5tFTW: F21 Alpha, Shellshock, Schedule Docs Update, Flock 2015 Locations, and a Fedora User Committee idea (2014-09-26)
11:35 a.m.
Reposted from <http://fedoramagazine.org/5tftw-2014-09-26/>;.
Fedora is a big project, and it’s hard to follow it all. This series
highlights interesting happenings in five different areas every week.
It isn’t comprehensive news coverage — just quick summaries with links
to each. Here are the five things for September 18th, 2014:
Fedora 21 Alpha Release!
------------------------
Of course, this week’s big news is the release of Fedora 21 Alpha — the
first formal test release on the way to an early-December final
release. This will be our first release with distinct Cloud, Server,
and Workstation products — a first phase of Fedora.next. Read the F21
Alpha release announcement, and download the flavor you’re interested
in (or launch the cloud image in EC2).
A gigantic thank you and congratulations to all of the Fedora
contributors who made this happen!
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora.next
* https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F21_Alpha_release_announcement
* http://fedoraproject.org/get-prerelease
*
https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/v2/home?region=us-east-1#LaunchInstanc...
Shellshock and Fedora
---------------------
And then, this is our *other* big news. By now, this has been
well-covered *everywhere*, but if you haven’t seen it yet, check out
articles tagged `shellshock` on Fedora Magazine to keep your system
safe.
If you’re curious, read my "Shellshock: How does it actually work?"
article, where I attempt to give a satisfying level of detail in a way
that anyone can understand. Also, the Red Hat security blog has a nice
post-incident FAQ, with a lot of other background and information, and
explains the reasoning behind the patch Red Hat developed (which is the
one we are using in Fedora).
You might also be interested Dan Walsh’s blog entry on how SELinux
helps contain this attack — it’s not perfect, but when an exploit is
in the wild, it’s important to have meaningful layers of protection.
And! I’ll be live on the Linux Action Show this Sunday, talking
about Shellshock and other things.
* http://fedoramagazine.org/tag/shellshock/
* http://fedoramagazine.org/shellshock-how-does-it-actually-work/
*
https://securityblog.redhat.com/2014/09/26/frequently-asked-questions-abo...
* http://danwalsh.livejournal.com/71122.html
* http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/tag/linux-action-show/
In Which Adam Fixes Everything
------------------------------
Fedora QA Community Monkey (no, really, that’s his title) Adam
Williamson apparently does not need to sleep, and in the midst of all of
the Shellshock fun, spent about 36 hours straight cleaning up some of
the documentation in the Fedora wiki around our release schedule and
process. Some of this is only of interest if you’re deeply involved in
Fedora development or QA, but if you’re following Fedora prereleases
(like the alpha!) — and possibly if you have been confused previously —
it’s all a lot better now, with more consistent names and documentation
that actually reflects reality. Take a look at
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Release_Life_Cycle
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Milestone_freezes
and about three dozen interlinked pages which are now all nicely
consistent and much more beautiful than they were before. This is a
great example of how "just do it!" works in wikis and open source in
general — some discussion on IRC and mailing lists, but no waiting to
act. Thanks to Adam for seeing a mess and making it better!
Flock Possibilities
-------------------
Flock (our big annual contributor conference) will be held in North
America next summer — but where? We have four bids, all in the United
States:
* Salt Lake City, Utah
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flock2015-SaltLakeCity-proposal
* Colorado Springs, Colorado
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flock2015-ColoradoS...
* Rochester, New York
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flock2015-Rochester-proposal
* Cape Cod, Massachusetts
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flock2015-CapeCod-proposal
The Flock planning team is working on putting together a side-by-side
feature and cost comparison, and will soon be running a straw poll to
find the preferences of potential attendees.
Robyn on Distros and DevOps — and User Communication
----------------------------------------------------
Former Fedora Project Leader Robyn Bergeron has an interesting blog
post about "distros and silos, devops and open source". She talks about
several things (all worth reading), but one of the most interesting is
the suggestion she floats for a User Committee. What do you think?
