” here?

”

“

        [1-click uninstall (Score: 164)](https://features.opensuse.org/305305)

An easy way to remove Software! For example: you installed an application with “1-click install” (which will install all the packages that you need), there should be an easy way (also with 1 click) to remove what you have installed with that 1-click operation… in another words: an “1-click Uninstall” to remove installed software (dependencies and packages included).

”

“

        [Update to GRUB v2 (Score: 144)](https://features.opensuse.org/308497)

Every single bug or feature that anyone has developed for GRUB 0.97 has been rejected by the upstream project in favor of using GRUB 2. There has been resisitence in the distribution community to switching boot loaders, but this stalemate isn’t going to go away. The code itself isn’t well written or well maintained. Adding a new feature involves jumping through a lot of hoops that may or may not work even if you manage to work around all the runtime limitations. For example, a fs implementation has a static buffer it can use for memory management. It’s only 32k. For complex file systems, or even a simple journaled file system, we run into problems (like the reiserfs taking forever to load bug) because we don’t have enough memory to do block mapping for the journal so it needs to scan it for every metadata read. (Yeah, really.) (…)

”

“

        [Popularity contest (Score: 109)](https://features.opensuse.org/305877)

We need a feedback about packages that are preferred by users and actively used. Debian already has a tool named Popularity contest (popcon)

• reusing popcon will give us results that are directly comparable with Debian and Ubuntu

• packagers team can take care of the package

• we need a configuration dialog in YaST that is visible enough

• we need a server infrastructure on opensuse.org. (There are certain privacy issues, see Debian FAQ for details)

”

Recently requested features

Features newly requested last week. Please vote and/or comment if you get interested.

“

        [Provide a working pandoc in OSS](https://features.opensuse.org/312777)

pandoc is a Haskell implementation of Markdown with numerous extensions and additional output formats. There is a package in devel:languages:haskell/openSUSE_Factory , but that needs much more love.

pandoc seems important enough to fix it and get it out of its Haskgell ghetto into OSS.

”

“

        [Display installation date and uptime time in the sysinfo:/ page](https://features.opensuse.org/312783)

Display the installation date of the operating system and uptime in the sysinfo:/ page.

”

“

        [Replace Amarok with Clementine](https://features.opensuse.org/312784)

Clementine is a Qt-only music player based of the old Amarok 1.4. Clementine boasts a more traditional interface. It also includes a robust visualizer implementation for those of us who enjoy them.

”

“

        [Disk Formatting](https://features.opensuse.org/312791)

Should have a format disk option in the right click menu. Will be helpful in case of Removable Drives.

I would suggest that the sysinfo shown in My Computer currently be replaced with a filemanager that shows drives or filesystems like in windows(my computer).

”

Feature Statistics

Statistics for openSUSE distribution in openFATE

Testing Team

“

      [Larry
        Finger: Weekly News for September 10](//lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-testing/2011-09/msg00010.html)

The next IRC meeting of the Testing Core Team will be at 17:00 UTC, September 12 on Channel #opensuse-testing on the Freenode IRC Network. irc://irc.freenode.net/opensuse-testing. We will discuss our experiences with MS5.

I have run MS5 exclusively since it was released on four different machines - 1 32-bit virtual, 2 x86_64, and 1 32-bit x86. Everything that I normally use for testing has been working except for the plasmoid network manager applet. Because of the trouble with the KDE version, I have been using nm-applet, the Gnome version.

”

Translation Team

• Daily updated translation statistics are available on the openSUSE Localization Portal.

• Trunk Top-List – Localization Guide

In the Community▲▼

Postings from the Community

“

    [Jos Poortvlieet: openSUSE celebrates Beta 1 with BetaPizza Parties!](//news.opensuse.org/2011/09/06/opensuse-celebrates-beta-1-with-pizzabeta-parties/)

The openSUSE community is happy to announce that the 6th Milestone of the upcoming release will be renamed openSUSE 12.1 Beta 1. This change in name reflects the state of this milestone, being ready for more extensive testing. After the beta, 2 release candidates will become available in quick succession before the final release. To celebrate the Beta release and give it a good workout, we call out on the community to organize BetaPizza parties around the world! (…)

Related Articles: h-online

”

“

Greek openSUSE Ambassadors: openSUSE Greek community and 76th International Trade Fair, Thessaloniki

The openSUSE Greek community will participate to the 76th International Trade Fair (TIF), 10-18th of September in Thessaloniki.

