Gentoo Monthly Newsletter: December 2013

Gentoo News

Interview with Sergey Popov

(by David Abbott)

Sergey Popov  is a Gentoo developer and the team leader of Qt, proxy-maintainers and desktop-effects teams.

Who is Sergey Popov?

In short: system administrator, Linux fan.
System administration is my job. I work in geographically distributed company, a technical university, with departments all over the region. Also, I am open source contributor and Gentoo Developer, (surprise! :-)) and I really enjoy that role.

How did you get involved with Linux and Open Source, and what was the path that lead to you to Gentoo?

Well, first of all, I first interacted with Linux when I began to work in my alma mater as junior system administrator, when I was a 2nd year student. Senior admins were mostly undergraduates and thus they were busy with diplomas. So, me and my colleague began to study *NIX systems, cause we have 3 servers, running Fedora Core 5, if i remember correctly.
I was aware of Linux, but only had a little expirience with Debian on VPS in high school.
Some of my colleague’s had been charmed by the power of FreeBSD, but I decided to stay with Linux.
After some experiments I came to Gentoo. God, how awesome it was, and still is, compared to other binary distro’s. Soon, we got rid of Fedora entirely, as it was replaced on our servers by Gentoo 🙂

What aspects of Gentoo do you feel the developers and maintainers have got right?

First of all, Gentoo is about choice. When somebody tells me that it’s not about choice, rather that it’s about flexibility, I think it does not matter how it sounds, only what it means. For me it means near unlimited possibilities of customization.
So, me and our fellow developers provide choice for users. And this is main thing that we are doing right, I think.

What is it about Gentoo you would like to see improved?

Portage, while it is one of the best package managers I have ever seen, sometimes can be really slow :-(.
Also, I think we should focus on tightening user-developer interaction, because it is our source for new developers, which in turn bring new software to the tree and improves the support for existing software.

What are some of the projects within Gentoo that you enjoy contributing to?

Well, arch teams and security is my primary focus lately, so thats what I am spending most of my time on. But I have changeable personality, so it usually shifts after some time.

How can users get involved with proxy maintaining?

Well, we are always looking for enthusiastic users that have, or want to learn, skills in ebuild maintained and who wants a package to be integrated within the Gentoo ecosystem. It’s quite simple to pick a package and become a proxy maintainer, the process is described on our project page.

Describe some of the challenges being a team lead?

Well, first of all, team lead is organizational duty. So, you do not need to be the the most skilled in your team, but as team lead you should know about direction of development and define it. So, the main challenge for me was to see the whole project from the position of leader, to understand this position properly. And I hope that I am doing this right 🙂

What arch teams are you involved with, and describe the process and any special problems in keeping packages stabilized?

I am member of amd64, arm and mips arch teams. Working with amd64 is simplest one – easy access to hardware, a major arch, so compatibility problems – near zero, but some old software from 200x or even 19xx, that still exists in portage tree, can have problems. arm – harder one, because of the slower  hardware(Raspberry Pi) for testing packages(but qemu-user chroot saves me from endless waiting for compilations ;-)), compatibility problems – presents, but rarely. mips is the hardest from one side(different ABIs, endianness, etc) and specific problems(e.g. aligning), but from the other side – it is unstable-only arch – so, it ease things.

MIPS is testing only, why is that?

Well, let me give you some technical background. Let’s took amd64 as example. It’s major arch(according to last GMN we have more keyword coverage for it then even for x86, nice!). It has 3 supported ABIs in Gentoo – 32,64 and x32(which is less supported due to many breakages in vast amount of software, but that’s not our topic). We can have multilib or use only natively compiled binaries, it does not matter.
Now, let’s talk about mips. What do we have here? 3 supported ABIs – n32, o32 and n64. Same as for x86, so what differs? And here goes Endianness. We can have those ABIs either Big Endian(BE) or Little Endian(LE). So, we have much more combinations that can break software. And, as our resources(both manpower and hardware) are limited, we just can not afford maintaining two branches(stable/unstable) for that arch.

What was the process you went through to become involved with the security team?

Well, to be honest, security is not my strong side(I for example, have very limited installations of Hardened Gentoo, but I am sure – it will grow), but I always cared about it. That was mixed feelings – I imagined that all security team members are gurus in exploits, shell code stuff and such, while I am not. But, no matter, I decided to try to become at least GLSA coordinator, cause I thought that I can help with GLSA release process and, well, if I will stuck somewhere – ask for help from senior members. At that moment I was aware that recruitment process differs and now, from the inside, I understand why. Security is one of the key points, cause we, as developers should provide programs and different solutions for our users, but they should be, well, ‘secure’. And this can be very time-consuming activity – to get information from security mail lists, handle it properly(either in a form of simple bug report, upstream interaction or patch) and bring fixes to tree. And again, and again – never ending fun :-). That’s why, for proper training, we have opportunities for ordinary users to become security scouts and padawans(more details – on our project page). As I was already Gentoo developer I passed through this training right to full team membership in two months.

What is your programming background? 

I began with Pascal in high school, then I was charmed by Assembler. After that was C/C++ and PHP. Have some basic reading skills in Perl and Python.

Which open source programs would you like to see developed?

First of all, Linux kernel, primarily in networking and visualization. Network and socket tools(I am system administrator, first of all): nmap, netcat, tcpdump, wireshark, socat. Portage becomes nicer and nicer with each release.

What resources have you found most helpful when troubleshooting within Gentoo and Linux in general?

Well, if sort them in order of absolute amount of knowledge acquired, that would be:

  1. gentoo-wiki.info(ex gentoo-wiki.com)
  2. gentoo.org (handbook, project docs, forums, wiki, etc.)
  3. gentoo.ru
  4. other resources, mostly found via Google 🙂

What can users do to improve Gentoo and how can we get users and developers working more closely?

Well, first and the most valuable aspect is closer interaction between users and developers. Filing bugs to bugzilla, talking in IRC, etc. If a user wants to participate in improving Gentoo there are many opportunities for them. Making a personal overlay public and register it in layman maybe one way. Another opportunity – contributing to sunrise overlay or directly to main tree through Proxy maintainers. Last two requires not only basics of ebuild writing but some knowledge of QA standards and guidelines.

What advice do you have for people wanting to become Gentoo Developers?