Would a Fedora User Committee help improve our communication and break
down silos?
* http://robyn.io/2014/09/24/distros-and-silos-devops-and-open-source/
----
Repost note: for the past couple of months, I've just been posting this
to the magazine and not reposting to mailing lists. The mailing list
posts weren't getting a lot of response. I'm trying it again this week,
though — let me know if it's useful to have it here. You can also
follow using the RSS feed at <http://fedoramagazine.org/tag/5tftw/feed/>;.
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
11:17 a.m.
On Mon, 2014-09-29 at 16:00 +0000, Beartooth wrote:
On Sun, 28 Sep 2014 10:51:20 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
> [....] It is true that Workstation is
> based on the GNOME desktop, but that's incidental to the point. You'll
> still be able to install any desktop, including GNOME, outside of the
> Workstation product. However, Workstation is currently going to be the
> main desktop-user-targeted deliverable that we're focusing Fedora
> resources on.
It's not clear from the above whether those of us who just can't
cope with Gnome3 (even if/when we want to) will be able to go on using
Fedora. What is the difference between Workstation and other desktops?
Can we still adopt apps from others? (I'm thinking F21W plus Konqueror,
Mate-workspace manager, Gnome-terminal, etc.)
I've been sticking to Mate and Xfce for the most part. I have
Gnome3 on one machine, and try to use it a little every day, but it's
still counter-intuitive and counter-productive for my uses. At such rare
times as I know exactly how to get to an app I want, it takes me twice as
many keystrokes or mouse clicks as Gnome2,or Xfce4, or Mate, often with
waits in among them. That means I lose my train of thought.
I don't run servers and wouldn't touch the cloud with a mushroom.
So it's workstation or nothing, afaict; and if workstation means having
to fight Gnome3, then with great reluctance I'll have to jump distro.
I don't know how many other users may be in the same boat. My
impression is that I'm by no means alone.
I have never had any version of Gnome as my default DE (I'm a KDE user
since before Fedora even existed under that name) so I suspect you're
worrying unnecessarily.
poc
1:09 p.m.
On 29.09.2014, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
You can do whatever you are doing now. Fedora is just focusing on
an
particular set of products.
Thanks Matthew and Rahul for explaining this. Although my main DE
(awesome) is easily installable on nearly any distribution, I love
XFCE.
I'll definitely install one of my machines with F21 and take a closer
look.
12:19 p.m.
On 09/29/14 12:17, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
On Mon, 2014-09-29 at 16:00 +0000, Beartooth wrote:
and if workstation means having
> to fight Gnome3, then with great reluctance I'll have to jump distro.
I have never had any version of Gnome as my default DE (I'm a KDE user
since before Fedora even existed under that name) so I suspect you're
worrying unnecessarily.
poc
I installed Fedora-21 Alpha XFCE Live without difficulty a couple of
days ago and so far it does everything I expect!
Bob
--
http://www.qrz.com/db/W2BOD
box10 Fedora-20/64bit Linux/XFCE
12:08 p.m.
Hi
On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 12:00 PM, Beartooth wrote:
It's not clear from the above whether those of us who
just can't
cope with Gnome3 (even if/when we want to) will be able to go on using
Fedora. What is the difference between Workstation and other desktops?
Can we still adopt apps from others? (I'm thinking F21W plus Konqueror,
Mate-workspace manager, Gnome-terminal, etc.)
You can do whatever you are doing now. Fedora is just focusing on an
particular set of products.
Rahul
11 a.m.
On Sun, 28 Sep 2014 10:51:20 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
[....] It is true that Workstation is
based on the GNOME desktop, but that's incidental to the point. You'll
still be able to install any desktop, including GNOME, outside of the
Workstation product. However, Workstation is currently going to be the
main desktop-user-targeted deliverable that we're focusing Fedora
resources on.
