--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Weekly News http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/08/ Debian Weekly News - February 25th, 2003 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to this year's 8th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. For those of you who always wanted to learn more about nerds, the most recent [1]essay from Paul Graham about why nerds are unpopular may shed some light on the issue. The Swedish agency for public management has performed a feasibility study on free and open source software and has given advice to use free and open source software. 1. http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html Debian reviewed at DistroWatch. Alexander Antoniades wrote a [2]report about Debian GNU/Linux. He did not only look at the installation process but also used the distribution and learned about powers of the apt-get command. The article admits that the Debian installation wasn't the easiest, but it is not particularly hard. Using unofficial repositories you can get pretty much all the newest software. 2. http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=review-debian Maintaining Success Stories. Colin Walters [3]announced that he is putting the [4]Debian users page up for adoption. He did not have the time to give it the love it deserves, and accumulated an embarassingly long queue of submissions. If somebody is interested, please send him a [5]mail. Good English skills are very important, and the person will also need some knowledge of how the Debian website [6]works. 3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01307.html 4. http://www.debian.org/users/ 5. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. http://cvs.debian.org/webwml/english/users/index.wml?cvsroot=webwml Debian-Installer still installs Debian. Tollef Fog Heen [7]reported that debian-installer is still able to install Debian. Most of the goals he mentioned in an earlier [8]report are mostly reached. cdebconf has gotten a slang [9]frontend, which seems to work reasonably well. A lot of work has been going into infrastructure issues, but more needs to be done. The most important job, however, is porting the tools to other architectures. 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0302/msg00456.html 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0212/msg00002.html 9. http://people.debian.org/~sjogren/d-i/screenshots/2003-02-16/slang/ Project Leader Platforms. Platform statements from each of the candidates for the Debian Project Leader elections are [10]online. Moshe Zadka [11]plans to do as little as possible but help people do their work. Bdale Garbee [12]believes that the primary role of a leader is facilitation and approached this by spending a lot of time listening and reading. Martin Michlmayr [13]intends to represent Debian to the outside world, while his main focus will be on internal matters. Branden Robinson [14]wants to delegate responsibility and set clear and reasonable expectations for their fulfillment. 10. http://www.debian.org/vote/2003/platforms/ 11. http://www.debian.org/vote/2003/platforms/moshez 12. http://www.debian.org/vote/2003/platforms/bdale 13. http://www.debian.org/vote/2003/platforms/tbm 14. http://www.debian.org/vote/2003/platforms/branden Questions to the DPL candidates. Raphaël Hertzog formulated several [15]questions to the candidates for the Debian Project Leader elections. For [16]Bdale Garbee, [17]Martin Michlmayr and [18]Branden Robinson he asked specific questions as well. Eduard Bloch added more [19]questions for all candidates. 15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0302/msg00076.html 16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0302/msg00073.html 17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0302/msg00074.html 18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0302/msg00075.html 19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0302/msg00079.html Help with Packaging Roxen 3.3. Turbo Fredriksson spent the last couple of months on packaging Roxen Webserver 3.3 and is [20]close to a release. New versions of the Roxen Webserver require a MySQL server to run. He wonders how to handle the situation best. The package should still be able to use an external database server and not depend on a locally installed one. 20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01247.html Ominous Security Support Policies. An [21]article in The Register caused a [22]discussion about supporting old versions and the recognition of the release process including the testing distribution. The article complains about the Debian Security Team ceasing support for slink (2.1) with only two weeks notice but ignores the [23]update sent out later which announces that the support period was extended by one month. Another discussion about this is taking place at [24]SecurityFocus. The Security Team is [25]trying to support the old potato for 12 months after the current stable distribution was released, which is superior to all other distributions. 21. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/61/29330.html 22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01259.html 23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce-00/msg00043.html 24. http://securityfocus.com/columnists/142 25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0302/msg00010.html List of APT Frontends. Javier Viñuales Gutiérrez [26]revealed Jeff Licquia's [27]list of frontends to the Debian package management system. The list includes aptitude and stormpkg, but also apt-move, apt-proxy and apt-zip or jablicator. Junichi Uekawa [28]added two special modes for Emacs. Alexander Wirt also [29]added the missing [30]synaptic. 