weekly news - 20041126

maintainer at lunar-linux.org maintainer at lunar-linux.org
Mon Nov 29 21:07:47 UTC 2004


Extra thick weekly this week since I had skipped one week due to absense
and other stuff. The list below therefore covers the last 2 weeks. Perhaps
I'll change the release schedule to bi-weekly since I am more and more
not able to fill the editorials, which I think gives the weekly the
reason to exist. I could be wrong there of course ... You could skip this
part too and just read the quotes (like Striker).

Anyway enough excuses already. So -you wonder- what's he been up to 
then? Plenty... Mostly I got energgised a bit by the fact that in my
working situation I have 24 new boxes coming in this week and those
will need some form of remote control. Colony and cabal are of course
non-functional and thus I could either use dsh or some other existing
project. 

Now dsh in my opinion is very awkward since it doesn't allow you to manage
the cluster itself... It's rather good at connecting to other boxes
but so is ssh. In the end I just wrote "clad" which is in 'lunar-tools'
already, and performs all of these tasks. A short example of how you
administrate 3 boxes named tic, tac and toe:

First create the cluster: `clad create ttt`. clad asks you for the cluster's
private key passphrase and stores it in a safe place. Then you add the
three nodes with `clad add ttt tic tac toe`. For every node, clad uploads
the publickey and appends it to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote
host. This happens in one single pass, so you need to type the root
password once per node. Next you run a test to see if all nodes are up with
`clad test ttt`, and done. clad also allows you to start all jobs simul-
taneously and wait for all of them to finish: `clad bgrun lunar update`.

clad asks you once per cluster run for the password, but you can 'clad
login clustername' and temporarily store the key in the agent so you can
run multiple commands after another. In any session you thus only have
to enter the passphrase once. A huge gain against dsh already, and you can
grow and shrink machines from the cluster instantly, the pubkey will even
get removed from the nodes if needed.

Another thing keeping me busy is the ISO amongst others. Yes it's still
in progress and more people are looking into it since my time is limited.
I hope to get some prototypes out soon but I really need people to start
helping out as there are other areas not being touched right now.

Big problem is man pages. Since the code is changing this will remain
a problem but right now we need two major upgrades. First all current
manual pages need an update and secondly they need to be put into
html format in a decent way. Next I wish to convert the module example
files into a man-page for each module file (like DETAILS) to a unix
man page, since an example is nice but a description would be better.

Those of you who wish to help out with this project can contact me or Moe
(moe at lunar-linux.org) since we're coordinating the documentation
effort a bit at the moment. Please help out.

Speaking about helping out... http://lunar-linux.org/donate
(We're trying to see how we can benefit the project at the moment. We'll
keep everyone informed on how much comes in and what we will do with this
money.)

oh BTW the new XOrg rocks.

/sofar


=====================================================================

Meanwhile in #lunar:
<nestu> ranitha: if you open your trousers, and look down, you'll be looking into variables
Ratler>> oh my god the atheros chipset suck lesser planets through a waterhose!
Striker> Disclaimer: Reading this sentence is hazardous to your health.

=====================================================================

New modules:
        acct-6.3.2: the GNU Accounting Utils
  autoprofile-2.10: A profile manager for Gaim
      boost-1.31.0: Boost is a cross-platform supplement to the C++ standard library
  boost-jam-3.1.10: Boost Jam is a build tool based on FTJam
       confuse-2.4: Library for configuration files
  foomatic-filters-3.0.2: Printer filters for foomatic.
   ftdi_eeprom-0.2: Utility to program ftdi eeproms
  ghostscript-8.01: The GNU version of ghostscript
      ipw2200-0.13: Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 Driver for Linux
       libftdi-0.5: A libusb based driver for the FTDI series of usb chips
  linux-2.6-cko-2.6.9-cko3: 2.6 kernel with Con Kolivas Overloaded patches
  openafs-devel-1.3.74: OpenAFS developer version
  openafs-driver-devel-1.3.74: OpenAFS kernel module development version
   speedfreq-0.7.2: Package for enforcing a CPU performance policy
   usb_pickit-1.21: Driver and interface to Microchip's PICkit 1 programmer
  XOrg-fonts-base-0.1: Basic fonts for the XOrg X11 implementation
  XOrg-fonts-extra-0.1: Extra fonts for the XOrg X11 implementation

