Debian Weekly News - August 22nd, 2006

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on Aug 22, 2006 10:26 PM EDT
Mailing list; By Martin Schulze
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The Debian Weekly Newsletter for August 22nd, 2006

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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/34/
Debian Weekly News - August 22nd, 2006
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Welcome to this year's 34th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. Jörg Jaspert [1]announced that the [2]backports archive also understands the tilde character in version strings and that packages are set to NotAutomatic so that they shouldn't be updated automatically anymore. [3]HP recently [4]announced that they support Debian GNU/Linux on its ProLiant, BladeSystem servers, and the new HP t5725 Thin Client server.

1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/08/msg00118.html 2. http://www.backports.org/ 3. http://www.hp.com/ 4. http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;311998848;fp;2;fpid;1

Event Coordination in the German-speaking Area. Meike Reichle [5]announced a new Wiki [6]page for coordinating public events in the German-speaking area such as fairs, exhibitions and conferences in which the Debian projects participates. This is one result of a [7]meeting of Debian event organisers last weekend. Alexander Schmehl [8]added that the events [9]section on the Debian website will be overhauled in the near future.

5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu/2006/08/msg00019.html 6. http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEventsDe 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-publicity/2006/08/msg00031.html 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu/2006/08/msg00022.html 9. http://www.debian.org/events/

WNPP Bug Report Page. Hendrik Sattler [10]noticed that the [11]page for Work-Needing and Prospective Packages (WNPP) in the [12]bug tracking system causes problems with Konqueror and Firefox due to the sheer size of 3 MB. Ben Armstrong [13]reminded the existence of light [14]pages with direct links to the different WNPP packages sections.

10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/08/msg00236.html 11. http://bugs.debian.org/wnpp 12. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/ 13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/08/msg00237.html 14. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/

Review of Debian Development Tools. As part of his research on Debian, Martin Krafft [15]asked about the tools that have been successfully adopted or those that have been rejected by the developers. Michael Banck [16]mentioned [17]CDBS, [18]Alioth and Debian's [19]Subversion repository, but [20]Debhelper, patch management systems and distributed version control systems have also been widely adopted. Debian Developers also appreciated [21]devscripts and package checkers like [22]lintian, [23]linda and [24]piuparts. A list of tools is [25]available.

15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/07/msg01358.html 16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/07/msg01360.html 17. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/cdbs 18. http://alioth.debian.org/ 19. http://svn.debian.org/ 20. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/debhelper 21. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/devscripts 22. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/lintian 23. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/linda 24. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/piuparts 25. http://wiki.debian.org/madduck/adoptions

New Desktop Features. Gustavo Noronha Silva [26]announced the upload of a new version of [27]update-notifier. This tool, that was initially made by Ubuntu, puts a notification icon in the notification area and warns the user about updates being available. The version of the Debian package notifies about reboot requirements for critical packages only and informs about Debian CDs/DVDs inserted in the drive. Such features should contribute to make Debian a nicer desktop distribution.

26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/08/msg00629.html 27. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/update-notifier

Publicity for Debian Events. Joey Schulze [28]asked to emphasise events a bit more again. He suggested also more talks and workshops with a Debian background and more promotion. This would generate more interest by users to meet Debian people at exhibitions and conferences and would give developers a better chance to talk to users in person. It would also be nice if a [29]report would be written after the event.

28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu/2006/08/msg00000.html 29. http://www.debian.org/events/2006/0624-froscon-report.wml

Alioth Updates. Roland Mas [30]reported that the [31]Alioth host costa now supports both git and bzr for hosting source archives. He added an explanation how to use both systems to access the repositories. User replication has also been improved so that the downtime drops from 15 minutes to only a few seconds.

30. http://roland.entierement.nu/blog/2006/08/17/bits-about-alioth.html 31. http://alioth.debian.org/

Etch Kernel Schedule Proposal. Frederik Schüler [32]suggested to select 2.6.18, which is to be released within the next four weeks, as final kernel for [33]etch and freeze it at the beginning of November. Frans Pop, however, would [34]prefer the kernel to remain in [35]unstable at least one month before it migrates into [36]testing.

