Mandriva Linux 2008 Technical Specifications
From Mandriva Community Wiki
This page contains the technical specifications for Mandriva Linux 2008: the changes, additions and updates we plan to make, beyond the usual maintenance of packages. These specifications are based on proposals made both internally and externally (by our development community): the initial page of ideas contributed by users and developers that was used to draw up these specifications is available here.
The original PDF format document on which this page is based is available here.
This page is split into several sections reflecting different areas of the distribution. Each section is subdivided into accepted proposals and proposals pending a decision. Rejected proposals are not listed here but are available for reference in the original document.
Items under accepted proposals are expected to go into the release, barring unforeseen contingencies or them turning out to be more work than was expected.
Pending proposals may be accepted or not.
This page will be updated as proposals are accepted, rejected and completed.
This page is not intended to be a working document: do not add ideas here. Add them to this page.
[edit] Call for participation
The help of the development community is always welcomed in achieving these targets. If you wish to help ensure that a feature in which you are particularly interested is included, please contact the developer to whom the proposal is assigned for advice on how you can help.
[edit] System
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Detect and preserve other distributions in bootloader configuration
Currently, the Mandriva installers will detect when Windows is installed on a system and include an option to boot the Windows installation in the bootloader after installation. This is not currently done for other Linux distributions. Under this proposal, the installers will detect at least the other major Linux distributions and ensure they can still be booted from the bootloader installed by Mandriva.
Proposed by: Frank Koester.
Assigned to: Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Reference: 
Bug #16604.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Clean shorewall messages when a service is started
Assigned to: Olivier Blin (blino).
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Rights delegation: modify date and time without root password
Privileged users should be allowed to modify the system date and time without needing to enter the root password (at lower security levels). This is already implemented for wireless networking configuration in Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Requires information about the KDE date / time modification tools.
Proposed by: Nicolas Chipaux.
Assigned to: Frederic Crozat and Helio Castro.
Status: 100% - completed. Some other operations are now also possible without the root password.
[edit] Switch to lzma or gzip for man page compression
Man pages are currently compressed with bzip2. A proposal was raised to convert to compressing with lzma instead, in order to improve compression (save space) and reduce decompression time. Subsequent tests indicated that gzip would provide almost equal compression and slightly faster decompression time compared to lzma. Both are materially superior to bzip2 for this purpose.
Proposed by: Per Øyvind Karlsen.
Assigned to: Per Øyvind Karlsen (pending reassignment).
Reference: discussion on maintainers mailing list.
Status: 50% - buildsystem has been migrated, all packages are now built with lzma man pages. Not all packages have been rebuilt since the change, and those that have not will retain bz2 man pages until they are rebuilt.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Separate Shorewall logs from /var/log/syslog
This would benefit users by creating a single convenient reference point for all firewall logs, and reducing firewall-related clutter in the syslog file. However, it requires migration to syslog-ng and consequently modification of all packages that log to syslog.
Proposed by: Matthieu Duchemin.
Reference: Bug #20409.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Pre-load for commonly used applications
This would improve apparent startup time of commonly used desktop applications by pre-loading them into memory during startup. The drawback is increased RAM usage.
Proposed by: xavy94.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Mount all hard disks and partitions automatically
The One live CD does not currently automatically mount hard disks and partitions.
Proposed by: xavy94 and Frederik Himpe.
Assigned to: Helio Castro and Olivier Blin.
Status: 100% - should be complete for the first One release (RC1).
[edit] Mount NTFS partitions read / write using ntfs-3g
Currently, NTFS partitions are mounted read-only using the kernel driver. Under this proposal, they would be mounted read / write using the ntfs-3g driver.
Proposed by: xavy94 and Frederik Himpe.
Assigned to: Helio Castro and Olivier Blin.
Status: 70% - in progress. A solution taken from Arch Linux has been added to the ntfs-3g package which asks HAL to use ntfs-3g to mount NTFS partitions, which results in KDE using ntfs-3g. GNOME support uses a different strategy and is present but not yet default (must be enabled in gconf).
