Gentoo News

The Gentoo Council held a meeting on November 13, 2008. The items discussed were:

Open bugs:

• Slacker Arches: Mark sent a proposal to gentoo-dev about this. No other discussion or decision.
• GLEP 55: .ebuild-$eapi extension.
  Conclusion: This bug has been RESO LATER'ed pending concrete need and consensus (GLEP 54 being the main one).
• Code of Conduct Update: Proctors no longer exist.
  Conclusion: Jorge (jmbsvicetto) will talk to other members of devrel about this bug.
• Extent of Code of Conduct enforcement: Banning people entirely from Gentoo.
  Conclusion: Userrel is responsible for establishing these policies. Since each developer is also a user at some point, these policies will apply to developers as well as users.
• GLEP 54: -scm package suffix.
  Conclusion: No decision. David Leverton commented that portage's current method for identifying 'live' ebuilds was hackish, as it depends on the list of inherited eclasses, which could change. Also, it was pointed out that some ebuilds use scm eclasses to check out specific revisions (mythtv). PROPERTIES=live was considered as another option.

Note: the original announcement was made on February 13 by Donnie Berkholz.

I'm updating our collection of presentations that have been given about Gentoo. If you've ever created and given one, please send a copy to pr@gentoo.org with a license on the final slide (preferably CC BY-SA) and when you gave it (date and event). We don't have anything since FOSDEM 2005, which is really pathetic.

It will show up in all its glory in our list.

Over the next few months, I intend to create a decent-looking set of slides with pretty graphs that we can keep up to date automatically somehow. Then anyone can base a talk off of those.

Editor's note: this tip was contributed by Jochen Heuer.

lsof is a powerful tool that lists open files running processes. We've featured lsof in the Gentoo Monthly Newsletter before, and an astute reader has written in with yet another way to use lsof.

This command finds open but deleted (unlinked) files:

# lsof +aL1 /filesystem

Let's see it in action!

First, we create a sample file to view:

# sleep 300 > /foo &
[1] 2972

Next, delete the file:

# rm foo

Finally, look for the problem files:

# lsof +aL1 /
COMMAND PID  USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NLINK NODE  NAME
sleep   2972 root 1w REG  9,0    0    0     25931 /foo (deleted)

Note: the original announcement was made on January 31 by Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto.

We've come again to that time of the year when we need to cast our votes for the Foundation.

The nomination period started today and lasts until Saturday, February 28th. The election polls will be open from Monday March 2nd to Sunday March 29th. The elected trustees start their term on April 1st.

Details about nominations and election officials follow the President's note.

Here are some words from the Foundation President, Roy Bamford, about this election:

Team,

At the forthcoming trustee election, two of the five seats will be contested. The other three trustees (neddyseagoon, fmccor and tsunam) will remain in office until 2010.

As we had two resignations in the first year it was relatively easy to determine which two of us would stand down for this election. One of the vacancies was never filled and dmwaters was appointed to the other.

This is the first election for staggered two year terms that are planned to help preserve trustee continuity.

The Gentoo Foundation Inc. is first and foremost a legal business entity. The trustees are legally responsible for the way the business is organized and run. If you are a minor under New Mexico law, that could make things difficult, were you to be elected.

The election officials for now are Łukasz Damentko and Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto. Anyone wishing to become the 3rd election official should contact us directly. The infrastructure team contact for the election is Shyam Mani. All officials will keep a daily presence in #gentoo-trustees and #gentoo-elections for the duration of the election. You can reach all the officials for this election at the elections alias.
The election officials have published a page with all the information on the election.

To nominate a candidate, join the gentoo-nfp mailing list. Trustee nominations are open to the public; voting is limited to eligible voters. Send all your nominations, acceptances and feedback to the gentoo-nfp list. Expect a mail from the Foundation Officers about member details and with more info about this election.

If you have any doubts about the election or any corrections to the page and lists, contact the election officials.

The Gentoo Trustees held meetings on December 14, 2008 and January 11, 2009. The items put up for discussion were:

• Foundation banking and treasury report
• Finding a CPA
• Stopping copyright infringement on Cafepress stores
• Foundation membership applications
• Foundation Knowledge Management Needs
• Logo usage
• Trustee elections 2009

Open bugs

• The Gentoo Store is Out of Date
• Request for reimbursement for legal fees to lawyer
• Document of being an active developer
• budget limit for infra repairs
• Gentoo Store - Add case stickers, badges

The meeting minutes and complete IRC logs are also available.

The next meeting is scheduled for February 15.

Gentoo Forums moderator Sylvain Alain was interviewed twice by LinuxCrazy.

In the first interview, he introduces himself and discusses his work inside and outside Gentoo.

In the second interview, he discusses wireless networking and Gentoo. He explains how to setup wireless networking from start to finish using the Intel iwl3945 and Atheros ath5k drivers.