Review of the weeks 2017/45

Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,

This week we only had 4 snapshots. Last weekend we had to stop the workbench while waiting for the RPM package to resolve one minor issue with regards to the RPMDB move from /var/lib to /usr/lib/sysimage. Still, the snapshots (1102, 1104, 1107 and 1108) sent out to the user base contained some interesting updates.

The noteworthy changes/updates of this week:

• Relocation of the rpm database from /var/lib/rpm to /usr/lib/sysimage/rpm. The new location is in agreement with RPM upstream and acknowledges the right integration of the RPM database to the /usr directory structure.  Furthermore, this will allow for cleaner backup solutions/filesystem rollback scenarios (/var contains files you do not want to roll back. like your sales database)
• WebKit 2 GTK 2.18.2: as you can expect from a web engine, there are frequently a number of security issues fixed. Upgrades are strongly recommended.
• GNOME 3.26.2
• openjpeg 2.3.0
• FFmpeg 3.4
• git 2.15.0
• Linux kernel 4.13.11

There are still many things brewing. Take note though that SUSE is holding the 16th hackweek, and some things might move a bit slower (or faster, depending what everybody decides to do during this week). Noteworthy plans are:

• Mesa 17.2.4 (part of the next snapshot to be released)
• Introduction of PostgreSQL 10: this has been on the list for a while, but due to the complex changes rthat were done, the packages are not yet fully installable without trouble.
• Move to OpenSSL 1.1: work is ongoing to reach this goal
• Linux kernel 4.13.12
• KDE Plasma 5.11.3
• Java 10 tech preview

Keep the things coming, and if you’re part of the hackweek, happy hacking! I’m curious to see all the nice projects to come out of this again.