FWN/Issue230

= Fedora Weekly News Issue 230 =

Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 230 for the week ending June 16, 2010. What follows are some highlights from this issue.

In this week's FWN, we have a shorter issue, with folks taking a breather following the very successful release of Fedora 13. We begin with news from the Fedora Planet, including details on the Project's Twitter presence, new approved features for Fedora 14, an update on multitouch in Fedora, and a discussion on what goes in to Fedora metrics and release stats. In Quality Assurance news, details on the QA schedule for Fedora 14, an update on automated test script review and revision, and a discussion regarding virtualized testing of releases. Next up are a variety of Fedora news pieces in the trade press and blogosphere in Fedora In The News. In Design team news, a new Design Team IRC meeting schedule, and discussion around Sparkle Share, a tool in development. Security Advisories brings us current with security-related packages released in the past week. Read on!

The audio version of FWN - FAWN - is back! You can listen to existing issues on the Internet Archive. If anyone is interested in helping spread the load of FAWN production, please contact us!

If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see our 'join' page. We welcome reader feedback: news@lists.fedoraproject.org

FWN Editorial Team: Pascal Calarco, Adam Williamson

Planet Fedora
In this section, we cover the highlights of Planet Fedora - an aggregation of blogs from Fedora contributors worldwide.

Contributing Writer: Adam Batkin

General
Luke Slater mentioned that "we've recently acquired the username 'Fedora' on Twitter and we're using this event as the catalyst to start Fedora's foray into the world of Microblogging (or relaunch it, perhaps...). We're currently deciding on what exactly to do in respect to this and a discussion took place in the Fedora Marketing meeting this Tuesday..."

Rahul Sundaram announced that three new features have been approved for Fedora 14: More content in live images, faster picture browsing (replacing libjpeg with libjpeg-turbo) and Multi-path device support including bootup.

Michael DeHaan suggested a way to use Google Analytics to help track down (and presumably fix) common error messages.

John Palmier provided an update on the status of Multitouch in Fedora.

Richard W.M. Jones found that Linux now has a set of APIs for freezing ("Quiescing") filesystems.

Venkatesh Hariharan posted an excerpt from Flash Co-Creator Jonathan Gay, discussing "the challenges they faced in using H.264 standard."

Ian Weller discussed how Fedora metrics are tracked, and the process of releasing the (anonymized) raw data that was used to produce the final statistics.

Clint Savage is trying to comabt apathy, which "is what kills communities around the globe" and how to get people to contribute back.

QualityAssurance
In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team. For more information on the work of the QA team and how you can get involved, see the Joining page.

Contributing Writer: Adam Williamson

AutoQA initscript testing
Josef Skladanka updated the status of the automated initscripts test effort. He explained that 30% of initscripts had now been reviewed, and again asked for people to help in completing the process.

Fedora 14 QA schedule
John Poelstra posted the QA group schedule for Fedora 14, including all the significant dates for the team in the run-up to the next Fedora release.

Virtualized testing
Bob Lightfoot asked if there was a consensus on the use of virtual machines as opposed to real systems in testing, and whether it is acceptable to run tests of the install media in virtual machines. Richard Ryniker's well-considered response pointed out that "just as an error observed on "real" hardware might be attributed to a quirk or fault in that platform, so too an error in a VM might be the result of some bug in the implementation of the VM," and that "errors observed in a VM environment...should be subjected to the same triage process that might elevate them to "critical" status because they seriously impact operation on many (real or virtual) platforms, or reduce them to "future consideration" status because they have little impact, they occur only on platforms rare enough to suggest a quirk or platform fault is their cause". Adam Williamson said that virtual testing is valuable, but testing on real hardware is also necessary, in both cases.