The 76th TIF focuses on outlets in development and innovation, as well as new ideas. This year’s event will highlight the opportunities and challenges generated by the crisis in the Greek economy, which is the starting point for the development of healthy entrepreneurship and modernising the public sector.

The 76th TIF will accordingly present the opportunities for development through specific and measurable activities with a tangible content and with actions that are directed at both the commercial as well as the ordinary visitors. (…)

”

Events & Meetings

Past

• September 05, 2011 : osc11 Orga Meeting

• September 07, 2011 : Project Meeting

Upcoming

• September 11-14, 2011 : openSUSE Conference 2011

• September 12-15, 2011 : VIII SECOMP Londrina (Londrina, Brazil)

You can find more information on other events at: openSUSE News/Events. - Local Events

openSUSE for your Ears

The openSUSE Weekly News are available as podcast in German. You can hear it or download it on //saigkill.homelinux.net/podcast.

Communication

• The Mailinglists

• The openSUSE Forums

Contributors

• openSUSE Connect

Security Updates▲▼

To view the security announcements in full, or to receive them as soon as they’re released, refer to the openSUSE Security Announce mailing list.

“

openSUSE-SU-2011:1018-1: important: VUL-0: CVE-2011-3205: squid: buffer overflow in Gopher reply parser

”

“

  [openSUSE-SU-2011:1024-1: important: mozilla-nss: Update 3.12.11 update](//lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2011-09/msg00014.html)

”

“

  [openSUSE-SU-2011:1031-1: important: MozillaFirefox: 6.0.2](//lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2011-09/msg00017.html)

”

“

  [openSUSE-SU-2011:1031-2: important: MozillaThunderbird: 3.1.13](//lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2011-09/msg00018.html)

”

Kernel Review▲▼

“

  [Linus Torvalds: Linux 3.1-rc5](https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/9/4/92)

Weblkml.org FromLinus Torvalds <> DateSun, 4 Sep 2011 16:27:25 -0700 SubjectLinux 3.1-rc5

So it’s been another week, and it’s time for another -rc.

However, master.kernel.org is still down, and there really hasn’t been a ton of development going on, so I considered just skipping a week. But hey, the whole point (well, one of the points) of distributed development is that no single place is really any different from any other, so since I did a github account for my divelog thing, why not see how well it holds up to me just putting my whole kernel repo there too?

So while kernel.org is down for the count, let’s just see how github does:

https://github.com/torvalds/linux.git

NOTE! One thing to look out for when you see a new random public hosting place usage like that is to verify that yes, it’s really the person you think it is. So is it? (…)

”

“

  [h-online/Thorsten Leemhuis: Kernel Log: Coming in 3.1 (Part 2) - Storage and filesystems](//www.h-online.com/open/features/Kernel-Log-Coming-in-3-1-Part-2-Storage-and-filesystems-1338160.html)

The software RAID code now supports bad block management and dm-crypt can notify SSDs about freed storage areas. The iSCSI target framework LIO has been updated to Version 4.1 and the default Ext3 settings make the filesystem more robust, but a bit slower.

On Monday morning, Linus Torvalds released the fifth pre-release version of Linux 3.1. It is currently only available from GitHub, with the kernel.org infrastructure still restricted following the recent hack. In his release email, Torvalds notes that there is little to report on the development front. That is partly a result of the confusion caused by the kernel.org hack, which has affected the flow of patches.

In light of the ongoing development of Linux 3.1, the Kernel Log is continuing its ‘Coming in 3.1’ series by describing new features relating to storage code and filesystems. The first of this series of articles looked at changes to network drivers and infrastructure; articles on architecture code, infrastructure and drivers for other hardware will follow over the next few weeks. (…)

”

“

  [Rares
    Aioanei: kernel weekly news – 10.09.2011](//schaiba.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/kernel-weekly-news-10-09-2011/)

Rares gives his weekly Kernel Review with openSUSE Flavor.