Learn the developer documentation. Do not be scared of the quizzes. Improve your skills. Last one is a constant process, you can not relax when you become a Gentoo developer – it’s just the beginning for your future progress.

Tell us your mentoring experiences, what do you get out of it?
Well, I could not say that I am person who can teach others, but my mentee was really persistent, so I decided to try. And it was successful after all, my mentee beat the quizzes and passed review sessions. And I… well… I revised my position about teaching others – when they are really motivated it is not hard to help them, it is a pleasure.

What needs to be improved, changed, fixed in the recruitment process?
Quizzes should be updated(some updates happened already and it’s good) to include some questions about subslots, for example. Situation with recruiters and mentors seems fine now, so we just should keep things as they are.

You are currently the Gentoo Qt lead, tell us about that
Well, it was my first experience as team lead. Our team keeps regular meetings to discuss some major problems(bugs, integration questions, etc.), so I need to learn how to hold a meeting. And, thanks to yngwin(previous lead), I have learned it quickly. The main topic now is inclusion of Qt5 in main tree. There is some work that has already been done, but there is more work ahead.

Where do you see Gentoo 5 years from now?
Well, that’s hard to predict, honestly. I hope that we continue to move on to our goals and develop our tools for easing users’ life.

Can you describe your personal desktop setup (WM/DE)?
Currently I have 2 desktops – one at home, one at work. Both running Gentoo Linux(mostly stable, with few things in package.accept_keywords). I use KDE 4 as DE on them. Home desktop has Compiz as WM replacement for default kwin.

What are the specs of your current boxes and describe your home network?
My home LAN is divided into some segments. First of all – main segment, where all wired devices are connected. Here are my PC router(Pentium IV, 2.8Ghz, 1 core with HyperThreading, uClibc as C library), desktop(Intel Core i7, 3Ghz, 4 cores with HyperThreading, multi-seat setup with 2 complements of VGA/Keyboard/Mouse/Monitor, both VGAs are NVIDIA) and recently bought MIPS router(Cavium Octeon, 500Mhz, 2 cores). Then – Wi-Fi segment, shared through PC router and PCI Wi-Fi card(Atheros chipset, very easy setup). Persistent client on this network is my Raspberry Pi model B with USB Wi-Fi adapter. All of listed devices are running, of course, Gentoo Linux :-). There are also three virtual segments in my desktop for virtualization purposes(KVM/Libvirt). PC router are linked with work desktop through OpenVPN and I utilize Quagga to redistribute routes to/from it.

What gives you the most enjoyment within the Open Source community?
Contribution to such project as Gentoo, first of all: knowledge that you fixes will ease life of users is really encouraging. Chatting with interesting people in IRC with different areas of interests and skills is a fun too.

How did you get the nick “pinkbyte”?
Origins come from the “Tron” movie and character “Bit” that can transform yourself into red figure when answering ‘No’.

Gentoo Council News

One thing on the agenda of this month’s council meeting was once more the modernization of the Gentoo Code of Conduct. Our decision was to make some minimal changes that basically adapt the wording to the status quo and remove mention of long gone projects such as the proctors. The second agenda topic was improvement of GLEP 48, which defines the role of the QA team. The GLEP was amended such that the QA lead is elected by the team members but has to be confirmed by the council, with a term of one year. If the QA team lead position remains vacant, the council may appoint an interim lead.

Gentoo Developer Moves

Summary

Gentoo is made up of 250 active developers, of which 42 are currently away.
Gentoo has recruited a total of 791 developers since its inception

Moves

The following developers have recently changed roles

Additions

The following developers have recently joined the project

Nicolas Bock (announcement)

Michael Orlitzky (announcement)

Portage

This section summarizes the current state of the portage tree.

[table th=”0″]
Architectures, 44
Categories, 159
Packages, 17111
Ebuilds, 38053
[/table]

[table]
Architecture, Stable, Testing, Total, % of Packages
alpha, 3576, 540, 4116, 24.05%
amd64, 10607, 5985, 16592, 96.97%
amd64-fbsd, 0, 1572, 1572, 9.19%
arm, 2583, 1596, 4179, 24.42%
hppa, 3022, 456, 3478, 20.33%
ia64, 3117, 595, 3712, 21.69%
m68k, 515, 95, 610, 3.56%
mips, 0, 2266, 2266, 13.24%
ppc, 6859, 2375, 9234, 53.97%
ppc64, 4317, 870, 5187, 30.31%
s390, 1613, 156, 1769, 10.34%
sh, 1834, 210, 2044, 11.95%
sparc, 4094, 909, 5003, 29.24%
sparc-fbsd, 0, 325, 325, 1.90%
x86, 11390, 5032, 16422, 95.97%
x86-fbsd, 0, 3199, 3199, 18.70%
[/table]

gmn-portage-stats-2013-11

Security

The following GLSAs have been released by the Security Team
[table tablesorter=”1″ id=”glsas”]
GLSA, Package, Description, Bug
201312-16, media-gfx/xfig, Xfig: Arbitrary code execution, 348344
201312-15, net-proxy/tinyproxy, Tinyproxy: Denial of Service, 432046
201312-14, media-libs/libsndfile, libsndfile: Arbitrary code execution, 375125
201312-13, net-analyzer/wireshark, Wireshark: Multiple vulnerabilities, 484582
201312-12, app-crypt/mit-krb5, MIT Kerberos 5: Multiple vulnerabilities, 429324
201312-11, media-libs/win32codecs, Win32 Codecs: User-assisted execution of arbitrary code, 232999
201312-10, net-libs/libsmi, libsmi: Arbitrary code execution, 342127
201312-09, app-arch/cabextract, cabextract: Multiple vulnerabilities, 329891
201312-08, media-libs/libwebp, WebP: User-assisted execution of arbitrary code, 442152
201312-07, media-libs/openexr, OpenEXR: Multiple Vulnerabilities, 277202
201312-06, app-accessibility/festival, Festival: Arbitrary code execution, 386319
201312-05, dev-lang/swi-prolog, SWI-Prolog : Multiple vulnerabilities, 450284
201312-04, media-libs/libtheora, libtheora: Arbitrary code execution, 298039
201312-03, dev-libs/openssl, OpenSSL: Multiple Vulnerabilities, 369753
201312-02, sys-apps/busybox, BusyBox: Multiple vulnerabilities, 379857
201312-01, sys-libs/glibc, GNU C Library: Multiple vulnerabilities, 350744
[/table]