[edit] Support for fingerprint authentication
Proposed by: yoho.
Reference: Bug #30791.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Hardware support
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Automation of input into Hardware Compatibility List (HCL)
Currently users must manually trigger the entering of their hardware information into the Hardware Compatibility List system. Under this proposal, they would be prompted during installation or at first boot whether or not to report their hardware to the system. If they chose to do so, after a certain amount of time (say, a month) they would be presented at boot time with a list of their hardware, allowing them to indicate which items worked without tweaking, which required tweaking, and which they could not get to work at all. This information would then be relayed to the HCL system.
Proposed by: Wim Coulier.
Assigned to: Chandrasegaran Parassouramane.
Reference: Bug #20177.
Status: 0% - Not started.
[edit] Support for Belgian eID card
Mandriva currently has no support for recognizing the Belgian eID card. The appropriate tools are available to support this card, and other distributions do (including OpenSUSE and Debian).
Proposed by: Wim Coulier.
Reference: Bug #16824.
Assigned to: Adam Williamson.
Status: 90% - packages acr38u (driver for the most common card reader) and beid (software tools for using the card) are built and tested to work. Installation of acr38u when the reader is detected has been implemented in the installer.
[edit] Auto-detection of devices supported by external modules
Some kernel modules in Mandriva are packaged as external DKMS packages, rather than within the various kernel packages. Currently there is no mechanism for auto-detection of devices which use these drivers. This is most obvious in the case of USB video cameras using the dkms-gspcav1 driver. Several proposals have been made for clean ways in which to implement support for these devices, including:
- "a meta package (or the kernel itself) with a build req on all dkms packages and extracts the ids from all to provide it for harddrake" -Danny Tholen
- "automatically extract the IDs on dkms binaries upload (as we did for menus/initscripts strings extraction)" -Olivier Blin
- "add modalias provides in the dkms binaries, in a similar way to the kmod(module) provides" -Olivier Blin
Proposed by: Reinout van Schouwen and Pacho Ramos.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin and the kernel team.
Reference: Bug #30652.
Status: 80% - feature implemented in ldetect; needs more tests.
[edit] Kernel
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Main kernel update and merge with kernel-tmb
The official kernel will adopt the kernel-tmb (Thomas Backlund's alternative kernel build) spec file and be updated to 2.6.22. This will also result in the fulfillment of several other proposals:
- Use CFQ I/O scheduler as default (Frederik Himpe)
- Evaluate SD and CFS CPU schedulers, and consider including them in the Mandriva kernel (Frederik Himpe)
- Add swap prefetch to the Mandriva kernel (Frederik Himpe)
- True real-time support for audio (Erwan Jacq)
Proposed by: Luiz Capitulino.
Assigned to: the kernel team and Thomas Backlund.
Status: 100% - completed.
[edit] Drop the use of RSBAC in favour of AppArmor
The RSBAC security mechanism will be dropped in favour of AppArmor.
Proposed by: Luiz Capitulino
Assigned to: the kernel team
Status: 100% - completed.
[edit] Move Xen outside the kernel package
To reduce complexity and ease management, Xen will be maintained as a separate package rather than as part of the main kernel build.
Proposed by: Luiz Capitulino.
Assigned to: the kernel team, Guillaume Rousse and Thomas Backlund.
Status: 90% - Xen is dropped from the kernel package. External packages are updated, pending completion of testing and bug fixes.
[edit] Cancelled Proposals
[edit] Move third party modules to external DKMS packages
To reduce complexity, ease management and allow for more frequent updates, as many third-party modules currently maintained inside the kernel package as possible will be moved to external, DKMS packages.
Proposed by: Luiz Capitulino.
Assigned to: the kernel team.
Status: CANCELLED for 2008 due to lack of time. Will be done for a future release.