”

Tips and Tricks▲▼

For Developers and Programmers

“

    [Python4Kids/Brendan Scott: Side Track – Global and Local Variables](//python4kids.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/side-track-global-and-local-variables/)

In the previous tutorial, I used a strange and cumbersome approach to storing the data that I needed to keep track of the image files in the directory, the total number of images and what image we were up to. Instead of just saving the current image number in a variable called currentImage I instead created a dictionary called indexes and a key called currentImage, then assigned the value to that key. I did the same thing for totalImages as well. You might, justifiably, be thinking – why didn’t we just use two variables called currentImage and totalImages? This tutorial is going to try to explain that. (…)

”

“

    [Linuxaria: Guide to regular expressions with examples](//linuxaria.com/howto/guide-regular-expressions-syntax?lang=en)

The regular expression, or regexp, are the most powerful, versatile and hated tool used by programmers and system administrators.

They allow to express with a few characters search for strings, characters or words, and if done well can lead to good results, but if they are wrong they can not give you any useful result, and the worst thing is that often it is difficult to understand whether or not a regepx it is written with a correct syntax to cover all the possibility. (…)

”

For System Administrators

“

    [Wazi/Anatoliy A. Dimitrov: How to Secure Your Apache Web Server](//olex.openlogic.com/wazi/2011/how-to-secure-your-apache-web-server/)

Installing and maintaining a secure web server on Linux can be a challenge. It requires in-depth knowledge of Linux, Apache, and PHP server-side options. One of the main problems is to find the balance between security and productivity and usability. The best solution depends on the specific project requirements, but all installations share certain common characteristics. Here are some best practices for securing a LAMP server, from the server configuration to fine-tuning PHP settings. (…)

”

“

    [Frederik Konietzny: how to test the plain and encrypted SMTP/POP3/IMAP and HTTP protocols](//frederikkonietzny.de/wp/2011/09/02/how-to-test-the-plain-and-encrypted-smtppop3imap-and-http-protocols/)

In this article I will describe how to test the plain and the encrypted SMTP/POP3/IMAP and HTTP protocols with telnet and the openssl s_client command. (…)

”

“

    [BeginLinux: Installing Apache on OpenSUSE](//beginlinux.com/desktop/opensuse/installing-apache-on-opensuse)

What we will look at

1. Installing the Apache Web Server on openSUSE

2. Configuring Apache with a virtual directory alias

3. Testing an installation across the network

We can install the Apache Server by using the YaST Plugin, yast2-http-server. This is simple and installs the Server then takes us straight into the configuration. We would, though, have to install the plugin in the first place and then the configuration allows me only a fraction of what can be done from the command line. There is also a YaST module that will set up and installation server for you but you would not learn too much using it. So, for the benefit of learning and deeper understanding, we will take the manual approach and install and configure the server from the command line. (…)

”

On the Web▲▼

Reports

“

    [Dan Vratil: Akonadi Google Resource: Tasks support](//progdan.cz/2011/09/akonadi-google-resource-tasks-support)

As the title says, I just added support for Google Tasks by creating the Akonadi Google Tasks Resource. The Tasks API provided by Google is really simple and does not support many properties, only name, summary, due to date, completed date and status. You can’t set progress percentage, start date, attendees nor reminders (this sucks!). Despite the fact, that the API provides means for tree-like structure of tasks (tasks and subtasks), it does not seem to work. So you can only have a linear list of tasks. A positive thing is, that due to this limited functionality of Google Tasks the resource has a full support of this API.

The reason for independent resource is that you can have multiple task lists in Google Calendar, thus merging this functionality into Google Calendar Resource is not an option. Unfortunately, you will now have the tasks resources displayed in the list of calendar resources in KOrganizer. (…)

”

“

    [Marco Martin: Share, Like and Connect](//www.notmart.org/index.php/Software/Share,_Like_and_Connect)

An important part of the Plasma Active Contour user interface is the connection between the objects that i can view with my tablet, like images, webpages, and documents with the current activity, to help to organize your work and fun.

