Autor: chris

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Linux New Media to ship thousands of Fedora DVDs

F15 Multiboot DVD
F15 Multiboot DVD with GNOME and KDE

As some of you might know I started writing for the German Linux Magazin in April. I am now in the lucky position to know quite a few people at Linux New Media and one of them asked me if I had an idea for the DVD they ship with their magazine. Of course I had: A Fedora Multiboot DVD.

First the editors were a little skeptic: Fedora is not that popular in Germany and many people still think it’s too bleeding edge, so Linux Magazin usually ships with save bets like Ubuntu or OpenSUSE. But when I told them about the new amazing features of our Multiboot media such as automatic detection of the CPU architecture and offered them to do a custom German spin, they agreed. So I made a prototype and it has taken a shine to them. 3 days later they asked for an English version, so it now ships not only with the German Linux Magazin but also with the English Admin Magazine. Look out for it in

  • Germany: Linux Magazin is in stores as of today.
  • UK and other European countries: Admin Magazine 04/2011 to be released on July 17th.
  • North America: Admin Magazine to be released on August 12th.
  • Australia and New Zealand: Admin Magazine to be released on September 12th.

I was told not to mention the exact number of media but trust me, it’s huge. It’s more media than the ambassadors produced for the last 3 or 4 Fedora releases worldwide.

And yes, I am fully aware that this media violates several guidelines and policies.

  • It is a re-spin with updates included. We usually don’t to this but to conform to legal requirements, I uploaded the list of source packages to the correcponding-source git repo.
  • It is a custom spin because the package selection is slightly different from the usual GNOME and KDE spins: It includes LibreOffice and for space reasons I had to leave all games out.
  • The isolinux background is the Fedora 15 one but branded with the logo of Linux/Admin Magazine. However this only affects the DVD but not installed systems.
  • I dared to call GNOME „GNOME“ instead of „Desktop“ in the boot menu. I guess I should just have called it „Desktop“ and tell confused people to mail advisory board list to complain.
  • I didn’t ask the Spins SIG but as the Spins Wrangler I ‚approved‘ it myself. There really was no time for discussions, the images had to be ready and shipped to Munich in less than 36 hours.
  • I didn’t ask the board either. I know how discussions on a board level tend to become and there really was no time.

Speak up if you think I have done harm to the Fedora Project!

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Video thumbnails in Thunar

As you might know thumbnails in Thunar are generated with tumbler. For obvious reasons the tumbler package in Fedora cannot include the tumbler-ffmpeg plugin. By popular demand I now rolled an add-on package called tumbler-freeworld. When installed, this is what it looks like:

Video thumbnails in Thunar
Video thumbnails in Thunar using the tumbler-ffmpeg plugin

If you are a packager at RPM Fusion, please review the package. Fedora’s Xfce users will appreciate your help.

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GNOME developer quote of the day

I am no longer using GNOME but Xfce and this has nothing to do with GNOME Shell. I already switched a long time ago. But as the (co-)maintainer of several terminals in Fedora, I wondered how to enable users to easily switch their default terminal emulator in GNOME 3.

In the past users could just select the their favorite terminal in gnome-default-applications-properties. Some things required additional configuration: For a mail client the system needs to know the command to compose a new mail or to add attachments and for a terminal emulator an option to run something in a terminal is required. Developers could pre-configure these values with an xml file in $(prefix)/gnome-control-center/default-apps.

When I asked how to do all this in GNOME 3, Bastien (who helped to invent this nice mechanism in GNOME 2) after a little back and forth told me how things work in GNOME 3. They don’t…

„Because we’re not designing a desktop for people who like to choose their own terminal emulators.„

This „We are not designing a desktop for people who …“ has become a new meme. GNOME 3 is not designed for people

and many other people I forgot. If GNOME continues to narrow down their target audience like this, I wonder if there is actually somebody left.

