Development/Weekly News/Issues/Feb062006

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Cooker Weekly News Issue #20060602

Contents


Welcome to the 20060206 issue of the Mandriva Linux Cooker Weekly News! Thanks to several people, including Warly, Adam Williamson and Benoît Audouard, the CNW is back on an extended mode: this issue includes:

  • latest news about Cooker
  • a technical article
  • the Cooker Mailing-list Digest

Contributions are welcome!

A dedicated place is now available with all new versions, at: Cooker Weekly News Repository

A new Mandriva Linux community e-magazine (in PDF format), called "Mandriva Linux Inside" is now also available for download and print. It includes the Cooker Weekly among other news and interviews. Download the first issue at: http://www1.mandrivalinux.com/e-mag/e-mag-1-20060602.pdf

Comments are welcome at feedback thread for e-mag or English or in French or Spanish.

[edit] New packages in Cooker

A lot of new packages have arrived into cooker since the release of Mandriva 2006. The latest version of the popular database server Posgresql 8.1 is replacing the version 8.0.4, with a new set of upgrade scripts to have a cleaner update. MySQL 5.0.16 is now available too, as well as the final version of KDE 3.5 on all the cooker FTP mirrors. The last version of PHP, 5.1, replaces the 5.0, but the 4.4 version, still required by a lot of third party software, is included into the contribs. You will also be able to test the new trac 0.9, the xmms substitutes beep-media-player 0.9.7.1 and his competitor bmpx 0.12.9. You will find as well the new IRC client xchat 2.6.1, the image-editing gimp 2.3.5, the new firewall front-end shorewall 3.0.1, and hundreds of other new programs.

Amongst the new packages, we can notice the new motocross simulation platform game Xmoto, and the tennis simulation Freetennis.

Lately in Cooker have been uploaded the version 6.9 of Xorg, Apache 2.2 (be careful the update may need you to check your configuration files because some module names have changed, for example mod_access or mod_auth), of course the latest version of Gnome 2.12, Evolution 2.4.2.1, and also Postgresql 8.1.1, xemacs 21.4.18, and a new comer, the kernel-linux 2.6.15, which is the latest stable version of the kernel released by Linus, without any additional patches.

A new version of Captive is also available in cooker. Captive allows you to mount NTFS partition in read/write mode under linux. Captive is included into the contrib section of the Mandriva mirrors.

Cooker has nearly 70 uploaded packages per day, 25 of then being new versions.

[edit] Mandriva in 2006: towards 2007!

Mandriva developers are still quite busy! In December, the club members were lucky to access a new updated version of the 2006, including all the 2006 security and bugs updates, as well as the new version of Gnome 2.12 and OpenOffice.org 2.0. The first post 2006 cooker snapshot has also been released in December.

As far as new products are concerned, Mandriva is working on a new version of the mobile product Globetrotter, updated to version 2006. Some rumors exist too regarding the development of a new version of the Mandriva Move, now completely based on a USB key. This product might be available on 1 GB or 2 GB USB, part of which will contain the system, and the remaining available space the user data. However, given the technical limit of USB keys regarding the number of writes allowed, a special layout will have to be found to prevent the system on the key to kill it too fast, most probably only relying on the memory for most of the operations, and only saving important changes on the key.

Hard to forecast all the news for the year 2006, of course the new Mandriva Linux 2007, but if the development has already started, the first beta version will not be available before June 2006. Club members will likely be luckier with a new updated version in February or March with KDE 3.5, and maybe a new one in June with the new packages available, such as Gnome 2.14.

In the year 2005 were released the Limited Edition 2005, the Globetrotter 2005 and of course the Mandriva Linux 2006. For the first time Mandriva invested some money to launch this new 2006, professional breakfasts, global install party, meeting with the press. This new policy of investment is clearly noticeable in the results for the fiscal year 2004-2005, with a growing turnover, but less benefits compared to last year results, when the financial policy was stricter after the chapter 11 period.

The year 2006 will be full of changes for Mandriva, changes in the the way the distribution is created with a new build system inspired from the Conectiva one, changes with the increasing number of contributors and employees, such as the ones from Conectiva and Edge IT in 2005. This increase should not stop, and as the linux market is growing, Mandriva will have to demonstrate its ability to fulfill more and more demandfull corporate requirements, and to keep its commitment and good image in the desktop market and its present users and customers.

[edit] Intel partnership

Since the Mandriva Linux 2006, Mandriva is conducting a new privileged partnership with Intel. Intel has taken an active participation in the launch of the 2006, and moreover the 2006 support is now clearly included into the Intel policy, and all the new motherboards have been certified on the Mandriva Linux 2006. Last but not least, now on the Intel website the Mandriva support is included into the Intel QuickStart.

[edit] Desktop Domination

To improve the Mandriva use on the desktop, a new brainstorming has been launched to gather all the ideas to help Mandriva to become even more ergonomic and efficient. The wiki page (at: Desktop Domination) lists all the suggestions. We can find, amongst others, to have a better hardware support, to be able to read DVD without extra software, to have a working suspend mode whatever your configuration, a faster boot process...

