In this week’s issue:

* openSUSE News: Announcing the Second openSUSE Board Election

* Sneak Peeks (Preview 11.2)

* nixCraft/Vivek Gite: 20 Linux Server Hardening Security Tips

* Joe Brockmeier: openSUSE 11.2 final release candidate ready!

* openSUSE Forums: openSUSE 11.2 the Perfect KDE Distribution

For a list of available translations see this page:

http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_Weekly_News/96/Translations.

Typically Novell has created the artwork for the openSUSE DVDs, but this time around we had some really interesting and creative input from openSUSE contributors. Want to help choose the cover? Check out the entries and vote on your favorite!

Behind the scenes, the Wiki and Booster Teams are currently working hard to improve the Usability of the openSUSE Wiki to the openSUSE Community. The process started in early October 2009 and after some lively discussions at the opensuse-wiki mailinglist, we successfully passed our first Team-Meeting discussing the Usability Concept and assigning responsibilities for specific tasks we need to achieve. I herewith like to encourage interested people to join the efforts and to contribute by participating in the discussions at the opensuse-wiki mailinglist and/or the #opensuse-wiki IRC channel on Freenode. Every helping hands is very welcome!

To get an idea about the current state of the Project we’re working on, I’d like to raise your attention on the Meeting Minutes of our first Team-Meeting. To subscribe to the opensuse-wiki mailinglist, please click here.

Not familiar with IRC? A good overview can be found at irchelp.org. This site is not affiliated with openSUSE. For more information on Freenode, see http://freenode.net.

In this week’s issue:

* openSUSE News: Announcing the Second openSUSE Board Election

* Sneak Peeks (Preview 11.2)

* nixCraft/Vivek Gite: 20 Linux Server Hardening Security Tips

* Joe Brockmeier: openSUSE 11.2 final release candidate ready!

* openSUSE Forums: openSUSE 11.2 the Perfect KDE Distribution

For a list of available translations see this page:

http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_Weekly_News/95/Translations.

This release should be almost ready for the gold master stamp, but there’s still time to shake out remaining bugs. This release should not be deployed on production systems, but should be ready for early adopters and contributors who want to help with testing and development of 11.2.

Changes Since openSUSE 11.2 RC 1

Release Candidate 2 includes a few new packages, and several of the “most annoying bugs” in RC 1 have been fixed for this release. New packages include:

• Linux kernel 2.6.31.5
• SeaMonkey 2.0
• Firefox 3.5.4
• Samba 3.4.2
• xorg-x11-server 1.6.5

A more complete list can be found on the wiki and an updated list of Factory packages can be found on DistroWatch.

11.2 is looking fantastic. Want screenshots? We’ve got ‘em! Check out the shots here, and/or add your own.

Most Annoying Bugs

As this is a release candidate, we’re still shaking the release out for major bugs. However, at this point in the cycle, we’re almost ready to call 11.2 RC 2 production ready. We do know of one bug worth noting, however: The Net ISO images will call the factory repository. The URL for repositories needs to be changed from /factory/repo/oss to /factory-snapshot/repo/oss manually.

You can find more on adding repositories on the openSUSE wiki.

If any major new bugs do crop up, they will be listed on the openSUSE wiki.

Testing! Testing! Testing!

As you can see, 11.2 RC2 does have a few bugs that we know about — but there may be more lurking somewhere in the release that haven’t been found yet. If you want to make sure 11.2 final is free of Most Annoying Bugs, we’ll need your help finding, reporting, and fixing those hidden bugs.

To learn more about testing openSUSE, visit the Testing pages on the openSUSE wiki. To follow the testing and development process, we suggest that you subscribe to the openSUSE-Factory mailing list, and join the #openSUSE-Factory channel on Freenode to discuss openSUSE development.

Get Release Candidate 2 Today!

What are you waiting for? Grab the milestone release today! Downloads are available at software.opensuse.org/developer/ now.

