November 2020 - Arch-dev-public - lists.archlinux.org

[arch-dev-public] Mkinitcpio replacement with Dracut
by Giancarlo Razzolini 19 Feb '21

19 Feb '21

Hi All, Recently, Dave announced his intention to step down as mkinitcpio maintainer. I have been handling a few things on it, made some small changes to our mkinitcpio-busybox [0], closed a few old bugs, while also made sure some of the other bug reports are still valid. [1] I have been testing a few patches to mkinitcpio for a while to fix those bugs, but last week Dave and I had a discussion on IRC and we agreed that we could spend better time contributing somewhere else than keeping working with mkinitcpio. Currently mkinitcpio cannot boot from NFS properly, mknitcpio-nfs-utils [2] uses very old code. Even though ipconfig works, it has several drawbacks compared to using more modern tools. Not to mention that we have two use cases for mkinitcpio, which are base and systemd enabled initramfs. Even though we use by default our base enabled initramfs, we have to support systemd related issues and we have to keep developing our systemd hooks. I have been looking into dracut for some time now, I copied some stuff from them on a few of my own scripts and they also have an actual test suite, that we currently can't use on Arch, but I plan to change that. With this in mind, I have packaged dracut for Arch and put it on Extra [3]. I have been using a dracut initramfs for a while now to boot my encrypted partition. Surprisingly, I only had to create a small patch to one of the dm-crypt module scripts [4] In this initial phase I want to ask as many of you to test this as a replacement to mkinitcpio in your setups, as many as possible, and in as many scenarios as possible. We will probably have to keep both packages on our repos for a long time, but once we are confident it's a good fit, we can replace mkinitcpio on our iso and base, so new installs get dracut by default. Please, drop in your comments as well. Regards, Giancarlo Razzolini [0] https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/commit/trunk/PKGBUILD?h=pac… [1] https://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?string=mkinitcpio&project=0 [2] https://git.archlinux.org/mkinitcpio-nfs-utils.git/ [3] https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/dracut/ [4] https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/tree/trunk/0001-90crypt-Cha…

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[arch-dev-public] Arch Linux in GSOC 2021
by Konstantin Gizdov 01 Feb '21

01 Feb '21

Hi all! Last year Arch Linux applied to be a mentoring organisation in the Google Summer of Code program. There were quite a few cool projects and lots of keen people. Unfortunately, we were not selected. However, I was hoping people are excited about trying again this year as well. I have already been contacted by a couple of people who saw the GSOC page on the Dev Wiki and are showing quite some interest. I presume, if we advertise we will get a lot of interested people. GSOC application period starts on January 29, 2021 for mentoring organisations and closes on February 19, 2021. We should make sure we satisfy the requirements [1]: 1. Mentor organisations must run an active open source or free software project. 2. Have produced and released software under an OSI approved license [2]. 3. Must not be based in a country currently embargoed by the United States. I think we do fall into those categories and I would suggest this year we start preparing a bit earlier to improve our chances. Let's try and coordinate an effort. Maybe start with the people keen on mentoring and collation of prospective project ideas. [1] - https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/get-started/ [2] - https://opensource.org/licenses -- Regards, Konstantin

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[arch-dev-public] Orphaned packages from arcanis
by Morten Linderud 20 Dec '20

20 Dec '20

Yo! As a followup from the recent TU removal, I have composed a list of orphaned packages from arcanis. Please write back if you adopt anything else I'll drop packages into the AUR after some time has passed. As of now there are no package resigning that needs to be done. $ pkgsearch -m arcanis -l 1 | cleanup-list.py - Orphans required by maintained packages: - eric: arcanis: eric-i18n-en, eric-i18n-es, eric-i18n-de - g15daemon: idevolder: lcdproc - mftrace: arcanis: lilypond dvzrv: lilypond Unneeded orphans: canorus eric-i18n julius libasl libg15 libg15render libmatio libmmtf pdfsam pychecker pymol python-biopython python-pmw scala voxforge-am-julius Cheers! -- Morten Linderud PGP: 9C02FF419FECBE16

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[arch-dev-public] [RFC] Debug packages and debuginfod
by Morten Linderud 01 Dec '20

