--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Weekly News http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/28/ Debian Weekly News - July 16th, 2003 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to this year's 28th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. This issue is a bit shorter (in text) than usually because Joey organised LinuxTag and hence didn't have time to produce DWN during the event. According to [1]Heise (German only) the salary management system for the Japanese government will be redesigned with GNU/Linux. 1. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-09.07.03-000/ Talks during Debian Conference. Andreas Schuldei [2]announced the [3]schedule for talks during this years' DebConf. Among other talks Jonas Öberg will talk about legal aspects of Free Software, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña will speak about security and internationalisation efforts, Branden Robinson will demonstrate how to manage Debian packages using Subversion. 2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0307/msg00005.html 3. http://www.debconf.org/debconf3/schedule.php Saving an old Laptop with Knoppix. Peter Johansson [4]wrote on Newsforge that he had to reinstall his laptop due to a filesystem breakdown. He decided to copy the Knoppix CD-ROM with its compressed filesystem onto the hard disk. The kernel and initrd files have to be copied from the boot.img file afterwards for use with lilo or grub. This way, even machines with tight disk space can use fully fledged systems. 4. http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/07/06/212212.shtml The Organizational Model for Open Source. Harvard Business School professor Siobhán O'Mahony [5]discusses her research on foundations formed around the projects: Debian, GNOME and Apache. She says that hackers who contribute to the open source community are often intrinsically motivated. It is important to realize, however, that hackers are a diverse group. It is not safe to generalize about all of the values that hackers share, but they tend to agree on at least one thing: Respect must be earned and cannot be derived from position. 5. http://workingknowledge.hbs.edu/pubitem.jhtml?id=3582&t=technology Report from Linuxwochen Vienna. Gerfried Fuchs submitted the [6]report about the Debian presence at this years' event in Vienna. The first day was used for setting up the booth while talks aimed at business people mostly. He was also [7]interviewed by Radio Orange where he could talk about Linuxwochen and Debian. 6. http://www.debian.org/events/2003/0605-linuxwochen-report 7. http://cba.fro.at/show.php?lang=en&eintrag_id=1288 BSD Glibc in Alioth. Robert Millan [8]announced the start of the [9]glibc-bsd project for maintenance of Glibc-based BSD ports of Debian. There is a mailing list for general port discussion, and for discussing maintenance of the base component packages of FreeBSD. 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0307/msg00032.html 9. http://alioth.debian.org/projects/glibc-bsd Decision on Software Patents in Europe. The European Parliament has [10]postponed the vote on the software patent directive back to the original date of 1st of September. Members of Parliament from all parties had complained that it was impossible to react adequately within a timeframe of 10 days. Many software professionals have been contacting their Members of Parliament in recent days and told them how software patents would hurt them. 10. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/ Debian in German Government IT guidelines. The [11]KBSt, a consulting agency for IT within the German government includes Debian in their small roundup of GNU/Linux distributions in their recently [12]published migration [13]guidelines (large PDF file in German). Aside from mentioning that Debian is a volunteer effort, it lists the freeness of Debian, the bug tracking and handling, the high quality, the long release cycles, and the package system. It says: "Debian is one of the most stable and bug free distributions. Long release cycles are characteristic to Debian, which entails the high quality of the distribution." 11. http://www.kbst.bund.de/ 12. http://www.itworld.com/Man/2685/030710germanopensource/ 13. http://download.bund.de/mlf_v1_de.pdf Status of the G++ 3.2 Transition. Matthew Wilcox [14]reported about the status of the [15]G++ 3.2 transition. He thinks that technically these problems are to be considered release-critical. A [16]list of packages need to be recompiled with GCC 3.3. 14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00106.html 15. http://people.debian.org/~willy/gcc-transition/ 16. http://people.debian.org/~willy/gcc-transition/src-packages-2.95 EICAR Installer for Debian. Marc Haber [17]reported that the installer package for anti-virus test file from the [18]European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research (EICAR) was rejected. A native package is [19]not possible due to a missing license, and an installer package for only a few kilobytes is not appreciated either. 17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00170.html 18. http://www.eicar.com/ 19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00377.html Logging of Package Installations. Joey Hess posted an [20]idea of logging package installations so displayed messages won't get lost in the void. So the basic idea is that instead of using echo for these messages, we provide some interface for them. Instead of adding log support to dpkg he opted for a more flexible dpkg-log program. 