Note, if you need to try the live CD on a machine with no CD-ROM drive, you can copy it to a USB key with the following command:

dd if=image.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M

Replace “image.iso” with the name of the ISO image that you have downloaded, and replace “sdX” with the actual device name of your USB drive. Be careful! This will erase the target device, so make sure you have the correct device name and have any vital data backed up!

The final release for 11.2 is scheduled to be released on November 12, 2009. See the detailed roadmap on the on the wiki.

We’re at the home stretch. A big thanks to all the contributors who have participated in the 11.2 cycle. Without you, we’d have no openSUSE.

Please add your topics to the meeting wiki page at:

http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_Weekly_News/Meetings/Topics_current

We using for our Meeting the Meetbot. Please check http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot for the commands.

Please add topics as soon as possible. Also, if you have questions for the meeting, but can’t attend (we know that the meeting times can’t work for everyone) please add them to the agenda as well.

For more on IRC meetings, see: http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/About.

As always, we meet in #opensuse-newsletter on Freenode. Fire up your favorite IRC client and head over to #opensuse-newsletter.

Not familiar with IRC? A good overview can be found at irchelp.org. This site is not affiliated with openSUSE. For more information on Freenode, see http://freenode.net/.

Wondering what meeting times are? Check the openSUSE Meetings page. All project meetings and team meetings should be listed there.

on IRC meetings, see: http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/About.

As always, we meet in #opensuse-newsletter on Freenode. Fire up your favorite IRC client and head over to #opensuse-newsletter.

Not familiar with IRC? A good overview can be found at irchelp.org. This site is not affiliated with openSUSE. For more information on Freenode, see http://freenode.net/.

Wondering what meeting times are? Check the openSUSE Meetings page. All project meetings and team meetings should be listed there.

We’ll discuss the new usability concept for the openSUSE wiki. Everyone interested is welcome to join us. The agenda (working draft) is available here.

Not familiar with IRC? A good overview can be found at irchelp.org. This site is not affiliated with openSUSE.

The highlights include: the openSUSE DVD preselected to KDE 4.3; new Firefox KDE integration; OpenOffice.org KDE 4 integration; consistent KDE artwork; all other standard applications fully ported to KDE 4, including KNetworkManager, Amarok, DigiKam, K3b, Konversation and more.

We will also be talking to openSUSE and KDE core developer Luboš Luňák, to find out more about the developments in KDE 4.3, where the project is concentrating its efforts, and what the openSUSE boosters team is really all about. Read on for the full story…

KDE 4.3 Preselection on DVD

After a feature request shot to #1 on the openSUSE feature tracker, openFATE, a lively discussion began on the openSUSE mailing lists about whether to preselect KDE on the DVD installation. openSUSE, and SUSE Linux before that, had always had a strong KDE following in the community, and the discussion picked up a lot of momentum and popularity. As an overview, the openSUSE-project mailing list received 751 mails in August, in comparison to July’s 89.

It was finally decided to default the radio button to KDE in the DVD installer. Therefore, with the openSUSE 11.2 release, the KDE desktop will be installed if the user accepts the default setting. Users can also choose the GNOME desktop at this stage.

Firefox KDE Integration

Recognising the popularity of Firefox, the KDE team decided to have Firefox as the default browser for openSUSE 11.2. As a consequence, there has been a significant effort pioneered by Luboš Luňák to make Firefox more friendly to KDE users.

The Firefox integration by openSUSE means that wherever Firefox contacts the rest of the desktop, KDE components are used, including: file dialogs, application selection dialog, mimetype handling, notifications system, and more. A screencast of these changes has been recorded by Javier Llorente:

KDE Artwork

As of openSUSE 11.2, our KDE participates in the KDE drive to create a shared, consistent brand, using recognisably openSUSE artwork developed by Nuno Pinheiro of the KDE community:

KDE 3

openSUSE has been the only mainstream distribution to allow the parallel installation of KDE 3 and KDE 4, but as KDE 4.3 has become a widely accepted replacement for KDE 3, 11.2 no longer offers a KDE 3 desktop installation in the default installer.

