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1. Gentoo accepted into Google Summer of Code 2023

   

   Do you want to learn more about Gentoo and contribute to your favourite free software project?! Once again, now for the 11th time, we have been accepted as a mentoring organization for this year’s Google Summer of Code!

   The GSoC is an excellent opportunity for gaining real-world experience in software design and making oneself known in the broader open source community. It also looks great on a resume. Some initial project ideas can be found here, but new projects ideas are also welcome. For new projects time is of the essence: they have to be worked out, discussed with the mentors, and submitted before the April 4th deadline. It is strongly recommended that contributors refine new project ideas with a mentor before proposing the idea formally.

   Potential GSoC contributors are encouraged to e-mail the GSoC admins with their name, IRC nickname, and the desired project, and discuss ideas in the #gentoo-soc IRC channel on Libera Chat. Further information can be found on the Gentoo GSoC 2023 wiki page. Those with unanswered questions should also not hesitate to contact the Summer of Code mentors via their mailing list.

2. 2022 in retrospect & late happy new year 2023!

   A quite late Happy New Year 2023 to all of you!

   Once again with 2022 an eventful year has passed, and Gentoo is still alive and kicking! 2023 already started some time ago and some of us have even already been meeting up and networking at FOSDEM 2023. Still, we are happy to present once more a review of the Gentoo news of the past year 2022. Read on for new developers, distribution wide initiatives and improvements, up-to-date numbers on Gentoo development, tales from the infrastructure, and all the fresh new packages you can emerge now.

   Gentoo in numbers

   The number of commits to the main ::gentoo repository has remained at high level in 2022, from 126920 to 126682. This is also true for the number of commits by external contributors, 10492, now across an even increased 440 unique external authors compared to 435 last year.

   GURU, our user-curated repository with a trusted user model, is clearly growing further. We have had 5761 commits in 2022, up by 12% from 5131 in 2021. The number of contributors to GURU has increased similarly, from 125 in 2021 to 144 in 2022. Please join us there and help packaging the latest and greatest software. That’s the ideal preparation for becoming a full Gentoo developer!

   On the Gentoo bugtracker bugs.gentoo.org, both the number of reported and of resolved bugs has increased clearly. We’ve had 26362 bug reports created in 2022, compared to 24056 in 2021. The number of resolved bugs shows a similar trend, with 24499 in 2022 compared to 24076 in 2021.

   New developers

   In 2022 we have gained four new Gentoo developers. They are in chronological order:

   1. Matthew Smith (matthew): Matthew joined us already in February from the North East of England. By trade embedded software developer, he helps with a diverse set of packages, from mold to erlang and from nasm to tree-sitter.

   2. WANG Xuerui (xen0n): A long-time Gentoo user, Xuerui joined us as a developer in March from Shanghai, China. He jumped in right into the deep end, bringing LoongArch support to Gentoo as well as lots of toolchain and qemu expertise (as long as his cat lets him).

   3. Kenton Groombridge (concord): Kenton comes from the US and from a real Gentoo family (yes, such a thing exists!); he joined up in May. His speciality is Gentoo Hardened and SELinux, and he has already collected quite some commits there!

   4. Viorel Munteanu (ceamac): In November, Viorel joined us from Bucharest, Romania. He’s active in the virtualization and proxy maintainers teams, and takes care of the VirtualBox stack and, e.g., TigerVNC.

   Featured changes and news

   Let’s now look at the major improvements and news of 2022 in Gentoo.

   Distribution-wide Initiatives

   • LiveGUI Gentoo ISO download: For an instant, full-fledged Gentoo experience we now have a weekly-built 3.7GByte amd64 LiveGUI ISO ready for download. It is suitable for booting from DVDs or USB sticks, and boots into a full KDE Plasma desktop based on stable Gentoo. A ton of ready-to-use software is included, from dozens of system utilities, LibreOffice, Inkscape, and TeXLive all the way to Firefox and Chromium. Also, all build dependencies are installed and you can emerge additional packages as you like!

   • Modern C porting: This recent cross-distribution initiative has as its objective to port as much open source software as possible to modern C standards. Upcoming versions of GCC and Clang will eventually lose support for constructs that have been deprecated for decades, and we will have to be prepared for that. Together with Fedora we have taken the lead here, and a lot of effort has already gone into fixing and modernization.

