The openSUSE.Asia Committee is seeking sponsors for the ninth openSUSE.Asia Summit. The summit will take place in Chongqing, China, from Oct. 21–23, 2023. Our participants are FLOSS users, developers, students and people who are interested in FLOSS from a wide range of different industries. The sponsorship is for accommodation, food, publicity, etc.

We are aiming to provide a low-barrier offline platform for users, contributors and developers to meet. Relationships between open-source enthusiasts can be greatly facilitated through offline summits. It is also an opportunity for technologists to share and promote the latest trends in technology and to exchange experiences. Sponsorship is an expression of your appreciation and recognition of our community and our work goals.

• Promote your products in the community.

• Business can promote their solutions / services to our community and stakeholders through business tracks.

• Sponsors can promote their products / services through

  • openSUSE.Asia Summit website.

  • Printed materials advertising the event.

  • Summit welcome package.

  • Promotional advertising visible throughout the event location.

  • Other community events that we attend  to promote openSUSE.Asia summit.

  • Sponsors can also request a booth to highlight their products and businesses.

Contact opensuse-asia-2023@googlegroups.com no later than 15th of September, 2023. The sponsorship prospectus is available at:

English Call For Sponsorship(en).pdf

Chinese Call For Sponsorship(cn).pdf

We would like to thank SUSE and arm, which are both Platinum sponsors, for their support.

This week’s openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots are rolling out at a steady pace.

The snapshots were not large, but consistent.

Snapshot 20230628 provided a few small changes that focused on removing some obsolete mechanisms and cleaned up some aspects to help with the future direction of Python.

Snapshot 20230627 was one of the bigger snapshots this week and it provided updates for gegl, kdump pipewire, strace and much more. The graphics package gegl brought version 0.4.46. The package provides some bug fixes and performance improvements and it re-enabled a deprecation warning. The kernel-crash dumping package kdump updated to version 1.9.2; this had enhancements like a rewrite of kdump-save and updates for other parts to ensure mounts are now entirely handled by dracut. An update of audio-compression package flac 1.4.3 improved the encoder speed for all presets, and it made significant improvements for the fastest presets as well as 24-bit and 32-bit inputs. Multimedia framework pipewire 0.3.72 fixed a critical bug that refused to update JACK clients, and there were some audio enhancements for Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. Strace 6.4 and perl-Bootloader 1.4 were among several other packages updated in the snapshot.

The only package updated in snapshot 20230626 was low-level signal processing library spandsp; the updated 3.0.0 git + version had some modifications aimed at mitigating concerns related to buffer overflows, memory corruption, and other potential issues that could arise from excessive data copying into an output buffer.

The 20230625 snapshot updated two packages. New major version firewalld 2.0 gained support for nftables flowtable, which is expected to accelerate Transmission Control Protocol and User Datagram Protocol flows. The major version also gained a new feature called Zone Priorities, which allows the user to control the order in which packets are classified into zones; it can be set using command line option --set-priority. The other package to update in the snapshot was sssd 2.9.1. This identity management client fixed a couple regressions to include one that affected lookups for kernel-based automounter autofs when cache_first is set to true.

Mesa and the Linux Kernel were updated in snapshot 20230625, but LibVNCServer 0.9.14 had several changes to highlight. The package fixed some Transport Layer Security interoperability with GnuTLS servers, removed a CVE-2020-29260 patch and added support for qemu extended key events. Mesa’s 23.1.3 update fixed a regression related to boo#1209005 that caused a crash in some instances. An update of the kernel-source to version 6.3.9 addressed an issue related to x86 architecture where a switch is performed immediately after installing a new Global Descriptor Table (GDT). A change was also made in the wireless networking subsystem related to regulatory wireless device channel validation. Another package to update in the snapshot was sendmail 8.17.2. The package improved error handling for TLS setup failures, introduces various improvements related to Email Address Internationalization support and improves security by maintaining DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities requirements. Several other packages updated in the snapshot.

Today we’re going to explain the versioning system we’re using to release new features to the SCM/CI integration. Versioning the Workflow Configuration We are introducing the versioning as a way to release new features in the SCM/CI without breaking existing user’s configuration. Those features are going to be released under a MAJOR.MINOR version scheme. You know the drill already: current version is 1.0, so the next minor version will be 1.1 and the next major...

Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,

Finally back on the weekly review cycle – are we taking bets on how long I can keep it up (summertime is ‘terrible’ – it motivates too much to take Fridays off). Anyway, even without me there, you are used to Tumbleweed rolling. Lately, all the excellent work on Staging Is being performed by Ana. During this week, we managed to publish again 6 snapshots (the 7th was in QA, but took slightly longer to test than the next one needed to build).