NSS dependency issue
During the QA weekly meeting of 2010-06-07, Adam Williamson brought up the problem with dependencies in the nss-softokn package which had caused dependency issues during updates for many users of the 64-bit edition of Fedora 13. The group concluded that there had been no failure in the QA processes, but also agreed that it would be a good idea to make sure the AutoQA dependency checks will be able to catch this particular type of problem when they go live. Adam promised to send Will Woods a summary of the issue for this purpose.

Triage metrics
During the Bugzappers weekly meeting of 2010-06-08, Adam Williamson recapped the previous efforts to produce a system for monitoring the triage process and providing metrics on triage work, and proposed an alternative approach of producing some simple Bugzilla queries that would provide some basic information in the short term and without a lot of complex work. Jeff Raber stepped in and volunteered to attempt this.

Fedora In the News
In this section, we cover news from the trade press and elsewhere that is re-posted to the Fedora Marketing list

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing

Contributing Writer: Pascal Calarco

Sugar on a Stick v3 Mirabelle released (h-online.com)
Rahul Sundaram forwarded a posting from The H from 2010-06-14:

"At last week's LinuxTag conference in Berlin, Sugar Labs, the organisation behind the One Laptop Per Child's XO laptop software, released Sugar on a Stick version 3.0, also known as "Mirabelle". Sugar on a Stick is a version of the free open source Sugar Learning Platform that can be installed on a bootable USB flash drive to run on a conventional desktop, notebook or netbook computer."

The full post is available.

Fedora’s lucky 13 (ghacks.net)
Rahul Sundaram forwarded a review of highlights from Fedora 13:

"I could continue on forever and a day about how Fedora 13 brings a world of improvement to the Fedora/Linux experience. But the best thing I can say is that Ubuntu better watch out or Fedora might well usurp it as the king of Linux for new users. And since Fedora is already one of the most popular distributions with experienced users . . . you get the picture.

If you have never tried Fedora do so now. If you jumped ship on Fedora some where around Fedora 9, I’d say it’s about time you jumped back on the ship and enjoyed an incredible experience."

The full post is available

Counting the Cost of Free: What Value, Linux? (Computer Zine)
Rahul Sundaram forwarded an interview with Amanda McPherson, marketing and developer programs VP at the Linux Foundation, in which she discusses a recent study calculating the cost of producing the Fedora 9 release:

"Bentley: Why the Fedora community distribution and not another?

McPherson: Fedora is the basis for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which represents a large percentage of the Linux market. This provided us with a very relevant model to assess. Also, David A. Wheeler had used Red Hat for his study in 2002. OpenSuse and Debian/Ubuntu would, of course, also be great targets for this study. We may do that at a later date. We also would like to use an embedded distribution."

The full post is available.

Pino: Fedora’s default social tool (ghacks.net)
Rahul Sundaram forwarded a discussion of the Pino tool within Fedora 13:

"Pino is an outstanding app for Twitter status updates. It’s not nearly as feature-rich as Gwibber, but it won’t gobble up your CPU like Gwibber is prone to. If you are looking for a tool to post twitter status updates, and you use Fedora – look no further than Pino."

The full post is available.

Sugar on a Stick hits 3.0, teaches us about a new kind of fruit
Rahul Sundaram forwarded a discussion of Fedora-based Sugar on a Stick 3.0:

"Turns out it's a small, orange plum that really has nothing to do with Sugar's Fedora underpinnings, but certainly sounds healthier than Google's versioning schemes. Mirabelle has just been given the Sugar on a Stick treatment, and as with previous releases this one can be loaded to DVD or thumb drive and booted to give a taste of XO without requiring any repartitioning. Sugar on a Stick is now an official Fedora spin, distributed on the Fedora site in both 32- and 64-bit flavors at the other end of that source link below. "

The full post is available.

Can Fedora be the new Ubuntu? (Tech Republic)
Rahul Sundaram forwarded a discussion of Fedora 13:

"Fedora has done something that, in many peoples’ eyes, is much more important . . . they have released an amazingly rock-solid operating system. What happened to the good old days of installing Fedora and then having to spend time tweaking it to get it to work right? Now it’s just install and go. And go it does."