20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00261.html Packages still using dh_undocumented. Goswin Brederlow [21]reported that 469 packages are still using dh_undocumented and asks for people to check their packages. Joey Hess [22]explained that he expects that the list will be down to 50 in one year at which time bug reports should be opened. 21. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00277.html 22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00295.html Managing the resolv.conf File. Thomas Hood [23]announced resolvconf, a proposed standard [24]framework for updating the system's information about currently available nameservers. Most importantly, it manages /etc/resolv.conf, but it does a bit more than that. 23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00438.html 24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00652.html Using apt-get with rsync. Egmont Koblinger [25]reported about his success of using apt-get together with rsync. He used a [26]patch for apt-get by Sviatoslav Sviridoff. Goswin Brederlow [27]added that rsync uses too much resources on the server side and a widespread use of rsync for apt-get would choke the rsync mirrors and do more harm than good. 25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00462.html 26. http://distro2.conectiva.com.br/pipermail/apt-rpm/2003-January/001085.html 27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00473.html Bug Squashing Party at Debcamp. David Martinez Moreno [28]announced that there is a bug squashing party during [29]debcamp in Oslo. Attending people are trying to fix as many bugs as possible. Coordination is done on channel #debcamp on [30]freenode. 28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00746.html 29. http://www.debconf.org/debconf3/debcamp.php 30. http://www.freenode.net/ Default MTA for Sarge? Joey Hess started a [31]discussion about which mail-transport-agent (MTA) should be the default for the next Debian release. His options include to replace exim with exim4 and install no MTA per default. Sean Perry [32]added that enough of a GNU/Linux system assume that an MTA is present that not installing any would be wrong. 31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00780.html 32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00784.html Summary of RFC Problems. Martin Quinson tried to [33]summarise the flamewar we just had about the RFC licensing. The issue here is that the RFC license is clearly non free. For some people, that's a reason to throw this out of main, for some other, RFCs can stay in main for several reasons. 33. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00787.html Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update your systems if you have any of these packages installed. * [34]skk, ddskk -- Insecure temporary file creation. * [35]unzip -- Directory traversal. * [36]xbl -- Buffer overflow. * [37]phpsysinfo -- Directory traversal. * [38]teapop -- SQL injection. * [39]traceroute-nanog -- Integer overflow. * [40]nfs-utils -- Buffer overflow. * [41]falconseye -- Buffer overflow. 34. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-343 35. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-344 36. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-345 37. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-346 38. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-347 39. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-348 40. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-349 41. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-350 New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important updates. * [42]albert -- Common Lisp to DocBook documenter. * [43]cjet -- Software PCL emulation for Canon CaPSL laser printers. * [44]drgeo -- Interactive geometry software. * [45]e2tools -- Utilities for manipulating files in an ext2/ext3 filesystem. * [46]extract -- Display meta-data from files of an arbitrary type. * [47]fbpanel -- Lightweight X11 desktop panel. * [48]gcb -- Utility to calculate bearing and range to a location. * [49]gnunet -- Secure, trust-based peer-to-peer framework. * [50]hiki -- Wiki Engine written in Ruby. * [51]ibmonitor -- Interactive Bandwidth Monitor. * [52]ktrack -- KDE Satellite tracking program. * [53]larch -- Revision control system. * [54]linuxtrade -- Real-time stock market tracker and news console. * [55]parsewiki -- Documentation System Based on ASCII Text. * [56]pmk -- Utility to configure software sources. * [57]rhyme -- Console based rhyming dictionary. * [58]rrdcollect -- Round-Robin-Database Collecting Daemon. * [59]statcvs -- CVS Repository statistic analysis tool, written in Java. * [60]t38modem -- T.38 Fax over IP Pseudo Modem. * [61]tcd -- CD player with an ncurses interface. * [62]termnet -- Simple Telnet replacement for termnetd. * [63]termnetd -- Terminal Server daemon. * [64]tpb -- Program to use the IBM ThinkPad(tm) special keys. * [65]ttyd -- Remote Modem Utility for Unix. * [66]vim-latexsuite -- Brings the LaTeX power to vim. * [67]wims -- WWW Interactive Mathematics Server (WIMS). * [68]wmtune -- Windowmaker-dockable radio tuner. 