The 6 snapshots (0614, 0616, 0617, 0619, 0620, and 0620) brought you those changes:

• Python 3.11 has been set as the default Python interpreter
• libzypp: fix for stricter http/2 RFC 9113 server implementations: trim custom headers
• Qt 5.15.10
• PHP 8.1.20
• LibreOffice 7.5.4.2
• poppler 23.06.0
• LLVM 16.0.6
• node.JS 20.3.0
• Mozilla Firefox 114.0.2
• KDE Plasma 5.27.6

Integration tests are currently being performed on these planned changes:

• Linux kernel 6.3.9
• Protobuf 22.5: please help to sort out the failures in Staging:K
• util-linux 2.39
• Mesa 23.1.3
• PHP 8.2.7: Nextcloud was updated to 26.0.3, which claims to support PHP 8.2

A few weeks ago, I posted about sngbench, a shell script to measure syslog-ng performance. The performance of syslog-ng is influenced by many factors, including the hardware and OS it runs on, and syslog-ng itself. This blog summarizes some of my findings using the script.

https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/what-i-learned-about-syslog-ng-performance-using-sngbench

In our efforts to add a distribution (Debian 12), we accidentally deleted an entry in our architecture database table. That made all attempts to fetch this architecture through associations crash. Impact Various pages from the staging workflow for openSUSE:Factory were not accessible for 34 minutes. Root Causes A Distribution can have an association to more than one Architecture. We added a new Distribution for Debian 12 with two architectures: i586 and x86_64. But after reading...

openSUSE.Asia Summit 2023

Call For Papers

It is a pleasure to announce the call for papers for openSUSE.Asia summit 2023 starting today, the openSUSE.Asia Committee is looking for speakers from different avenues of life, representing and advocating Free and Open Source Software. openSUSE.Asia Summits are organized every year to promote the use of free and open source software and have been appreciated events for the openSUSE community (i.e. both contributors and users) in Asia. Following the last Asia Summit, the nineth openSUSE.Asia Summit 2023 will be held by openSUSE Chongqing team on Late October. The speakers are eligible to receive sponsorship from openSUSE Travel Support Program (TSP). Even if you live away from China, please consider applying for the event.

The past Asia Summits received major participation from Indonesia, China mainland, China Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and India.

Topics

openSUSE.Asia Summit 2023 will invite talks relevant to openSUSE and other topics like Cloud, Virtualization, Container, Container Orchestration, Linux desktop environments and applications since openSUSE is a collection of various FLOSS products. The examples of the topics (not limited to) are as the following:

• openSUSE (including Leap, Tumbleweed, Open Build Services, openQA, YaST)
• openSUSE Kubic & MicroOS, Cloud, Virtualization, Container, and Container Orchestration
• Embedded and IoT
• Security (Access/Integrity control, Cryptography, Vulnerability management)
• Desktop environments and applications (e.g. GNOME, KDE, XFCE)
• Office suite, graphic art, multimedia (e.g. LibreOffice, Calligra, GIMP, Inkscape)
• Multilingualization support (e.g. input methods, translation)
• Other software running on openSUSE

Please note that non-technical talks are also welcome. For example:

• Explanations of FLOSS technologies
• Development, Quality Assurance, Translation
• Tips & Tricks, Experience stories (success or fail), Best practice
• Marketing and community management
• Computer Science
• Education

Types of sessions

We are inviting proposals for these 4 types of sessions.

• Workshop (120 min + Q&A)
• Long talks with presentation (60 min + Q&A)
• Short talks with/without presentation (30 min + Q&A)
• Lightning talk (15 min and less)

Schedule

• The deadline of the call for proposals: August 20, 2023
• Notification to speakers: Week of August 28, 2023
• openSUSE.Asia Summit 2023: October 21 until October 23, 2023.

How to submit your proposal

Please submit your proposal to the event

• Your proposal must be written in English and 150–500 words long with an appropriate title.
• You need to use English or Chinese in speech and English only on slides.
• Please run spell and grammar checks for your proposal before submission. LibreOffice Language tools and Grammarly
• Your biography on your profile page is also a reviewed document. Please do not forget to write your background.
• You must obey openSUSE Conference code of Conduct. You will receive a forms link after successful submission of proposal for further information requirements.

Guide to write your proposal

Please ensure that your proposal is about and around a topic

For example, if your talk is on security or desktop application, a wholesome proposal will always start with steps to install the application first.

Please include the reasons as to why your proposal should be the one.

It may contain the following as a reason:

• Need of the application/ technology/ solution
• Future prospects of the proposed solution
• Learnings for the target audience (beginners, contributors)

Do not hesitate to contact the local team on social media or write to the committee if you are not sure about writing your proposal or preparing your presentation.

Contact Organising committee

For any enquiries regarding the programme, please contact:

opensuseasia-summit@googlegroups.com

We look forward to see you at openSUSE.Asia Summit 2023.

Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,

Again I have to span the review over two weeks – in the region where I live we had some holiday last week and I allowed myself to stretch for a long weekend. But this had no impact on Tumbleweed: it just kept on rolling. There was some additional ‘confusion’ though as the system used to calculate the diff between snapshots has been defunct for a few days, which resulted in the announcements for snapshots 0601 – 0604 not being sent out to the mailing lists. The info was then collected in the report for 0605. This review covers the 10 snapshots 0601, 0602, 0603, 0604, 0605, 0607, 0608, 0610, 0612, and 0613.

