Frugalware Linux - Let's make things Frugal!

Frugalware Linux Newsletter - Issue 44

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

"Look at life through the windshield, not the rear-view mirror" Byrd Baggett

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:

Frugalware 1.1pre1 was released
Frugalware 1.1 is coming - let's party!
Frugalware's artists are people too - leo
Focus On Package(s) - chm2pdf and Open ClipArt Library

Events

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

Frugalware 1.1pre1 was released

On 12 May 2009, VMiklos announced that 1.1pre1 had been released. This is a technical preview, allowing users to test for bugs, and see what new features have been added. Congratulations to the development team on their hard work.
Frugalware 1.1 is coming - let's party!

With the final release of 1.1 due on 1 September 2009, I'm arranging the release party, at which we can all relax and celebrate another milestone. The French development team hosted the 1.0 release party, in the garage of Hermier's home. It would have been quite comfortable, because Hermier's home is actually a small castle, located in a beautiful area in France. Unfortunately the event was held in his garage, but he didn't move his cars! It was quite difficult fitting 16 people into just 2 Citroën sedans, but with the help of tar and bzip, everyone fitted in. Every time someone took a drink, either the car alarm started, the windscreen wipers came on, or the horn beeped. Despite these problems, everyone had a good time.

For release 1.1 we will hold the event via IRC so that all Frugalware users can enjoy the celebrations. We'll arrange a time in the Frugalware users' channel when everyone is to join. You will then need to describe what you're doing, to encourage a party "feeling". Example messages might include "having a sip of my beer", "eating some potato chips", and "my boss is wondering what i'm doing". For those drinking alcohol, the messages will probably become more and more like Hungarian, which will hopefully make Hungarian users feel more welcome.

Further announcements will be made closer to the release date. Although it's still a few months away, I hope you're beginning to feel the excitement.
Will all geeks please raise their hands?

VMiklos, if you haven't already got your hand up, please raise it, because this message is for you. On 27 April 2009, VMiklos wrote in a change message - "forgot to pkgrel++". Instead of writing "Forgot to increase the pkgrel's value by 1", he used a C language statement, proving again that he's a "geek's geek". :) If he wasn't, we wouldn't be using Frugalware, so let's be grateful he's a geek.
Bunker photo

In issue 40, Fanch said in his user interview that he couldn't provide a photo of where he was because it was "a bunker atmosphere". He's now changed his mind and provided this photo.

Updates

Here is a selection of packages which have been updated since the previous newsletter:

Package	Description	Upgrade Version	Comments
Conky	Light-weight system monitor	1.7.0	Version bump. This includes various enhancements and bug fixes. It's interesting that in early December 2009, the project changed version control systems from Subversion to git
Firefox	Web browser	3.0.10	Version bump to resolved a security vulnerability.
QEMU	Open source processor emulator	0.10.3-1	Version bump. It's interesting that in April 2009, the project changed version control systems from Subversion to git.
Volleyball	Pocket volleyball game	0.8.6-1	New package
mediawiki	Wiki	1.14.0-1	Version bump
dmenu	Dynamic menu for wmii	4.0-1	Version bump
SMILE	Slideshow Maker In Linux Environment	0.9.3-1	Version bump
termit	Terminal emulator	2.2.0-1	Version bump

Frugalware's artists are people too - leo

I recently had the idea of interviewing the members of the Frugalware artwork team. This is a quite new team but they've already produced some great work. I can only draw stick people so I'm impressed by those who have artistic talent. Their role is to make Frugalware look good and this is not quite as easy as you might think. I hope you enjoy this series of interviews.

What's your name?
What's your IRC/forum nickname?
In what country do you live?
In what country were you born?
Have you always been artistic?
Do you create artwork in other forms - sculpture, painting etc?
What operating system(s) do you use when creating artwork?
What software do you use to create artwork?
Why have you created artwork for Frugalware?

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 make it easier to read. This should suit those those people who, like me, have short attention spans. :)

Tell your friends...

...tell your family; in fact, tell everyone! This time I'm not writing about Frugalware itself, but what you can do for Frugalware. Since you use Frugalware, why not tell your friends, family, work colleagues about your preferred Linux distribution? You could, for example, print out the Frugalware logo and stick it on a notepad, your desk at work, anywhere. If your local library allows you, burn a copy of the Frugalware DVD or CD ISOs (perhaps just CDs 1 and 2) and give them to the library to lend to others. Why not add the Frugalware slogan to your email signature? If you're a member of a non-Frugalware forum, you could add the slogan to your forum profile's signature.

Look at the web site frugalware-art.org for inspiration and examples of promotional material, including CD/DVD label and cover artwork, Frugalware user bars (for display on web sites). Together we can have people all over the world saying "Let's make things Frugal"! In the future we hope to have even more promotional material.

Tips and tricks

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

Oh! What a cute little wiki!

TiddlyWiki is an amazing self-contained wiki written in Javascript. It's best used as a personal wiki since there is no access control. It's proven to be very popular, with many "extensions" written to enhance its functionality. Because of its design, it's not multiuser-capable, but with a little care it can be shared on a LAN. A company named OsmoSoft (now owned by BT - British Telecom) is funding the development of ccTiddly, a multi-user derivative of TiddlyWiki, with version 1.8.1 having been released recently. If you want to store notes (and images) about various topics, please try TiddlyWiki. Since it's written in JavaScript, its only dependency is a JavaScript-capable browser. Compare this with software like TomBoy which, although it's excellent, is heavy on dependencies.
What time is it in Timbuctoo?

