Tumbleweed gets LLVM, Sudo, GCC Updates
This week openSUSE Tumbleweed has been on a constant roll as consecutive snapshots arrive with fresh software updates.
MariaDB, GTK and gnome-software were part of a range of updates introduced this week, in addition to the ones highlighted in the headline.
Just two packages updated in snapshot 20231206. The Chinese lunar date library lunar-date has a new major version with the 3.0.1 update; it introduces a localized interface and changes the project option names. The package also updates its license as it has been changed to LGPL-2.1. The update of the rubygem-rubocop 1.58.0 package resolves issues like false negatives for various styles, improves some code quality and ensures more accurate autocorrections for different code patterns. The 1.58.0 rubygem-rubocop version was also updated in the Arm Tumbleweed 20231206 snapshot.
An update of snapshot gnome-shell 45.2 became available in snapshot 20231205. The release addresses several performance issues, improves GNOME’s application search function, and fixes bugs related to the on-screen keyboard. The update improves high-contrast styling, fixes tablet ring and strip mapping, addresses some crashes and updates translations. There were bug fixes that caused unnecessary reloading of the trip query with gnome-maps 45.2. Various enhancements were made with the fwupd 1.9.10 update along with bug fixes. Notable additions were support for not_hardware requirements and loongarch64 microprocessors. The update improves USB claim retry count configuration, enforces version requirements, hides sensitive information in debugging logs, and refines device-specific functionalities, such as Wacom USB device emulation. An update of sudo 1.9.15p2 addresses sudo -l command warning messages, enhances security against rowhammer attacks, and makes improvements to log messages for better user understanding and system security. An 123 version update of the application development toolkit for controlling system-wide privileges, polkit introduces enhanced safety measures, such as deeper restrictions on configuration files, owner restriction for the daemon under systemd, and improves sandboxing within systemd units with the aim to better system security. An update of sqlite3 3.44.2 rectifies issues such as CLI mistakes, Full-Text Search (FTS5) problems identified during internal testing and compiler warnings in debug builds with GNU Compiler Collection 16. The snapshot had updates for hwdata 0.377, ncurses 6.4.20231202 and more. Many of the same packages updated in the Arm Tumbleweed 20231205 snapshot.
Several Qt 6 subpackages updated in snapshot 20231204. The 6.6.1 version of qt6-base fixes QMenuBar functionality limitations and corrects errors related to QFont’s feature Application Programming Interfaces. The update of qt6-wayland 6.6.1 fixes crashes related to texture orphanage and fixes issues with drag and drop with a Wayland display. An update of ibus 1.5.29 enhances Continuous Integration (CI), adds signals to PostProcessKeyEvent, which prevents a tab from being committed by the Input Method and fixes key typing, Emoji, and Unicode issues. The libguestfs 1.51.8 package, which is a tool for accessing and modifying virtual machine (VM) disk images, adds a --chown option for virt-customize and a new --tar-in operation. A few other packages were updated in the snapshot.
An update of snapshot llvm17 17.0.6 landed in snapshot 20231203. The update for the compiler and toolchain package includes rebase patches, adjustments to the versioned executables for better support, and standardizes the management of clang-cpp using update-alternatives akin to other binaries for smoother operation. The 11.1.2 version of mariadb includes several fixes related to unwanted binary locations, memory constraints on ppc64le and skipped tests. An update of the a calendar widget for Chinese lunar library lunar-calendar 3.0.1 involves a modification of the license that transitions to LGPL-2.1 from the previous licensing terms.
An update of gnome-software 45.2 came in snapshot 20231202 and primarily focuses on translations updates for multiple languages, according to the changelog. An older GNU Compiler Collection had a git update with gcc13 13.2.1+git8109. It had fix for building MariaDB on i686 systems and implements changes related to LLVM dependency. An update of inkscape 1.3.2 addresses a data loss issue and corrects a saving error related to some shapes and 3D boxes. The app for organizing personal data and scheduling, evolution, updates to version 3.50.2 and fixes a crash and a memory leak; it also fixes an issue with the search functionality. The gtk4 4.12.4 update improves accessibility name computation, fixes memory format table errors, updated translations and makes some additional refinements.