42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/albert.html 43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/cjet.html 44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/drgeo.html 45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/e2tools.html 46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/extract.html 47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/fbpanel.html 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/gcb.html 49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gnunet.html 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/hiki.html 51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ibmonitor.html 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/ktrack.html 53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/larch.html 54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/linuxtrade.html 55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/parsewiki.html 56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/pmk.html 57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/rhyme.html 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/rrdcollect.html 59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/statcvs.html 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/t38modem.html 61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/tcd.html 62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/termnet.html 63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/termnetd.html 64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/tpb.html 65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ttyd.html 66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/vim-latexsuite.html 67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/wims.html 68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/wmtune.html Orphaned Packages. 47 packages were orphaned this week and require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 227 orphaned packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software community. Please see the [69]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. 69. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/ * [70]agrep -- Text search tool with support for approximate patterns. ([71]Bug#201367) * [72]aseqview -- ALSA Sequencer Event Viewer. ([73]Bug#201357) * [74]bock -- Bootstrap-only compiler kit for a subset of Java(tm). ([75]Bug#201409) * [76]chameleon -- Application for putting pictures or color in the root window. ([77]Bug#200974) * [78]cmap-adobe-cns1 -- CMaps for Adobe-CNS1. ([79]Bug#201374) * [80]cmap-adobe-gb1 -- CMaps for Adobe-GB1. ([81]Bug#201375) * [82]cmap-adobe-japan1 -- CMaps for Adobe-Japan1. ([83]Bug#201377) * [84]cmap-adobe-japan2 -- CMaps for Adobe-Japan2. ([85]Bug#201378) * [86]cmap-adobe-korea1 -- CMaps for Adobe-Korea1. ([87]Bug#201379) * [88]cyrus-imapd -- CMU Cyrus mail system (POP3 support). ([89]Bug#201359) * [90]fltk -- Fast Light Toolkit, and the Fluid user interface designer. ([91]Bug#201360) * [92]frotz -- Interpreter of Z-code story-files. ([93]Bug#201407) * [94]ftape -- Bleeding Edge floppy tape driver (source). ([95]Bug#201345) * [96]ftape-doc -- Documentation for the bleeding edge floppy tape driver. ([97]Bug#201346) * [98]ftape-tools -- Bleeding Edge floppy tape driver (utilities). ([99]Bug#201347) * [100]gbiff -- Mail notification program supported GTK+ and Gnome. ([101]Bug#201383) * [102]gnome-print -- GNOME Print architecture. ([103]Bug#201414) * [104]gs-cjk-resource -- Resource files for gs-cjk, ghostscript CJK-TrueType extension. ([105]Bug#201380) * [106]int-fiction -- Support files for interactive fiction interpreters. ([107]Bug#201408) * [108]lclint -- Tool for statically checking C programs. ([109]Bug#201348) * [110]lclint-doc -- Documentation for LCLint Package. ([111]Bug#201349) * [112]libgtop -- Libraries for gtop system monitoring library. ([113]Bug#201265) * [114]libnews-nntpclient-perl -- News::NNTPClient, Perl support for accessing NNTP servers. ([115]Bug#201361) * [116]libsnmp-session-perl -- Perl support for accessing SNMP-aware devices. ([117]Bug#201362) * [118]moosic -- Daemon/client combo to easily queue music files for playing. ([119]Bug#200977) * [120]murasaki -- Another HotPlug Agent. ([121]Bug#201384) * [122]ng -- Nihongo MicroGnuEmacs with Latin support. ([123]Bug#201371) * [124]openh323 -- H.323 aka VoIP library. ([125]Bug#200472) * [126]pips -- Photo Image Print System for Linux (EPSON PM-820C/PM-3300C). ([127]Bug#201386) * [128]propsel -- Propagate X selections between displays. ([129]Bug#201410) * [130]pwlib -- Portable Windows Library. ([131]Bug#200473) * [132]pychecker -- Finds common bugs in python source code. ([133]Bug#200976) * [134]rocks-n-diamonds -- Boulderdash-like game. ([135]Bug#201411) * [136]scansort -- CSV-based image sorter and verifier. ([137]Bug#201364) * [138]scigraphica -- Scientific graphics and data manipulation (Gnome version). ([139]Bug#201372) * [140]since -- tail(1) work-alike that saves and uses state information. ([141]Bug#201365) * [142]texi2html -- Convert Texinfo files to HTML. ([143]Bug#201381) * [144]usbmgr -- User-Mode daemon which loads/unloads USB kernel modules. ([145]Bug#201385) * [146]vje-delta -- VJE Delta Ver 2.5 for Linux/BSD installer. ([147]Bug#201388) * [148]vtcl -- Tcl GUI builder. ([149]Bug#201415) * [150]wmmatrix -- View The Matrix in a Window Maker dock application. ([151]Bug#201368) * [152]wmxmms-spectrum -- XMMS spectrum analyser plugin for the Window Maker dock. ([153]Bug#201366) * [154]x-ttcidfont-conf -- Configure TrueType and CID fonts for X. ([155]Bug#201376) * [156]xfonts-jmk -- James M. Knoble's character-cell fonts for X. ([157]Bug#201390) * [158]xhangglider -- Hanggliders fly around in your X root window. ([159]Bug#201373) * [160]xvt -- X terminal-emulator similar to xterm, but smaller. ([161]Bug#201412) * [162]yadex -- WAD file editor for doom-style WADs. ([163]Bug#201391) 70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/agrep.html 71. http://bugs.debian.org/201367 72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/aseqview.html 73. http://bugs.debian.org/201357 74. