Debian Weekly News - September 19th, 2006

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on Sep 20, 2006 3:51 AM EDT
Mailing list; By Martin Schulze
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Welcome to this year's 38th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. David Barker thanked the project for the well developed etch distribution. Joey Schulze contemplated etch to be ready for release already. From Friday to Sunday a bug squashing party will be organised in Berlin, Germany.

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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/38/
Debian Weekly News - September 19th, 2006
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Welcome to this year's 38th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. David Barker [1]thanked the project for the well developed [2]etch distribution. Joey Schulze [3]contemplated etch to be ready for release already. From Friday to Sunday a bug squashing [4]party will be organised in [5]Berlin, Germany.

1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/09/msg00042.html 2. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/ 3. http://www.infodrom.org/~joey/log/?200609102259 4. http://wiki.debian.org/BSPMarathon 5. http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/de/Berlin

Status of GNOME 2.16 in Debian. Frederic Peters [6]announced a status [7]page that helps tracking packages of [8]GNOME 2.16 which has been released recently. Josselin Mouette [9]added that it is planned to push packages for version 2.16 into [10]experimental as soon as possible.

6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-gtk-gnome/2006/09/msg00004.html 7. http://www.0d.be/debian/debian-gnome-2.16-status.html 8. http://www.gnome.org/ 9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-gtk-gnome/2006/09/msg00005.html 10. http://packages.debian.org/experimental/

Report from Come 2 Linux. Joey Schulze [11]reported about the Debian [12]presence at the [13]Come 2 Linux event in Essen, Germany. The Debian project maintained a booth in the exhibition area and delivered two talks which were well received. There was enough time and space at the booth to take care of visitors without many people queueing up.

11. http://www.infodrom.org/~joey/log/?200609122039 12. http://www.debian.org/events/2006/0909-come2linux-report 13. http://www.debian.org/events/2006/0909-come2linux

Local DebConf7 Team Meeting. Steve McIntyre [14]reported about several developers having [15]met in Edinburgh, Scotland, to work out the bits that are needed for the Debian conference 7 next year. The team visited Teviot, the student centre that is planned to use, and checked out several of the local hostels and public houses for suitability.

14. http://blog.einval.com/2006/09/11#dc_team_20060909 15. http://wiki.debian.org/DebConf7Meetings/Minutes/2006-09-09

The Hurd with WLAN and PCMCIA. Michael Banck [16]reported that the current GNU Mach upload has brought PCMCIA and WLAN with WEP encryption support to Debian GNU/Hurd. Earlier he [17]stated that the latest [18]gnumach and [19]hurd packages are up-to-date with the developer CVS repository and hence include the work towards Berkeley Packet Filter support.

16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2006/09/msg00025.html 17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2006/09/msg00000.html 18. http://packages.debian.org/gnumach 19. http://packages.debian.org/hurd

Debian Steering Committee? David Nusinov [20]pondered about setting up a distribution steering committee. Ingo Jürgensmann [21]considered this a good idea in general. David [22]added that the bottom-up structure instead of top-down is a defining feature of Debian. Raphaël Hertzog [23]suggested to replace the project leader with a steering board.

20. http://gravityboy.livejournal.com/29046.html 21. http://blog.windfluechter.net/?q=node/134 22. http://gravityboy.livejournal.com/29306.html 23. http://www.ouaza.com/wordpress/2006/09/03/steering-committee-or-board/

Setting up Subversion. Bert Heymans [24]described in detail the required steps to set up a Subversion server including [25]websvn with code colouring for easy repository browsing. This document includes the configuration of Apache 2 for Subversion WebDAV and contains some Subversion test commands.

24. http://www.howtoforge.com/debian_subversion_websvn 25. http://packages.debian.org/websvn

PostgreSQL Transition Strategy. Peter Eisentraut [26]explained that currently etch users who wish to install the [27]postgresql package will end up with the older version and asked for advice. This situation occurs due to the transition to versioned PostgreSQL packages that can be installed in parallel.

26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2006/09/msg00127.html 27. http://packages.debian.org/postgresql

APT Upgrade Problem. Ingo Jürgensmann [28]discovered that when upgrading from [29]sarge to [30]etch, apt-get complains about untrusted source of packages because signatures couldn't be verified. Alexander Schmehl [31]added that [32]aptitude behaves the same and hence opened a release-critical [33]bug report asking for a dependency against [34]debian-archive-keyring.