[edit] Testzilla

Testzilla, the sub part of bugzilla dedicated to tests, is still underused. The goal of this tool is to give stricter test procedures to users so that they can report problem or feedback to Mandriva in a more precise and known context. Testzilla is available from the main Bugzilla page on http://qa.mandriva.com/. Testzilla is directly linked with bugzilla and the hardware database, as a consequence you can perform a test with your own configuration as parameter. Of course you must have first to update your profile with your hardware configuration inside testzilla. To add comments about Testzilla, if you do not find it useful enough, you can create a bug report on the component 'testzilla' for the product Bugzilla.

[edit] Cooker mailing-list

Regarding the cooker mailing list, several important threads raised various problems, the first one concerning the Mandriva kernel update policy into cooker, as the 2.6.15 is nearly available, and cooker still sticks to the 2.6.12. One guy switching from Mandriva to Ubuntu created too a lot of traffic. Anyway those issues are a good thing after a release, allowing to rethink a bit the whole thing and try to fix what does not work correctly to start a gain on saner basis for a new year.

[edit] Focus on Parallel Init

One of Cooker's newest additions is 'pinit', the parallel initialization system developed by community contributor Couriousous. Parallel initialization involves starting services during boot in parallel instead of in strict sequence, as was previously the case. This provides an improvement in startup speeds, but is hard to implement in a simple way while making sure initialization still works and maintaining compatibility with existing standards. Unlike previous implementations, pinit maintains compliance with SysV (the traditional sequential initialization system) and is also compliant with the LSB (Linux Standards Base) specifications for phrasing the dependencies between services. pinit consists of a small executable named 'prcsys', which has been added to the initscripts package. When the 'pinit' kernel parameter is specified, prcsys controls the initialization process and uses the LSB service dependency comments in the initscripts of each service to determine which services can be started in parallel. Services which have not yet been updated to include this information are initialized in the same place during the sequence as they would have been under the old system, to maintain SysV compliance. Since the new system requires only additional comments in the initscript, if it is disabled, initialization proceeds as normal under the old system.

[edit] Deeper into Parallel Init!

Under Mandriva Linux the boot system is based on a System V like initialisation. The boot is handled by a set of scripts, usually called 'initscripts'. The main boot scripts are located into the directory /etc/rc.d/, rc.sysinit, being the first script launched by the init process at the boot of the machine. This script is performing quite a lot of actions, it initialises the fonts, mounts the root partition, runs udev, checks the filesystems and then mounts them, and, if needed, configures the RAID or LVM devices. Then init runs the script rc, which is more or less a scheduler which launches all the other initialisation scripts which are located into the directory /etc/init.d.

To be more precise, the directories /etc/rc.d/rcX.d where X is the desired runlevel (0 to 6), hold symbolic links to the scripts which are in the directory /etc/init.d to select, depending of the runlevel, what should be run and what should be stopped (with a command like service service_name start/stop). With the current system, each symbolic link in, say, /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/, includes a letter, S for start and K for kill, followed by a number between 00 and 99, and, at the end, the name of the initscript. With this structure, the links included into the directory /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/ are sorted in order, first the KXXinitscript_name, then SXXinitscript_name, for example :

  • K09dm
  • K10psacct
  • S03iptables
  • S04acpi
  • S04dkms
  • S05harddrake
  • S10network

In this example, the scripts dm, psacct will be successively stopped, then the services iptables, acpi, dkms, harddrake and network will be launched. Up to now the launching of the scripts was sequential, rc waiting for the dkms script to finish before launching the script harddrake. However, most of the time, a lot of things could be done in parallel, and allow to gain some precious seconds during the boot sequence.

A Mandriva contributor, Philippe Rétornaz, more known as Couriousous, has developed a program, Parallel Init, which allows, if an extra dependencies information is included into the initscripts headers, to calculate a scripts layout to be able to launch simultaneously all the scripts which are not relying on other scripts to run, and to run the other ones as soon as the scripts they are relying on are finished. The improvement in the boot time is very dependent of your configuration, but usually noticeable, several seconds, even up to 20 or 30 percent. To compare precisely the variation in the boot time, you can use the program called bootchart. This program is available in the package named bootchart, in contrib. It is simply launched when you boot, giving init=bootchartd as kernel parameter, then a java program is able to use the data logged in /var/log/bootchart.tgz to create a boot chart of the full boot process. For more information, you can consult the online help on: http://www.bootchart.org or on: http://qa.mandriva.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/BootTimeOptimisation.

The Mandriva Community Wiki is also holding a section dedicated to the parallel boot: Parallel Init

[edit] Cooker ML Digest for January 2006

[edit] USB keys become root-read-only ?