I already wrote here about the activity screen: the main Contour workspace will show everything that is related to the activity and is the natural evolution of the Plasma Desktop activities (that will evolve in this direction as well as the integration with applications becomes deeper;) (…)

”

“

    [All about Linux: Linux Kernel Gets Hosted At Github](//linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2011/09/linux-kernel-gets-hosted-at-github.html#more)

Linus Torvalds has moved the entire Linux kernel to Github. This comes in the wake of Kernel.org site (The original home of Linux kernel) getting hacked.

Github provides free public repositories to host your source code. It gives you the tools to manage your project, collaborate with your team members, do seamless bug tracking, and above all, version control all your work. (…)

Related Articles: h-online

”

“

    [h-online/Jos Poortvlieet: Upgrading openSUSE to Linux 3.0](//www.h-online.com/open/features/Upgrading-openSUSE-to-Linux-3-0-1337231.html)

On 21 July, Linux kernel 3.0 was released by Linus Torvalds, bringing some new features such as Btrfs data scrubbing and automatic defragmentation, Microsoft Kinect and Apple iSight webcam support, AMD’s Llano Fusion APUs support, wake on WLAN, XEN Dom0 support and many new drivers which allow Linux to work with a host of new hardware components.

This tutorial explains how to install this kernel on your stable openSUSE 11.4 installation, replacing your current 2.6.37 kernel. And as a bonus, we’ll also show you how to escape the upgrade mill with Tumbleweed. Thanks to the unique Tumbleweed repository, you’ll not only always have the latest Linux kernel but also the newest Firefox, LibreOffice, Scribus, Evolution, digiKam and all those other applications which make openSUSE such a great OS. (…)

”

“

    [h-online: openSUSE 12.1 to get a beta](//www.h-online.com/open/news/item/openSUSE-12-1-to-get-a-beta-1338663.html)

The openSUSE project has announced that the upcoming sixth milestone release of version 12.1 of the openSUSE operating system will be reclassified as a beta. Jos Poortvliet, the openSUSE community manager for SUSE Linux, says that the change “reflects the state of this milestone, being ready for more extensive testing”. (…)

”

“

    [h-online: LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org drift apart](//www.h-online.com/open/news/item/LibreOffice-and-OpenOffice-org-drift-apart-1338511.html)

Michael Meeks, a LibreOffice developer at Novell, compared the codebase of LibreOffice with the OpenOffice.org sources hosted at the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). As he writes in a blog post, the differences are already so great that it will now be hard to exchange new code between the two projects. In light of the several million lines of source code by which the two products now differ, he says users should not assume that code committed to Apache OpenOffice.org will “inevitably and automatically appear in LibreOffice”. “Instead I suspect we will end up cherry-picking and porting only those things that justify the effort, as/when/if there is any such thing,” added Meeks. (…)

”

Reviews and Essays

“

    [Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix](//tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Sep-06.html)

As I meet new Unix hackers using Linux or Mac, sometimes I am surprised at how few Unix tricks they know. It is sometimes painful to watch developers perform manual tasks on the shell.

What follows are my recommendations on how to improve your Unix skills, with a little introduction as to why you should get each book. I have linked to each one of those books with my Amazon afiliates link, so feel free to click on those links liberally.

Here is the list of books that programmers using Unix should read. It will only take you a couple of days to read them, but you will easily increase your productivity by a whole order of magnitude. (…)

”

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Credits▲▼

We thank for this Issue:

• Sascha Manns, Editor in Chief

• Satoru Matsumoto, Editorial Office

• Gertjan Lettink, Forums Section

• Thomas Hofstätter, Eventeditor

• Thomas Schraitle, DocBook-Consultant

Acknowledgements▲▼

We thank for this Issue:

• RenderX XEP, PDF Creation and Rendering

• SyncRO Soft Ltd., Oxygen XML Editing

• iJoomla, Surveys

Copyrights▲▼

List of our Licenses

• Permission Information for own

Trademarks

SUSE ®, openSUSE ®, the openSUSE ® Logo and Novell ® are registered Trademarks of Novell, Inc.

Linux ® is a registered Trademark of Linus Torvalds

Translations▲

openSUSE Weekly News is translated into many languages. Issue 192 is available in:

• English

Coming soon:

• Japanese

• Greek

• German

First published on: //saigkill.homelinux.net