It's not clear from the above whether those of us who just can't
cope with Gnome3 (even if/when we want to) will be able to go on using
Fedora. What is the difference between Workstation and other desktops?
Can we still adopt apps from others? (I'm thinking F21W plus Konqueror,
Mate-workspace manager, Gnome-terminal, etc.)
I've been sticking to Mate and Xfce for the most part. I have
Gnome3 on one machine, and try to use it a little every day, but it's
still counter-intuitive and counter-productive for my uses. At such rare
times as I know exactly how to get to an app I want, it takes me twice as
many keystrokes or mouse clicks as Gnome2,or Xfce4, or Mate, often with
waits in among them. That means I lose my train of thought.
I don't run servers and wouldn't touch the cloud with a mushroom.
So it's workstation or nothing, afaict; and if workstation means having
to fight Gnome3, then with great reluctance I'll have to jump distro.
I don't know how many other users may be in the same boat. My
impression is that I'm by no means alone.
--
Beartooth Staffwright, Not Quite Clueless Power User
Remember I know little (precious little!) of where up is.
9:51 a.m.
On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 11:53:06AM +0200, Heinz Diehl wrote:
Thanks, I've already read them all. However, some of the
information
given is not precise enough or could be misinterpreted. For ex., to me it
looks like that the GNOME desktop will be the only DE supported (and
installable).
No, that's not the case, by a long shot. It is true that Workstation is
based on the GNOME desktop, but that's incidental to the point. You'll still
be able to install any desktop, including GNOME, outside of the Workstation
product. However, Workstation is currently going to be the main
desktop-user-targeted deliverable that we're focusing Fedora resources on.
That doesn't mean that we're going to take away other options (or the
ability to work on them in Fedora!). Fundamentally, this is a marketing
strategy: it's much more effective to pick some key areas and make a huge
measurable impact than it is to do a small amount in every direction with no
focus. The goal is, in fact, for that focused success to spread out to
increase Fedora use in all areas.
As for whether it's a way you don't like — try it and see, and if it doesn't
fit, there's probably a spin or some other areas in Fedora which suits
better. And if that's still not for you, that's okay too.
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
5:11 a.m.
Hi
On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 5:53 AM, Heinz Diehl wrote:
On 27.09.2014, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> It has been extensively explained earlier and summarized posted on a
weekly
> basis here as well. In case you missed it:
[....]
Thanks, I've already read them all. However, some of the information
given is not precise enough or could be misinterpreted. For ex., to me it
looks like that the GNOME desktop will be the only DE supported (and
installable).
Even a cursory glance at https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-spin-prerelease
would confirm otherwise. Any other questions?
Rahul
1:58 a.m.
Hi
On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 2:33 AM, Heinz Diehl wrote:
On 26.09.2014, Matthew Miller wrote:
> This will be our first release with distinct Cloud, Server,
> and Workstation products
How do they actually differ?
It has been extensively explained earlier and summarized posted on a weekly
basis here as well. In case you missed it:
http://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-present-and-future-a-fedora-next-2014-up...
http://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-present-and-future-a-fedora-next-2014-up...
http://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-present-and-future-a-fedora-next-2014-up...
http://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-present-and-future-a-fedora-next-2014-up...
Rahul
4:53 a.m.
On 27.09.2014, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
It has been extensively explained earlier and summarized posted on a
weekly
basis here as well. In case you missed it:
[....]
Thanks, I've already read them all. However, some of the information
given is not precise enough or could be misinterpreted. For ex., to me it
looks like that the GNOME desktop will be the only DE supported (and
installable).
From what I've read, it goes very much in a way which I don't
like ("appifying Linux" and more). Since I've not yet done the upgrade
to
F20 and since there's only one of my machines left which actually
runs Fedora, I guess that's it for me so far.
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10 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Beartooth -
Bob Goodwin -
Heinz Diehl -
Matthew Miller -
Patrick O'Callaghan -
Rahul Sundaram