Package Removals/Additions

Removals

[table]
Package, Developer, Date
app-arch/xarchiver, hwoarang, 02 Dec 2013
kde-misc/kio-upnp-ms, johu, 04 Dec 2013
kde-misc/qtrans, johu, 04 Dec 2013
sys-apps/pcfclock, pinkbyte, 09 Dec 2013
dev-python/python-subunit, idella4, 12 Dec 2013
app-text/gsview, mr_bones_, 14 Dec 2013
mail-client/gbuffy, mr_bones_, 14 Dec 2013
net-print/pup, mr_bones_, 14 Dec 2013
dev-libs/libsmtp, mr_bones_, 14 Dec 2013
net-analyzer/traffic-vis, mr_bones_, 14 Dec 2013
dev-libs/pwlib, moult, 15 Dec 2013
net-libs/openh323, moult, 15 Dec 2013
app-emulation/qenv, moult, 15 Dec 2013
dev-lang/v8cgi, phajdan.jr, 18 Dec 2013
dev-lang/v8, phajdan.jr, 18 Dec 2013
media-sound/omptagger, graaff, 29 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/id3lib-ruby, graaff, 29 Dec 2013
[/table]

Additions

[table]
Package, Developer, Date
games-misc/sound-of-sorting, blueness, 02 Dec 2013
dev-python/sure, idella4, 02 Dec 2013
dev-python/misaka, idella4, 02 Dec 2013
dev-python/steadymark, idella4, 02 Dec 2013
dev-python/httpretty, idella4, 02 Dec 2013
dev-python/libvirt-python, cardoe, 02 Dec 2013
dev-util/spec-cleaner, scarabeus, 03 Dec 2013
net-mail/postfix-logwatch, mjo, 03 Dec 2013
app-leechcraft/lc-htthare, pinkbyte, 03 Dec 2013
sys-libs/libapparmor, kensington, 03 Dec 2013
sys-apps/apparmor, kensington, 03 Dec 2013
sys-apps/apparmor-utils, kensington, 03 Dec 2013
sec-policy/apparmor-profiles, kensington, 03 Dec 2013
net-misc/vrrpd, robbat2, 03 Dec 2013
dev-python/XenAPI, idella4, 05 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/ruby-clutter-gstreamer, naota, 05 Dec 2013
dev-lang/moarvm, patrick, 06 Dec 2013
dev-python/queuelib, patrick, 06 Dec 2013
dev-libs/boost-numpy, heroxbd, 06 Dec 2013
app-emacs/visual-basic-mode, ulm, 07 Dec 2013
dev-python/pysrt, tomwij, 07 Dec 2013
sys-apps/epoch, tomwij, 07 Dec 2013
dev-python/retry-decorator, vapier, 09 Dec 2013
sys-block/blocks, jlec, 10 Dec 2013
dev-python/python-subunit, idella4, 10 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/connection, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/control-monad-loop, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/free, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/http-client, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/http-client-conduit, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/http-client-multipart, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/http-client-tls, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/keys, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/monad-loops, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/mono-traversable, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/process-conduit, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/stm-chans, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/vector-instances, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/pointed, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/warp-tls, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
xfce-extra/xfce4-windowck-plugin, ssuominen, 11 Dec 2013
games-emulation/pcsxr, mgorny, 11 Dec 2013
dev-haskell/tasty-quickcheck, gienah, 11 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/blankslate, mrueg, 12 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/parslet, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/mercenary, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/slim, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/memoizable, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/toml, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/asciidoctor, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/org-ruby, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/hipchat, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/settingslogic, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/gemoji, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/equalizer, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/buftok, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/adhearsion-loquacious, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/http-cookie, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/turbolinks, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/seed-fu, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/d3_rails, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/modernizr, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/ffaker, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/letter_opener, mrueg, 13 Dec 2013
sci-chemistry/freeon, nicolasbock, 13 Dec 2013
sys-cluster/charmdebug, nicolasbock, 13 Dec 2013
sys-cluster/projections, nicolasbock, 13 Dec 2013
dev-python/babelfish, tomwij, 14 Dec 2013
dev-libs/libmongo-client, vadimk, 14 Dec 2013
dev-python/Yamlog, idella4, 15 Dec 2013
dev-python/Bcryptor, idella4, 15 Dec 2013
games-emulation/mupen64plus-core, mgorny, 15 Dec 2013
games-emulation/mupen64plus-audio-sdl, mgorny, 15 Dec 2013
games-emulation/mupen64plus-input-sdl, mgorny, 15 Dec 2013
games-emulation/mupen64plus-rsp-hle, mgorny, 15 Dec 2013
games-emulation/mupen64plus-video-rice, mgorny, 15 Dec 2013
games-emulation/mupen64plus-video-glide64mk2, mgorny, 15 Dec 2013
games-emulation/mupen64plus-ui-console, mgorny, 15 Dec 2013
games-emulation/m64py, mgorny, 15 Dec 2013
games-arcade/mrrescue, hasufell, 15 Dec 2013
app-admin/eselect-metasploit, zerochaos, 15 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/pcaprub, zerochaos, 15 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/sdoc, zerochaos, 15 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/packetfu, zerochaos, 15 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/rjb, zerochaos, 15 Dec 2013
dev-embedded/cpik, rafaelmartins, 15 Dec 2013
sec-policy/selinux-rngd, swift, 16 Dec 2013
net-misc/ssh-chain, ottxor, 18 Dec 2013
kde-base/libkomparediff2, johu, 18 Dec 2013
x11-apps/radeontop, tomwij, 19 Dec 2013
net-mail/amavis-logwatch, mjo, 20 Dec 2013
perl-core/CPAN, zlogene, 21 Dec 2013
games-util/lutris, hasufell, 22 Dec 2013
dev-java/logback, ercpe, 23 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/rails-observers, graaff, 24 Dec 2013
dev-python/argcomplete, jlec, 24 Dec 2013
net-misc/gnome-online-miners, pacho, 24 Dec 2013
media-sound/gnome-music, pacho, 24 Dec 2013
sci-geosciences/gnome-maps, pacho, 24 Dec 2013
gnome-extra/gnome-boxes, pacho, 24 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/github_api, graaff, 25 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/permutation, naota, 25 Dec 2013
dev-perl/Sys-Mmap, dilfridge, 25 Dec 2013
dev-embedded/pikdev, rafaelmartins, 25 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/watch, naota, 25 Dec 2013
games-sports/dustrac, hasufell, 26 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/redis, mrueg, 26 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/json_pure, naota, 27 Dec 2013
dev-util/freecode-submit, radhermit, 27 Dec 2013
dev-ruby/dbf, graaff, 27 Dec 2013
app-leechcraft/lc-scroblibre, maksbotan, 27 Dec 2013
app-antivirus/clamav-unofficial-sigs, mjo, 27 Dec 2013
net-analyzer/speedtest-cli, zx2c4, 27 Dec 2013
net-p2p/datacoin-hp, blueness, 28 Dec 2013
dev-db/wxsqlite3, jlec, 28 Dec 2013
dev-vcs/cvs-fast-export, slyfox, 28 Dec 2013
sec-policy/selinux-mandb, swift, 29 Dec 2013
dev-util/qbs, pesa, 29 Dec 2013
[/table]