KDE 3 applications however remain available where no KDE 4 port exists, and users can still install a KDE 3 desktop using the openSUSE Build Service.

Applications now Ported to KDE 4.3 and Improved

As KDE 4.3 reaches a stage of complete maturity, the last remaining applications were ported fully to KDE 4. openSUSE and KDE developer Will Stephenson and others performed a complete overhaul of KDE’s Network Manager for KDE 4.3. The result is a more powerful application with an emphasis on usability.

Popular applications such as Amarok, K3b and Konversation are now also included in their KDE4 versions for openSUSE 11.2:

YaST Control Center

The YaST control center has now been fully ported to Qt 4, and the graphical user interface has been given a complete makeover. The new interface is now consistent with KDE’s Configure Desktop (systemsettings):

Other modules such as software management have also been redesigned:

More Applications on the Live CD

Since openSUSE started switching to LZMA compression in its RPMs and Live CDs, we have been left with a significant amount of additional space on the live CDs. This now means that several new KDE applications can be included, such as: Choqok, a twitter and identi.ca client for KDE; Yakuake; and Marble:

Many thanks to Martin Schlander and Will Stephenson for their contributions and suggestions for this article.

Talk with Luboš Luňák

Konqueror is a mascot of the KDE project. Why did you decide to invest time in integrating Firefox in 11.2?

But we have done nothing to the dragon. And actually it is very easy to switch the default back to Konqueror (I myself still use it). Also the truth is that Konqueror was not 100% the default browser in openSUSE 11.1 either. For example, clicking links in KDE applications launched Konqueror, the panel had the Konqueror icon, but on the desktop there was the Firefox icon. So we fixed this inconsistency by making Firefox the default everywhere, which should improve the situation for less experienced users who usually use the desktop icon and could get confused by sometimes getting a different browser, and more experienced users who want Konqueror can handle going to KDE settings and switching the radio button in the Default Applications module back from Firefox.

However, the main reason was that many users simply have a problem with using Konqueror. As I said, I myself still use Konqueror, but e.g. if somebody else wants to browse the Internet on my home machine, I give them Firefox. I think we simply should not try to ignore the reality, as much as we might not like it. We will again evaluate the possibilities for the default browser (and the HTML rendering component in Konqueror’s case) again for the next openSUSE release.

As for the integration, when we decided to default fully to Firefox for 11.2, it became quite clear that Firefox is not that suitable as the default KDE browser. People who did the X11/Unix integration of Firefox were quite random in seeing a difference between X11/Unix and GNOME, even in the source code and sometimes not at all, so using Firefox with KDE was not a pleasant user experience. File dialogs were Gtk ones, and were used even for selecting an application to open a file with; default applications were usually from GNOME and the button order in dialogs was wrong (not just the other way around, but Gtk dialogs need an explicit call to adjust the button order depending on the desktop, so Firefox’s own dialogs and “broken” Gtk dialogs were swapped while proper Gtk dialogs had the KDE order).

There were attempts at making Qt ports of Firefox in the past, but as far as I know there has never been one that would be really usable (and with the advances of WebKit and the fact that it’s shipping with Qt I don’t see that happening in the future). The reason for why we could achieve something in a few days that has been missing for years is down to the fact that I aimed pretty low – this is not a port of Firefox, but it’s the same Gtk-based version of Firefox, with ‘if running in KDE, call this small helper app’ code inserted in desktop-specific places doing most of the job. Even with this approach I think Firefox now integrates into KDE reasonably well.

KWin has now got reliable, speedy 3D desktop effects. How do you see the window manager’s role developing with the trend towards semantic activity-based interfaces and netbooks, and how do you see KDE on openSUSE participating in this trend?

Actually I’ve been so busy with openSUSE for the last year that I’ve had only little time to do something directly upstream. For this reason I’m really happy that there are people like Lucas Murray, Martin Gräßlin and others who keep moving KWin forward. So, although I still try to at least keep on eye on KWin, I think it would be better to ask people who actually do the work.