[edit] Base system
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Overhaul udev initialization and use
This proposal incorporates several elements designed to improve the use of udev and synchronize it with other distributions, particularly Fedora, with the ultimate goal of improving hardware functionality and reducing the burden of maintenance. These elements are:
- Use udev to do PCI coldplugging
- Drop udevstart and use udevtrigger (and start_udev from Fedora)
- Migrate old hooks from /etc/udev/conf.d to start_udev
- Migrate sound and alsa services into udev rules
- Use upstream helpers for persistent rules (net + block), port useful features from our scripts in these helpers and send upstream
Proposed by: Olivier Blin.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin.
Status: 60% - the first three of these elements are already completed. The final two remain to be completed.
[edit] Migrate to a more standardized, cross-distribution system for hardware identification
Currently, identification of all hardware that uses PCI IDs (PCI cards, AGP cards, PCI-E cards, many onboard devices, and XpressCards) is handled in Mandriva by a home-grown system known as ldetect, with its own database of card IDs. This system works fairly well and the database is good (better than upstream databases in some respects). However, it requires a lot of manual maintenance, which saps developer time that could be used elsewhere. This proposal would migrate to using the upstream PCI IDs list as a device database, and the kernel modalias system for correlating devices and drivers. Where our database or driver associations are superior to those in the upstream systems, our changes would be pushed upstream. The USB device detection portion of ldetect would be dropped in similar fashion, although most USB device detection is in fact already done by the kernel.
Proposed by: Thierry Vignaud.
Assigned to: Thierry Vignaud and Adam Williamson.
Status: 100% - complete. Upstream lists are now used wherever possible. The Mandriva-specific list has been reduced to the minimum possible to ensure no regressions in support.
[edit] Replace bootsplash
Mandriva currently uses the Bootsplash system to implement its graphical startup sequence. This is an invasive and somewhat outdated system that involves a large kernel patch which is only infrequently updated against newer kernel releases. Under this proposal it would be replaced by a different system. Systems currently under consideration are Splashy (as used by Debian), gensplash (as used by Gentoo) and usplash (as used by Ubuntu). We are leaning towards Splashy as it does not need a kernel patch.
Proposed by: Various.
Assigned to: Oliver Blin and the kernel team.
Status: 40% - in progress. Olivier Blin is working on splashy.
[edit] Implement hybrid suspend mode
Several operating systems have recently implemented a 'hybrid' suspend mode, whereby the suspend image is written to both memory and disk, rather than one or the other as in the traditional 'sleep' and 'hibernate' modes. This means that if power to the memory is sustained, a quick recovery from memory is possible, but if power runs out, recovery from disk is still possible, combining the advantages of both approaches. Under this proposal, such a mode would be implemented in Mandriva.
Assigned to: Frederic Crozat.
Status: 10% - a template for this mode has been added to pm-utils. It is currently non-functional.
[edit] Send pm-utils changes upstream
We currently have a small number of patches to the pm-utils suspend framework, for FHS compliance and to allow the suspend commands to be run from the console. Under this proposal, these changes would be sent upstream, reducing the maintenance burden on our package.
Assigned to: Frederic Crozat and Olivier Blin.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Publish virtualized images of beta and final releases for testing
Under this proposal, images of each beta and final release would be created for the leading virtualization applications (VMware, VirtualBox and qemu). These would be made publicly available to make it easier and more convenient for users to test beta and final releases.
Assigned to: Antoine Ginies.
Status: 0% - not started. No virtualized images of Beta 1, Beta 2 or RC1 were released.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Switch from mkinitrd to mkinitramfs
mkinitramfs has some technical advantages over mkinitrd. We are considering a migration.
Proposed by: Luca Berra.
Assigned to: Anne Nicolas and Luca Berra.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] X.org
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Add infrastructure to allow applications to use XCB
XCB is a C binding for X, the mooted replacement for Xlib. libX11 itself will continue to use Xlib due to issues with locking, but support will be added to allow applications to use XCB instead of Xlib where appropriate. This proposal is mostly complete already and requires only checking to ensure there are no problems. Kaffeine is an example of an application already using XCB.