The first (?) discussion [1] about USB keys appeared in November, soon followed [2] by bug 19667 for NTFS USB Key mounted as root readonly. It appears again in January [3] USB key mounted automatically but with wrong permissions and for another user as well [4] leading to bugs 20379 & 20496 [5] & [6]. A user asks [7] whether root will remain or will it go back to mounted as user one day? A short answer [8] by Andrey Borzenkov : "Well, as it stands now, it is likely to remain broken for some time." and possible solutions involve KDE/Gnome + HAL and D-bus. Dick Gevers proposes [9] to add ivman as a service with chkconfig (tested with Gnome). Frederic Crozat explains [10] that the new version of HAL 0.5.6 can be uploaded when kernel 2.6.15 is available (as it is a pre-requisite) after a user comments that it could correct things automagically.

[edit] One idea to improve installation...

A user suggests to download available updates BEFORE the packages installation [1]: it should have made its way to IdeasForMandrivaLinux2007. Even though it received the classical objections of chicken and egg problem (with internet connection necessary when installing). Authentication is another thing as well to take into account. It is suggested as well more interesting documentation to read while installing or even a game (frozen bubble ?).

Well anyone interested in these features ? Then enter the bug and update the wiki page [2] by linking to the thread, then bring new pros against cons so that it is made real !

[edit] Many mailing-list problems...

People get unsubscribed possibly because a too strict policy is applied to the list : multiple mail server, multiple sympa servers, mail silently ignored, silent unsubscribe at first mail error. Some humour and answers [1] at first then a test leading to a long thread [2] but at the beginning of the year [3], no real solution identified :-(

[edit] Miscellaneous

Some people overlook or forget [1] that there is no "updates media" for packages in cooker: main / contrib receive directly new packages.

Maybe gnash can be a free replacement for Flashplayer ? Based on swfGames, provides plugin and application to run flash documents.

Wine suffers too from WMF (proprietary data format for videos) security hole (patch provided), it's suggested that wine be moved to contrib to benefit from versions upgrades instead of security-updates only, which is not accepted. Then comes a discussion of how wine has become now suficiently mature to be easy to use, even for newbies.

Hibernate could be used for laptops' suspend mode [1]: gnome-power-manager uses HAL that calls the helpers coherently (/usr/sbin/hal-system-power-*) , this framework is suficiently good that it should be supported, hibernate being one example. Another thread [2] goes in deep detail about modular IDE and hibernation/resume, giving a how-to initiate/resume manually easily (with echo -n 3:2 > /sys/power/resume). Backports for KDE are identified as necessary [3] and may be done to get suspend/resume to work correctly.

AMD K6-2 processors still suffer in 2006.1 from choices of compilation optimisations [1], a faulty package should be identified and bug reported upstream to be taken into account by developers (rather than only by packagers). Austin Acton ends up proposing solution once discussion has calmed down a little : make a policy that people agree with and a proposal is made to identify packages with mmx-processor for example. Michael Scherer finds the same issue raised on fedora [2] and rhl [3] mailing-list. Gwenole Beauchesne reminds that you can build i686+sse binaries but place them in */lib/sse/. If you use i686(w/cmov)+mmx, place them in */lib/i686/mmx. etc.

Parallel init - may bring some more improvements in the boot process [1], thanks to the fact that most of the initscripts containing parallel initialization headers have been converted [2] to use LSB headers (see [3] Linux Standard Base specification)

Shorewall is polluting syslog, making it unusable and a user wonders [1] if shorewall could have it's own logfile? Then a bug is identified [2] in shorewall setup through drakfirewall (should make its way in 2007 enhancements). Two enhancements are proposed [3] so that when you switch between profiles (which means you change from one network setup to another), so your firewall configuration and proxy settings probably change too : the proposal is to add /etc/shorewall/* and /etc/urpmi/proxy.cfg to the file /etc/network/list by default.

An initial question [1] about purpose of /incoming, then unmaintained packages, leads to a question about the life-cycle of packages and how one can adopt [2] a package whose maintainer has not time to keep it up to date.

Mozilla firefox 1.5 and dependencies : It usually takes a week to rebuild all packages requiring it, as there are many dependancies and it may break many things [1]. To get an evaluation of it, just run urpmf --requires firefox | sed 's/:.*/ /'| grep -v mozilla-firefox |wc -l # to list / count the number of packages currently depending on firefox.

For example [2], avidemux needs in fact Spidermonkey javascript engine from mozilla, which is found in Firefox packages : Isn't it possible to make a real library based install ? It didn't worked, or it wasn't maintainable as is confirmed by Frederic Crozat [3] who takes the opportunity to remind [4] that using bugzilla is easier to track bugs encountered on the latest firefox 1.5 package.

Some tips [1] to add device types to diskdrake, with some programming in detect_devices.pm, devices.pm & partition_table.pm

SElinux support is dropped by Mandriva [1]: rsbac is preferred as it does not requires changes to userland stuff and requires less work than SElinux to work out of the box ndiswrapper userspace package [2] can only be updated in sync with the kernel, as the kernel module is packaged in the kernel package and the version of the module has to match the version of the userspace tools.

Some intricacies of rpmsync are explained to prevent local-mirroring of debug packages. The solution is:

rpmsync --exclude-from=/path/to/filename

(because the script changes directories, you should give an absolute path to the exclude.lst file just to be safe).

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