Simple tasks like selecting a preferred application are made very hard just to then claim „This is something only hackers do“. In the past one could just remove the accessibility or bluetooth icons from the panel by not starting them, now one needs to write extensions for that purpose. One even needs an extension to move the clock. But wait: Is GNOME 3 designed for people who know how to write extensions?

If you think that GNOME is still a nice desktop after all and should not become too simplistic, please support my RFE by adding your two cents. Too bad voting in GNOME’s bugzilla is disabled.

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Announcing the Kolab Server 2.3.2

I’m sorry it took so long, but good things take a while. I am relieved the release is out because now that the problems with FreeBusy are solved, the 2.3 series offer the same functionality as 2.2.4  – plus much more of course.

New features

The update to postfix 2.8 brings a lot of new features like postscreen and multi-instance support. However none of them is enabled by default and old configuration files continue to work. Have fun while exploring the new possibilities, we will make use of them in the next major release.

Bugfixes

Most of the bugfixes affect Kolab_* packages such as Kolab_FreeBusy:

  • apache-php: Security update fixing various CVEs
  • Kolab_FreeBusy: Generating free/busy cache works again
  • Kolab_Resource: Answers from resources no longer contain extra „\r\n\r\n“
    characters
  • Kolab_Server: IMAP connection issues fixed
  • Kolab_Storage: Webclient no longer hangs if freebusy triggering/retrieving
    hangs
  • kolab-webadmin: Listing of sub-folders and sub-calendars was fixed
  • kolabd: Fixed an imap annotatoin so SyncML can sync contacts
  • php: Security update fixing various CVEs
  • postfix: Security update to 2.8.3. This also brings a lot of new features
  • z-push: New version with many bug fixes, rebuilding with prefixes other than /kolab fixed.

For a complete list of changes please refer to the release notes.

Upgrading

The upgrade form 2.3.1 is straight forward, there is nothing special you need to care about. If you are upgrading from 2.2.4, please follow the instructions to upgrade from 2.2.4 to 2.3.0 as outlined in the 1st.README file.

Downloads

Documentation and OpenPKG packages are available as shown on the download page. Binary packages for Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (Squeeze/stable) and 5.0 (Lenny/oldstable) on x86 platforms can be found next to the sources. As soon as they have synced, you can also use the mirrors.

You can check the integrity of the downloaded files by importing our file
distribution key and verify the OpenPGP signature and SHA1 checksums:

$ wget https://ssl.intevation.de/Intevation-Distribution-Key.asc
$ gpg --import Intevation-Distribution-Key.asc
$ gpg --verify SHA1SUMS.sig
$ sha1sum -c SHA1SUMS

Known bugs

  • Bug 98 – Not all folders in the new ActiveSync config are displayed. We are working on that.

Please report bugs in our bug tracker.

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Announcing the Kolab Server 2.3.1

Yesterday late at night I finished the the Kolab Server 2.3.1.

Features

There are not many new features because it is a bugfix release, but in the
webadmin you new will find a new ActiveSync configuration. It will work for
most users, however not completely for power-users with lots of nested and
shared folders, so please consider it only a technical preview.

Bugfixes

Most of the bugfixes affect the webadmin, cyrus-imapd and z-push:

  • cyrus-imapd: Work around for missing user_deny.db
  • cyrus-imapd: Properly flush buffer after TLS initiation
  • kolab-webadmin: Problems with new UID based dn were fixed
  • kolab-webadmin: LDAP Error for maintainers group was fixed
  • kolab-webadmin: New welcome pages now work for all users
  • kolab-webadmin: Multi-language function was fixed
  • kolab-webadmin: Kolab Server version string was fixed
  • z-push: The alias „Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync“ now works out of the box
  • z-push, kolab-z-push and PEAD-Kolab_Zpush: New versions with many bug fixes

For a complete list of changes please refer to the release notes.