The most relevant changes in those snapshots were:

• AppArmor 3.1.4 & 3.1.5
• LibreOffice 7.5.4.1
• openSSL 3.1
• GNOME 44.2
• Linux kernel 6.3.6 & 6.3.7
• openSSH 9.3p1
• KDE Gear 23.04.2
• KDE Frameworks 5.107.0
• Mozilla Firefox 114
• Mesa 23.1.2

Shortly, Tumbleweed will bring you these changes:

• Python 3.11 as the default Python interpreter (moving from Python 3.10). About 100 Python packages failed to rebuild: those will still have the python3- symbol on the python310-* package until fixed.
• LibreOffice 7.5.4.2
• PHP 8.1.20
• Qt 5.15.10

Frequent snapshots of openSUSE’s rolling release Tumbleweed brought KDE enthusiasts freshly made software this week.

KDE Gear and KDE Frameworks were released in two of the past four snapshots.

The 20230613 snapshot had a little something for Xfce users as well. Panel layouts were updated in the xfce4-panel-profiles update; the 1.0.14 version fixed the files list and permissions of installed files. The package also added some missing translatable flags as well as provided some filename consistency. The Linux Kernel updated in the snapshot; kernel-source 6.3.7 fixed a possible memory leak had some enhancements for Transmission Control Protocol. The kernel also fixed an unused variable warning with RISC-V. In the perl-Image-ExifTool version 12.63 update, support was added for reading 7z files and warnings for certain scenarios were made. An update of libzypp 17.31.13 and the free implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm package fribidi 1.0.13 was also updated in the snapsthor.

Snapshot 20230612 brought an update of 3D Graphics Library Mesa; there was a removal of the meson option -Ddri-drivers with the 23.1.2 version update since it is no longer used, and Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU) functionality will no longer be available for Radeon R300 graphics cards.An update of systemd 253.5 took a new approach to trigger re-execution for user managers on package updates that is safer and less problematic than the previous systemctl --user -M 1000@ daemon-reexec command. KDE Frameworks 5.107.0 updated in the snapshot. There was a deprecation of KIO access manager and related classes. The package also enables thumbnail caching if the thumbnail directory is on an encrypted volume. An update of Kirigami disables shortcuts for invisible and disables text fields in the ActionTextField and it improves the painting of icons in the documentation. The reliability and correctness of image processing and conversion was made with changes to KImageFormats’ as part of the Frameworks update. An update of Mozilla Firefox 114.0.1 introduced a User Interface for managing DNS over a HTTPS exception list and Linux can now use web-standard support for USB with FIDO2’s WebAuthn. An update of AppArmor 3.1.5 had a fix for handling mount rules, removed a patch and prevented a warning about a non-existing directory when loading profiles in Tumbleweed builds. Several other packages update in the snapshot including zchunk 1.3.1, hwdata 0.371, xwayland 23.1.2 and several others.

KDE Gear 23.04.2 arrived in Tumbleweed less than 48 hours after its release. Snapshot 20230610 delivered this and kitinerary was one of the packages up update; it provided enhancements to travel document parsing and extraction capabilities for Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvian railway tickets. The travel reservation package expanded support for various document types and improved data accuracy and reliability. The update of video editor Kdenlive provided a freeze fix, some performance optimizations, a minor UI improvement and had some changes for a smoother editing experience like fixing the dragging of a clip on the time that caused an out of view scroll. Gear’s Messagelib packagehad email handling improvements that fixed a crash when switching emails. There were a few other packages to update in the snapshot as well. Runtime Compiler orc 0.4.34 had some continuous integration improvements and fixed a compiler warning. An update of Perl 5.36.1 addressed a bug in a regular expression code that could trigger an interpreter to panic. A few other packages updated in the snapshot.

An update of gtk4 in snapshot 20230608 to version 4.10.4 addressed some memory leaks and made a fix to avoid some black flickering with xwayland. There was a release of kdump that helps to fix the prefix for ALP as well as adds calibrated values for this future distribution. An update of python-setuptools 67.8.0 had a modification to ensure that the .pth file properly updates and the package also had tests to ensure virtualenv works in Python 3.12. A few other package like postfix 3.8.1, yast2-storage-ng 4.6.11, and vte 0.72.2 also updated in the snapshot.

No matter how awkward you feel when you hear about UDP syslog in the age of encrypted TCP connections, UDP syslog is here to stay in some special cases. The scalability issues of UDP log collection were first addressed in syslog-ng Open Source Edition (OSE) (the so-reuseport() parameter), and later a more advanced solution arrived to syslog-ng Premium Edition (PE) (the udp-balancer() source). The good news is that a new, open-source implementation is now available as part of syslog-ng 4.2.0.

Read more about it at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/syslog-ng-4-2-extra-udp-performance