--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Weekly News http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/44/ Debian Weekly News - November 4th, 2003 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to this year's 44th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. Bruce Perens [1]reserved nonfree.org as a possible home for non-free if it ever spins off of Debian. Currently it's just a CNAME to ftp.debian.org but with a little work it could be a good facility to manage a non-free cut-over. 1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02212.html Debian faster than Gentoo? Matt Garman [2]wondered why his C++ program ran dramatically slower when compiled on a Gentoo machine than when compiled with Debian Sid. He later [3]reported that recompiling the Gentoo C++ libraries with less aggressive optimization flags (-O2 instead of -O3) eliminated the speed difference. Matt also [4]added that Debian and other distributions are conservative, but set up by very experienced people. 2. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/50924 3. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/50973 4. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/50953 System Recovery with Knoppix. IBM Developerworks has an [5]article by Carla Schroder that describes how to rescue a non-booting Linux system, edit files, mount networked filesystems, and do a bare-metal rebuild with only a [6]Knoppix disk and an Internet connection. 5. http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-knopx.html 6. http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/ Improving KDE Maintainership. Some people may have been alarmed to see that many of the core KDE packages were orphaned last week by Chris Cheney. Fortunately, this was done to pave the way for the Qt/KDE Maintainers group of which Chris Cheney is a member. A [7]mailing list for this group was created and a draft [8]policy document is being discussed. 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qt-kde/ 8. http://people.debian.org/~madkiss/debian-kde-policy.html Amendment of the Social Contract. Branden Robinson [9]proposed to amend the [10]Social Contract. Some of his [11]amendments change the meaning of the Social Contract, whereas others are only editorial. One of his key proposals is that Debian's commitment to a non-free archive be deleted. This means that Debian would be free to stop providing non-free software if it chose. The proposal was [12]discussed on Slashdot, where Bruce Perens [13]suggested [14]how removing non-free might work. The proposal would also make the Social Contract a bit separate from the Debian Free Software Guidelines. 9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0310/msg00106.html 10. http://www.debian.org/social_contract 11. http://www.xs4all.nl/~dark/draft-sc-amendment-20031030.html 12. http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/03/10/30/1618243.shtml?tid=185&tid=90 13. http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=84151&cid=7352420 14. http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=84151&cid=7352723 Debian in the Enterprise? James Maguire [15]wondered if there is a place for Debian in the enterprise world. He talks about certification or rather the lack of and missing vendor support which is compensated by third party support from different companies. Use of Debian depends on the requirements of the end user. If they were technically self supporting, and they don't want to pay a different vendor, they could deploy Debian -- and it would lead to greater return on investment. 15. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22602.html Draft Position Statement regarding GNU FDL. Manoj Srivastava [16]reported about the effort writing a document that attempts to address some concerns that members of the Debian project have about the GNU [17]Free Documentation License (FDL). This [18]document attempts to present the reasoning behind the conclusion that the GNU FDL is not regarded as a license that can easily satisfy the [19]Debian Free Software Guidelines. 16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project-0310/msg00178.html 17. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html 18. http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html 19. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines Constitutional Amendment Results. Proposal A in the [20]vote to disambiguate [21]Constitution section 4.1.5 [22]succeeded over the other options. This means that the [23]Debian Social Contract and [24]Debian Free Software Guidelines are now "Foundation Documents", and may be modified by a 3:1 majority of Developers. The amendment also clarified the status of non-technical documents, ensuring that Developers may issue, supersede and withdraw various statements, including position statements about issues of the day. 20. http://www.debian.org/vote/2003/vote_0003 21. http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution 22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0310/msg00114.html 23. http://www.debian.org/social_contract 24. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines Debconf Templates Style Guide. Christian Perrier [25]announced a style guide for writing debconf templates. During his work translating debconf templates to French, Christian often found templates which seemed to be inconsistent with some written or unwritten rules. It became evident that some formalisation of writing rules and recommendations could help package maintainers to prepare "well-written" debconf templates. General style harmonisation could also greatly improve the perception of Debian, giving it a more "professional" presentation. 25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0310/msg01686.html NetBSD Status Report. Joel Baker [26]posted a NetBSD status report. Joel will be restarting the archive using debpool (which should handle uploads via HTTPS PUT, without needing logins on the box itself). The archive will be based on -current again (aka, pre-2.0), since he has run into problems which can only be resolved by having working POSIX Thread support. He is also continuing to work on the 4-to-3-clause BSD license conversion, with the permission of the NetBSD Foundation (contacting authors and asking them to relicense, submitting patches, and working with the Core team to get them integrated cleanly). So far, this has been dramatically successful. 26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0310/msg00009.html Getting HP Hardware supported for Debian. Kianusch Sayah Karadji is [27]trying to convince [28]HP to add Debian support to their hardware. HP claims, that since Debian has no figures on how many users it has on HP servers, they do not know if supporting Debian would make sense. If you do, please get in touch with Kianusch at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Several HP employees [30]are members of the Debian development community. 