32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2006/08/msg00413.html 33. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/ 34. http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2006/08/msg00415.html 35. http://www.debian.org/releases/unstable/ 36. http://www.debian.org/releases/testing/

New Architectures for Packages. Ludovic Brenta [37]wondered how to inform [38]build daemon that a package should be built on another architecture than before. Luk Claes [39]answered that the maintainers of [40]Packages-arch-specific need to be contacted. Wouter Verhelst [41]added an explanation why the wanna-build database doesn't use control files but archive index files.

37. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/07/msg00537.html 38. http://www.debian.org/devel/buildd/ 39. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/07/msg00538.html 40. http://cvs.debian.org/srcdep/Packages-arch-specific?cvsroot=dak 41. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/07/msg00583.html

Managing Packages with Subversion. Marcus Better recently [42]started to use [43]subversion to maintain his packages and wondered what the recommended repository layout would be. The point of having a common layout is that it would be possible to write support tools that make this layout less cumbersome to work with.

42. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/07/msg00835.html 43. http://packages.debian.org/subversion

Creative Commons 3.0 Public Draft. Evan Prodromou [44]reported on the [45]public [46]draft of the next version of Creative Commons licenses. The changes from the 2.x version are largely due to an effort to make the licenses compatible with the Debian Free Software [47]Guidelines (DFSG). He wondered if the anti-DRM requirement in the license draft, without a parallel distribution proviso, make it incompatible with the DFSG?

44. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/08/msg00051.html 45. http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/6017 46. http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2006-August/003855.html 47. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update your systems if you have any of these packages installed.

* DSA 1152: [48]trac -- Information disclosure. * DSA 1153: [49]clamav -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 1154: [50]squirrelmail -- Information disclosure.

48. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1152 49. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1153 50. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1154

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive [51]recently or contain important updates.

51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main

* [52]flamerobin -- Graphical database administration tool for Firebird DBMS. * [53]gcdmaster -- GNOME GUI for cdrdao. * [54]kildclient -- Powerful MUD client with a built-in Perl interpreter. * [55]page-crunch -- Frontend to psutils programs, like psnup, psbook. * [56]seccure -- Tools for using algorithms based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). * [57]sim-qt -- Simple Instant Messenger (Qt). * [58]subcommander -- Graphical client for subversion. * [59]subtitleeditor -- Graphical subtitle editor with sound waves representation. * [60]videolink -- Assembles a DVD video filesystem from HTML pages and video files. * [61]xmms2 -- Client/server based media player system.

52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/flamerobin 53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/gcdmaster 54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/kildclient 55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/page-crunch 56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/seccure 57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/sim-qt 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/subcommander 59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/subtitleeditor 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/videolink 61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/xmms2

Orphaned Packages. 12 packages were orphaned this week and require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 334 orphaned packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software community. Please see the [62]WNPP pages for the full list, and please add a note to the bug report and retitle it to ITA: if you plan to take over a package. To find out which orphaned packages are installed on your system the wnpp-alert program from devscripts may be helpful.

62. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/

* [63]gdtclft -- Tcl interface to GD graphics creation library. ([64]Bug#383651) * [65]libtk-img -- Extended image format support for Tcl/Tk. ([66]Bug#383652) * [67]pgpdump -- PGP packet visualiser. ([68]Bug#383129) * [69]rsjog -- Handler for Sony Vaio "Jog Dial". ([70]Bug#383134) * [71]tclmagick -- Tcl bindings for ImageMagick. ([72]Bug#383653) * [73]tclparser -- Tcl extension to access Tcl's internal parser. ([74]Bug#383654) * [75]tclsoap -- SOAP implementation for Tcl. ([76]Bug#383530) * [77]tclthread -- Tcl extension implementing script level access to Tcl threading capabilities. ([78]Bug#383655) * [79]tclvfs -- Exposes Tcl 8.4's virtual filesystem C API to the Tcl script level. ([80]Bug#383656) * [81]tdom -- XML/DOM/XPath/XSLT implementation for Tcl. ([82]Bug#383657) * [83]tkcon -- Enhanced interactive console for developing in Tcl. ([84]Bug#383658) * [85]zapata -- Zapata telephony interface library (development). ([86]Bug#383834)