Assigned to: Gustavo Boiko.
Status: 100% - completed.
[edit] Update metapackages
The various X.org metapackages are somewhat outdated and need to be refreshed. A task-x11-minimal package may also be created to allow a truly minimal functioning X.org installation.
Assigned to: Gustavo Boiko.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Installer (classic DrakX)
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Convert rpmsrate to XML format
The rpmsrate file used by DrakX to decide which packages to install is currently in plain text format. Under this proposal it will be converted to XML, making several things clearer (especially i18n tags).
Assigned to: Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Include a Windows installer
Under this proposal, we would look at including a Windows-native installer such as Instlux (as used by SUSE) or the Debian system.
Assigned to: Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Review and improve installer ergonomics
Under this proposal, the ergonomics of the installer would be reviewed and improved based on a compilation of comments received from Windows users.
Assigned to: Frederic Crozat.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Allow automated use of geographically appropriate remote repositories during installation
Under this proposal, geoip (and its perl bindings) would be used to allow the installer to automatically determine an appropriate mirror for the user's physical location when using remote repositories.
Assigned to: Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] URPMI / RPMdrake
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Implement -latest metapackages for DKMS modules
Under this proposal, -latest metapackages will be introduced for DKMS modules (such as the NVIDIA and ATI proprietary drivers). Whenever a kernel update is released, the pre-built DKMS packages for each driver will also be updated. The -latest metapackages will ensure that these new packages are installed alongside the kernel update. This will address the longstanding problem of DKMS-handled modules breaking when a kernel update is installed.
Proposed by: Jérôme Martin.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin, Pascal Rigaux (pixel) and Luiz Capitulino.
Status: 50% - Olivier Blin is working on this system.
Reference: Bug #30886
[edit] Get rid of file dependencies
Provide the more common ones (eg: /bin/sh) and modify various automatic dependency generators. This is in order not to have dependencies between main and contrib anymore - a way to increase efficiency in package upload. We must provide a list of packages containing such dependencies.
Assigned to: Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Use EDOS P2P system for downloading packages
Under this proposal, the EDOS P2P dissemination system would be implemented as a possible method for retrieving packages for installation via urpmi and rpmdrake.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Handle Suggests: in urpmi and rpmdrake
Under this proposal, the Suggests: dependency (as most famously used in Debian) would be correctly handled by rpmdrake and urpmi (currently, if a package contains Suggests: dependencies, they are treated as if they were Requires:).
Assigned to: Thierry Vignaud and Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Status: 100% - complete. Both urpmi and rpmdrake now support the Suggests: tag.
[edit] Add flat package list to rpmdrake
Under this proposal, a flat package list view (alphanumerically sorted) would be added to rpmdrake (restoring a feature that was available in previous generations).
Assigned to: Thierry Vignaud.
Reference: Bug #25770.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Use rpmdrake in installer to reduce maintenance
Under this proposal, rpmdrake would be re-used for package selection in the installer rather than the installer having its own code: this would reduce the maintenance burden of the installer.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Use drakstats to gather statistics on installed packages
Under this proposal, the drakstats tool would be properly utilized to gather statistics on which packages users have installed (and act on this information). The tool itself is available and working, but no infrastructure is yet in place to receive and analyze the data.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin and Anne Nicolas.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Add support for removing orphan packages to rpmdrake
Under this proposal, rpmdrake would be given the capability of removing orphan packages (orphans are packaged that are initially installed as dependencies of other packages and then left behind when the other packages are removed). This would involve integrating urpmi_rpm-find-leaves into rpmdrake.
Assigned to: Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Reduce urpmi's memory footprint to allow it work with less than 128MB of RAM
This would require tweaks to the transaction size.
Proposed by: Nicolas Chipaux.