Upgrading

The upgrade form 2.3.0 is straight forward, there is nothing special you need to care about. If you are upgrading from 2.2.4, please follow the instructions to upgrade from 2.2.4 to 2.3.0 as outlined in the 1st.README file.

Downloads

Documentation and OpenPKG packages are available as shown on the download page. Binary packages for Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (Squeeze/stable) and 5.0 (Lenny/oldstable) on x86 platforms can be found next to the sources. As soon as they have synced, you can also use the mirrors.

You can check the integrity of the downloaded files by importing our file distribution key and verify the OpenPGP signature and SHA1 checksums:

$ wget https://ssl.intevation.de/Intevation-Distribution-Key.asc
$ gpg --import Intevation-Distribution-Key.asc
$ gpg --verify SHA1SUMS.sig
$ sha1sum -c SHA1SUMS

Known bugs

There are still two bugs in freebusy and the resource management:

  • Issue 4730: Generating free/busy cache broken in server 2.3.0
  • Issue 4731: Answer from resources contains extra „\r\n\r\n“ characters

These will be fixed in 2.3.2 and we will offer packages for testing next week. Please report bugs in our bug tracker.

Development roadmap

As 2.3.1 was released two weeks after 2.3.0 and I’d like to stick with the two-weeks cycle. This means that the Kolab Server 2.3.2 will be released on Friday, May 13th. Yes, this is an unlucky date, not because I’m superstitious but I will be busy. This might even mean I will release earlier.

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Announcing the Kolab Server 2.3.0

For the plane in the fog, the mountain is unforeseeable, but then it is suddenly very real, and inevitable.

Simon Forster, Minister for foreign relations [1]

And so is the release of the Kolab Server 2.3.0. It was a bumpy ride and I’d apologize for the delays, but now we made it!

Features

The new Kolab 2.3.0 server includes a lot of new features, namely:

  • Z-push synchronization for mobile devices
  • a reworked webadmin
  • the possibility to have multiple accounts with the same name.
  • modular packaging of the webclient
  • many updated core components
  • tons of bug fixes

A detailed list of changes is available in the release notes.

Upgrading

Because of the changes in LDAP, upgrading from 2.2.4 is not trivial and requires manual intervention. Please make sure you read and follow the upgrade instructions.

Downloads

Documentation and OpenPKG packages are available as shown on the download page. Binary packages for Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (Squeeze/stable) and 5.0 (Lenny/oldstable) on x86 platforms can be found next to the sources. Support for Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (etch/oldstable) was dropped because it is no longer supported by Debian ether. As soon as they have synced, you can also use the the mirrors.

You can check the integrity of the downloaded files by importing our file distribution key and verify the OpenPGP signature and SHA1 checksums:

$ wget https://ssl.intevation.de/Intevation-Distribution-Key.asc
$ gpg --import Intevation-Distribution-Key.asc
$ gpg --verify SHA1SUMS.sig
$ sha1sum -c SHA1SUMS

Notice

This release marks the end of a long development cycle. After over 2 years, the master and the stable branch are (more or less) in sync again. We introduced many new features and fixed a large number of bugs. We tested the release intensively but due to the massive code changes, we might have missed something or even introduced new bugs.

Before you use this release in a critical environment, we’d like you to test it. Please report any problems you encounter in our bug tracker.

Depending on the number and severity of bugs, we will issue an updated release soon. We already have a number of fixes in the queue such as the today’s Z-push 1.5.2 release, so Kolab 2.3.1 will come soon.

Credits

I’d like to thank a few people for their help, namely and in no particular
order:

  • Paul and Georg, for giving me the chance to work on a great project like Kolab
  • Bernhard for his coordination
  • Thomas and Sascha for their support, especially during this week
  • Bogo for the awesome new look of the webadmin
  • Jeroen for his input and providing me the infrastructure I need
  • Gunnar for responding so fast to the issues we spotted

Without these people the Kolab Server 2.3 would not be possible. Thanks everybody for your hard work!

[1] In the excellent movie „In the loop„