The snapshot starting off the week was 20231201. An update of perl 5.38.2 fixes two Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures. One of those was CVE-2023-47038, which occurs when a crafted regular expression is compiled by perl. The other was CVE-2023-47039. Snapper 0.10.7 addresses issues related to diff for Logical Volume Manager-based configs and SystemCmd accepting a collection of strings. An update of iproute2 6.6 removes several features and adds backup support in the bridge along with adjustments for the security protocol suite. Other packages to update in the snapshot were ethtool 6.6, gpgme 1.23.2 and more.
Two other Arm Tumbleweed snapshots this week were 20231204 and 20231203.
Member
CzPMusic of the week: String Quartets
One of my favorite albums is Vedres Csaba és a Kairosz kvartett – Áldott Idő / Blessed Time. It was made by Hungarian pianist Csaba Vedres, who worked together with a string quartet. Their music taught me that string quartets playing alone, with a piano, or with any other instrument can do some fantastic music.
The band was founded by Csaba Vedres, who had a classical music education. Besides playing the piano, he also researched the topic of classical vs. popular music. And just like me, he does not like these categories. One of his examples was Trilogy from ELP, but that will be another story :-) This album sounds more like what we usually call classical music, but not completely. Csaba is one of the best rock pianists of Hungary and you can hear that from some of the songs. I could only find a single song from the album on YouTube, but luckily you can find the full album on TIDAL.
TIDAL: https://listen.tidal.com/album/27780222
You can also find the CD at the publisher http://perifericrecords.com/hun/catalogue.php?cont=artist&artist_id=1002, together with other albums from Csaba Vedres.
I must admit that I’m not a big Jethro Tull fan. However, seeing the album cover of “The String Quartets”, I became curious and listened to the album. I was quickly addicted to it. Many old Jethro Tull songs are rearranged for a String Quartet and of course for the flute. And best of all, most songs are purely instrumental.
TIDAL: https://listen.tidal.com/album/71409468
Another album, Silver Lining Suite, which I listened to because it was a piano and a string quartet was made by Hiromi, a Japanese piano player. She wrote the album during Covid. I quickly bought it and another one of her albums on HDtracks in maximum quality, and listened to the album many times. It is difficult to choose a favorite from the album, so let me just simply link the first song. Its title is typical to Covid: “Isolation”.
TIDAL: https://listen.tidal.com/album/199559675
Finally, listen to a piece from a string quartet without any additional instruments. The Sturcz-kvartett plays their arrangement of a song by Solaris, a progrock group. It is probably the least classical sounding of the four songs, showing that a string quartet can really play any kind of music. This song was played on the 40th anniversary of Solaris as part of an online concert, due to Covid. This song is only available on YouTube.
I really hope that the rest of the songs from that concert will be available online or on Blu-Ray!
Syslog-ng can now do a full configuration check
One of the most frequent syslog-ng feature requests is now resolved. Welcome the –check-startup option, allowing you to check the syntax and also spot spelling mistakes!
You can learn more about it at: https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/syslog-ng-can-now-do-a-full-configuration-check
syslog-ng logo
The Transitional Journey of openSUSE’s Logo Rebranding
The open-source world is in the midst of an exciting transformation as the openSUSE community prepares to phase in a new project logo.
While the competition, which has more than 5,000 votes, has yet to conclude, below is a bit of information to help people understand the reasoning for rebranding the project’s logo and information about the next steps for the openSUSE brand once the logos contest is complete.
The beloved Chameleon passionately known as Geeko was first introduced in 2005 when the project began and was slightly changed in 2007 when the type was modified for the brand.
The openSUSE Project adopted the SUSE logo from 2003, but was characterized by a different text beneath it, marking an era of brand association for the community lead project. SUSE has refreshed its brand over the years and its newest logo revealed in 2020 differs completely from that of openSUSE’s. However, the brands of both SUSE and openSUSE can oftentimes confuse people who don’t understand the relationship between the open-source company SUSE and the open-source community project openSUSE.