Bugzilla

The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla to record and track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the development team.

Activity

The following tables and charts summarize the activity on Bugzilla between 29 November 2013 and 29 December 2013. Not fixed means bugs that were resolved as NEEDINFO, WONTFIX, CANTFIX, INVALID or UPSTREAM.
gmn-activity-2013-12
[table]
Bug Activity, Number
New, 1810
Closed, 1160
Not fixed, 231
Duplicates, 158
Total, 5291
Blocker, 5
Critical, 16
Major, 68
[/table]

Closed bug ranking

The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period are as follows.

[table]
Rank, Team/Developer, Bug Count
1, Gentoo Security, 84
2, Perl Devs @ Gentoo, 66
3, Gentoo’s Team for Core System packages, 41
4, Gentoo Games, 36
5, Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team, 35
6, Robin Johnson, 29
7, Gentoo KDE team, 27
8, Sven Vermeulen, 25
9, Gentoo Ruby Team, 24
10, Others, 792
[/table]
gmn-closed-2013-12

Assigned bug ranking

The developers and teams who have been assigned the most bugs during this period are as follows.

[table]
Rank, Team/Developer, Bug Count
1, Gentoo Linux bug wranglers, 118
2, Gentoo Security, 91
3, Perl Devs @ Gentoo, 87
4, Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team, 68
5, Python Gentoo Team, 64
6, Gentoo’s Team for Core System packages, 58
7, Gentoo KDE team, 49
8, Default Assignee for Orphaned Packages, 36
9, Gentoo Games, 36
10, Others, 1202
[/table]
gmn-opened-2013-12

Tip of the month

Search packages in Portage by regular expressions:
#emerge -s "%^python$"

Getting Involved?

Interested in helping out? The GMN relies on volunteers and members of the community for content every month. If you are interested in writing for the GMN or thinking of another way to contribute, please send an e-mail to gmn@gentoo.org.

Gentoo Monthly Newsletter: November 2013

Gentoo News

Interview with Richard Freeman, a Gentoo developer, Council and Trustees member

(by David Abbott)

To get us started, can you give us a little background information about yourself?

I guess I’m a bit of an oddball (which might be why I settled on Gentoo). I’ve been programming since elementary school but ended up studying Biochemistry. Then I ended up building a career in the pharmaceutical industry doing a little bit of both. Other interests include aviation, photography, and the cello.

How did you get involved with Linux and Open Source, and what was the path that lead to you to Gentoo?

My first introduction to Linux was a book I picked up in the early 90s that contained a Slackware CD. I remember running it with a UMSDOS root and a /usr symlinked to the CD (ah, those days of yore when systems worked fine without /usr). However, I didn’t really have room for a second OS on my 120MB hard drive so it wasn’t until the late 90s that I started using Linux seriously. I messed around with Mandrake but it was Mandrake’s “single network firewall” appliance that really was my first serious box – it sat on my network and would dial up and share a PPP connection on-demand.

It was probably inevitable that I’d end up running Gentoo, but one of the drivers was the ability to download and apply security patches in revbumps without having to re-download the original source tarball over my 56k modem. I use open source anywhere I can because even if there are more bumps in the road I at least feel like I’m in control and able to do something about it. I’ve had to re-image Tivos when things go wrong, and I’ve debugged numerous MythTV issues, and I’ll take the latter at any time. Gentoo really is just the next logical step, a distro that gives users the highest level of control possible short of rolling your own.

What aspects of Gentoo do you feel the developers and maintainers have got right?

For all the storms on the lists, I think we have a LOT of things right. First, just the quality of our developers is VERY high. Second, we really do foster innovation – I think a lot of really interesting stuff gets done in Gentoo and that is pretty impressive considering just how small we are compared to the commercially-backed distros. I like that developers are free to scratch their own itches, fork projects, compete, etc.

What is it about Gentoo you would like to see improved?

I think our developer quality can actually be a double-edged sword – I think many potential contributors may feel like they’re not up to our standards. I think that any contributor with a good attitude has something to offer the community. What matters most isn’t just technical skill, but the ability to consistently make positive contributions while avoiding negative ones. Even if those contributions are small they add up.

As far as improvements go, one thing I’d really like to see improved is better dependency documentation. I’ve seen this theme come up in a few ways over the last few months. Just recently we’ve had a thread about capturing versions in dependency atoms even when all in-tree versions are adequate, because this improves the upgrade path and makes the experience better for overlay users. Another thread I’ve seen has been about better understanding boot-time requirements under various configurations – that is really a dependency documentation issue of a different nature. I’ve stated in the past that I’d like to see @system dependencies documented explicitly as well. In all of these cases the challenge is the additional workload of capturing all those dependencies, and in some of these cases automation might help us out. The advantage in all cases is that better documentation will allow us to better resolve dependencies, whether that is in correctly updating old systems, updating @system packages in parallel, or correctly building initramfs or populating /usr (as you prefer).

What are some of the projects within Gentoo that you enjoy contributing to?

Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that. Many of the packages I maintain have been scratching an itch. I do contribute to the amd64 arch team, when ago leaves a bug open for longer than 15 minutes. Since that doesn’t happen often I help take care of MythTV and I’ve been trying to help Robin with the git migration here and there.

For people that have never used MythTV please give me an overview.