Assigned to: Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Configuration tools
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] WPA-EAP support in network configuration tools
Under this proposal, full support for configuring WPA-EAP authentication would be added to the network configuration tools.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin.
Reference: Bug #23925
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Introduce a consolidated network configuration / management tool
Under this proposal, a single consolidated tool for network configuration and management named draknetcenter will be introduced to supersede the current separate tools.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin.
Status: 75% - draknetcenter was introduced to Cooker in drakx-net-0.13-1mdv2008.0 and to the beta process in RC1. It is still undergoing improvement and testing.
[edit] Stop polling in net_applet
Under this proposal, net_applet would stop blindly polling, which is inelegant and needlessly wakes up the kernel, thus wasting power.
Proposed by: Frederik Himpe.
Assigned to: Oliver Blin.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Implement notification (via dbus) in net_applet
Under this proposal, net_applet would notify applications (via dbus) when network connections become available and unavailable. See NetworkManager, which does this; ideally we should do it in a compatible way.
Proposed by: Frederik Himpe.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Replace drakloop with LUKS-based system
The current drakloop encryption tool uses an antiquated and potentially insecure encryption method. It should be replaced with one based on LUKS, which is more modern and has better support in desktops (particularly GNOME).
Assigned to: Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Reference: Encrypted filesystems
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] User data migration support
Migrating user data from other operating systems is a hot topic. We have an old tool for this purpose named transfugdrake. We are considering resurrecting it or adopting another solution. Transfugdrake is 'quite ugly' and Ubuntu's tool is 'nearly empty'.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin and Thierry Vignaud.
Status: 70% - transfugdrake has been revived and updated. It is now a front end to Ubuntu's migration-assistant, which has been packaged with some important fixes for a segfault and a leak.
[edit] Drakvirt improvements
Various improvements need to be made to drakvirt. Using virt-manager for guest creation is under consideration. Simple features like installing to a device and installing operating systems other than Mandriva into Xen must be added. Drakvirt should copy the kernel modules tree into the installed guest if necessary. It should be able to configure networking appropriately for the clients to be able to access the network. Xen clients should be able to use X. Drakvirt should be able to configure qemu. The interface must be improved and documentation written to improve ease of use.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin.
Status: 20% - in progress.
[edit] Add NVIDIA and ATI configurators' features to XFdrake
The configuration tools provided by the NVIDIA and ATI drivers have features beyond what XFdrake offers, but they do not respect the existing configuration of X and may destroy changes. We should examine the capabilities of these tools and add them to XFdrake, providing a unified and properly-behaved configuration tool for all drivers.
Assigned to: Gustavo Boiko and Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Status: 0% - not started. Note that the upstream configuration tools have been added to the Mandriva driver packages.
[edit] Add support for creation and management of LUKS-encrypted partitions to diskdrake
Assigned to: Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Reference: Bug #30929.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Reduce the requirement for restarting X in XFdrake and drak3d
Currently, XFdrake and drak3d require X to be restarted for some operations where it really shouldn't be necessary: resolution changes that could be accomplished via xrandr, and changes in 3D desktop status that could sometimes be accomplished simply by killing or starting certain applications. Under this proposal, these tools would avoid restarting X where possible.
Reference: Bug #30896.
Status: 100% - complete.
[edit] Consider USB storage devices a target for backups in drakbackup
The drakbackup backup tool should consider USB storage devices a valid target for storing backups.
Proposed by: Frédéric Cuif.
Assigned to: Thierry Vignaud.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Add support for realcrypt (truecrypt) to the configuration tools
Under this proposal, support for the realcrypt (which is a straight rename of truecrypt for trademark reasons) framework would be added to Mandriva tools concerned with encryption.
Assigned to: Per Oyvind Karlsen.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Improve XFdrake for dual-screen configuration
Under this proposal, XFdrake would be given basic support for configuring dual (and potentially more)-screen output with the nvidia, radeon, intel and fglrx drivers.
Proposed by: Frédéric Cuif.