The full post is available.

Backing up with Deja Dup (ghacks.net)
Rahul Sundaram forwarded a follow-up article in ghacks that discusses Deja Dup in Fedora 13:

"In a recent article I introduced to the Ghacks readers the latest release from Fedora (see “Fedoras Lucky 13“). In this article I mentioned a number of features that helped to make Fedora one of the more user friendly Linux distributions available today.  One of the reasons this is so is the inclusion of some tools that make using Fedora 13 incredibly easy. One such tool is the backup system Deja Dup. Deja Dup makes backups incredible simple. With an interface containing no more than a menu bar and two buttons, backing up couldn’t be easier.

But that simplicity doesn’t mean Deja Dup is complete bereft of features. Not at all. In fact, you’d be surprised at how many different ways you can backup with Deja Dup. In this article you are going to see how easy it is to back up your Fedora 13 files and folders with this handy tool."

The full post is available.

Fedora 13 Boasts Many Leading-Edge Enhancements (eWeek)
Kara Schlitz forwarded an article in eWeek reviewing Fedora 13's features:

"Since its first version, in 2003, Red Hat's Fedora Linux has been the best place to track what's on the leading edge of Linux and open-source software. Of course, the trouble with running on the leading edge is that it's easy to get cut, and the Fedora distribution's fast development pace has required a certain amount of bug-squashing tolerance from its users.

Fedora 13, which began shipping in late May, boasts many of the leading-edge enhancements—and few of the rough spots—that I've come to expect from the popular Linux-based operating system. In particular, I appreciated the work the Fedora team has done in the area of security and permissions, with progress toward more granular rights management through Fedora's PolicyKit framework, and an implementation of the SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux) framework that remained, for the most part, tucked away unobtrusively in the background."

The full post is available.

Artwork
In this section, we cover the Fedora Design Team.

Contributing Writer: Nicu Buculei

Design Team IRC Meeting
Máirín Duffy announced the regular IRC meeting of the Design Team "Just a friendly reminder our second weekly meeting is at 7 PM UTC today in #fedora-design on irc.freenode.net" and after the meeting she published the minutes, the meeting covered: website redesign, progress for Fedora 14 artwork, the tickets queue and the new biweekly bounties.

Sparkle Share
Máirín Duffy pointed to Sparkle Share, a tool in development which may make easier to share the works inside the Design Team "I think we should try using this when it's first released! ", Nicu Buculei objected about using Mono "Hope some brave souls will do to it what other brave souls did to Tomboy with Gnote" while other members, like Jayme Ayres showed enthusiasm "I loved the idea. Currently I use the Dropbox and is very useful for me to manage my work files and laptop!"

Security Advisories
In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce.

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce

Contributing Writer: Pascal Calarco

Fedora 13 Security Advisories

 * openssl-1.0.0a-1.fc13 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042855.html
 * dhcp-4.1.1-22.P1.fc13 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042843.html
 * sudo-1.7.2p6-2.fc13 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042838.html
 * python-2.6.4-27.fc13 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042751.html
 * sonic-visualiser-1.7.2-1.fc13 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042716.html
 * libfishsound-0.9.1-5.fc13 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042714.html
 * liboggz-1.1.1-1.fc13 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042712.html
 * mod_annodex-0.2.2-13.fc13 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042713.html
 * libannodex-0.7.3-14.fc13 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042715.html
 * emesene-1.6.2-1.fc13 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042699.html

Fedora 12 Security Advisories

 * moin-1.8.8-1.fc12 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042786.html
 * kernel-2.6.32.14-127.fc12 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042766.html
 * emesene-1.6.2-1.fc12 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042725.html

Fedora 11 Security Advisories

 * sendmail-8.14.4-3.fc11 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042817.html
 * moin-1.8.8-1.fc11 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042795.html
 * emesene-1.6.2-1.fc11 - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-June/042683.html