MythTV is an open source DVR, designed in the era when people still obtained video from broadcast TV or cable. I’m still in that boat myself. It is a very robust client/server system that is VERY scalable (in theory you could probably run a hotel off of it), and clients are available for X11, Windows, Web, and Android (I’m sure there are others as well).

Describe some of the challenges in maintaining MythTV.

For a while I struggled because my diskless front-end was not running Gentoo. MythTV only supports running with all clients and servers running the same build (not every commit breaks this, but in practice you need to be very close), and every distro does releases of the fixes branch on a different schedule. After a hardware upgrade I was able to get my front-end running Gentoo reliably which made it much easier to maintain the package as I could update everything at once (on a side note – one of these days I’ll have to figure out why OpenRC doesn’t shut down correctly on my NFS-root PXE-boot front-end). I’ve been able to release patches to MythTV monthly now, and we’re finally stable on amd64 (if anybody wants to test on x86 just let me know).

What are some of the other packages you are maintaining?

Not all that many, actually. The Android SDK is one of the more popular ones I’m sure.

I understand you did a presentation at you local LUG, what did you do to prepare?

I’ve actually done a few over the years, one of which was an intro to Gentoo. The Ubuntu users there realize I’m a lost cause, though they started taking me more seriously once Unity came along. For those who aren’t aware Gentoo actually has a page full of presentations from various venues – I borrowed a bit of that to start out, and my presentation is listed there and licensed CC.

What were some of the questions you were asked?

ESR (who I’m ashamed I didn’t recognize at the moment) asked me what the point of Gentoo was – why not just run Debian or whatever? My feeling has always been that Gentoo is the best starting point for anybody who wants to do something unusual with Linux, or who wants a lot more control over how their system behaves. Gentoo isn’t one of those “just works” distros – however, when “just works” just doesn’t work the way you need it to, Gentoo is probably the best option out there. If I were building an embedded device (say to measure latency / buffer-bloat using GPS references) I’d probably strongly consider it as well.

What is your programming background?

Very little of my programming education is formal, but I’ve been writing software ever since my father let me play with a Tektronix 4051. I have to admit that I don’t usually have the patience to sit down and build out full-featured applications from scratch. However, I do enjoy problem-solving using software – especially when I can integrate existing software, or build a solution up from modules that can stand on their own. I think it is really the design/algorithms that interest me more than the implementation.

Which open source programs would you like to see developed?

I think that “the cloud” really is the future for software, and this is an area where open source is greatly lacking (on the application front, not the infrastructure front). I can probably find 300 FOSS MUAs if I look hard enough, but if I want to run them from a browser there are only two decent ones I am aware of and neither really is at the level of something like GMail, KMail, or Thunderbird. I’m typing this response in Google docs, and the closest thing to that in the FOSS world is Etherpad – clearly not in the same realm. There is no FOSS alternative to my Google account for me to point my Android phone at. The FOSS world just needs to catch up here, and I think that part of the challenge is that licenses like the Affero GPL are not popular.

What resources have you found most helpful when troubleshooting within Gentoo and Linux in general?

Chroots and VMs are really good tools (if a bit slow) when you’re trying to figure out whether you’ve shot yourself in the foot – just grab a stage3 and emerge your package. I’m running git on /etc which is useful for backtracking, and I’ve recently started running snapper which is great for all kinds of problems (assuming you run btrfs). I have clonezilla and a Gentoo installer ready to serve via PXE which is very convenient. Something I need to get working again is a rescue kernel for when I get the odd panic (though these are less common these days – I suspect this is because I’m no longer using a certain driver or ext4+lvm+mdadm) – it was useful when it was working but for whatever reason my wiki instructions no longer seem to work.

What would be your dream job?

I was once asked this in an interview and I said “a different job every year.” I got the job, and six months later the interviewer moved to a different job. I’m actually fairly conservative personality-wise so the uncertainty of moving around or consulting puts me off, but the reality is that I thrive when confronted with solving problems in completely new domains. I love to learn, so any arrangement where I can learn something new and somebody else can benefit from my outsider’s perspective and skills is a good one. That is a hard sell in today’s culture where we try to hire out-of-the-box employees to deploy out-of-the-box software, but for the most part I find ways to make it work where I’m at.

What can users do to improve Gentoo?

Contribute! If you’re happy with Gentoo and you feel like you know how to make it work for you, chances are you have what it takes to help make it better. You could become a developer, a proxy-maintainer, contribute patches, etc. You can even run an overlay if you’re really turned off by dealing with the rest of us, but there are many of us interested in making it easier to contribute. If you want to contribute, there is certainly a way to make it work out for everybody.

How can we get users and developers working more closely?

I think respect goes a LONG way to making this work. We need to respect every contributor, whether they’re developers or staff or users. People contribute in many ways as well – whether they’re helping out new members of the community on #gentoo or in the forums, or adding features to portage. Sure, making it easier to submit patches, find packages, and test packages would certainly make things better. However, I think what really makes both developers and users want to leave the community is when they aren’t treated with respect.

You are currently helping with the git migration for the portage tree, whats left?

At this point I think the back-end is the biggest area that needs work (accepting pushed commits and getting them into the mirrors and everything that needs to happen in-between). However, before this can really be considered done I think we need to have a better understanding of just how we’re going to use git. There are many ways of using the tool, and I think many of us just assume we know how it will work for Gentoo without us all actually being on the same page. Perhaps we should put together a wiki page listing possible workflows where we can debate their merits.

Tell us about the Gentoo Foundation and your time as a trustee.

The Foundation is really important to Gentoo, even if for the most part it just keeps the lights on. Without it we lose our legal standing to protect our name and work, and operate as a single legal organization for our many sponsors to work with. In my time as a trustee I was privy to all the donations that come in and it really is amazing to see how many people care about Gentoo.

I enjoyed working with my fellow Trustees for my term, and I do plan to continue contributing to the functioning of the Foundation.

What needs to be improved, changed, fixed?

I’d love to see the Foundation have a more active role in improving Gentoo. We actually have a fair amount of money in our rainy day fund, though pressures with some of our sponsors are forcing us to dip into that a bit more heavily than we’ve had to in the past. I think a challenge here is how to do this while preserving the community that we have. Many FOSS communities have suffered when previously volunteer work became compensated.

You’re currently a member of the Gentoo council, tell us about that.

