klipkyle

We currently have a problem -- there is way too much happening with Funtoo Linux.
So we have WAY TOO MANY *MAJOR* announcements. Let's try to get through all of them!
Funtoo Linux has its own LiveCD/LiveUSB! Many thanks to @coffnix and @pnoecker for making this happen! The official install docs have been updated to reference this LiveCD, and it will be perpetually downloadable from https://build.funtoo.org/livecd/. What's the big deal, you ask? Well, it's running our official debian-sources kernel, so it will recognize the hardware supported by Funtoo. It's in sync with Funtoo stage3's. Yay. It also has NetworkManager available so the "nmtui" command can be used to set up your network. That's a convenience, but not really that impressive. What IS impressive is that included on the LiveCD is our innovative fchroot tool, which allows you to "chroot" into arm-64bit, arm-32bit and riscv-64bit filesystems thanks to the power of QEMU! This makes it an ultra-powerful rescue image. Other cool and amazing things are on the LiveCD. You can eventually learn about everything LiveCD here as we get this page done: https://www.funtoo.org/Funtoo:New_Install_Experience/LiveCD
There's MORE:
Ryzen "Zen 3" stages now available, running next-release! https://www.funtoo.org/Amd64-zen3  SiFive Freedom U740 RISC-V stages, running next-release! https://www.funtoo.org/SiFive_Freedom_U740 -- thanks @calrama 64-bit Raspberry Pi 4/400 stages, running next-release! With GNOME and lxqt support! https://www.funtoo.org/Raspberry_Pi_4! Raspberry Pi 4 will be moving to an "A" support level in Funtoo momentarily and will be part of our official install docs soon. Also, in case you didn't notice above, lxqt stages are available for amd64-zen3 and raspi4, and will be appearing gradually for all other subarches! And also if you did not notice, the updated next-release builds  are starting to appear for download! (RISC-V, Raspberry Pi 4 and AMD Ryzen "Zen 3" will only be available for next-release.)
OK, that's all the announcements we have for now. Please return to whatever you were doing before you read this announcement.
Thanks to the Funtoo user community who helped to make this all happen. Besides these announcements, there are many other improvements and fixes that have been incorporated into Funtoo. If you have helped, thank you from me as well as the others who will enjoy your improvements. Let's keep pushing forward to build on these amazing successes.
Best Regards,
Daniel Robbins, BDFL.
 

Today is a big day for Funtoo as metatools 1.0.0 is now available:
https://www.funtoo.org/Metatools
This page will give you information on what metatools is all about and how it forms a foundational component of Funtoo Linux development.
The big deal is that metatools is now much easier to use and understand, and also much easier to install.

I'm happy to announce that Funtoo now has a Support Matrix, which you can view here: https://www.funtoo.org/Support_Matrix
The Support Matrix is intended to provide new and experienced users of Funtoo with insight into what we are officially supporting, what we are not supporting, and what we might like to support in the future.
On the page, you'll also see probably the most clear explanations for why we use Debian kernels as our official kernels, and why we don't support SystemD.
This is going to be a living resource for the Funtoo community so you should expect this page to be kept up-to-date to reflect the current realities of the Funtoo project.
I hope you enjoy it! 🙂
Best,
Daniel

As per the title, all our stages have been updated for all subarches, with dates 2021-09-19 through 2021-09-20. Enjoy. Download them here:
https://www.funtoo.org/Subarches