I live on the other side of the world from my of the Frugalware developers and contributors. So when I'm on IRC there's a big difference between my local time and theirs. I needed to know at any time the local time in their countries. After a little searching I had a few options but I didn't like any of them. There's a Google Gadget, also a KDE tool which would both achieve what I wanted. I run Xfce however and wanted the solution to be light on resources and have few dependencies.

I chose to set up Conky to display the local times in various cities. Conky displays its output on the desktop so, while the information I need is always there, it doesn't take up any screen space. The configuration is quite simple, with Conky configured to run a shell script. I cut-and-pasted the script from a web site, so all credit goes to its author, not me.

Here's are the lines added to Conky's configuration file to run the script:

TEXT ${exec ~/git/misc_scripts/worldtimes.sh}

The script itself is very simple:

#!/bin/sh TZ=Europe/Budapest date +"France/Hungary/Germany :: %a %I:%M %p" TZ=Europe/London date +"England :: %a %I:%M %p" TZ=Asia/Calcutta date +"Mumbai :: %a %I:%M %p"

Note that there's a list of all available timezones is in /usr/share/zoneinfo.

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)

chm2pdf

On-line documentation is often provided in the CHM format, most often in the Windows world. chm2pdf does exactly what its names suggests - it converts a CHM format file into PDF format. PDF is a more common, cross-platform format and so you may prefer it over CHM.

Open ClipArt Library

The Open ClipArt Library "aims to create an archive of user contributed clip art that can be freely used. All graphics submitted to the project should be placed into the Public Domain according to the statement by the Creative Commons."

Bug fixes

The following table gives you a overview of activity on bugs and feature requests as at 17 May 2009. 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	224	223
Opened since the previous newsletter	13	2
Closed since the previous newsletter	21	2

Security announcements

Remember - According to the normal support arrangements for Frugalware, the release of 1.0 ("Anacreon") means that no further security or bug fixes will be released for Frugalware 0.9 ("Solaria") or earlier releases.

Here is a list of security issues which have been discovered and fixed in the 1.0 release since the previous newsletter.

FSA	Package	FSA Description	Upgrade To
FSA604	drupal6	See FSA603.	drupal6-6.12-1anacreon1
FSA603	drupal	A vulnerability has been reported in Drupal, which can be exploited by malicious users to conduct script insertion attacks	drupal-5.18-1anacreon1
FSA602	kernel	1) The exit_notify function in kernel/exit.c does not restrict exit signals when the CAP_KILL capability is held, which allows local users to send an arbitrary signal to a process by running a program that modifies the exit_signal field and then uses an exec system call to launch a setuid application	kernel-2.6.28-6anacreon1
FSA601	file	A vulnerability has been reported in file, which can be exploited by malicious people to potentially compromise a user's system	file-5.02-1anacreon1
FSA600	horde-webmail	A vulnerability has been reported in Horde IMP and Horde Groupware Webmail Edition, which can be exploited by malicious users to conduct spoofing attacks	horde-webmail-1.2.3-1anacreon1
FSA599	j2sdk	Some vulnerabilities have been reported in Sun Java, which can be exploited by malicious people to bypass certain security restrictions, cause a DoS (Denial of Service), or potentially compromise a user's system	j2sdk-6-14anacreon1
FSA598	openssl	Some vulnerabilities have been reported in OpenSSL, which can be exploited by malicious people to bypass certain security restrictions or cause a DoS (Denial of Service)	openssl-0.9.8-17anacreon1
FSA597	firefox	Some vulnerabilities, security issues, and a weakness have been reported in Mozilla Firefox, which can be exploited by malicious people to disclose potentially sensitive information, bypass certain security restrictions, conduct cross-site scripting and cross-site request forgery attacks, and potentially compromise a user's system	firefox-3.0.10-1anacreon1
FSA596	udev	Some vulnerabilities have been reported in udev, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to cause a DoS (Denial of Service) or gain escalated privileges	udev-141-1anacreon1
FSA595	drupal6	See FSA594.	drupal6-6.11-1anacreon1
FSA594	drupal	Some vulnerabilities have been reported in Drupal, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct script insertion attacks or to disclose potentially sensitive information	drupal-5.17-1anacreon1
FSA593	blender	A vulnerability has been reported in Blender, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to gain escalated privileges	blender-2.48a-2anacreon1
FSA592	phpmyadmin	A vulnerability has been reported in phpMyAdmin, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a vulnerable system	phpmyadmin-3.1.3.2-1anacreon1
FSA591	phpmyadmin	Some vulnerabilities have been reported in phpMyAdmin, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct cross-site scripting attacks or compromise a vulnerable system	phpmyadmin-3.1.3.1-1anacreon1
FSA590	wireshark	Some vulnerabilities have been reported in Wireshark, which can potentially be exploited by malicious people to cause a DoS (Denial of Service) and compromise a user's system	wireshark-1.0.7-1anacreon1

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.