Well, it is probably worth mentioning that Gentoo is a small community – anybody who wants to speak up can actually have a pretty strong influence on our direction without needing any kind of formal title. I think for the most part the Council works best when it takes the role of moving the debate forward – recognizing the direction the community wants to move in and nudging the distro along. I really wanted to see more movement in the Council this year and I think we’re already well on our way. However, I fully recognize that the Linux world is facing a number of controversies so we need to still be careful. If half the distro thinks we’re too slow and the other half thinks we’re crazy radicals then perhaps we’re doing our job correctly.

Looks like the council finally got the shed painted. What are some of the decisions recently made and what still needs to be worked out?

Well, we basically spent the better part of a month getting through a single agenda, so we’ve been fairly busy. Probably the thing most on everybody’s minds is /usr, systemd, and all the other stuff that has generally been causing an uproar in the Linux community. Quite a bit there still needs to be worked out, but I think that really the direction the Council is trying to set is that we can’t just pretend that all this stuff isn’t happening.

Sometimes no action is better than too much, how can that be council keep it balanced?

Well, there’s the rub. Not many (including myself) are really eager to go making major changes (such as a /usr move, or other wide-reaching changes). I’d like developers to seriously consider that the way Gentoo does things today probably isn’t the best way they can be done. That said, I’d really like to see us move towards something and not simply away from something. I think disruptive change makes the most sense when it is towards an end everybody can at least appreciate (even if they don’t necessarily agree).

Where do you see Gentoo 5 years from now?

I think we’ll be providing better support for an even greater variety of configurations, including full support for both systemd and openrc (or something like it), prefix (and RAP), and hardened.

Can you describe your personal desktop setup (WM/DE)?

I run KDE. I’ve always preferred KDE, though in the early days of KDE4 I ended up switching to Xfce. Since then I’ve gotten more RAM and KDE has tended to demand less of it so I’m once again happy with it. That said, I don’t tend to rely on the “DE” aspects of KDE that much, but it is nice to be able to use a “fish://” URI when the need arises.

What are the specs of your current boxes?

I don’t tend to spend a lot on hardware, and I haven’t bought a vendor-built PC since Y2K (though I’m happily typing this on a Cr-48 that Google graciously sent to me after only light begging – that is based on Gentoo at least). My main box is a Phenom II X4 965 with 8GB RAM (I’m sometimes tempted to bump that up a bit). I also run Gentoo on my mythtv front-end, and that an Atom-330 based diskless system with 2GB of RAM and an NVidia ION.

Describe your home network

Nothing too exciting here. I actually am using my FIOS router as a router because I’m too lazy to bug them to enable the ethernet port on my ONT or bridge it. I run DNS/DHCP off of my Gentoo box, and have a DD-WRT-based router running WiFi. Most of the network is Gigabit and wired (one of these days I’ll run raceway to make it look nice, though little of it is in places you’d notice it).

What gives you the most enjoyment within the Open Source community?

I’ll refer back to the “ideal job” question. I really enjoy a little bit of everything – I enjoy being able to scratch my itches and contribute back a little here and there when I’m able to. I enjoy working with others who are of a like mind (if only we could all get together once in a while!). I like knowing that I’ve contributed things that have made the lives of others better while enjoying the fruits of their labor as well.

Open Floor

Uh, you’re not tired of listening to me already? Trust me – if there is something I think needs saying, it will make its way onto the lists. I think I spent too many days as a kid admiring how quickly my father could type on those 4051s…

Gentoo as a development environment for newcomers

(by Rohit Mukherjee)
Gentoo Linux is rumoured to be a difficult beast when it comes to initial installation. However,
after you have Gentoo installed, here is why you can never switch to any other Linux distribution:

Flexibility ­

Although the Gentoo installation takes much longer than other distros, the entire process teaches you an incredible amount of how linux operating systems are structured right down to the kernel. Other distributions cannot provide the amount of flexibility Gentoo does in terms of picking exactly which elements you want inside your system (daemons, services, loggers).
While installing Gentoo you pick the version that is suited to your microprocessor architecture whether x86, PowerPC, Sparc 64­Bit or even ARM. This provides the basis for a system optimized for your hardware. Since you compile the Gentoo kernel, you get the freedom to pick what you want such as which filesystem types/drivers to include and this results in a much leaner kernel, customized to your needs!

Superior Package Management

Gentoo’s package manager, Portage is considered to be one of Gentoo’s biggest strengths. It was inspired by FreeBSD’s ports and deals with source directly. Although it is fairly complicated to get started with, it speeds up the process of package management considerably after users get familiar with it. According to the Gentoo Linux documentation, “Portage is completely written in Python and Bash and therefore fully visible to the users as both are scripting languages.” This makes the source package management extremely transparent to the user. Portage allows users to conveniently install packages in a manner that is system specific. For example, a binary package manager will install a package with support for different GNOME versions and KDE. Portage allows users to install in a much leaner, faster manner with only support for the desktop they are using. Installing packages is a dream with the emerge script. Slotting is another killer package management feature on Gentoo. Users can install multiple versions of the same package simultaneously. The portage tree is a collection of ebuilds, which essentially contain all information required for management of software packages. Ebuilds declare a particular SLOT for their version and Ebuilds with different slots can co­exist on a system. This allows users to have multiple versions installed simultaneously in different SLOTS.

Excellent Documentation ­

Gentoo is extremely well documented and has a very active user community. Reading the Gentoo Linux Handbook is a must for any user who wants to get started with the distribution.

Speed­

Having used Ubuntu and Red Hat, Gentoo feels a lot faster on the my PC. Running my developer tools such as Eclipse, Maven and a Tomcat server is extremely smooth and hiccupfree. A benchmarking exercise conducted by Linux­Mag for Gentoo and Ubuntu showed that Gentoo was a lot lighter on system resources than Ubuntu and faster as well in operations such as video encoding.

Being new to Gentoo, these are just some of the reasons I have started loving Gentoo, only with greater mastery can one understand some of the more subtle features and functionality Gentoo provides.

