Arch Linux Newsletter

January 30, 2005
1.0.1
Jason Chu jason@archlinux.org
Ben Mazer ben@benmazer.net

Summary

Welcome to the Arch Linux Newsletter. This document attempts to give you an "at a glance" look at the world of Arch Linux.

Table Of Contents

  1. Front Page News
  2. Devland Update
  3. ArchStats
  4. Seti Update
  5. Forum Highlights
  6. Mailing List Highlights
  7. Tur Update
  8. Package Highlights
  9. New Packages
  10. FAQ
  11. Bugs
    1. Closed Bugs
    2. Opened Bugs
  12. Closing

Front Page News

  1. Arch in the News
    There's a new article about Arch over at OSNews. Eugenia has also submitted the article to Slashdot, where it appeared in their linux section.
  2. Arch Linux 0.7 (Wombat) Released!
    Well, the release that never comes has finally arrived.

    Arch Linux 0.7 is now available in ISO form, ready for public consumption. You can find fresh torrents and many-a-mirror on our download page. Install docs are here.

    Many thanks to all the users and developers who toil on this project day in and day out. I think we should be proud.
  3. Arch 2.6 kernels move to the -as patchset
    To help plug the various bugs and vulnerabilities that have recently been cropping up in the 2.6 kernels, we've decided to try out the new -as patchset by Andres Salomon. As he wrote on the lkml, this patchset will fix the "obvious" bugs and vulnerabilities in the mainline kernel, in an effort to provide a solid base kernel for distributions to use.

    This patchset does not add any new features or drivers -- it is just a comprehensive collection of fixes that should be included in the vanilla kernel anyway.

    Report any problems or concerns to Mr. Bugtracker.
  4. Xfce 4.2 now available
    Xfce 4.2 is now available in Arch Linux repositories. Please have a look at http://www.xfce.org/ for the official announcement.

    This release brings 3 new packages: xfce4-session, xfce4-icon-theme and xfce4-appfinder, and deprecates xfce4-themes and xffm-icons.
    After a sysupgrade, make sure to perform the following operations to get a full-featured Xfce desktop :
    # pacman -S xfce4-session xfce4-icon-theme xfce4-appfinder
    # pacman -R xfce4-themes xffm-icons

    Some people have reported issues with KDE K menu loosing its icons after Xfce upgrade, so please make sure to have libxfce4util 4.2.0-2 installed.
    For more details, see task #2028 in the bug tracker (http://bugs.archlinux.org/)

    And last, but not least, many thanks to Tobias Kieslich for his very nice artwork contribution to these brand new Xfce packages.

Devland Update

  1. Now that 0.7 has been released, we have a developer meeting planned for next week. Expect lots of issues to be discussed then.

Archstats Update

To Participate, visit: http://archstats.coding-zone.com/

Number of registered systems: 827
Date first system was registered: 20031017
Most recent update occurred: 20050130
Earliest recorded Arch release: Arch Linux 0.4 (Dragon)
Longest recorded uptime: 368 days, 10 hours, 22 minutes, 38 seconds.
Average uptime: 6 days, 23 hours, 41 minutes, 22 seconds.
Least packages installed on a system: 44
Average installed packages: 295
Most packages installed on a system: 1197

Seti@Home Update

To Participate, visit:http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_185479.html

Members: 24
Results Received: 13467
Total CPU time: 15.646 years

Forum Highlights

  1. Many people have been asking for an AMD64 Port of Arch. Another person has stepped up to do it, but there have been a few attempts, none of them successful. Porting a distribution is not easy, but if you'd like to help out, you can contact Jason, who has managed the i586 port.
  2. Someone is planning to offer higher quality Arch t-shirts with profits going to Arch. There seems to be lots of support, but trademark issues still have to be discussed.

Mailing List Highlights

  1. It was discovered that Thunderbird is missing RSS support in the Arch package. Solutions were given, and hopefully the Arch package will be updated to address the issue.
  2. Pacman-i18n v.0.1.1 was released. Pacman-i18n is an international version of pacman, with support for many languages. If you speak a non-English language, please help out.

TUR Update

Discussion is taking place on when the official date for the AUR move should be. We're trying to speed the process up, since we know that people have been waiting a long time. After the AUR is up, there will be a lot more TUR activity, including the addition of new TUs and more packages. It will also be easier to submit PKGBUILDs and provide a community process for approval.

Package Highlights

  1. MythTV was added to TESTING. MythTV is a powerful DVR, and the Arch package makes its setup much easier. See their website for more information about MythTV.

New Packages

FAQ

A: If I installed Arch from the 0.6 or 0.7 BETA CD, do I need to reinstall with 0.7 FINAL?

Q: No. Arch's release numbers really do not mean much. You will want to update to the CURRENT tree as soon as possible, which will bring you more up-to-date than the 0.7 CD. You can keep on updating via a 'pacman -Syu' for as long as you want. I've personally been running from 0.5 BETA to CURRENT without any issues. Sometimes there will be a relatively major update that will require work on your part though, e.g. the recent UDev upgrade. Because Arch expects you to track the CURRENT tree, packages from the repos will often not work with the older packages from the install CD, so it is important to run sys-updates.

Bugs

Bugs Closed

Bugs Opened

Closing

If you are interested in helping out with the newsletter, specifically writing one section every two weeks, please email Jason or myself. We could use some more volunteers.

That's it for this week, stay tuned for more exciting Arch Linux news.