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diff --git a/_posts/2021-01-15-new-year.md b/_posts/2021-01-15-new-year.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2af54af --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2021-01-15-new-year.md @@ -0,0 +1,190 @@ +--- +title: '2020 in retrospect & happy new year 2021!' +--- + +<img align="right" height="100" style="margin-left: 30px;" src="https://www.gentoo.org/assets/img/news/2021/2021.png" alt="Gentoo Fireworks"> +Happy New Year 2021! Due to the COVID pandemic, 2020 was a year unlike any other, and this has also +impacted many open source projects. Nevertheless, at Gentoo we have made some great strides forward. +While we now start into 2021 with fresh energy (and maybe soon antibodies), let's also take a look +back. <a href="https://www.gentoo.org/news/2021/01/15/new-year.html">We're happy to share with our +community the most exciting news of the past 12 months</a> -- including numbers on Gentoo activity, our +new developers, and featured changes and improvements! + +<!--more--> + +## Gentoo in numbers + +**2020 has featured a major increase in commits to the [::gentoo](https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/) +repository**, and especially commits from non-developers. The overall *number of commits* has grown +from *73400* to *104500* (by 42%), while the number of *commits made by non-developers* has grown from *5700* +(8% of total) to *11000* (10.5% of total). The latter group has featured *333* unique authors in 2019, and +*391* in 2020. + +The [::guru](https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/) repository +has thrived in 2020. While 2019 left it with merely *7* contributors +and a total of *86* commits, 2020 has featured *55* different +contributors and *2725* commits. GURU is a user-curated repository with +a trusted user model. [Come join us!](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:GURU) + +There was also a major increase in Bugzilla activity. 2020 featured +almost 25500 bugs reported, compared to 15000 in 2019. This is probably +largely thanks to Agostino Sarubbo's new tinderboxing effort. The total +number of bugs closed in 2020 was 23500, compared to 15000 in 2019. + +## New developers + +We've finished 2020 with **three significant additions to the Gentoo +family** (in chronological order): + +1. **[Max Magorsch (arzano)](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Arzano)** + + <img align="right" height="65" style="margin-left: 30px;" src="https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/a6af814e6576794883a412946837a253?s=65&d=retro"> + Max joined us in February to help out with Gentoo Infrastructure. Since + then, he already did tons of work. Just to list a few things, he has + redesigned and modernized the Gentoo websites and rewritten + <a href="https://packages.gentoo.org/">packages.gentoo.org</a> + into the super cool form we have today. + +2. **[Sam James (sam)](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Sam)** + + <img align="right" height="65" style="margin-left: 30px;" src="https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/786f3a957bcc3a8d19160e824fc64b8e?s=65&d=retro"> + Sam joined us in July, and has contributed to a lot of different + projects since. He is known as an active member of the Security team + and multiple arch teams, as well as someone who fixes lots of bugs + in different packages. + +3. **[Stephan Hartmann (sultan)](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Sultan)** + + <img align="right" height="65" style="margin-left: 30px;" src="https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/03baaedf1ab4d4c7cf3336c101562e4c?s=65&d=retro"> + Stephan joined us in September, and immediately started working on our + Chromium-related packages. He has pushed commits + to upstream Chromium; hopefully he'll deal with all the specific problems + that come up in Gentoo here. Thanks to him we also have finally caught + up with Windows, offering our users a packaged version of Microsoft Edge. + + +## Featured changes + +The following major changes and improvements have happened in 2020: + +### Packages + +- <img align="right" height="65" style="margin-left: 30px;" src="https://www.gentoo.org/assets/img/news/2020/larry-cowboy.svg"> + <b><a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Distribution_Kernel">Distribution Kernels</a>: + Gentoo now supports building and installing kernels entirely + via the package manager.</b> The new kernel packages also come with an (optional) + stock configuration based on well-tested Fedora kernels, to ease + the entry barrier and maintenance effort of Gentoo systems. + +- <img align="right" height="50" style="margin-left: 30px;" src="https://www.gentoo.org/assets/img/news/2021/logo-wayland.svg"> + <b><a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Wayland">Wayland</a>: + Wayland support in Gentoo has progressed greatly, making it + possible to run an Xorg-free desktop.</b> Wayland is supported + with large desktop environments such as KDE Plasma and GNOME, as well + as with lightweight alternatives such as Sway and Wayfire. The latter + makes it also possible to use Wayland to a large extent without + resorting to XWayland. + +- <img align="right" height="50" style="margin-left: 30px;" src="https://www.gentoo.org/assets/img/news/2021/logo-lua.png"> + <b><a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Lua">Lua</a>: + A new framework has been created that permits multiple versions + of Lua to be installed side-by-side.