Gentoo Council News

In its 12/Nov meeting, the council decided to disband the current QA team due to inactivity (but not its subprojects such as e.g. treecleaners or PMS). This was a consequence of several failed attempts behind the scenes to revive QA activity. For a transition period, until a new team is formed and elects its lead, the council formally takes over the position of QA team lead. A call for new QA team members was made and several developers responded. What remains is to decide if and how GLEP48, which defines the procedures around QA, should be improved. In particular one question is whether the QA lead should be elected by the QA team members but require confirmation by the council. Right now no staffing decisions have been made yet; this will be done at latest after the next regular council meeting and the decision on GLEP48. A week later, 19/Nov, several detail agenda topics were handled. This includes the removal of several old and abandoned projects from our webpages, and a preliminary approval of robbat2’s gnupg key policies for commit signing.Finally the rules concerning long-pending stabilization requests were further modified. Summarizing, if an arch does not respond and there is no obvious reason for not stabilizing, the package maintainer may now also remove the last keyworded version of a package for that arch after a waiting time.

Gentoo Developer Moves

Summary

Gentoo is made up of 248 active developers, of which 36 are currently away.
Gentoo has recruited a total of 789 developers since its inception.

Moves

The following developers have recently changed roles

Additions

The following developers have recently joined the project:

Portage

This section summarizes the current state of the portage tree.

[table th=”0″]
Architectures, 44
Categories, 159
Packages, 16992
Ebuilds, 37456
[/table]

[table]
Architecture, Stable, Testing, Total, % of Packages
alpha, 3576, 541, 4117, 24.23%
amd64, 10487, 5984, 16471, 96.93%
amd64-fbsd, 0, 1572, 1572, 9.25%
arm, 2529, 1619, 4148, 24.41%
hppa, 3000, 475, 3475, 20.45%
ia64, 3109, 596, 3705, 21.80%
m68k, 521, 90, 611, 3.60%
mips, 0, 2262, 2262, 13.31%
ppc, 6836, 2397, 9233, 54.34%
ppc64, 4290, 898, 5188, 30.53%
s390, 1631, 136, 1767, 10.40%
sh, 1850, 193, 2043, 12.02%
sparc, 4079, 917, 4996, 29.40%
sparc-fbsd, 0, 326, 326, 1.92%
x86, 11222, 5123, 16345, 96.19%
x86-fbsd, 0, 3198, 3198, 18.82%
[/table]

gmn-portage-stats-2013-11

Security

The following GLSAs have been released by the Security Team
[table tablesorter=”1″ id=”glsas”]
GLSA, Package, Description, Bug
201311-22, app-text/namazu, Namazu: Multiple vulnerabilities, 391259
201311-21, app-arch/cpio, cpio: Arbitrary code execution, 314663
201311-20, kde-base/okular, Okular: Arbitrary code execution, 334469
201311-19, app-shells/rssh, rssh: Access restriction bypass, 415255
201311-18, net-dns/unbound, Unbound: Denial of Service, 395287
201311-17, dev-lang/perl, Perl: Multiple vulnerabilities, 249629
201311-16, sys-process/fcron, fcron: Information disclosure, 308075
201311-15, net-analyzer/zabbix, Zabbix: Multiple vulnerabilities, 312875
201311-14, dev-qt/qtcore, QtCore: Multiple vulnerabilities, 361401
201311-14, dev-qt/qtgui, QtGui: Multiple vulnerabilities, 361401
201311-13, net-misc/openvpn, OpenVPN: Multiple vulnerabilities, 293894
201311-12, net-p2p/opendchub, Open DC Hub: Arbitrary code execution, 314551
201311-11, net-p2p/ctorrent, CTorrent: User-assisted arbitrary code execution, 266953
201311-10, media-gfx/graphicsmagick, GraphicsMagick: Multiple vulnerabilities, 365769
201311-09, net-dialup/freeradius, FreeRADIUS: Multiple vulnerabilities, 339389
201311-08, media-libs/netpbm, Netpbm: User-assisted arbitrary code execution, 308025
201311-07, media-gfx/blender, Blender: Multiple vulnerabilities, 219008
201311-06, dev-libs/libxml2, libxml2: Multiple vulnerabilities, 434344
201311-05, media-gfx/gimp, GIMP: Multiple vulnerabilities, 434580
201311-04, sys-process/vixie-cron, Vixie cron: Denial of Service, 308055
201311-03, net-irc/quassel, Quassel: Multiple Vulnerabilities, 338879
201311-02, dev-db/phpmyadmin, phpMyAdmin: Multiple vulnerabilities, 465420
201311-01, games-emulation/mednafen, Mednafen: Arbitrary code execution, 326141
[/table]

Infrastructure

New websites

infra-status.gentoo.org

infra-status.gentoo.org went under total rewrite, with a new sexy look! Read more on Alex’s blog post.

recruiting.gentoo.org

recruiting.gentoo.org went also under total rewrite. The website has been developed mainly by Isaiah Peng, with the help of Joachim Bartosik who is the author of the previous version. It’s still under testing, the Recruiters Team will let us know when it will be official with a new announcement.

Puppet

Portage module v2.1.0 has been released! It has been a while since the previous version was released, thus it provides many new bugfixes and features. It also includes all the GSoC code. For detailed information see the Changelog.

Package Removals/Additions

Removals

[table]
Package, Developer, Date
x11-themes/qtcurve-qt4, yngwin, 04 Nov 2013
net-im/python-otr, hanno, 09 Nov 2013
dev-games/gigi, tomka, 10 Nov 2013
games-strategy/seven-kingdoms-data, pinkbyte, 10 Nov 2013
www-plugins/mozplugger, axs, 11 Nov 2013
dev-python/pytrailer, sochotnicky, 19 Nov 2013
media-video/pyqtrailer, sochotnicky, 19 Nov 2013
sci-libs/mccp4, jlec, 20 Nov 2013
sci-biology/allpaths, jlec, 20 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/amstd, graaff, 24 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/markaby, graaff, 24 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/pdf-writer, graaff, 24 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/semacode, graaff, 24 Nov 2013
dev-tcltk/tcl-debug, jlec, 24 Nov 2013
[/table]