01 Dec '20

Give me cake, or give me debug symbols. - Some comedian, probably. Yo! For quite a few years people has wanted debug packages, but there has never really been any progress towards them. Pacman got support almost 10 years ago, and Allan wrote a POC for dbscripts in 2015[1]. In recent years this has largely been a discussion how large such a repository would become, and how to distribute it. But since we don't have any numbers things have more or less stalled with things being discussed, but never worked on. Dropping an imaginary 100 GB on some poor mirror hosts doesn't seem quite right. However, things has been been progressing for the better when it comes to the distribution of debug symbols that can hopefully make this entire process easier for us. debuginfod has been introduced into elfutils which allows a standardized API for fetching remote debug symbols [2]. Eli and I have have been chatting a little with upstream since February to ensure we could get our package format supported. This was fairly straight forward with an example package from us and things have been working nicely. Patches in elfutils: https://sourceware.org/git/?p=elfutils.git;a=commitdiff;h=499129e77aa88b947… https://sourceware.org/git/?p=elfutils.git;a=commitdiff;h=0245c6ed65a80bceb… https://sourceware.org/git/?p=elfutils.git;a=commitdiff;h=ad09e791320d13149… We have been distributing debuginfod since 0.178-1 and debuginfod support came to gdb with the 10.1 release, which is why I'm picking up on this now :) We did some testing with the debuginfod support with Stapelberg during the summer, and it works fairly well [3]. Eli has also started writing up the support for splitting out the debug packages into a separate pool [4]. I have since merged some of Elis dbscripts patches to the POC git migration server to test things. The idea is to allow uploads of debug packages to repos.a.o into a separate package pool, have a public reachable debuginfod and then consider if we want/need debug package distribution. We can then check the new mirror requirements, and give a clear heads up to any potential mirror admin while providing debug packages. I think this is a reasonable compromise for everyone. OpenSUSE already has one such server as an example [5]. There isn't any one way we have to progress on this, but my proposed timeline is as follows: - Add a debuginfod role to the infrastructure repository. - Test and deploy the dbscripts support for debug packages. - Add support to devtools for uploading debug packages. - Announce debuginfod support. - Discuss how to distribute the packages. I anticipate we can start a new discussion for the last point as I think there is some issues we should think about in terms of archiving debug packages and so on. Is there any questions, concerns or suggestions for this proposed implementation? If anyone is interested trying out debug packages and debuginfod, on the POC git migration server, please do poke me! -- Morten Linderud PGP: 9C02FF419FECBE16 [1]: https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-projects/2015-August/004301.html [2]: https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/10/14/introducing-debuginfod-the-el… [3]: https://twitter.com/zekjur/status/1268626664814247939 [4]: https://github.com/eli-schwartz/dbscripts/commits/wip/debug [5]: https://debuginfod.opensuse.org/

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[arch-dev-public] Add active Python versions to the repos
by Filipe Laíns 26 Nov '20

26 Nov '20

Hi all, I want to propose adding all active Python versions to [community], not just the latest one. This would only entail adding the interpreter itself, no other packages. Having access to interpreters for older active versions is really helpful for Python developers. This allows them to easily run test suites against older versions. It is very common for developers to maintain software against a couple major releases. Tools like tox or nox are able to automate testing against multiple Python versions, just needing the interpreter. The current active Python releases are: - 3.9 - 3.8 - 3.7 - 3.6 - 2.7 The list can be found here[1]. So, I propose introducing 2 new packages: - python3.7 - python3.6 And when we update the python package to 3.9: - python3.8 Does anyone have any big issue with this? What are your thoughts? [1] https://www.python.org/downloads/ Cheers, Filipe Laíns

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[arch-dev-public] Python 3.9 enters the testing repos
by Evangelos Foutras 26 Nov '20

26 Nov '20

We'll probably want to keep it in testing for a week or two. Please don't add new Python packages during this time. Many thanks to everyone who helped with the build failures. 🥰

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[arch-dev-public] Split openssl package
by Pierre Schmitz 22 Nov '20

22 Nov '20

Hi all, there is a new set of openssl packages in testing that are split into openssl, openssl-doc and openssl-perl. See https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/54887 As most users just need the library the perl dependency can be dropped. Summing up: Before: openssl: depends on Perl; size: 3.6 MiB (7.31 MiB) After: openssl: depends just on glibc; size: 1.78 MiB (5.49 MiB) openssl-perl: depends on Perl openssl-doc: size: 1.82 MiB We actually talked about this at ArchConf last year. Splitting the package was the easy part, but dropping the Perl dependency means that any package up the tree that depends on openssl needs to be checked if it actually needs Perl itself. Thanks to everybody who did the hard work here! PS: Do you think we should post a news item about this change? Most people won't need to worry about this, but those few who need the perl scripts need to install the separate package. Greetings, Pierre

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Re: [arch-dev-public] Add active Python versions to the repos
by Filipe Laíns 21 Nov '20

21 Nov '20

On Sat, 2020-11-21 at 07:51 -0700, Zach Himsel wrote: > What would determine what the "default" python be? The latest? > > > -- > Zach Himsel > mailto://zach@himsel.net > http://zach.himsel.net Yep, that would stay exactly as it is right now. We would only additionally provide interpreters (and interpreters only!) for the older Python versions. Cheers, Filipe Laíns

