Arch Linux Newsletter

Sep 24, 2006
1.0.0
Jason Chu jason@archlinux.org
Jason "CanyonKnight" canyonknight@gmail.com

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
  3. Forum Highlights
  4. Mailing List Highlights
  5. Package Highlights
  6. FAQ
  7. ArchStats
  8. Seti@home
  9. folding@home
  10. Bugs
  11. Closing

Front Page News

  1. Multiple DoS vulnerabilities in BIND

    There are multiple DoS vulnerabilities in BIND 9.3.2 (CVE-2006-4095). Please upgrade to bind-9.3.2-4 as soon as possible. More information is available at http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/sw/bind/bind9.3.php

  2. kernel 2.6.18 series / udev 100 in testing

    Kernel:
    Kernel 2.6.18 series is now in testing, it will be the kernel series for 0.8 release so please test this stuff well before it can go into current repository.

    Changes:
    - mkinitrd has been replaced by successor mkinitcpio! You will be asked while installing to replace mkinitrd and mkinitramfs, say yes because mkinitrd and mkinitramfs will not work with these kernels anymore.
    - kexec support has been added
    Nice feature to bypass bios routine on reboot
    - REGPARM=y is now enabled
    Should speedup kernel a bit
    - new standard scheduler is CFQ
    Is the new default in kernel
    - ext2 is now a module
    Not needed anymore to be included in kernel
    - floppy is now a module
    If you need your floppy load it by MODULES=(floppy) in rc.conf
    - added jmicron ide support
    - raid5 and raid6 module were merged to raid456 module

    Udev:
    - Old rules stuff was removed and rules syntax was migrated.
    - kernel >=2.6.18 is now recommended to run this udev release
    2.6.17 series should still work
    - The syntax of udev rules has been changed in >=098 release, please update your rules.
    - udev >= 099 Persistent rules generator for network and cd/dvd devices was added.
    - arch-udev-readme.txt was updated
    - For more information about syntax change and persistent rules please read the arch-udev-readme.txt after installation!

    Have fun and report bugs

  3. MythTV 0.20.0.x

    MythTV 0.20.0 is released. The upgrade went very smoothly for me. Here's the recommended procedure:

    1) Stop mythbackend.
    2) Dump your myth database. Just for safety.
    3) Upgrade to new version.
    4) Start mythbackend.
    5) Start mythfrontend. You should see a notice scroll by about the database being updated.

    That's it. Worked right out of the box.

    Please file a bug report if your results vary. We want to make Arch the best Mythtv platform out there!

    Plugins will follow shortly from Travis in [community]. Many thanks to him for continuing to keep after those.

  4. Goodbye Rob (Lilo)

    As many have heard, lilo (Rob Levin), the father of the Freenode IRC network, passed away on September 16th. He was hit by a car on September 12th while riding his bike and subsequently died from head trauma in the ICU.

    We extend our heartfelt sympathies to his friends and family. He was a boon to the open source community and will be missed.

  5. new shadow tools, all users please read

    the new shadow tools introduce 2 new checking tools on consistency of groups and passwd, due to a missing correct gshadow file in filesystem package, the new shadow package will trigger warnings like this to logs:
    ---snip
    no matching group file entry in /etc/gshadow
    add group 'root' in /etc/gshadow ?No
    no matching group file entry in /etc/gshadow
    add group 'bin' in /etc/gshadow ?No
    --- snap

    To fix these warnings, just run grpck and pwck as root

    Update:

    New shadow 4.0.18.1-2 package will run grpck on upgrade, if still errors are reported you have to fix them by hand then.

Devland

  1. We're in the process of adding four new developers to the lot. Shadowhand, brain0, cerebral, and codemac are all in the process of becoming developers. Feel free to take them out for lunch and congratulate them.
  2. Dale is gone on vacation until October 2nd.
  3. Damir is back from France. Welcome back. Now get back to work!

Forum Highlights

  1. paranoos made an improved version of ZSH tab-completion for pacman.
  2. aquila_deus explained the method for getting AIGLX and compiz to work with nvidia beta drivers.
  3. iBertus wanted recommendations for a TV tuner that works well under Linux.
  4. dtw needed opinions on which version of picasa to use under linux.

Mailing List Highlights

  1. The package page on the Arch Linux website for vim misreports version number due to number of patches.
  2. Fixing a problem that showed up when installing OpenOffice.org.
  3. Looking for the location of the most up-to-date mirror list.

Package Highlights

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: 865
Longest recorded uptime: 494 days, 3 hours, 29 minutes, 25 seconds.
Average uptime: 12 days, 1 hour, 11 minutes, 4 seconds.
Average installed packages: 455
Average system memory: 735MB
Lowest Bogomips: 266.05
Average Bogomips: 3512.09
Highest Bogomips: 6807.15

Seti@Home

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

Members: 36
Total credit: 374,321.34

folding@Home

Arch Linux Team Page
Extended Team Statistics

Team Number: 45032
Members: 71
Score: 1042815
Ranking: 443 of 45576

Bugs

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