To help reduce this cross-branding confusion, the community seeks to create a unique brand identity, but to help provide a distinction between the company and the community project; hence, the chameleon inspired logo design contest. Differing logos is a first step to help people identify the difference between the two brands and should alleviate issues that have or could arise in community projects from oozing into the company’s brand identity.
The new logo aims to create a distinct identity for openSUSE, enabling a clearer separation from SUSE. The new logo is expected to be distinguishable from SUSE’s branding and is expected to share a similar style with the logos of its distributions.
The next steps after the logo competition concludes is to discuss the winning selection during the openSUSE Community meeting on Dec. 12 at 14:30 UTC. People are welcome to attend and discuss the results and how the project should move forward with the designs.
After the new logo is announced, the old Geeko logo will be used alongside the new one in stickers and other marketing material to bridge this transition to the new logo. Introducing the new logo alongside the old one will help users adapt to the new identity gradually.
Community members will likely see the logo on table clothes, clothing and other apparel during the transition period, which should make these items unique collectibles. Community members can help get information out about the new logo by attending open-source events and organize a booth at one of the several events.
People within the community who will have feedback about the newly selected logo can email the project’s artwork mailing list or discuss in on the project’s marketing Telegram group.
The person doing the branding changes and maintenance for the distributions has a say in any changes. The ultimate brand decision will rest with members of the project doing the implementation, but the results from this logo competition will provide an expressed opinion of the brand identity project wide.
Vote now at survey.opensuse.org.
openSUSE Community Plans Virtual Bar Anniversary
The ways communities connect and interact have also transformed over the year.
Amidst a time where people saw every square inch/cm of their homes, two openSUSE members founded an innovative way to foster camaraderie and engagement among its community; through a virtual bar.
What began as an idea to bridge distances and create a welcoming space for enthusiasts has now blossomed into a three-year tradition, marking its anniversary.
When the world was navigating the uncharted waters of remote interactions in 2020, the openSUSE community took a bold step to launch its virtual bar at meet.opensuse.org/bar.
Aimed to emulate the lively atmosphere of a physical bar where individuals gather, chat, share knowledge, stories and, most importantly, bond over their passion for openSUSE and Linux. It even has a Telegram group to let people know when the bar is open.
From its inception on December 19, 2020, this virtual watering hole serves as a hub for both seasoned veterans and newcomers. People on the platform share insights, troubleshoot technical issues, discuss the latest developments in the world of Linux, and build lasting connections over drinks of their choice that transcend geographical boundaries.
The success of the openSUSE virtual bar lies not just in its technical infrastructure but in its vibrant community.
The community gears up to celebrate its third anniversary on December 19, 2023, starting at noon UTC time.
The virtual bar has become more than just a place for technical discussions; it has evolved into a support network where members find encouragement, mentorship, and a sense of belonging. Newcomers, in particular, have found solace in the welcoming environment and are actively participating in the openSUSE Community.
Raise your virtual glasses and join the openSUSE community in commemorating three years of friendship, learning, and camaraderie at the virtual bar.
Installing MySQL Community Server version 8 on openSUSE Leap 15
To begin the installation, visit MySQL Community Downloads page and download the RPM package for openSUSE Leap 15.
Install the RPM
sudo rpm -Uvh mysql80-community-release-sles12-8.noarch.rpmImport the MySQL GnuPG Key
sudo rpm --import /etc/RPM-GPG-KEY-mysqlInstall MySQL with Zypper
sudo zypper install mysql-community-serverA superuser account 'root'@'localhost' is created. A password for the superuser is set and stored in the error log file. To reveal it, use the following command:
sudo grep 'temporary password' /var/log/mysql/mysqld.logChange the root password as soon as possible by logging in with the generated, temporary password and set a custom password for the superuser account:
mysql -u root -pALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'MyNewPassword';Music of the week: church organ and drums
In the first part of my music recommendation blog series I mentioned that many people turn to me for some less mainstream music. For quite a long time I thought that listening to cellos playing metal is already something niche. Then it turned out that many people around me love this kind of music. Recently I found something really niche: church organ and drums :-)
I love the sound of the church organ. I listened to this instrument as a kid a lot, and I could not get bored of it. I often hear the church organ with drums and several other instruments playing together in contemporary music, and I love it. However, it has never been just the organ and the drums. I have some mixed feelings here: listening to 3-4 songs with just a drums and a church organ is fun. But that’s my limit. So, here I show you three songs.