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[arch-dev-public] [xorg-server] from testing repo may need manual intervention
by Andreas Radke 19 Nov '20

19 Nov '20

We've started to build xorg-server packages form stable git branch again to pull pending bug fixes and an uncertain release date. A minor git package version numbering issue may prevent automatic future updates. In case you have already installed version 1.20.9+21+g5c400cae1-1 from testing repo today please run pacman -Syuu to receive a fixed version 1.20.9.r21.g5c400cae1-2. -Andy

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[arch-dev-public] Python 3.9 rebuilds
by Evangelos Foutras 15 Nov '20

15 Nov '20

For the next few days we'll be doing (semi-automated) rebuilds for Python 3.9. Please avoid adding new Python packages and starting other rebuilds during this time. Some PKGBUILDs were modified in /trunk to use the Python 3.9 site-packages path (among other tweaks). Building those against Python 3.8 might fail or produce incorrect packages. The affected packages are listed in the following two commits and care should be taken when updating them while the Python rebuild is ongoing. https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-commits/2020-November/843783.html https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-commits/2020-November/843784.html

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[arch-dev-public] [signoff] [extra] postfix-3.5.8-1
by David Runge 11 Nov '20

11 Nov '20

Hi all! I recently upgraded the postfix package and made quite a few adjustments (e.g. using tmpfiles.d instead of a 1000 line POSIX shell script, splitting shared libraries and applying mild hardening on the postfix.service). As for many setups postfix is probably rather mission-critical it would be excellent to get some signoffs on it. Specifically it would be good to test setups in which postfix is not handling virtual mailbox setups, but is using unix user setups (due to the changes introduced to the service file). Best, David -- https://sleepmap.de

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[arch-dev-public] Pam lockout
by Tobias Powalowski 06 Nov '20

06 Nov '20

Hi guys, https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/67644 I second Levente's post of it's a configuration issue that needs to be addressed by user and not by the package itself. Typing 3 times wrong password is a sane default imho. Any other opinions out there? Thanks. greetings tpowa -- Tobias Powalowski Archlinux Developer & Package Maintainer (tpowa) http://www.archlinux.org tpowa(a)archlinux.org

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[arch-dev-public] Orion retirement
by Jelle van der Waa 02 Nov '20

02 Nov '20

Hi All, Our dedicated server orion (used to host repos.archlinux.org/mail.archlinux.org) has been cancelled which means it will be no longer accessible in 30 days. If you have anything of value in your home directory, please copy it before the 10th of November as then the server will be completely wiped. As the DNS entry is already gone you'll need to login into 88.198.91.70 We do have backups of this server, but do not wish to query them on demand if not required :) Greetings, Jelle

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[arch-dev-public] Arch Conf 2020 videoes
by Morten Linderud 01 Nov '20

01 Nov '20

Yo! I'd like to just point out to people that we have uploaded the talks to media.ccc.de :) https://media.ccc.de/c/arch-conf-2020 Youtube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3tfdJ8q1zXRFu6QPELCaIwU3BIzauUJi It went a bit quicker then expected so I'll do a httpdir drop with slides, music, written Q&A and any misc stuff that was used for the production of the conference sometime later this week. I'll also announce it properly on the conference webpage and to our speakers! I recommend everyone to go watch the keynote talk of the conference if you didn't catch it. The surprise from day 2 has also been added :) https://media.ccc.de/v/arch-conf-online-2020-6379-arch-linux-past-present-a… Have a good week<3 -- Morten Linderud PGP: 9C02FF419FECBE16

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[arch-dev-public] archlinux/base docker image will no longer be updated
by Pierre Schmitz 01 Nov '20

01 Nov '20

Hi all, as the archlinux/base image has been replaced by https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/archlinux/archlinux I'll no longer manually build this image alongside the ISO image release. I guess it would be best to remove the repository so people will not silently keep using an outdated image. Greetings, Pierre

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[arch-dev-public] News draft: Accessibility features added to installation media
by David Runge 01 Nov '20

01 Nov '20

Hey all, below is the news item I would like to post once the installation medium is released some time tomorrow: ``` We are very happy to announce that accessibility features have been added to our installation medium with [archiso v49](https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/archiso/-/tags/v49). From release 2020.11.01 onwards these are available via the 2nd boot loader menu item. Many thanks go to Alexander Epaneshnikov who integrated the features from the [TalkinArch](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TalkingArch) project into archiso's releng profile, which is used for creating the installation medium. Note: The bootloader timeouts have been set to 15s to allow blind users to select the menu item as the bootloaders themselves do not offer accessibility features. The timeout is stopped as soon as e.g. an arrow key is pressed. ``` If you have improvement suggestions, please let me know! Best, David -- https://sleepmap.de

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