Table of Contents

• Welcome
• Events
• Tips and tricks
• Focus on package(s)
• Bug fixes
• Security announcements
• About the newsletter

Welcome

The newsletter's aim is to keep you up to date with what's happened recently in the world of the Linux distribution 'Frugalware'.

Features of this issue include:

• We're famous! Almost :)
• Solaria, here we come!
• Bouleetbil's been busy
• Tip - Pacman - what did I just install?

Events

Here's a selection of events which have occurred since the previous newsletter:

• We're famous! Almost :)

  Linux Outlaws is a podcast which focuses on Linux and Open Source software. In episode 27 the release of Frugalware 0.8 was mentioned amongst other recent Linux distribution releases. Unfortunately this segment consists mainly of reading the distribution's name from the DistroWatch site so very little detail was mentioned. I sent them an email, prompting them to try Frugalware.

• Solaria, here we come!

  The release of 0.8 has meant that the developers can now focus on 0.9. To guide the journey, VMiklos proposed to the development team a number of goals. Those that he proposed and were accepted include:

  • FS#2869 - gservice
  • FS#2870 - sysvinit-translations
  • FS#2871 - having the usb and tftp installer in fwsetup
  • FS#2872 - improving syncd to transfer repoman.conf
  • FS#2873 - using gettext for news entries and newsletters
  • FS#2874 - improve netconfig to list card descs when asking for iface name

  If you want to know the current status of these goals, look at the Bug Tracker System (BTS) as their task ID is included in the above list.

• Bouleetbil's been busy

  As was mentioned in the previous issue of the newsletter, Bouleetbil began work in packaging new applications and bringing existing packages up to date. He's officially won an award for the most number of FrugalBuilds submitted by a newcomer. Crazy and VMiklos are hoping to take a rest soon. :)

• Bitlbee, Skype and VMiklos - a great combination

  VMiklos recently packaged version 0.4.0 of his Bitlbee plugin for Skype. For those who don't already know, Bitlbee is an IRC gateway to other common IM networks - e.g. ICQ, Yahoo, Google Chat. Thanks to VMiklos, those who need to keep in touch with Skype users can now do so easily from their prefered IRC client.

• Package Updates

  There have been some interesting package upgrades in the current repository lately, including:

  • Skype has had a major version upgrade in the current repository (only) to version 2.0.0.63;
  • FUN - the Frugalware Update Notifier has been upgraded to version 0.2.2. Does this make Frugalware "FUNner"?

Tips and tricks

• Pacman - what did I just install? - submitted by 'phayz'

  Sometimes you may quickly install several packages and their dependencies. Afterward you think "Hmmm... what packages were just installed?" To find out, refer to pacman-g2's log file - /var/log/pacman-g2.log

This section relies on your contributions! If have some tips and tricks that you would like to be shown in the newsletter, please post them on the forums in the Tips and Tricks section!

Sometimes you find an application that, while simple, does just one job and does it well. Mirage is one of those applications. According to the web site "Mirage is a fast and simple GTK+ image viewer. Because it depends only on PyGTK, Mirage is ideal for users who wish to keep their computers lean while still having a clean image viewer." Its features include slideshow, rotating, zooming, flipping, resizing and cropping images. In loading images, it has an option to recursively open all images in a given folder and all subfolders. It would be particularly useful in handling a new batch of photos from a digital camera. In brief - if you want an image viewer with some basic image manipulation included, take a look at Mirage.

Bug fixes

A list of bugs closed since the previous newsletter is available here.

Security announcements

Remember - According to the normal support arrangements for Frugalware, the release of 0.8 ("Kalgan") means that support for the previous release has ended. This means that no further security or bug fixes will be released for Frugalware 0.7 ("Sayshell").

Here is a list of security issues which have been discovered and fixed in the 0.8 release since the previous newsletter.

• FSA399 - xine-lib: Secunia Research has discovered a vulnerability in xine-lib, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system. Please upgrade to xine-lib-1.1.11-1kalgan1.
• FSA398 - tetex: Some vulnerabilities have been reported in teTeX, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to disclose and manipulate sensitive information and by malicious people to potentially compromise a vulnerable system. Please upgrade to tetex-3.0-13kalgan1.
• FSA397 - unzip: A vulnerability has been reported in UnZip, which potentially can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system. Please upgrade to unzip-5.52-5kalgan1.
• FSA396 - rails: Some vulnerabilities have been reported in Ruby on Rails, which can be exploited by malicious people to disclose sensitive information and conduct cross-site scripting attacks. Please upgrade to rails-1.2.6-1kalgan1.
• FSA395 - ghostscript: Chris Evans has reported a vulnerability in Ghostscript, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system. Please upgrade to ghostscript-8.62-1kalgan1.
• FSA394 - lighttpd: Some security issues have been reported in lighttpd, which can be exploited by malicious people to disclose potentially sensitive information. Please upgrade to lighttpd-1.4.19-1kalgan1.

About the newsletter

Author

The Frugalware newsletter is written by Russell Dickenson (AKA phayz). Credit for the Frugalware distribution goes to the development team.

Translations

The newsletter is currently translated into French and Danish. The French translation is provided by the French Frugalware community. The Danish translation is provided by the Danish Frugalware community. Thanks to all those involved in providing and hosting these translations.

Release

To allow time for review and corrections, each newsletter is written ahead of its release date. Therefore it may not mention events which occured in the few days before its release - e.g. security fixes. To be sure that you've got the very latest information on these topics, go to the appropriate page of the Frugalware web site.

Feedback

If you have feedback about the Frugalware newsletter - whether good or bad - please provide it via the forums. Your feedback is valuable because we want the newsletter to meet the needs of Frugalware's users.