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

Arch Linux in March 2024
by Levente Polyak 18 Sep '24

18 Sep '24

## Staff We would like to welcome [Carl Smedstad][0] as part of the Arch Linux Package Maintainer team. Furthermore, we would like to welcome svartkanin as Support Staff for the archinstall project, assisting with issue tracking and handling of merge requests. ### Project Leader Election The 2024 [Arch Linux Project Leader][1] election process has started, with the nomination period now officially open for candidate submissions. ## RFC A previously proposed [RFC has been accepted][2] to create a dedicated role for the moderation of the AUR that supports and eventually replaces the Package Maintainers as the current moderators. An [RFC has been proposed][3] to introduce "Arch Linux Ports" as testbed for unofficial architectures until they are integrated in the main Arch Linux repositories. An [RFC has been proposed][4] to grant all Arch Linux staff members, not limited to those in packaging roles, the privilege to initiate RFCs directly, aligning with the broad range of topics these documents encompass. ## mkinitcpio [mkinitcpio v38.1 has been released][5] as a bugfix update, addressing various regressions. Additionally, the encrypt and sd-encrypt hooks now always include the hid-generic module, which is required for FIDO tokens. ## Pacman [Pacman 6.1.0][6] introduces several key features and improvements. Cache server support has been added, allowing cache servers to be tried before non-cache servers, though they won't be used for database files. The update also replaces libdepends and libprovides with autodeps, enabling automatic addition of libraries to the depends and provides arrays. Additionally, a new `verify()` function has been implemented for custom source verification, allowing for the use of verification schemes not natively supported by makepkg. Lastly, checksum support for git, mercurial, and bzr sources has been added, enabling packagers to use simple refnames in the `PKGBUILD` while ensuring the security of immutable build inputs. ## ArchWeb The ArchWeb 2024-03-05 release includes several small changes, like ISO downloads are now linked exclusively via HTTPS mirrors, improving user security in certain scenarios. Additionally, the ability to add blogs to "ArchWeb Planet" has been restricted to official Arch Linux staff only. ## archinstall We have released [archinstall v2.7.2][7], featuring several improvements and fixes, including enhancements related to Unified Kernel Images (UKIs). ## Infrastructure We have made the "Geo Mirrors" dashboard and metrics [publicly available][8]. This offers valuable insights for mirror administrators and mirror owners, allowing them to monitor performance and distribution more effectively. ## Packaging ### Spring Cleanup We successfully completed our [annual spring cleanup][9], adopting orphaned packages and removing obsolete or unmaintained ones from the official repositories. This effort led to a significant reduction of abandoned packages, keeping our repositories well-maintained and relevant. ### Statistics In this month, we’ve successfully rolled out 7777 package updates addressing various enhancements and rebuilds, including 2684 package upgrades. Additionally, we’ve received 306 new package issues, while resolving a total of 303 issues. [0]: https://lists.archlinux.org/archives/list/aur-general@lists.archlinux.org/t… [1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/DeveloperWiki:Project_Leader [2]: https://rfc.archlinux.page/0019-aur-moderator-role/ [3]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/rfcs/-/merge_requests/32 [4]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/rfcs/-/merge_requests/31 [5]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/mkinitcpio/mkinitcpio/-/releases/v38… [6]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/pacman/pacman/-/releases/v6.1.0 [7]: https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/releases/tag/v2.7.2 [8]: https://dashboards.archlinux.org/d/EWz2Faunz/geo-mirrors [9]: https://lists.archlinux.org/hyperkitty/list/arch-dev-public@lists.archlinux…

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Arch Linux in February 2024
by Levente Polyak 18 Sep '24