28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2006/09/msg00062.html 29. http://www.debian.org/releases/sarge/ 30. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/ 31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2006/09/msg00106.html 32. http://packages.debian.org/aptitude 33. http://bugs.debian.org/386800 34. http://packages.debian.org/debian-archive-keyring

Debian Installer Stance on non-free Firmware. Frans Pop [35]stated that the installer team will not accept any structural changes to support loading firmware in the installer at this late stage before the release. In the long-term he would also prefer a solution that wouldn't require adding the entire non-free or contrib to the sources.list file.

35. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/09/msg00190.html

Using Wikis for Discussions? Russell Coker [36]suggested to use another mechanism instead of discussions lead via mail. He believes that endless discussions are more an illustration of the failings of mailing list culture than of failings of Debian. If each side had a Wiki page that they could modify then in a small amount of time there would be a set of two main consensus opinions which would each be explained clearly and summarised well.

36. http://etbe.blogspot.com/2006/09/mailing-list-culture.html

Debian Boot Dependency Graph. Petter Reinholdtsen [37]created a dependency graph of boot scripts now that a sufficiently large number of init scripts use the LSB convention. There's also a status [38]summary for the packages used in a desktop installation. Nathanael Nerode [39]added that the [40]udev dependency information is not accurate since a lot of packages depend on udev running first.

37. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/09/msg00136.html 38. http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/lsblist.html 39. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/09/msg00198.html 40. http://packages.debian.org/udev

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

* DSA 1174: [41]openssl096 -- RSA signature forgery cryptographic weakness. * DSA 1175: [42]isakmpd -- Replay protection bypass. * DSA 1176: [43]zope2.7 -- Information disclosure. * DSA 1177: [44]usermin -- Denial of service. * DSA 1178: [45]freetype -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 1179: [46]alsaplayer -- Denial of service. * DSA 1180: [47]bomberclone -- Several vulnerabilities.

41. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1174 42. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1175 43. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1176 44. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1177 45. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1178 46. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1179 47. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1180

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive [48]recently or contain important updates.

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

* [49]pyste -- Boost.Python code generator. * [50]tomcat5.5 -- Java Servlet 2.4 engine with JSP 2.0 support. * [51]ttf-vlgothic -- Japanese TrueType font from VineLinux. * [52]wsjt -- Weak-signal amateur radio communications.

49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/pyste 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/tomcat5.5 51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-vlgothic 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/wsjt

Orphaned Packages. 12 packages were orphaned this week and require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 315 orphaned packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software community. Please see the [53]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.

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

* [54]binutils-h8300-hms -- GNU cross assembler for H8/300[HS], linker and binary utilities. ([55]Bug#387772) * [56]brickos -- Alternative OS for LEGO(r) Mindstorms RCX. Supports devel. in C/C++. ([57]Bug#387769) * [58]divine -- Automatic IP configuration detection for laptops. ([59]Bug#387774) * [60]exdbm -- EXode database manager. ([61]Bug#387773) * [62]gcc-h8300-hms -- The GNU C/C++ cross-compilers for the Hitachi H8/300[HS] processors. ([63]Bug#387771) * [64]gpsim-led -- LED module for gpsim. ([65]Bug#387778) * [66]gpsim-logic -- Logic module for gpsim. ([67]Bug#387777) * [68]gsetroot -- C/Gtk-based front-end for Esetroot. ([69]Bug#387474) * [70]lnpd -- Daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS. ([71]Bug#387770) * [72]png2html -- Transforms a PNG image to a web page. ([73]Bug#387477) * [74]rpl -- Intelligent recursive search/replace utility. ([75]Bug#388131) * [76]vfu -- Versatile text-based file-manager. ([77]Bug#387478)

54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/binutils-h8300-hms 55. http://bugs.debian.org/387772 56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/brickos 57. http://bugs.debian.org/387769 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/divine 59. http://bugs.debian.org/387774 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/exdbm 61. http://bugs.debian.org/387773 62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/gcc-h8300-hms 63. http://bugs.debian.org/387771 64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/gpsim-led 65. http://bugs.debian.org/387778 66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/gpsim-logic 67. http://bugs.debian.org/387777 68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/gsetroot 69. http://bugs.debian.org/387474 70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/lnpd 71. http://bugs.debian.org/387770 72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/png2html 73. http://bugs.debian.org/387477 74. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/rpl 75. http://bugs.debian.org/388131 76. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/vfu 77. http://bugs.debian.org/387478

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 [78]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [79]dwn@debian.org.

78. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing 79. mailto:dwn@debian.org

This issue of Debian Weekly News was edited by Sebastian Feltel and Martin 'Joey' Schulze.

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