   • Clang / LLVM as primary system compiler: Closely related, support for using Clang as the primary system compiler in Gentoo has never been better than now. For the most popular architectures, we have LLVM stages available which replace the GNU toolchain as far as possible (also using libc++, compiler-rc, lld, …) While glibc at the moment still requires GCC to build, the LLVM/musl stages come fully without GNU toolchain.

   • New binary package format gpkg: Gentoo’s package manager Portage now supports a new binary package format defined in GLEP 78. Besides many minor improvements, the most important new feature of the file format is that it fully supports cryptographic signing of packages. This was one of the most important roadblocks for more extensive binary package support in Gentoo.

   • merged-usr profiles and systemd merged-usr stages: All systemd profiles have now gained a merged-usr subprofile, corresponding to a filesystem layout where, e.g., /bin is a symbolic link to /usr/bin. The migration procedure has been described in detail in a news item. With this, we prepare for the time when systemd will only support the merged-usr layout anymore, as already announced by the upstream developers. Across all architectures, we also now consistently offer in addition to openrc downloads systemd stages with and without merged-usr layout. Merged-usr openrc stages will follow for completeness.

   Architectures

   • LoongArch64: In the meantime, LoongArch64, a Chinese development by Loongson Co. based in parts on MIPS and on RISC-V, has become a fully supported Gentoo architecture, with toolchain support, widespread keywording, and up-to-date stages for download. First server-type chipsets based on these chips are currently being sold. (Outside mainland China hardware is difficult to obtain though.)

   • AArch64: An exotic variant of AArch64 (arm64) has been added to our download portfolio: Big-endian AArch64. Enjoy!

   • PA-RISC: Weekly stage builds for the hppa architecture (PA-RISC) are back, including systemd images for both hppa-1.1 and hppa-2.0 and an installation CD.

   • MIPS: The weekly builds for MIPS are back as well! Here, we can now offer downloads for the o32, n32, and n64 ABI plus multilib stages - and all that for both endianness variants and init systems. No matter what your hardware is, you should find a starting point.

   • Hardened: With more and more hardening becoming de-facto standard, the compiler settings in the hardened profiles have been tightened again to include additional experimental switches. In particular, in Gentoo Hardened, gcc and clang both now default to _FORTIFY_SOURCE=3, C++ standard library assertions, and enabled stack-clash-protection.

   Packages

   • Modern Java: A huge amount of work was done by our Java project to revive the language ecosystem and in particular recent Java versions in Gentoo. Additionally, OpenJDK 11 and OpenJDK 17 were bootstrapped for big-endian ppc64, as well as for x86, riscv, and arm64 with musl as C library, enabling the usage of modern Java on those configurations.

   • GNU Emacs: Emacs ebuild-mode has seen a flurry of activity in 2022. New features include a new ebuild-repo-mode, inserting of user’s name and date stamp in package.mask and friends, support for pkgdev and pkgcheck commands, support for colors in ebuild command output, and a major refactoring of the code for keyword highlighting. Additionally, there’s flycheck-pkgcheck for on-the-fly linting and company-ebuild for automatic completion.

   • Mathematics: The sci-mathematics category has grown with the addition of theorem provers such as lean, yices2, cadabra, or picosat. Further, the Coq Proof Assistant ecosystem support has been improved with new Coq versions, Emacs support via company-coq, and packages such as coq-mathcomp, coq-serapi, flocq, gappalib-coq …

   • Alternatives: Many base system utilities exist in different flavours that are more or less drop-in replacements. One example of this is the compressor bzip2, with lbzip2 and pbzip2 as parallelizing alternatives; another tar, which exists both as gtar (GNU tar) and as bsdtar in libarchive. With alternatives we now have a clean system in place to use either of these options as default program via a symlinked binary.

   • Racket: An ongoing project aims to bring first-class support for Racket, a modern dialect of Lisp and a descendant of Scheme, and the Racket language ecosystem to Gentoo.

   • Python: In the meantime the default Python version in Gentoo has reached Python 3.10. Additionally we have also Python 3.11 available stable, which means we’re fully up to date with upstream. Gentoo testing provides the alpha releases of Python 3.12, so we can easily prepare for what comes next.