18 Sep '24

## Staff We would like to welcome Vincent Dahmen (wahrwolf) as Arch Linux Support Staff with their new role as Mirror Admin. On top we would like to welcome [andreymal and codingkoopa][0] to their new role as ArchWiki Maintainers. Additionally, we would like to congratulate Christian Heusel (gromit) on his promotion to a full DevOps member. ## Testing Team In early February, we issued a [call for participation][1] about joining the [Arch Testing Team][2] which was also shared on the [Forum][3], [Mastodon][4], [Reddit][5] and IRC. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with over 60 new testing accounts created, significantly extending our capacity for more reliable package update testing! For those who haven't joined yet, there's still time! 😉 ## ArchISO For the first time in history, the official Arch ISO [does not fit in a CD][6] as it now exceeds even the largest 900 MiB capacity CDs. Those few still using the coaster form factor instead of USB flash drives will need to switch to a DVD for burning the ISO. ## devtools We released [devtools 1.1.0][7], a major update packed with bug fixes, improvements, and new workflow commands. Notable additions include the `pkgctl version` subcommand, which uses nvchecker to check and apply newer upstream versions, the `pkgctl search` subcommand to search expressions across the entire packaging group, and the `pkgctl aur` subcommand to assist in transitioning packages from official repos to the AUR. Additionally, `makechrootpkg` now allows users to drop into a debug shell for inspecting failed builds within the chroot. All packaging repo clones also come with a default excludes file to ignore common artifacts. Further changes are listed in the [changelog][7]. ## mkinitcpio The latest [mkinitcpio release v38][8] introduces key changes, including the deprecation of `--microcode` option in favor of a new microcode hook for early microcode loading. mkinitcpio now supports creating an early CPIO image, with the `microcode` hook handling the integration of early microcode into this image. ## ArchWiki To enhance readability, [the color of visited links has been updated][9] from gray to the MediaWiki default purple. In addition to [welcoming CodingKoopa and Andreymal][0] to their new roles as ArchWiki Maintainers, we are also excited to [welcome Dybdeskarphet][0], who joins as a new Translator. ## RFC An [RFC has been accepted][10] to add `-fno-omit-frame-pointer` and `-mno-omit-leaf-frame-pointer` to the default compilation flags to improve the effectiveness of profiling and debugging tools. ## Packaging ### ghc We have successfully rolled out GHC 9.2 after resolving all outstanding issues, marking another step toward the latest GHC. ### Plasma 6 Plasma 6, KDE Frameworks 6 and KDE Applications 24.02 (mostly ported to Qt6) are now available in the repositories. ### Statistics In this month, we’ve successfully rolled out 8196 package updates addressing various enhancements and rebuilds, including 2612 package upgrades. Additionally, we’ve received 168 new package issues, while resolving a total of 216 issues. [0]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ArchWiki:News#2024/02/29_-_New_maintainers… [1]: https://lists.archlinux.org/hyperkitty/list/arch-general@lists.archlinux.or… [2]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_Testing_Team [3]: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=293464 [4]: https://fosstodon.org/@archlinux/111907965691846810 [5]: https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/1aniloc/join_the_arch_testing_t… [6]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/archiso/-/issues/144 [7]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/devtools/-/releases/v1.1.0 [8]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/mkinitcpio/mkinitcpio/-/releases/v38 [9]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Special:Permalink/800562#Visited_links_are… [10]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/rfcs/-/merge_requests/26

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Enabling split debug for kernels?
by Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig) 14 Sep '24

14 Sep '24

Hi list, As of Pacman 7.0.0, we can have makepkg create debug packages for our kernels, however... Compressed modules are not scanned, meaning either we continue to use INSTALL_MOD_STRIP=1 (throwing away debuginfo for all modules), we disable compression, or we have to enhance makepkg further. For reference, without module compression, the package size of linux drops from 135 MiB to 98 MiB and its installed size rises from 135 MiB to 562 MiB. Debian has been compressing their kernel modules since last year. Instead of splitting debuginfo, they install unstripped modules into /usr/lib/debug/: https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/linux/-/commit/e8b64e4b4318aaaf7222f47… Fedora & RHEL do not compress kernel modules, for the same reason of incompatibility with split debuginfo: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1349651 In addition, with compression disabled, the split debuginfo step of packaging linux takes 1½ hours on our build server, which is less than optimal. From what I can tell, that time is spent in the # create any needed hardlinks loop, causing runtime to explode quadratically (amount of stripped files × amount of files in the package). When the kernel is built with module compression, it also adds support for decompressing modules with the selected compression without help from kmod. This seems to be needed in some edge cases, so reënabling compression wouldn't be as easy as adding a module compression stage to makepkg. Debian ran into problems when they missed enabling this support: https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/linux/-/merge_requests/980 The issue tracking split debug is at https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/linux/-/issues/2 The MR to test split debug is at https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/linux/-/merge_req… It would be nice to have full debuginfo available. Greetings, Jan

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News draft: Manual intervention for pacman 7.0.0 and local repositories required
by gromit 13 Sep '24

