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. Farewell to kernel26ck
   
   Now that the 2.6.23 kernel is released, kernel26ck will be removed from the repos, along with all related module packages.
   
   I hope those of you who chose to use the -ck kernel enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed maintaining it, and on your behalf, I offer to Con Kolivas the appreciation and gratitude of the Arch community for his dedication and excellence.



2. Farewell to kernel26suspend2
   
   After several days of trying to get tuxonice running stable, I give up. I have no effort anymore to get this kernel running. No other developer wants to maintain it. I have also asked on the TU mailinglist, but no answer so far. That means, that kernel26suspend will die shortly and will be deleted from the official repo.
   
   If anyone from the community want to "maintain" it further, feel free to download the PKGBUILD and patches of the kernel26suspend and corresponding modules from CVS and put it to AUR.
   
   My suggestion to everyone who is using kernel26suspend2, look at the package "suspend" in AUR. It does nearly the same as kernel26suspend2, but without the need of an extra kernel.
   
   Sorry for the bad news, but that is the farewell to the officially supported kernel26suspend2/tuxonice package and modules.
   
   Daniel

Devland

1. kernel 2.6.23 is in testing right now. Please test it and report any bugs that you find.
2. There is talk of updating the arch logo. Keep your ears open for a possible logo contest. http://archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2007-October/002158.html
3. Thomas Bächler is taking some time off to move. Wish him luck!
4. db/heimdal/gtk/gnome/gcc have all moved from testing to extra. If you have any problems, don't hesitate to file a bug report.

Forum Highlights

1. lenni, started a thread asking if CFS will make a noticeable difference performance-wise, in the desktop front.
2. If you are getting lousy-fonts on Gnome 2.20, you are not the only one, in this thread started by braincenter I gave what seems to be a good solution, in fact it was logical.
3. justaleaf is a designer, and wants to reduce his dependency on proprietary Operating Systems, so he asks for advice.
4. skottish discovers that blender renders slightly faster with kernel-2.6.23.

Mailing List Highlights

1. Gour started a discussion about all the aspell dictionaries that are available in AUR.
2. Tobias Powalowski writes about the status of the 2.6.23 kernel.
3. AUR has been upgraded to version 1.4.1 Paul Mattal writes.

Package Highlights

• GNOME 2.20 has been released to extra.

FAQ

Q: What is this new [core] repository? and how is it different to what [current] was?

A: Some time ago, the developers team discussed a shuffling of the Arch Linux repository structure. The new [core] repository will contain all essential packages for getting a system up and running. In essence these packages are the core of Arch Linux. Everything else from current that is non-essential has been moved to [extra].

Humor

The humor this week comes from my part, Why? Because I did some mistakes on my previous Arch Linux install, like partitioning the wrong way, with just one / partition for everything. Also I was mixing unstable, testing and stable applications altogether, this way causing my system to crash sometimes. Then I thought, lets make a backup and reinstall Arch Linux, is as simple as that, this way I'll have a cleaner system from the beginning and make the changes to the partitioning scheme. So I leaned that way, did a backup of my previous Arch Linux installation on a DVD, and now, because I in my laziness didn't tested the backup before reinstall, my DVD is corrupted and there is no way (that I know of) to recover the data from it because any mount option I try says, wrong file system type. Is a shame this happened since I'm studying a Bachelors Degree in Networks and Telecommunications, I hope my professors don't hear about this. :D

Archstats

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

Number of registered systems: 1071
Longest recorded uptime: 494 days, 3 hours, 29 minutes, 25 seconds.
Average uptime: 17 days, 21 hours, 28 minutes, 10 seconds.
Average installed packages: 542
Average system memory: 928MB
Slowest CPU (MHz): 175.00
Average CPU (MHz): 1778.56
Fastest CPU (MHz): 3417.27

Seti@Home

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

Members: 24
Total credit: 1,142,275

folding@Home

Arch Linux Team Page
Extended Team Statistics

Team ID: 45032
Members: 151
Score: 3469065
Ranking: 307 of 83560

Bugs

• AUR: 63 open tasks, 312 total tasks. Progress: 3% done
• Arch: 444 open tasks, 7341 total tasks. Progress: 1% done
• Pacman: 114 open tasks, 624 total tasks. Progress: 2% done

Closing

We've come to the end, but just for this week, we sincerely hope you enjoyed reading the newsletter. Please, feel free to contact us, and let us know of any opinions or suggestions you have for the better of this newsletter.

The best for all of you / Arch Linux Team