Additions

[table]
Package, Developer, Date
x11-libs/libxshmfence, mattst88, 01 Nov 2013
x11-proto/dri3proto, mattst88, 01 Nov 2013
x11-proto/presentproto, mattst88, 01 Nov 2013
media-libs/libfreehand, scarabeus, 01 Nov 2013
app-text/libetonyek, scarabeus, 01 Nov 2013
net-misc/geoipupdate, jer, 01 Nov 2013
dev-util/obs-service-git_tarballs, scarabeus, 02 Nov 2013
dev-util/obs-service-github_tarballs, scarabeus, 02 Nov 2013
dev-util/obs-service-update_source, scarabeus, 02 Nov 2013
dev-util/obs-service-rearchive, scarabeus, 02 Nov 2013
x11-themes/qtcurve, yngwin, 03 Nov 2013
dev-python/objgraph, heroxbd, 03 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/debugger-linecache, mrueg, 05 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/lumberjack, mrueg, 05 Nov 2013
dev-perl/autovivification, mrueg, 05 Nov 2013
net-analyzer/gr-fosphor, chithanh, 05 Nov 2013
games-misc/doge, vikraman, 05 Nov 2013
sys-devel/byfl, ottxor, 05 Nov 2013
dev-vcs/bfg, radhermit, 06 Nov 2013
dev-perl/Term-ReadLine-TTYtter, hwoarang, 06 Nov 2013
app-misc/elasticsearch, chainsaw, 07 Nov 2013
media-gfx/aaphoto, pinkbyte, 07 Nov 2013
games-action/armagetronad, hasufell, 07 Nov 2013
dev-python/turbolift, prometheanfire, 08 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/tdiff, graaff, 09 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/nokogiri-diff, graaff, 09 Nov 2013
net-misc/bgpq3, pinkbyte, 10 Nov 2013
media-video/openshot, tomwij, 11 Nov 2013
app-crypt/monkeysphere, patrick, 12 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/lockfile, graaff, 12 Nov 2013
sys-fs/archivemount, radhermit, 12 Nov 2013
net-misc/openvpn-auth-ldap, ercpe, 12 Nov 2013
dev-python/SaltTesting, chutzpah, 12 Nov 2013
dev-python/qpid-python, idella4, 14 Nov 2013
sys-apps/rkflashtool, mrueg, 14 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/afm, mrueg, 14 Nov 2013
dev-python/pysendfile, idella4, 14 Nov 2013
dev-haskell/bytestring-mmap, slyfox, 14 Nov 2013
dev-haskell/enumerator, slyfox, 14 Nov 2013
dev-haskell/zlib-enum, slyfox, 14 Nov 2013
dev-haskell/hsopenssl, slyfox, 14 Nov 2013
dev-haskell/attoparsec-enumerator, slyfox, 14 Nov 2013
dev-haskell/blaze-builder-enumerator, slyfox, 14 Nov 2013
dev-haskell/snap-core, slyfox, 14 Nov 2013
dev-haskell/snap-server, slyfox, 14 Nov 2013
net-analyzer/wapiti, voyageur, 14 Nov 2013
dev-python/nose-testconfig, idella4, 14 Nov 2013
dev-python/python-iptables, chutzpah, 14 Nov 2013
dev-python/hp3parclient, idella4, 15 Nov 2013
app-text/libebook, scarabeus, 15 Nov 2013
x11-drivers/xf86-video-freedreno, chithanh, 17 Nov 2013
net-misc/exabgp, chainsaw, 18 Nov 2013
dev-python/elib-intl, nixphoeni, 19 Nov 2013
net-dns/dnsimple-dyndns, rafaelmartins, 19 Nov 2013
dev-libs/hyperleveldb, patrick, 20 Nov 2013
dev-haskell/aeson-pretty, slyfox, 20 Nov 2013
dev-haskell/rfc5051, slyfox, 20 Nov 2013
dev-haskell/pandoc-citeproc, slyfox, 20 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/niceogiri, mrueg, 20 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/warden, mrueg, 20 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/stamp, mrueg, 20 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/dotenv, mrueg, 20 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/omniauth, mrueg, 20 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/six, mrueg, 22 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/sanitize, mrueg, 22 Nov 2013
dev-ruby/rack-attack, mrueg, 22 Nov 2013
media-libs/sdl2-gfx, hasufell, 22 Nov 2013
dev-python/tablib, idella4, 23 Nov 2013
dev-python/cliff-tablib, idella4, 23 Nov 2013
app-misc/crunch, pinkbyte, 24 Nov 2013
dev-java/xerial-core, ercpe, 24 Nov 2013
dev-java/cofoja, ercpe, 24 Nov 2013
dev-java/plexus-classworlds, ercpe, 24 Nov 2013
dev-java/snappy, ercpe, 24 Nov 2013
games-action/hotline-miami, hasufell, 24 Nov 2013
dev-java/jackson-mapper, ercpe, 24 Nov 2013
games-action/brutal-legend, hasufell, 24 Nov 2013
[/table]

Bugzilla

The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla to record and track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the development team.

Activity

The following tables and charts summarize the activity on Bugzilla between 29 October 2013 and 28 November 2013. Not fixed means bugs that were resolved as NEEDINFO, WONTFIX, CANTFIX, INVALID or UPSTREAM.
gmn-activity-2013-11

[table]
Bug Activity, Number
New, 1561
Closed, 724
Not fixed, 134
Duplicates, 143
Total, 5238
Blocker, 4
Critical, 17
Major, 64
[/table]

Closed bug ranking

The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period are as follows.

gmn-closed-2013-11

[table]
Rank, Team/Developer, Bug Count
1, Gentoo Security, 60
2, Gentoo KDE team, 31
3, Gentoo’s Team for Core System packages, 24
4, Gentoo Science Related Packages, 19
5, Justin Lecher, 19
6, Gentoo Games, 17
7, Julian Ospald (hasufell), 16
8, Python Gentoo Team, 15
9, Gentoo Toolchain Maintainers, 14
10, Others, 508
[/table]

Assigned bug ranking

The developers and teams who have been assigned the most bugs during this period are as follows.

gmn-opened-2013-11

[table]
Rank, Team/Developer, Bug Count
1, Gentoo Linux bug wranglers, 92
2, Perl Devs @ Gentoo, 81
3, Gentoo Security, 75
4, Gentoo’s Team for Core System packages, 44
5, Gentoo KDE team, 43
6, Gentoo Games, 37
7, Portage team, 35
8, Gentoo X packagers, 34
9, Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team, 34
10, Others, 1085
[/table]

Tips of the Month

Did you know emerge accepts filenames as arguments? 😉

emerge -1av /usr/bin/vim

will rebuild the app-editors/vim package.
Send us your favorite Gentoo script or tip at gmn@gentoo.org

Getting Involved?

Interested in helping out? The GMN relies on volunteers and members of the community for content every month. If you are interested in writing for the GMN or thinking of another way to contribute, please send an e-mail to gmn@gentoo.org.