Assigned to: Gustavo Boiko and Pascal Rigaux (pixel).
Status: 0% - not started.
Reference: Bug #17481
[edit] Extend draksound's capabilities
Under this proposal, draksound would be extended to be able to configure digital output, and given a test button to test microphone input and 5.1 and 7.1 output.
Proposed by: Frédéric Cuif.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Different backup profiles for drakbackup
Under this proposal, different profiles of what data to back up and where to could be defined for drakbackup, allowing different backup operations to take place on different schedules and so forth.
Proposed by: Jérôme Martin.
Assigned to: Thierry Vignaud.
Reference: Bug #30888.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Introduce a traffic shaping configuration tool
Proposed by: Nicolas Chipaux.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] GNOME
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Create a gnome-burning-tools metapackage
This package would prompt the installation of nautilus-cd-burner (for data) and serpentine (for audio).
Assigned to: Frederic Crozat.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] KDE
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Improve mime-type associations for KDE applications
Assigned to: Helio Castro.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Improved crash dialog in KDE
KDE should provide a useful dialog box advising the user of the appropriate steps to take (install -debug packages and report a bug) in the case of a crash, rather than just useless strace output.
Assigned to: Helio Castro.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Add support for RandR 1.2
We should implement some kind of support for configuration of RandR 1.2-compliant X.org drivers in KDE.
Assigned to: Gustavo Boiko.
Status: 60% - krandr, a system tray tool for configuring RandR in KDE, was written by Gustavo Boiko and introduced to Cooker in krandr-0.5.2.1-1mdv2008.0 on August 28th. It is still undergoing improvement and refinement.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Qt4 as main development Qt
Under this proposal, Qt4 would be moved to / instead of been fixed inside libdir. This move to promote all user developments starting from now on Qt4.
Assigned to: Helio Castro.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Desktop enhancements
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Create use cases
For typical desktop usage.
Assigned to: tests team.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Migrate to Compiz Fusion from Beryl and Compiz
Ensure smooth upgrade from both previous technologies.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin and Colin Guthrie.
Status: 100% - complete.
[edit] Use XDG spec for prefab user directories
Switch from using our own system to create and maintain prefab directories for users (Video, Audio etc) to the upstream XDG system.
Assigned to: Frederic Crozat and Helio Castro.
Status: 100% - complete.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Adopt fast user switching system
Need to review KDE compatibility.
Assigned to: Frederic Crozat.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Printing and Scanning
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Minimal footprint for no-printer configurations
Ensure printing-related packages are built, and all package dependencies are expressed, in such a way that the minimal possible amount of printing-related packages are installed when no printer is present.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Update printing tools to use up to date tools
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 100% - all tools should be updated by now (20070905)
[edit] Split printing-related packages based on printer manufacturer
Create task- packages per printer manufacturer to ensure that tools and other packages relevant only to a single manufacturer need not be installed when using a printer from a different manufacturer.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner and Oden Eriksson.
Status: 30% - Oden has begun to work on this.
[edit] Review default configuration: allow browse local subnet, allow only localhost for /admin
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Ensure all printer drivers are up to date
Proposed by: Frederik Himpe.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 100% - All main drivers should be up to date by now (20070905)
[edit] Switch to GNU Ghostscript once ESP Ghostscript code has been merged
Proposed by: Frederik Himpe.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 100% - We are using GNU Ghostscript v8.60.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Configure virtual PDF printer by default
Ensure a system-wide virtual printer (which outputs to PDF files) is available by default.
Proposed by: Frederik Himpe.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Launch KJobViewer automatically during printing (in KDE)
Proposed by: xavy94.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Multimedia
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Drop as much of OSS/Free as possible
Drop API and keep only the necessary kernel drivers.
Several lists of OSS drivers with fully functional ALSA replacements, OSS drivers with ALSA replacements that have regressions, and OSS drivers with no ALSA replacements have been drawn up by kernel developer Adrian Bunk to aid with similar work in the kernel. They are available for reference here (first round v3), here (second round v3), and here (3rd round (sic)).