Hi All,
I wanted to let everyone know about "next" release -- which is the new release of Funtoo that is intended to receive regular updates to all the latest packages.
Currently, a generic_64 build of next-release is available here:
https://build.funtoo.org/next/x86-64bit/generic_64/
'next' release currently includes gcc-11.2.0 and an updated unified binutils (binutils and binutils-libs have been combined, and binutils-config has been removed.) It also has a small handful of updated packages.
Our intention is to gradually add more and more auto-generated ebuilds to 'next' so that it is fully updated at all times. Next-release *may* break -- and if you use next-release, you should be aware of this. Right now, the stage3 is building but it's likely that DE's like GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, MATE will need gcc10 fixes for certain packages to build properly. I'm hoping to generally keep the stage3 functioning at all times as we gradually update everything inside next-release to be current. We at least have a working stage3 as a starting point :) And it's fine to test DE's and open issues for any ebuilds that don't build -- so we can all start working on fixing them.
SO -- YOU CAN HELP!
So, since Funtoo is a user-based distribution, we provide a way for you, technical user, to help us in our goal of updating next-release. I am particularly interested in autogens for various ebuilds in the stage3. If you would like to autogen something on the stage3, all you need to do is open a bug at https://bugs.funtoo.org, entitled something like "autogen sys-apps/foo in next-release". Then describe what you would like to do and why. I think the most obvious candidates for autogens are stand-alone tools like gzip, for example, which are not libraries. These are the easiest initial candidates. Once your bug has been reviewed, it will be moved to a "ready to fix" state, at which point it will be possible to submit a PR to code.funtoo.org. Here are the steps to create a PR:
Create Funtoo account at https://auth.funtoo.org/new (you need this for the bug tracker and code.funtoo.org) Open an issue on the bug tracker (improvement) for the package you would like to autogen. Talk to us in #dev-help on Funtoo Discord for help in writing your autogen. When the issue moves to 'ready to fix', you are ready to submit your PR. To create your PR, first fork the kit-fixups repo on code.funtoo.org. Then on the bug tracker issue, click "create branch", and choose your forked repo (myname/kit-fixups) as where the branch will live, and make your branch a "feature" against master. Give your branch the name of the bug, like "feature/FL-9000". On your local system, "git pull; git checkout feature/FL-9000". Now do the edits... When creating your files, you can put them in kit-fixups/core-kit/next/sys-apps/foo, for example. This will make the autogen active for next release only. This is a good, conservative place to put it (rather than in 1.4-release too, which is what would happen if you added it to kit-fixups/core-kit/curated/sys-apps/foo.) When you're all done: "git add new files, git commit -a -m "FL-9000: description here." Then "git push", and you will see a URL on your console you can use to create your PR. Click on it, and create the PR against core-repositories/kit-fixups master. You may get comments on your PR -- you can simply do new commits to your "feature/FL-9000" branch and they will automatically appear in the PR without any additional steps when you push to your branch.

Also note that I have a bunch of issues I created for "funtoo-izing" various packages, which was my way of saying "autogen them and put them in next-release." You can find these bugs listed under this epic link (see the associated issues) and if you want to update any of these packages, you can simply "start work" on any of these bugs by clicking the "start work" button and then follow the steps above (minus creating the issue -- since you're using an existing one):
https://bugs.funtoo.org/browse/FL-8375

Thanks in advance for your involvement with next-release. This will be fun!
 

Just to let everyone know, MATE stage3's are now available for download, alongside our GNOME and Cinnamon stage3's.
Also, we recently merged in a PR from nyacoder which updated Enlightenment to the current upstream version.
Enjoy!

Updated install stages are ready for download!
Please be aware that Non-Ryzen AMD will not be included in these stage updates for the time being. Thank you for your patience.
 
If you have questions, issues, or just want to drop in and say hello you can find us on Discord https://discord.gg/BNUSpUU or Telegram https://t.me/funtoolinux
Installation Instructions: https://www.funtoo.org/Install/Introduction
Find and download your Subarch here: https://www.funtoo.org/Subarches
Find a bug or want an improvement? https://bugs.funtoo.org (once you have created a user account, you will need to login with your username in all lowercase)

Hey everyone,
I have updated our Development Guide to contain information on the "Funtoo Way". The "Funtoo Way" is a really important philosophy about how we do things at Funtoo and I strongly encourage everyone to read it, even if you don't consider yourself a "developer". It helps to explain how our community works and how we can work together.
https://www.funtoo.org/Development_Guide
Best,
Daniel

