Arch Linux Newsletter

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

Front Page News

1. Removal of ArchCK
   
   ArchCK has no longer been actively developed for over a month, and has effectively been replaced by the beyond stable tree. It is to be replaced by kernel26beyond, using the beyond patchset.
   
   For details on this move, please read: http://iphitus.loudas.com/beyond.html
   
   During the next week, all traces of ArchCk will be removed from the repositories, beginning with the various drivers, and next Friday/Saturday the kernel itself will be removed, beyond will not however automatically replace it, it is up to you to do that.
   
   During this week it is advised that you move to beyond, the upgrade path is simple,
   
   pacman -Sy mkinitramfs kernel26beyond
   
   Then add a new entry to your bootloader to boot up beyond, with the appropriate kernel image and initrd entry. More information on this in on the wiki at:
   http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Initramfs
   
   Once you are sure that kernel26beyond is up and running, you are safe to remove kernel26archck, and it's bootloader lines.
   
   
2. Please Avoid kernel 2.6.16.14-1
   
   Sorry to all of you with lately occurring kernel panics/oopses, the change to 64gb ram setup, seems to cause more problems then it was worth for, it will be now reverted. Please don't update until 2.6.16.14-2 appears on the repos. I try to fix this immediately.
   
   
3. kernel panic Nvidia users please read!
   
   Kernel 2.6.16.14-1 introduces a problem with nvidia packages, please consider to rebuild the module after update to new kernel. Update kernel, rerun pacman -S nvidia
   
   If you alreadt encounter a kernel panic, user this to solve:
   boot your kernel with lilo or grub with these parameters
   load_modules=off init s
   then login with your root password and then run:
   pacman -S nvidia
   reboot
   
   
4. Forum Registration Fixed
   
   Just a heads-up to say that the forum registration has been fixified. Thanks Dibble!
   
   

Devland

1. All the developers who previously worked on mkinitrd, klibc, and mkinitramfs have all started putting effort into a newer, better initramfs set of scripts.
2. James contacted Nvidia about packaging their kernel module and they said it's no problem to package it like we package all the other kernel modules. Expect a non-compiling nvidia package sometime in the near future.

Forum Highlights

1. dtw explained some usability updates to the forums.
2. Firmicus made a tool for PKGBUILD generation of perl modules that utilizes information from CPAN.
3. user was excited over the release of Vim 7.
4. apeiro called for users to design a CD label.
5. paul_au noted changes to an Australian mirror which will bring speed and reliability.

Mailing List Highlights

1. Help with getting a local mirror on portable media.
2. An effort for bringing a group of i18n contributors together.
3. Discussion on a simple way for recording live streams.

Package Highlights

• The ArchCK kernel has been removed from the repos.

FAQ

Q: What is the difference between AUR, COMMUNITY, and UNSUPPORTED?

A: AUR(Arch User Repository) is the name of the whole new system which is maintained by the TUs(Trusted Users). It lets anybody that signs up to upload PKGBUILDs to UNSUPPORTED but only TUs have access to COMMUNITY which is a binary repo that you can use with Pacman.

Q: Why aren't all packages in UNSUPPORTED added to COMMUNITY?

A: There are several reasons for that. The most important is that the package hasn't got many votes. It's also important that you vote for packages that already are in COMMUNITY, otherwise they could be disowned by the TUs and moved to UNSUPPORTED. Other reasons could be that the package is unmaintained upstream or has a licensing problem. Last but not least, no TU wants to do it.

Archstats

To Participate, visit: http://www.archlinux.org/~simo/archstats

Number of registered systems: 819
Longest recorded uptime: 496 days, 9 hours, 22 minutes, 38 seconds.
Average uptime: 11 days, 17 hours, 6 minutes, 16 seconds.
Average installed packages: 485
Average system memory: 802MB
Lowest Bogomips: 266.19
Average Bogomips: 3527.24
Highest Bogomips: 6914.04

Seti@Home

To Participate, visit: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=116975

Members: 23
Total credit: 278,782.26

folding@Home

Arch Linux Team Page
Extended Team Statistics  

Team Number: 45032
Members: 51
Score: 526806
Ranking: 629 of 44038

Bugs

• AUR: Closed 2 - Opened 6
• Arch: Closed 54 - Opened 87

Closing

That's it for this time folks. If you have any opinions on the newsletter or have some things you wanna add, just send us a mail and we'll look into it.
Very best regards / Team Arch