Assigned to: Thierry Vignaud, Luiz Capitulino.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Choose sound servers for KDE3, KDE4 and GNOME
KDE3 will continue to use aRts. KDE4 is undecided. GNOME could potentially move from esd to PulseAudio.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Create a tool to install undistributable codecs
As already done by Ubuntu. This would require a repository that contains only codecs etc that are legally redistributable in most countries but not in the U.S. due to patent laws: this could be something new or a re-jig of PLF. PLF cannot currently be used for this purpose as it contains software that infringes copyright laws (win32-codecs, which contains codecs copyrighted by Microsoft and others, and libdvdcss2, which breaks the DMCA in the U.S. and the EUCD in the E.U.) and thus can hardly legally be distributed anywhere. Once we have an acceptable 'arms-length' repository we can implement code to enable it in rpmdrake with an appropriate warning, talk about it in documentation and on official sites, etc.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Major desktop applications
[edit] Accepted proposals
[edit] Integrate Mozilla spellchecking dictionaries with myspell
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Reference: Bug #29733.
Status: 100% - Completed, including for Thunderbird.
[edit] Provide a template spec for extensions
A simple template spec file for Mozilla extensions to ensure they are correctly and uniformly packaged.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Package common extensions
Package commonly-used extensions to Firefox and Thunderbird.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 50% - foxmarks, blogrovr and scribefire have been packaged.
[edit] Improve mime-type handling
Resolve some bugs in Mozilla applications' handling of mime types, particularly not offering all available applications for a given mimetype.
Proposed by: Adam Williamson.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Reference: Bug #29580.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Improve Firefox GNOME / KDE themes
Resolve some small visual issues with the GNOME / KDE themes for Firefox: appearance of tabs and the search box.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Reference: Bug #28643, Bug #29114.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Enhance Firefox configuration defaults
Use better default fonts, boost network connections, and check DNS cache timings.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Enhance Thunderbird configuration defaults
Always check all IMAP folders, use strict threading, and DNS cache timeouts if needed.
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Minimize OpenOffice.org footprint
Including splitting the package further so a functional OO.o can be fit into smaller space (useful for One and OEMs).
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Provide good fonts for OpenOffice.org
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 100% - Liberation fonts are now in Cooker and should be used when the Microsoft equivalents are requested.
[edit] Use background preloading for OpenOffice.org
Assigned to: Marcelo Leitner.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Games
[edit] Accepted proposals
[edit] Check all top games at icculus.org are packaged
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Improve Wiimote support
Provide documentation on how to configure and use the Wiimote (Nintendo Wii controller) with Mandriva. Use cwiid ability to have different Wii controller configuration for different applications to ship an appropriate configuration file with each game packaged in Mandriva. Use community to provide configuration files.
Assigned to: Olivier Blin.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Introduce a joystick configuration / calibration tool
Assigned to: Olivier Blin.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Try to split games package: accelerated or not
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] i18n
[edit] Accepted proposals
[edit] Really 100% translation
Especially standard apps used in LA OEMs. Make KDE tools and OEM.
Assigned to: Thierry Vignaud and the i18n team.
Status: unknown.
[edit] Give QA team tools to test translations
Assigned to: Thierry Vignaud and the i18n team.
Status: 0% - not started.
[edit] Pending Proposals
[edit] Servers
[edit] Accepted Proposals
[edit] Recompile server applications with buffer overflow protection
To improve security. Add the appropriate compiler flags to the %serverbuild macro and recompile. Use -fstack-protector-all.
Assigned to: Andreas Hasenack and Oden Eriksson.
Status: 90% - mostly completed.
[edit] Servers should not be started by default
Remotely-accessible services should not be started by default either at install time or when installing via urpmi / rpmdrake at a later stage.
Assigned to: Andreas Hasenack and Oden Eriksson.
Status: 75% - in progress.