63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/gdtclft 64. http://bugs.debian.org/383651 65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/libtk-img 66. http://bugs.debian.org/383652 67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/pgpdump 68. http://bugs.debian.org/383129 69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/rsjog 70. http://bugs.debian.org/383134 71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/tclmagick 72. http://bugs.debian.org/383653 73. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/tclparser 74. http://bugs.debian.org/383654 75. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/tclsoap 76. http://bugs.debian.org/383530 77. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/tclthread 78. http://bugs.debian.org/383655 79. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/tclvfs 80. http://bugs.debian.org/383656 81. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/tdom 82. http://bugs.debian.org/383657 83. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/tkcon 84. http://bugs.debian.org/383658 85. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libzap1 86. http://bugs.debian.org/383834

Removed Packages. 24 packages have been [87]removed from the Debian archive during the past week:

87. http://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.txt

* fidogate -- Gateway Fido <-> Internet [88]Bug#374520: Request of QA, security issues, RC-buggy, orphaned, few users. * gnat -- GNU Ada 95 compiler [89]Bug#377331: Request of maintainer, superseded by gcc-defaults. * eskuel -- Pretty PHP administration tool for MySQL databases [90]Bug#380202: Request of maintainer, abandoned upstream, superseded by phpmyadmin. * gch -- Ada quality & style checker [91]Bug#380193: Request of QA, abandoned upstream, unmaintained, superseded by adacontrol, RC-buggy. * 44bsd-rdist -- 4.4BSD rdist. [92]Bug#380192: Request of QA, RC-buggy, few users, orphaned. * kernel-patch-nfs-swap -- Patch to Linux to enable swapping over NFS [93]Bug#379328: Request of QA, has never been part of a stable release; orphaned; RC-buggy. * python-parted -- Python bindings for GNU parted [94]Bug#379034: Request of QA, has never been part of a stable release, orphaned, RC-buggy. * libhoard -- Fast memory allocation library [95]Bug#332538: Request of QA: orphaned, out of date, few users. * qmailadmin -- Web interface for managing qmail with virtual domains [96]Bug#333082: Request of QA, has never been part of a stable release, few users. * libgtk2-podviewer-perl -- Perl Gtk2 widget for displaying Plain Old Documentation (POD) [97]Bug#351889: Request of maintainer, superseded by libgtk2-ex-podviewer-perl. * net-dict-leo -- Perl module to translate English words to German and vice versa [98]Bug#362016: Request of maintainer, no longer legally usable. * libaudio-flac-perl -- Perl interface to FLAC file information and comment fields [99]Bug#344077: Request of maintainer, superseded by libaudio-flac-header-perl. * ipchains -- Network firewalling for Linux 2.2.x [100]Bug#382665: Request of QA, kernel 2.2 only. * kernel-patch-2.4-supermount-ng -- Automatically mount and unmount removable media [101]Bug#298998: Request of QA, orphaned, out of date. * kernel-image-2.4.27-[!i386,!m68k] -- Linux 2.4.27 kernel images [102]Bug#383553: Request of maintainer, obsolete. * amap -- Network protocol probing tool [103]Bug#381185: Request of maintainer, non-free.

88. http://bugs.debian.org/374520 89. http://bugs.debian.org/377331 90. http://bugs.debian.org/380202 91. http://bugs.debian.org/380193 92. http://bugs.debian.org/380192 93. http://bugs.debian.org/379328 94. http://bugs.debian.org/379034 95. http://bugs.debian.org/332538 96. http://bugs.debian.org/333082 97. http://bugs.debian.org/351889 98. http://bugs.debian.org/362016 99. http://bugs.debian.org/344077 100. http://bugs.debian.org/382665 101. http://bugs.debian.org/298998 102. http://bugs.debian.org/383553 103. http://bugs.debian.org/381185

Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this newsletter. We still need more volunteer writers who watch the Debian community and report about what is going on. Please see the [104]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [105]dwn@debian.org.

104. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing 105. mailto:dwn@debian.org

This issue of Debian Weekly News was edited by Mohammed Adnène Trojette and Martin 'Joey' Schulze.

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