</b> The vast majority of ~arch + packages have already been migrated to this framework. This way, we have + finally been able to unmask new (slotted!) Lua versions. + +- <img align="right" height="50" style="margin-left: 30px;" src="https://www.gentoo.org/assets/img/news/2021/logo-python.svg"> + <b><a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Python">Python</a>: + We have managed to almost withdraw Python 2.7 from Gentoo, + and upgrade the default to Python 3.8.</b> + Python 2.7 is still available as a build-time dependency for a few + packages. We have additionally patched all the + <a href="https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2020/09/12/new-vulnerability-fixes-in-python-2-7-and-pypy/">vulnerabilities</a> + known from later versions of Python. + +### Architectures + +- **[ARM64](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:ARM64): + ARM64 (AArch64) support has been elevated to stable status** and is no longer experimental. + The ARM64 project now provides automatically generated [stage3 files](http://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/arm64/autobuilds/), + and is usually one of the fastest arch teams to test packages. We + have worked to bring more packages to ARM64 and make it more + feasible to run a full desktop! + +- **[PPC64](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:PowerPC): + KDE Plasma is now available on PPC64**, thanks to extensive testing and keywording + efforts by Georgy Yakovlev. + +- **[RISC-V](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:RISC-V): + Work on RISC-V support has started**, with particular focus + on the riscv64 architecture. The RISC-V project provides [stage3 files]( + https://dev.gentoo.org/~dilfridge/stages/) and stable profiles + for the soft-float (rv64imac/lp64) and hard-float (rv64gc/lp64d) ABIs, + in both systemd and OpenRC variants. The arch team has + managed to run Xorg already! + +- **[Prefix](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Prefix): + Gentoo Prefix is once again capable of bootstrapping on the latest + macOS releases**, and work is underway to modernise prefix-specific + ebuilds and merge them back into the main tree - this way ensuring that + users get the latest software and that maintenance burden is reduced. + +- <img align="right" height="50" style="margin-left: 30px;" src="https://www.gentoo.org/assets/img/news/2020/logo-gentoo-android.png"> + <b><a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Android">Android</a>: + The Gentoo Android project has released a new 64bit Android prefix tarball</b>, + featuring gcc-10.1.0, binutils-2.34 and glibc-2.31 in your pocket! + + +### Infrastructure + +- <img align="right" height="50" style="margin-left: 30px;" src="https://www.gentoo.org/assets/img/news/2020/gentoo-package.svg"> + <b><a href="https://packages.gentoo.org/">packages.gentoo.org</a>: + The packages website has received many improvements towards being + a central source of information on Gentoo packages.</b> It now shows + the results of QA checks, bugs, pull requests referencing + a package, and a maintainer dashboard indicating stabilization + candidates and outdated versions (according to <a href="https://repology.org/">Repology</a>). + Additionally, the display can be <a href="https://packages.gentoo.org/user/preferences/">configured</a> + for your personal preferences! + +- <img align="right" height="55" style="margin-left: 30px;" src="https://www.gentoo.org/assets/img/news/2021/logo-bugzilla.svg"> + <b><a href="https://bugs.gentoo.org/">Bugzilla</a>: + The Infrastructure team has implemented a major improvement to Gentoo + Bugzilla performance.</b> The database has been migrated to a newer + database cluster, and the backend has been switched to mod_perl. + +- **[CI / Tinderbox](https://blogs.gentoo.org/ago/2020/07/04/gentoo-tinderbox/): + A second active tinderboxing (build testing) effort has been started**, + resulting in more bugs being detected and fixed early. This also includes + running a variety of QA checks, as well as minimal environment builds that are + helpful in detecting missing dependencies. + + +## Discontinued projects + +While Gentoo would like to support as much as our users wish for, +we could not manage to continue all of the projects we've started +in the past. With limited resources, we had to divert our time +and effort from projects showing little promise and activity. The most important +projects discontinued in 2020 were: + +- **Architectures**: Alpha and IA64 keywords were reduced to ~arch (i.e. unstable/testing only). + HPPA stable keywords were limited to the most important + packages only. SH (SuperH) was removed entirely. With very small number + of users of these architectures, our arch teams decided that + the effort in maintaining them is too great. In case of SuperH, + our last available hardware died. + +- **[LibreSSL](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:LibreSSL)**: + By the end of 2020, we have decided to discontinue support + for LibreSSL. With little to no support from various upstream projects, + the effort necessary to maintain package compatibility exceeded + the gain, especially given that OpenSSL has made a lot of progress + since the forking point. + + +## Thank you! + +We can here describe only a few major items, and these cover by far not all that is going on. +**We would like to thank all Gentoo developers for their relentless everyday Gentoo +work.** While they are often not recognized for this work, Gentoo could not exist without them. +Cheers, and let's make 2021 even more productive! |