26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01319.html 27. http://www.luci.org/luci-discuss/200211/msg00001.html 28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01331.html 29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01352.html 30. http://distro.conectiva.com.br/projetos/46/ Installing Debian parallel to Operating Systems. [31]DebianHelp has an [32]article that describes how to install woody and two different proprietary operating systems on the same harddisk. This can be tricky because of the way that those systems use the bootsectors of other partitions, including overwriting the master bootrecord. However, since LILO can boot them all, it'll become the primary boot loader. 31. http://www.debianhelp.org/ 32. http://www.debianhelp.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3137 Linux Certification Tutorials. IBM has made available a set of [33]tutorials designed to be guides for preparation for [34]Linux Professional Certification from the [35]Linux Professional Institute. The tutorials cover general GNU/Linux administration and networking and should also be helpful to those not interested in certification. 33. http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9210834394.html 34. http://www.lpi.org/c-process.html 35. http://www.lpi.org/ Do Font Names Infringe Trademarks? Anton Zinoviev [36]wondered whether his font package might be infringing some trademarks. He remembered that one font developer was asked to change the name of his fonts because their use on modified font designs was said to infringe the creator's trademark. Terry Hancock [37]suggested that Debian could simply give fonts alternate but similar names, as has been done by some companies faced with the same problem. 36. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0302/msg00128.html 37. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0302/msg00129.html LinEx presented to the European Parliament. Last week LinEx was [38]presented (Spanish only) during the celebration of the first annual meeting of the European Regions Committee within the European Parliament Brussels. This is the first time it was demonstrated outside of Spain. [39]LinEx is a government funded distribution of GNU/Linux based on Debian GNU/Linux that was adapted for the needs of the Extremadura, an extremely poor region in Spain. 38. http://www.elperiodicoextremadura.com/noticias/noticia.asp?pkid=40043 39. http://www.linex.de/ Knoppix for the masses FAQ. Karsten Self burned 50 CDs with the Knoppix release and is handing these out to people he meets on the street. He would like to use additional information to give away with the CDs. Therefore he prepared a short [40]introductory FAQ to include with the CD. 40. http://zgp.org/pipermail/linux-elitists/2003-February/005819.html SPI Board Membership Election Results. [41]Software in the Public Interest, Inc. (SPI) has held an election for new Board members. The voting period ended on Friday and the three [42]winners were [43]Bruce Perens, [44]John Goerzen, and [45]Benj. Mako Hill. The current Board of Directors will vote on adding them to the Board at its next meeting. The lists of voters, votes and results is [46]available and there is a seven day dispute-period during which people can verify their votes. 41. http://www.spi-inc.org/ 42. http://www.spi-inc.org/news/2003/20030222 43. http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/votes/vote1/BrucePerens.xhtml 44. http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/votes/vote1/JohnGoerzen.xhtml 45. http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/votes/vote1/MakoHill.xhtml 46. http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/votes/vote1/ Messages Promoting non-free Software. The new cdrecord program displays a message saying "If you need DVD-R/DVD-RW support, ask the Author for cdrecord-ProDVD". Ben Collins [47]thought that Debian should not be promoting non-free software in this way and that the message should instead point users to the free dvdrecord package. Andreas Metzler [48]preferred to leave the message where it is and maintain good relations with the upstream author, but Craig Dickson [49]suggested to simply remove the message. 47. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01524.html 48. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01531.html 49. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01526.html Debian Project at three European Events. The project [50]announced that it has been invited to participate in three events taking place during the next days. On March 1st developers meet at [51]LinuxForum 2003 in Copenhagen, Denmark, where Debian maintains a booth. From March 1st to 2nd a talk about the benefits of using Debian GNU/Linux will be given at [52]Wilhelmshavener Linux Information Days in Germany. At the same time Debian will maintain a booth at [53]Chemnitzer Linux-Tag and give talks about the [54]Debian Description Translation Project and [55]Debian-Med. 50. http://www.debian.org/News/2003/20030224 51. http://www.debian.org/events/2003/0301-linuxforum 52. http://www.debian.org/events/2003/0301-infotage-wilhelmshaven 53. http://www.debian.org/events/2003/0301-linuxtag-chemnitz 54. http://ddtp.debian.org/ 55. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med/ Packaging Electronic Magazines. Kevin Rosenberg [56]intended to package all issues of the [57]Phrack Magazine as separate package. Lars Wirzenius [58]raised concerns since this would dramatically increase the size of the Package files that users have to download frequently. 56. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01462.html 57. http://www.phrack.org/ 58. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01472.html Exim 4 Packages in Experimental. Marc Haber [59]announced that the Debian Exim 4 maintainer team has uploaded the first version of Exim 4 into Debian experimental. The packages will be moved into the archive soon. The packages offer a semi-clean update path from Exim 3 by trying to parse the old configuration file if it has been generated by eximconfig. 59. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0302/msg01513.html Debian Workshops on IRC. Gürkan Sengün alias tarzeau informed us that he is organizing [60]online workshops on IRC. Last week they had a talk about [61]Debian Packaging. This weekend (on Saturday at 15:00 GMT) the workshop will cover IPv6 on Debian by Ricardo Javier Cardenes Medina alias Heimy. The workshops take place on #debian-friendly on irc.debian.org. 60. http://www.linuks.mine.nu/irc/ 61. http://www.linuks.mine.nu/irc/debian-packaging Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update your systems if you have any of these packages installed. * [62]slocate -- Local group slocate exploit. * [63]openssl -- Timing-based attack vulnerability. 62. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-252 63. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-253 New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important updates. * [64]ale -- Tool to reduce aliasing in images. * [65]atlantikdesigner -- Game board designer for Atlantik. * [66]bluez-pan -- Personal area networking for Bluetooth devices. * [67]cascades -- Stylesheet editor for Mozilla Composer. * [68]checky -- Online validation and analysis services for Mozilla. * [69]diggler -- Set of URL manipulation utilities for Mozilla's location bar. * [70]epiphany-browser -- Intuitive GNOME web browser. * [71]freqtweak -- Realtime audio frequency spectral manipulation. * [72]gav -- GPL Arcade Volleyball. * [73]gqueue -- Gnome2 frontend to print queues. * [74]jnettop -- View hosts/ports taking up the most network traffic. * [75]lft -- Display the route packets take to a network host/socket. * [76]lshw -- Information about hardware configuration. * [77]mailgraph -- Mail statistics RRDtool frontend for Postfix. * [78]nglister -- Downloads information from NNTP server. * [79]pspresent -- Fullscreen PostScript presentation tool. * [80]rubber -- Automated system for building LaTeX documents. * [81]sip -- Python/C++ Bindings Generator. * [82]xmlsec -- XML security command line processor. * [83]zenity -- Display graphical dialog boxes from shell scripts. 64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/ale.html 65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/atlantikdesigner.html 66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/bluez-pan.html 67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/cascades.html 68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/checky.html 69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/diggler.html 70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/epiphany-browser.html 71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/freqtweak.html 72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/gav.html 73. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/gqueue.html 74. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/jnettop.html 75. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/lft.html 76. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/lshw.html 77. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/mailgraph.html 78. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/news/nglister.html 79. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/pspresent.html 80. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/tex/rubber.html 81. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/sip.html 82. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/xmlsec.html 83. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/zenity.html Orphaned Packages. 3 packages were orphaned this week and require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 164 orphaned packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software community. Please see the [84]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. 84. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/ * [85]jed-ja -- Editor for programmers for Japanese. ([86]Bug#182434) * [87]slang1-ja -- The S-Lang programming library with Japanese patch. ([88]Bug#182433) * [89]slrn-ja -- Threaded news reader (fast for slow links), Japanese version. ([90]Bug#182435) 85. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/jed-ja.html 86. http://bugs.debian.org/182434 87. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/slang1-ja.html 88. http://bugs.debian.org/182433 89. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/news/slrn-ja.html 90. http://bugs.debian.org/182435 Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this newsletter. Some people are submitting items already, but we are still in need of volunteer writers who prepare items. Please see the [91]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED] 91. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing 92. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
