Arch Linux Newsletter

Summary

Welcome to the Arch Linux Newsletter. This document attempts to give you an "at a glance" look at the world of Arch Linux.

Table Of Contents

Front Page News

1. Summary of questions on upgrade to current
   
   If you start upgrading to new current you are asked some questions: remove devfsd
   remove rar
   replace alsa-driver
   replace pcmcia-cs
   replace kernel24 kernel24-scsi
   etc...
   It is safe to say Y to those questions, since we dropped suppot for kernel 2.4 series those packages are not needed anymore. rar was removed because it's shareware and unrar was added instead, which is freeware.
   
   Servers should be in sync in 24 - 48 hours I think.
   
   
2. Testing Move
   
   In the next little while we'll be moving everything from testing to current and extra. Some mirrors will get out of sync during the move, so don't update unless you have to. It will be less painful if you update after we announce everything has been moved.
   
   Changes:
   - Updated gcc/glibc/ssl/db/apache to new major versions.
   Many packages rebuilt.
   - Updated kernel26 to 2.6.17 and started using mkinitcpio
   Click here
   - Support for kernel 2.4 dropped. All kernel 2.4 packages and dependencies will be removed on update.
   
   

Devland

1. James made a change to the network-profiles scripts to make it easier to configure wpa. They will be available to everyone in the next release.
2. Paul is in Italy for the next week. He's probably having a lot more fun than we all are ;)
3. Aaron will be out part of next week.

Forum Highlights

1. rasat made an application for getting very descriptive package information.
2. iphitus experimented with fs-fcache in order to improve boot efficiency.
3. thydian gave praise to the rolling release system.
4. Jacek Poplawski wanted to know what people thought of Linux games.

Mailing List Highlights

1. An effort on getting SCIM working with KDE.
2. Fixing fonts that may look ugly.
3. Getting Acroread to work properly.

Package Highlights

• GCC/Glibc/OpenSSL/DB have been updated to the newest major versions.
• Apache has been updated to the 2.2.x series.
• VIM has been updated to the 7.0.x series.
• Packages have been rebuilt against the latest updates.

FAQ

Q: What is the difference between AUR, COMMUNITY, and UNSUPPORTED?

A: AUR(Arch User Repository) is the name of the whole new system which is maintained by the TUs(Trusted Users). It lets anybody that signs up to upload PKGBUILDs to UNSUPPORTED but only TUs have access to COMMUNITY which is a binary repo that you can use with Pacman.

Q: Why aren't all packages in UNSUPPORTED added to COMMUNITY?

A: There are several reasons for that. The most important is that the package hasn't got many votes. It's also important that you vote for packages that already are in COMMUNITY, otherwise they could be disowned by the TUs and moved to UNSUPPORTED. Other reasons could be that the package is unmaintained upstream or has a licensing problem. Last but not least, no TU wants to do it.

Archstats

To Participate, visit: http://www.archlinux.org/~simo/archstats

Number of registered systems: 702
Longest recorded uptime: 489 days, 3 hours, 29 minutes, 25 seconds.
Average uptime: 12 days, 20 hours, 51 minutes, 27 seconds.
Average installed packages: 426
Average system memory: 722MB
Lowest Bogomips: 266.12
Average Bogomips: 3564.22
Highest Bogomips: 6811.60

Seti@Home

To Participate, visit: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=116975

Members: 31
Total credit: 319,879.85

folding@Home

Arch Linux Team Page
Extended Team Statistics

Team Number: 45032
Members: 62
Score: 704422
Ranking: 538 of 44439

Bugs

• AUR: Closed 4 - Opened 3
• Arch: Closed 75 - Opened 73

Closing

That's it for this time folks. If you have any opinions on the newsletter or have some things you wanna add, just send us a mail and we'll look into it.
Very best regards / Team Arch