   Physical and Software Infrastructure

   • Hardware: Our infrastructure team has set up two beefy new servers as Ganeti nodes hosted at OSUOSL, with 2x AMD EPYC 7543, 1TiB RAM, 22TiB NVME, and 25Gbit networking each. These will provide virtual machines for various services in the future. A new 1/10/25Gbit switch was also added to better support new and existing servers.

   • Gitlab: We are now running an experimental self-hosted Gitlab instance, gitlab.gentoo.org. It will slowly take over and serve more and more git repositories.

   • Pkgcore: Building on existing coding efforts, an official Gentoo PkgCore project was created to improve this set of QA and commit tools for Gentoo developers. Repoman was deprecated and removed from the Portage code base, and pkgcheck, part of PkgCore, has become the official QA tool for commits to the main Gentoo repository. It is also the code running our automated continuous integration system.

   • Tattoo: The new tattoo arch testing system now manages and automates large parts of the architecture testing process. This has simplified and streamlined the stabilization process, shortening developer response times and “saving” arch stabilization.

   • Devmanual: The Gentoo Development Manual has seen major improvements in 2022. More documentation is good!

   Finances of the Gentoo Foundation

   • Income: The Gentoo Foundation took in approximately $16,500 in fiscal year 2022; the majority (over 90%) were individual cash donations from the community.

   • Expenses: Our expenses in 2022 were, as split into the usual three categories, operating expenses (for services, fees, …) $11,000, capital expenses (for bought assets) $55,000 (servers, networking gear, SSDs, …), and depreciation expenses (value loss of existing assets) $9,500.

   • Balance: We have about $97,000 in the bank as of July 1, 2022 (which is when our fiscal year 2022 ends for accounting purposes). The draft finanical report for 2022 is available on the Gentoo Wiki.

   Thank you!

   Our end of year review of course cannot cover everything that happened in Gentoo in 2022 in detail, and if you look closely you will find much more. We would like to thank all Gentoo developers and all who have submitted contributions for their relentless everyday Gentoo work. As a volunteer project, Gentoo could not exist without them.

   And now let’s look forward to the new year 2023, with hopefully less unpleasant surprises than the last one!

3. FOSDEM 2023

   

   Finally, after a long break, it’s FOSDEM time again! Join us at Université Libre de Bruxelles, Campus du Solbosch, in Brussels, Belgium. This year’s FOSDEM 2023 will be held on February 4th and 5th.

   Our developers will be happy to greet all open source enthusiasts at our Gentoo stand in building H, level 1! Visit this year’s wiki page to see who’s coming.

4. New Gentoo LiveGUI ISO and artwork / branding contest!

   

   After a long break, we now have again a weekly LiveGUI ISO image for amd64 available! The download, suitable for an USB stick or a dual-layer DVD, boots directly into KDE Plasma and comes with a ton of up-to-date software. This ranges from office applicactions such as LibreOffice, Inkscape, and Gimp all the way to many system administrator tools.

   Now, we need your help! Let’s make this the coolest and most beautiful Linux live image ever. We’re calling for submissions of artwork, themes, actually anything from a desktop background to a boot manager animation, on the topic of Gentoo! The winning entry will be added as default setting to the official LiveGUI images, and also be available for download and installation.

   The artwork contest

   What are we looking for?

   Gentoo-themed artwork and branding material to make our Gentoo LiveGUI the coolest Linux live medium ever.

   • Incorporates the Gentoo logo and maybe other Gentoo design elements (like Larry the Cow)
   • Works for a wide range of screen resolutions etc.
   • Is packaged more or less ready-to-use for our LiveGUI image
   • Provides a coherent experience to the user, i.e., if it consists of different parts, these fit togehter
   • Can be distributed in its entirety under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license

   We could for example imagine screen backgrounds, Plasma theming, maybe even a GRUB boot menu animation or a LibreOffice splash screen… Feel free to come up with more ideas.

   If you base your work on freely available source material created by others, please keep track of the sources and their licenses in an accompanying readme file.

   What are we not looking for?

