Frugalware Linux - Let's make things Frugal!

Frugalware Linux Newsletter - Issue 32

...to inform...to educate...to entertain

Every artist was first an amateur - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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:

Feature Article - Give a somatic look to your Frugalware
Happy birthday to Gimmix
Frugalware joins the art world
Tips and tricks - mutt timezone filter

Events

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

Happy birthday to Gimmix

Gimmix - the excellent MPD GUI client - turned 2 years old on 26 September 2008 and to celebrate its author released version 0.5.0. For those that don't know, Gimmix's author is also a member of the Frugalware development team - Priyank!
Frugalware joins the art world

Most Linux users want their distribution to look good - ranging from startup screen, login screen to wallpaper and icons. Imagining how you want your desktop to look is usually easy. Turning these dreams into reality is much more difficult. There are at least two problems here:
1. everyone likes different artwork - some people liking a minimalistic look, while others want a desktop filled with "eye candy";
2. geeks don't usually make good artists because they're are usually logically-minded and not artistic.
Devil505 has been busy recently, working on these problems for the benefit of Frugalware. He's put together an art team and established two new web sites devoted to Frugalware art. The web site for official Frugalware artwork team already includes some great wallpapers, Splashy themes and GDM themes. frugalware-art.org hosts general Frugalware artwork, to which everyone can upload their work. One exciting item created by the artwork team is an SVG version of the Frugalware logo. Why is this so exciting? Because we can now create wallpapers etc in various sizes and have the Frugalware logo scaled to match.

Everyone's welcome to join the artwork team and contribute their work. Even if you aren't an artist you can help the team by telling them what you do and don't like about their work. Getting feedback from Frugalware's users is very helpful because it helps guide the artwork's development. Personally I quite like some of Leo's work because it's a little more interesting than most distribution's artwork.

Feature Article - Give a somatic look to your Frugalware - by Devil505

Somatic is an original artwork theme created by David Lanham. One day a French Ubuntu user - Pokemon_jojo - made an icon theme for the Gnome desktop, themes for GDM and backgrounds based on Lanham's drawings. I found this artwork very nice with its "cartoonish" style and I decided to package it for Frugalware Linux.

To install the icon theme:

# pacman-g2 -S somatic-icon-theme

Then choose it in gnome->appearance->properties.

Preview: http://www.zimagez.com/zimage/preview-somatic.php

To install the GDM themes:

# pacman-g2 -S somatic-gdm-themes

Start gdmsetup and select one of these themes.

Preview: http://www.zimagez.com/zimage/somatic-gdm.php

To install Somatic wallpapers

# pacman-g2 -S somatic-backgrounds

Files are located in /usr/share/pixmaps/backgrounds/somatic. Preview: http://www.zimagez.com/zimage/bureau-somatic-wall.php

Now your Frugalware has a "somatic" look :-)

Getting To Know You

In this section of the newsletter, we get to know Frugalware Linux a little at a time. This is not meant to replace the official documentation but instead present it in a different way. It should also suit those people who, like me, have short attention spans. :)

pacman-g2 - new and old configuration files

When pacman-g2 is removing a package, it will usually leave any configuration files behind with a extension ".pacsave". When it's finished installing a new package, pacman-g2 will usually leave the original configuration files but rename them with an extension of ".pacnew". The contents of ".pacnew" files should be manually merged into the existing version.

Tips and tricks

Disclaimer - Be aware that the hints & tips provided here have NOT been tested and so come with no warranty.

mutt - local and original timezone filter - submitted by VMiklos

VMiklos created a filter in mutt, so that he can always see the date of emails in local time and in the original timezone as well. For example, he can see "this mail was sent 2 mins ago" and also "for the sender, this was early morning".

The filter - written in Python - can be found here. It also contains two small filters to avoid some inline ads (sourceforge adds such ads and also an Hungarian site). To use this filter you need to:
1. save it to ~/.mutt
2. add 'set display_filter="$HOME/.mutt/display-filter.py"' in ~/.mutt/muttrc

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

Focus On Package(s)

Cowsay

This is a utility written in Perl 5 that has just one purpose - to add a little fun to your terminal. At the command line you enter

cowsay "text"

and in ASCII art, the picture of a cow appears, with the text you specified appearing in a speech bubble. It's hard to explain in words, so here's an example:

 --------------------------------------
/ Lady Luck brings added income today. \
\ Lady friend takes it away tonight.   /
 --------------------------------------
 \   ^__^
  \  (oo)\_______
     (__)\       )\/\
         ||----w |
         ||     ||

Of course having a cow saying the same thing every time could get boring. To solve this you can combine fortune with cowsay to get a random saying from the fortune sayings database(s). The command for this is:

fortune | cowsay

Fortune has many options, including:

setting a maximum fortune length
specifying a weighting on from which database the fortune is selected
replacing the cow with anotehr animal - including a pengin!

Why not try it out soon and have some fun?

Bug fixes

The following table gives you a overview of activity on bugs and feature requests as at 1 October 2008. In each cell of the table is a link to a detailed list of the relevant bugs or feature requests.

Activity	Bugs	Feature Requests
Open	175	200
Opened since the last newsletter	25	2
Closed since the previous newsletter	20	2

Security announcements

NOTE - According to the normal support arrangements for Frugalware, the release of 0.9 ("Solaria") means that no further security or bug fixes will be released for Frugalware 0.8 ("Kalgan").

Here is a list of security issues which have been discovered and fixed in the 0.9 release since the previous newsletter. Note that FSA stands for "Frugalware Security Advisory."

FSA	Package	FSA Description	Upgrade To
FSA529	drupal-simplenews	A vulnerability has been reported in the Simplenews module for Drupal, which can be exploited by malicious users to conduct script insertion attacks	drupal-simplenews-5.x_1.5-1solaria1
FSA528	phpmyadmin	A vulnerability has been reported in phpMyAdmin, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct cross-site scripting attacks	phpmyadmin-2.11.9.2-1solaria1
FSA527	bitlbee	A security issue has been reported in BitlBee, which can be exploited by malicious people to bypass certain security restrictions and hijack accounts	bitlbee-1.2.3-1solaria1
FSA526	phpmyadmin	Norman Hippert has reported a vulnerability in phpMyAdmin, which can be exploited by malicious users to compromise a vulnerable system	phpmyadmin-2.11.9.1-1solaria1

About the newsletter

Author

The Frugalware newsletter is written and edited 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 occurred 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.