From the things worked on or mostly done for KDE 4.4 that I remember there are branches for adding window tabbing and window tiling to KWin and for decorations, besides merging of Oxygen forks Ozone and Nitrogen back into one decoration, there is also an SVG-based decoration called Aurorae that allows easy theming even for non-developers.

Looking forward to KDE 4.4 and 4.5, what kind of areas will the KDE project be concentrating on?

There is a feature plan for 4.4 at in the KDE techbase (with some of those things possibly not happening for 4.4 and other things happing even though not being on the list), but besides that the answer is something along the lines of the answer for the previous question. I think KDE in openSUSE and the openSUSE Boosters team will keep me busy for the time coming.

Some of the interesting things in 4.4 or 4.5 could be improved netbook support, porting of KMail and other KDEPIM applications to Akonadi and basically small improvements everywhere , now that most of the base things are pretty in their place. It could mean there will be also some time for having look at some optimizations, something I’d like to have a look at myself if possible, we will see about that.

Can you tell us a little about the new openSUSE Boosters team?

You can read about them in the new.openSUSE.org announcement article.
In a nutshell, the plan is that the team will work on helping the community making openSUSE better full-time, whatever that will require.

How can people start contributing to KDE in openSUSE? Where is there a need for new contributors?

Are you kidding ? Of course whoever wants to contribute is welcome. And this is not just about developers or packages, pretty much anybody can help – the KDE team could use help also with bug triaging, writing documentation and HOWTOs, helping other users, and even just running the regular IRC meeting or taking minutes for it would help.

I’m quite sure we can find ways to contribute for whoever joins our IRC meeting, our mailing list opensuse-kde@opensuse.org or the #opensuse-kde IRC channel on Freenode. I hope after openSUSE 11.2 is out we will find some time for writing simple HOWTOs like ‘adding a patch to KDE packages’ or ‘upgrading a version of a KDE application’, so that people will easily be able to do things in the openSUSE Build Service that they need and that help openSUSE and KDE as well.

Stephen Shaw (decriptor) and Bryen Yunashko (suseROCKS) have completed their tenure on the Board, and their seats are up for election.  There is also a new seat available to be occupied by a non-Novell member.  Henne Vogelsang (henne) and Pascal Bleser (yaloki) have another year to complete and will remain, Michael Löffler (michl) as chairman will remain as well.  This means that as of this year’s election the openSUSE Board will be made up of equal numbers of Novell and non-Novell employees, 2 seats+Chairperson and 3 seats respectively.  Candidates for this election will be voted in for a two (2) year term, ensuring that there is continuity within the Board.

The election is broken into three phases similar to last year:

October 26th, 2009 (Phase 0)

• Start of 4 week period for non-members to apply for an openSUSE membership (in order to vote).
• Start of 4 week phase for members to stand for a position in the openSUSE Board.

November 23rd, 2009 (End of Phase 0)

• Notification of intent to run, and application for an openSUSE membership close .

November 24th, 2009 (Phase 1)

• Start of 2 week campaign for the Board Candidates before the ballots open.  Candidates may campaign until the final bell when ballots close, should they wish.

December 8th, 2009 (Phase 2)

• Ballots open

December 22nd, 2009 (End of Phase 1 & 2)

• Ballots close

Should anyone have any questions, you can contact the Election Committee by emailing election-officials@opensuse.org or speaking to one of the members on IRC.  It is best to always email the committee even if you speak to someone on IRC.  Full details of the election can be found on the wiki here.  Prospective candidates are highly encouraged to read this lwn.net article on some of the tasks required of Board members.

In this week’s issue:

• Novell’s Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier hosts new Network World podcast series
• Will Stephenson: Update from the openSUSE Boosters
• Pavol Rusnak: Wrong usage of LD_LIBRARY_PATH
• Pascal Bleser: Packman upgrading to SVN OBS
• h-online/Thorsten Leemhuis: Kernel Log: Coming in 2.6.32 (Part 1) – Network subsystem and network drivers

For a list of available translations see this page:
http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_Weekly_News/94/Translations.