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/bock.html 75. http://bugs.debian.org/201409 76. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/chameleon.html 77. http://bugs.debian.org/200974 78. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/cmap-adobe-cns1.html 79. http://bugs.debian.org/201374 80. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/cmap-adobe-gb1.html 81. http://bugs.debian.org/201375 82. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/cmap-adobe-japan1.html 83. http://bugs.debian.org/201377 84. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/cmap-adobe-japan2.html 85. http://bugs.debian.org/201378 86. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/cmap-adobe-korea1.html 87. http://bugs.debian.org/201379 88. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/cyrus-imapd.html 89. http://bugs.debian.org/201359 90. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/oldlibs/libfltk1.html 91. http://bugs.debian.org/201360 92. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/frotz.html 93. http://bugs.debian.org/201407 94. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/ftape-source.html 95. http://bugs.debian.org/201345 96. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/ftape-doc.html 97. http://bugs.debian.org/201346 98. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/ftape-util.html 99. http://bugs.debian.org/201347 100. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gbiff.html 101. http://bugs.debian.org/201383 102. http://packages.debian.org/stable/libs/libgnomeprint-bin.html 103. http://bugs.debian.org/201414 104. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/gs-cjk-resource.html 105. http://bugs.debian.org/201380 106. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/int-fiction.html 107. http://bugs.debian.org/201408 108. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/lclint.html 109. http://bugs.debian.org/201348 110. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/lclint-doc.html 111. http://bugs.debian.org/201349 112. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libgtop1.html 113. http://bugs.debian.org/201265 114. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libnews-nntpclient-perl.html 115. http://bugs.debian.org/201361 116. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libsnmp-session-perl.html 117. http://bugs.debian.org/201362 118. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/moosic.html 119. http://bugs.debian.org/200977 120. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/murasaki.html 121. http://bugs.debian.org/201384 122. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/ng-common.html 123. http://bugs.debian.org/201371 124. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libopenh323-1.11.7.html 125. http://bugs.debian.org/200472 126. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/pips760.html 127. http://bugs.debian.org/201386 128. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/propsel.html 129. http://bugs.debian.org/201410 130. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libpt-1.4.11.html 131. http://bugs.debian.org/200473 132. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/pychecker.html 133. http://bugs.debian.org/200976 134. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/rocks-n-diamonds.html 135. http://bugs.debian.org/201411 136. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/scansort.html 137. http://bugs.debian.org/201364 138. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/scigraphica.html 139. http://bugs.debian.org/201372 140. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/gc.html 141. http://bugs.debian.org/201365 142. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/texi2html.html 143. http://bugs.debian.org/201381 144. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/usbmgr.html 145. http://bugs.debian.org/201385 146. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/vje-delta.html 147. http://bugs.debian.org/201388 148. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/visual-tcl.html 149. http://bugs.debian.org/201415 150. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/wmmatrix.html 151. http://bugs.debian.org/201368 152. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/wmxmms-spectrum.html 153. http://bugs.debian.org/201366 154. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/x-ttcidfont-conf.html 155. http://bugs.debian.org/201376 156. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xfonts-jmk.html 157. http://bugs.debian.org/201390 158. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/xhangglider.html 159. http://bugs.debian.org/201373 160. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xvt.html 161. http://bugs.debian.org/201412 162. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/yadex.html 163. http://bugs.debian.org/201391 Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this newsletter. We still need more volunteer writers who investigate the Debian community and report about events in the community. Please see the [164]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED] 164. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing 165. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