The first song I have ever listened to was Drumorg playing Popcorn. It is a fun arrangement, and probably the only in this blog, what most other people also find nice:
TIDAL: https://listen.tidal.com/album/114460337/track/114460341
The next song is a lot more dividing. Many consider it blasphemy: playing the single best known church organ piece with drums. Other consider it fantastic, and listen to it often. The first time I heard it was when someone demonstrated a new pair of self-built speakers to me. At that time the speakers were far from being perfect, however I listened to the music at home, and I liked it:
I was curious, if there is anyone else combining these two instruments. I found one more, the Symphonic Rock Duo, but that was all:
TIDAL: https://listen.tidal.com/artist/18467717
I hope I did not scare you away with this music from my blog series! :-) See you next week!
Post-mortem: Service Degradation in the Notifications System
Major Versions of PipeWire, Firefox arrive in Tumbleweed
Rolling release users of openSUSE Tumbleweed who did a zypper dup on and after Monday will have a couple new major version updates.
El Presidente made an appearance in snapshot 20231127 when the red carpets was rolled out for
PipeWire; Its 1.0 major version, also known as “El Presidente,” brings significant enhancements and numerous fixes like resolving memory management issues related to memfd and dma-buf leaks during buffer uploads. This audio and video package for Linux introduces improvements in time reporting for Advanced Linux Sound Architecture affecting Interrupt Request, which results in reduced timing deviations. Documentation was enhanced and improvements were made with Bluetooth codecs, which introduces the [LC3 codec](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LC3_(codec); this is a the successor to the the SBC codec. Mozilla Firefox also had a major version update and took care of more than a handful of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures. Its 120.0 version addresses several security vulnerabilities. CVE-2023-6204, which made it possible for a leak of memory data, was fixed and CVE-2023-6213, which showed evidence of memory corruption that was presumed to exploit the running of arbitrary code, was also fixed. The tool to query connected USB devices, usbutils, had version 017 resolve issues like displaying entries for devices with no interfaces and improving power/wakeup display via lsusb.py. The changes also ensure better adherence to system libdir and includedir along with various other optimizations. The snapshot had icewm 3.4.4. The X window manager expands image format support for TIFF, WEBP, JXL, JP2, RAW, SVG, and TGA in icewmbg. The package has crash fixes, improves color interpretation for themes and provides a more stable and feature-rich user experience. The package for conversion between Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Japanese Kanji (Shinjitai) opencc updates to 1.1.7 in the snapshot. It adds support for Python 3.12 and Node.js 20. A few other packages update in the snapshot along with transmission 4.0.4, which resolves issues such as metadata transmission to peers, memory allocation, file renaming collisions, and locale errors affecting number rounding in statistics display.
While snapshot 20231126 had no red carpet treatment for a new president, php8 8.2.13 arrived in the snapshot and demanded attention. The update resolves issues like double-free occurrences and incorrect behavior in various components like Opcache, OpenSSL, XMLReader and more. The update addresses error handling and potential crashes. An update of selinux-policy 20231124 fixes Bugzilla issue bsc#1216903 that involves an error message indicating a permission denied error when attempting to apply firewall rules. The update of libbpf 1.3.0 brings support for netfilter and introduces new section definitions, utility macros and extended functionalities for work with ring buffers. An update of libsolv 0.7.27 introduces zstd support for the installcheck tool, enhances compression capabilities, and implements the putinowndirpool cache. This new cache significantly accelerates file list handling within the repo_write function to enhance overall performance. A couple other packages were updated in the snapshot.
Just two packages were updated in snapshot 20231124. New versions of kernel-firmware-nvidia-gspx-G06 545.29.06 improves compatibility and functionality for a kernel module driver and another NVIDIA signing package was also updated in the snapshot.