13 Sep '24

Hello everyone, with the move of pacman version 7.0.0 a few changes might require manual intervention from end users, which shall be described in the following news item! If you have feedback to it feel free to reply directly! ------ # Manual intervention for pacman 7.0.0 and local repositories required With the release of [version 7.0.0][0] pacman has added support for downloading packages as a separate user with dropped privileges, which we deem a good default for our distribution. For users with local repos however this might imply that the download user does not have access to the files in question, which can be fixed by assigning the files and folder to the "alpm" group. $ chown $USER:alpm -R /path/to/local/repo This is of course only relevant after you have successfully [merged the .pacnew][1] files. Pacman also introduced [a change][2] to improve checksum stability for git repos that utilize .gitattributes files. This might require a one-time checksum change for PKGBUILDs that use git sources. [0]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/pacman/pacman/-/blob/master/NEWS?ref_type=heads [1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Pacnew_and_Pacsave [2]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/pacman/pacman/-/commit/9548d6cc765b1a8dcf933e8…

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Replacing mlocate with plocate
by Morten Linderud 10 Sep '24

10 Sep '24

Yo! I'm going to drop `mlocate` from the repositories and provide `plocate` as the default locate in Arch Linux. mlocate is very much an abandoned project, while plocate is a modern implementation with a faster database implementation along with io_uring support. https://plocate.sesse.net/ The question is if people feel a strong desire to keep a locate implementation in `[core]` or if we are fine with this living inside `[extra]`. Adding `plocate` to `[core]` would mean we would need to move a `liburing` to `[core]` and I don't really know if we need that. Any opinions? -- Morten Linderud PGP: 9C02FF419FECBE16

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Arch Linux public upload server
by Orhun Parmaksiz 03 Sep '24

03 Sep '24

Hey all! As some of you might already know, I maintain an upload server project called `rustypaste`: https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/rustypaste/ I’ve been using it daily for a couple of years now and have been quite happy with it. I used to provide a public instance for free use, but due to some issues with the provider, I had to shut it down: https://github.com/orhun/rustypaste/issues/326 The other day, I started wondering why Arch Linux shouldn't support a similar public service, like https://paste.ubuntu.com, but powered by rustypaste. I believe we could configure rustypaste to allow public uploads with a retention period and necessary security measures in place. I was going to bring this up with the DevOps team, but I thought it might be better to get general opinions on the matter first. 🐻 Cheers, Orhun

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ell 0.68-1 pulled from testing
by Andreas Radke 28 Aug '24

28 Aug '24

I have pulled ell 0.68-1 from testing because it breaks current iwd in extra and the new iwd release has not happened yet. Please downgrade to the ell version in extra repository. -Andy

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Ruby 3.2.4
by Andreas 'Segaja' Schleifer 09 Aug '24

09 Aug '24

Hello, after a lot of work and some wrong avenues we are finally ready to update Ruby in Arch Linux to version 3.2.4. For this we will block staging from tomorrow (09.05.2024) on to do the rebuild, and it might take some time to complete. At the same time we also replace the approach of providing an /etc/gemrc with the more up-to-date approach of providing an operating_system.rb for ruby to rely on. This should solve several issues currently open for the ruby and the rubygems package. We know that Ruby 3.2.4 isn’t the latest version but we decided to do this one and maybe in a couple of months update to ruby 3.3.x once we are sure it is ready. During the update we will also drop some ruby default gem packages which are not needed anymore as we will not de-vendor all ruby defaultgems in the future. There might arise some dependency issues but we will have to face them when we see them. Best regards Segaja

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RFC Final Comment Period: Distribution Developer Manual
by Levente Polyak 09 Aug '24

09 Aug '24

An RFC has now entered its Final Comment Period. In 14 days, discussion will end and the proposal will either be accepted, rejected or withdrawn: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/rfcs/-/merge_requests/21 Please visit the above link for discussion. Summary: This RFC proposes the migration of Arch Linux's operational distro specifications from existing ArchWiki and other sources to a dedicated GitLab developer manual repository. The intention is to document how to run the distribution while leveraging GitLab's collaboration features and streamlined workflows for maintaining and evolving the resulting specifications. This change aims to centralize and enhance the efficiency of specification management while preserving the integrity of the community-contributed contentin the Wiki. This request for comments is superseding RFC-0005 by extending its scope to handle all distro specifications coherently instead of handling a single sub section (packaging guidelines) differently to others.

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RFC: License Package Sources
by Sven-Hendrik Haase 07 Aug '24

07 Aug '24

A new RFC (request for comment) has been opened here: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/rfcs/-/merge_requests/40 Please visit the above link for discussion. Summary: Our package sources currently do not have explicit licenses. This RFC proposes to license all Arch Linux package sources under the terms of the Zero-Clause BSD license.

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