New versions:
  abs-guide               :             3.0 ->             3.1
  alsa-driver             :          1.0.6a ->           1.0.7
  alsa-lib                :           1.0.6 ->           1.0.7
  alsa-utils              :           1.0.6 ->           1.0.7
  balsa                   :           2.2.5 ->           2.2.6
  beepmp                  :         0.9.6.1 ->        0.9.7rc2
  boost                   :          1.31.0 ->          1.32.0
  check                   :           0.9.1 ->           0.9.2
  cyrus-sasl              :          2.1.19 ->          2.1.20
  dia                     :            0.93 ->            0.94
  dialog                  :    1.0-20040731 ->    1.0-20040920
  distcc                  :            2.18 ->          2.18.2
  dosbox                  :            0.62 ->            0.63
  enscript                :           1.6.1 ->           1.6.3
  ethereal                :          0.10.6 ->          0.10.7
  exo                     :           0.1.2 ->           0.1.3
  fcron                   :           2.9.5 ->           2.0.2
  fglrx                   :          3.14.1 ->          3.14.6
  file                    :            4.10 ->            4.12
  fortune-meanwhile-in-lunar:        20041105 ->        20041112
  gaim                    :           1.0.2 ->           1.0.3
  gd                      :          2.0.32 ->          2.0.33
  geda-docs               :        20030901 ->        20040111
  geda-gnetlist           :        20030901 ->        20040111
  geda-gschem             :        20030901 ->        20040111
  geda-gsymcheck          :        20030901 ->        20040111
  geda-symbols            :        20030901 ->        20040111
  geda-utils              :        20030901 ->        20040111
  gift                    :          0.11.7 ->          0.11.8
  gl-117                  :             1.3 ->           1.3.1
  gnutls                  :          1.0.22 ->          1.0.23
  gsview                  :             4.3 ->             4.6
  gtk-sharp               :             1.0 ->           1.0.4
  gtk-xfce-engine         :           2.2.1 ->           2.2.2
  guile                   :           1.6.4 ->           1.6.5
  gwenhywfar              :           1.2.1 ->             1.3
  ImageMagick             :         6.1.3-2 ->         6.1.4-3
  ImageMagick             :         6.1.4-3 ->         6.1.5-1
  inkscape                :          0.38.1 ->            0.39
  ipw2100                 :            0.61 ->           1.0.0
  ipw2200                 :            0.13 ->            0.14
  ircservices             :          5.0.41 ->          5.0.42
  kdetv                   :           0.8.3 ->           0.8.4
  kismet                  :      2004-04-R1 ->      2004-10-R1
  koffice3                :           1.3.4 ->           1.3.5
  koffice3-i18n-*         :           1.3.4 ->           1.3.5
  leafnode                :      1.10.6.rel ->      1.10.7.rel
  libcdaudio              :         0.99.10 ->         0.99.12
  libcdio                 :            0.69 ->            0.70
  libgeda                 :        20030901 ->        20040111
  libsndfile              :          1.0.10 ->          1.0.11
  libxfce4mcs             :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  libxfce4util            :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  libxfcegui4             :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  libxklavier             :            1.10 ->            1.04
  linux-2.6-mm            :  2.6.10-rc1-mm4 ->  2.6.10-rc2-mm2
  linux-2.6-mm            :  2.6.10-rc2-mm2 ->  2.6.10-rc2-mm3
  linux-2.6-prepatch      :      2.6.10-rc1 ->      2.6.10-rc2
  loudmouth               :          0.17.1 ->          0.17.2
  ltrace                  :          0.3.35 ->          0.3.36
  lunar-tools             :          2004.3 ->          2004.4
  mkvtoolnix              :           0.9.7 ->             1.0
  mldonkey                :          2.5.22 ->          2.5.28
  mm                      :           1.2.0 ->           1.3.1
  mtr                     :            0.58 ->            0.65
  mysqltcl                :            2.50 ->            2.51
  netatalk                :           2.0.0 ->           2.0.1
  netpbm                  :        10.18.16 ->        10.18.17
  numarray                :             1.1 ->           1.1.1
  parted                  :          1.6.16 ->          1.6.17
  parted                  :          1.6.17 ->          1.6.18
  powermanga              :            0.78 ->            0.79
  qjackctl                :         0.2.12a ->          0.2.13
  samba                   :           3.0.8 ->           3.0.9
  shfs                    :        0.32pre2 ->            0.35
  slurm                   :           0.3.2 ->           0.3.3
  stellarium              :           0.6.1 ->           0.6.2
  sudo                    :         1.6.8p1 ->         1.6.8p3
  superkaramba            :            0.34 ->            0.35
  swig                    :          1.3.22 ->          1.3.23
  tcl                     :           8.4.7 ->           8.4.8
  Terminal                :           0.1.9 ->          0.1.10
  tk                      :           8.4.7 ->           8.4.8
  udev                    :             043 ->             046
  usermin                 :           1.090 ->           1.100
  vlc                     :           0.7.2 ->           0.8.1
  webmin                  :           1.160 ->           1.170
  wireless_tools          :              26 ->              27
  xchat                   :           2.4.0 ->           2.4.1
  xfcalendar              :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce4-appfinder         :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce4-extras-profile    :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce4-iconbox           :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce4-icon-theme        :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce4-mixer             :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce4-panel             :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce4-profile           :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce4-session           :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce4-systray           :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce4-toys              :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce4-trigger-launcher  :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce-mcs-manager        :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce-mcs-plugins        :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfce-utils              :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfdesktop               :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xffm                    :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfmedia                 :         0.4.0.1 ->           0.5.0
  xfprint                 :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfwm4                   :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  xfwm4-themes            :          4.1.91 ->        4.1.99.1
  XOrg                    :           6.7.0 ->           6.8.1
  xpad                    :            1.12 ->             2.0

=====================================================================

The Lunar-Linux team



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