   • Do not submit anything that infringes on third-party copyrights or trademarks. While a Star Trek-themed Gentoo desktop would be cool, Paramount might object and we wouldn’t be able to distribute it. Same for My Little Pony or the Simpsons.
   • Do not submit artwork falling under the not-safe-for-work (NSFW) category. We will recognize it when we see it, and we won’t be able to distribute it.
   • Do not submit artwork with political or religious statements. No matter how universally acceptable you think that these are, someone will be offended by them.

   The artwork should be such that kids or colleagues can walk into your office and you don’t have to quickly cover it up. :) Also, please think of your contribution in terms of the Gentoo Code of Conduct.

   How to submit an entry

   Package it up

   • Package all the relevant files into a single tar archive and upload it to a webserver of your choice, or publish the files (e.g. on github) as a single git repository.
   • Add a readme file with your name and contact e-mail address, the license of the files, sources and licenses for third-party material, and detailed installation instructions
   • File a bug for the release engineering team, component “LiveCD/DVD”, with the summary starting with “Artwork 2022 contest entry”, and add a link to your file.
   • If you link to a git repository, please mention a tag or commit which we should use.
   • By submitting your entry, you allow Gentoo to download, re-publish, and distribute your files (see also above remark about the license).

   Deadline

   • The contest ends 31/May/2022 at 23:59 UTC.
   • Please keep your files online for at least one more month after that date, so we can review and copy them.

   Selection and announcement of the winner

   • The jury consists of the Gentoo Council, the Release Engineering team, the Artwork team, and the Public Relations team (as of beginning of April 2022).
   • The winner will be chosen by vote; depending on the amount and quality of the submissions, we may also pick a runner-up or more.
   • The announcement of the winner or the winners will be made in June.

   The LiveGUI image

   The LiveGUI image is first and foremost provided to show off Gentoo and give everyone a chance to test a full-fledged Gentoo installation. As such, we have a lot of typical “desktop applications” installed. Additionally, we tried to integrate as many system administration tools as possible, so you can also use it for everything from repartitioning your hard drives to repairing an installation.

   Some of the software on the image:

   • KDE Plasma as desktop environment
   • Office productivity: LibreOffice, LyX, TeXstudio, XournalPP, kile
   • Web browsers: Firefox, Chromium
   • IRC and similar: irssi, weechat
   • Editors: Emacs, vim, kate, nano, joe
   • Development and source control: git, subversion, gcc, Python, Perl
   • Graphics: Inkscape, Gimp, Povray, Luminance HDR, Digikam
   • Video: KDEnlive
   • Disk management: hddtemp, testdisk, hdparm, nvme-cli, gparted, partimage, btrfs-progs, ddrescue, dosfstools, e2fsprogs, zfs
   • Network tools and daemons: nmap, tcpdump, traceroute, minicom, pptpclient, bind-tools, cifs-utils, nfs-utils, ftp, chrony, ntp, openssh, rdesktop, openfortivpn, openvpn, tor
   • Backup: mt-st, fsarchiver
   • Benchmarks: bonnie, bonnie++, dbench, iozone, stress, tiobench
   • …

   The list of targeted packages (corresponding to a world file) can be found in the catalyst specification file; we install the newest stable version in the Gentoo repository.

   In addition, since - as in a normal Gentoo installation - compiler and development tools are available, you can temporarily install more software. Just run emerge --sync and then install whatever you need (though it will be kept in memory and be gone after the next reboot).

   Feedback and of course bug reports are welcome! Enjoy!

5. Gentoo accepted into Google Summer of Code 2022

   

   Do you want to learn more about Gentoo and contribute to your favourite free software project?! Once again, now for the 10th time, we have been accepted as a mentoring organization for this year’s Google Summer of Code!

   The GSoC is an excellent opportunity for gaining real-world experience in software design and making oneself known in the broader open source community. It also looks great on a resume. Some initial project ideas can be found here, but new projects ideas are also welcome. For new projects time is of the essence: they have to be worked out, discussed with the mentors, and submitted before the April 19th deadline. It is strongly recommended that contributors refine new project ideas with a mentor before proposing the idea formally.

   Potential GSoC contributors are encouraged to e-mail the GSoC admins with their name, IRC nickname, and the desired project, and discuss ideas in the #gentoo-soc IRC channel on Libera Chat. Further information can be found on the Gentoo GSoC 2022 wiki page. Those with unanswered questions should also not hesitate to contact the Summer of Code mentors via their mailing list.