Hey everyone,
I'm pleased to announce that Funtoo Linux and Sabayon (https://www.sabayon.org) are joining forces!
Now to explain what this means and how it came about.
Sabayon is one of the great Open Source projects and has an amazing reputation for delivering an easy-to-use Linux desktop that is built using Gentoo. For quite a while, Funtoo has been supporting the Sabayon effort because we believe in what they do.
Over the past several months, in chatting with the Sabayon team, it became really clear that we had a shared vision for creating a friendly and innovative community. We also were working on several next-generation technologies that were a good complement to one another. We decided it would be more powerful -- and fun -- to combine our efforts into one larger effort. So that is what we are doing.
What this means is that while each project will maintain its own personality, projects and management, we will be logically combining into a larger effort and there will be a tremendous amount of cross-project collaboration. This collaboration immediately multiplies our capabilities for delivering some next generation technologies that we have been working on and are excited to share with you.
The most immediate result of this collaboration is that moving forward, Sabayon OS efforts will be built on Funtoo. This, however, is just the first step. What I can say is that there will be much sharing of technology which will benefit both projects, and many new things.
For existing users of Sabayon and Funtoo, the communities you know and love will have new strength, support and ability to tackle a new phase of Linux Open Source innovation. I am really excited about this collaboration.
Welcome, Sabayon team!
Best,
Daniel Robbins

Hi All,
core-gl-kit is now on 2.0-release by default. You will see updates to many packages.
Now available are Intel Iris graphics, which is much faster and supported on modern Intel integrated graphics chipsets.
To use Intel Iris, perform the following steps:
# epro mix-ins -gfxcard-intel +gfxcard-intel-iris # emerge -auDN @world --jobs=3 If you want to continue with the classic drivers, or are not using Intel integrated graphics at all, you can just do the world update to get updates.
Please report any issues you encounter to bugs.funtoo.org! There have been major updates to packages so I am expecting some bugs (and some have already been reported and fixed.)

Everyone,
New 1.4 Maintenance Release 4 stages have been built. These include GNOME 3.34.5 as well as updated Firefox and other packages. As we continue to expand the use of our autogen framework (metatools) , more and more desktop packages are staying up-to-date automatically. Enjoy the new builds -- they are now available for download via www.funtoo.org and our CDN77-powered CDN.
Best,
Daniel

Greetings during unusual times --
I wanted to let everyone know that the following ebuilds are currently being auto-updated using our new, amazing autogen framework. That means we will always have current versions:
www-client/firefox-bin www-client/google-chrome www-client/google-chrome-beta www-client/google-chrome-unstable www-client/brave-bin app-admin/pass app-admin/passwordsafe net-misc/anydesk-bin mail-client/thunderbird-bin net-im/discord-bin net-im/zoom-bin net-im/slack-bin More are on the way! For those working remotely, I recommend checking out zoom-bin (Zoom meetings) as well as anydesk-bin (AnyDesk) for fast remote desktop. They work great under Funtoo.
Enjoy, and stay safe.
-Daniel

A full set of Funtoo Linux 1.4 maintenance release 2 stages has been uploaded to build.funtoo.org.
These stages include:
GNOME 3.34.2 Updates to debian-sources-lts (4.19.87_p1) Updated Linux firmware Updated firefox Various other fixes If you are already using 1.4, you can get all these updates via a regular ego sync and world update. But if you are planning to install 1.4 from scratch, these builds are up-to-date.
 

All the repos are git repositories.  So usually the easiest way is to clone a fresh copy of the meta-repo.
mv /var/git/meta-repo /var/git/meta-repo.old ego sync ego will clone a fresh copy of the meta-repo from Github.
Since this is a case where Virtualbox crashed, I also recommend performing file system checks if they have not been performed automatically.

You and I are on the cusp of a political discussion here ? but I would argue that even "reputable" sites these days are spewing propaganda, so there is no substitute for critical thinking. We do not live in an ethical age. Whether intentional or the result of our modern echo chamber, there is misleading information EVERYWHERE online and I couldn't really tell you ANY trustworthy source of information that I would tell you that you could trust implicitly. Even Associated Press and Reuters seem horribly compromised and full of spin! Every journalist seems to want to write an atomic bomb of a news story and go though such extreme lengths to try to inject bias while remaining 'factual' -- it would be comical if it weren't so sad. Assuming a posture of skepticism and "it's probably not as bad as it sounds" is highly recommended when looking at sources of information online. Politics is the art of getting a ton of people pissed off and then leveraging that energy -- and doing this online is known to be extremely effective. So you just have to be wary. Don't be a pawn.
Now, as for the other issues you raised, I guess I can read and think about those now that I've vented ?