27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-user-0310/msg06517.html 28. http://www.hp.com/ 29. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 30. http://www.opensource.hp.com/opensource_projects.html Tasksel and custom Debian Distributions. Andreas Tille [31]wondered how tasksel is supposed to support custom Debian distributions such as [32]Debian Jr. or [33]Debian-Med. Currently tasksel displays the debian-jr task but ignores the others. Of course, a more sophisticated solution should be found to handle them equally. 31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02048.html 32. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-jr/ 33. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med/ Multiple PostgreSQL Packages. Oliver Elphick [34]pondered whether and how to have multiple versions of the PostgreSQL packages [35]installed at once. This is to get round problems with upgrading major versions, and to allow people to have multiple database clusters, possibly at different software versions. 34. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02058.html 35. http://cvs.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/common/postgresql-client.html?cvsroot=pkg-postgresql Debian Project at COMDEX. There'll be a Debian [36]installation festival at this year's [37]Comdex in Las Vegas on Thursday, November 20th, from 12:00pm to 1:30pm. Everybody is welcome to help or be helped. Also at Comdex, in the "Open Source and Linux Innovation Center", on Tuesday 18th from 1:30pm to 2:00pm a half hour talk introduces Debian to corporate users and, in the Open Source conference track, on Wednesday 19th from 3:30pm to 4:45pm a [38]discussion panel titled "A Practical Guide to Open Source Operating Systems" will include Debian. 36. http://www.comdex.com/lasvegas2003/exhib/index.php?s=ic_open_spkr 37. http://www.comdex.com/lasvegas2003/ 38. http://education.key3media.com:8080/comdex/lv2003/education/FMPro?-DB=K3Sessions.fp5&-lay=webform&-format=session_detail.html&Session_ID=3733&-Find Alternative Postscript- and PDF-Viewer. Matthias Urlichs [39]noticed that there are virtual packages for postscript-viewer and pdf-viewer, but no alternatives, i.e. there's no /usr/bin/postscript-viewer. Mark Brown [40]explained that Debian uses a MIME handler registration system which viewer programs should be making use of. The run-mailcap program can be used to find an appropriate program for a given MIME type. 39. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02091.html 40. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02109.html Localised Bug Reports. Magosányi Arpád [41]wondered if there is a known or planned way to report bugs to the Debian Bug Tracking System in a non-english language. He proposed that if a non-english language is detected, the bug report is sent to a language package instead the real package. The maintainers of the language package would then mediate the communication between the user and the package maintainer. 41. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02141.html Request for a Debian Kernels List. Francesco Paolo Lovergine [42]proposed to create a new mailing list debian-kernels in order to ease the coordination and maintenance of kernels and patches in Debian. This list would not be limited to Linux kernels but also include Hurd and *BSD. He also [43]requested the list to be created. 42. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02173.html 43. http://bugs.debian.org/218923 Circular Build Dependencies. Anthony DeRobertis [44]wondered if he is the only one who believed that one could build Debian from source, starting with only essential and build-essential packages. In particular he stomped over the cdbs - libgd-gd2-*-perl - cdbs chain. Joel Baker would [45]like to see Debian main in stable and testing as closed sets in terms of build-dependencies. The current situation is a pain for porters to a new architecture or kernel. 44. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02223.html 45. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0311/msg00012.html Split Kernel Header Files. Otto Wyss [46]wondered why [47]libc6-dev suddenly depended on [48]linux-kernel-headers. Mark Brown [49]explained that there have always been some kernel headers included in libc6-dev. They have just been split out into a separate package now. Several of these headers are referenced by headers provided by glibc which would break those headers if linux-kernel-headers is not installed. 46. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0311/msg00033.html 47. http://packages.debian.org/libc6-dev 48. http://packages.debian.org/linux-kernel-headers 49. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0311/msg00037.html Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update your systems if you have any of these packages installed. * [50]thttpd -- Information leak, DoS and arbitrary code execution. 50. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-396 New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important updates. * [51]apache-utils -- Utility programs for webservers. * [52]bookmark-merge -- Merge bookmarks from Mozilla, Netscape and IE. * [53]crosshurd -- Install a hurd-i386 system from any running Debian system. * [54]debian-installer-demo -- Debian Installer demo. * [55]gnue-appserver -- GNU Enterprise Application Server. * [56]gnue-navigator -- GNU Enterprise Navigator. * [57]gridlock -- Collection of grid-based board games for GNUstep. * [58]gtklookat -- VRML viewer for GTK+. * [59]gtodo -- GTK-2 todo list. * [60]ps2eps -- Convert PostScript to EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) files. * [61]udo -- Universal DOcument - text processing utility. * [62]wavesurfer -- Sound Manipulation Program. 51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/apache-utils.html 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/bookmark-merge.html 53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/crosshurd.html 54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/debian-installer-demo.html 55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/gnue-appserver.html 56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/gnue-navigator.html 57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/gridlock.html 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/gtklookat.html 59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/gtodo.html 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/ps2eps.html 61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/udo.html 62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/wavesurfer.html Orphaned Packages. 9 packages were orphaned this week and require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 190 orphaned packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software community. Please see the [63]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. 63. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/ * [64]findimagedupes -- Finds visually similar or duplicate images. ([65]Bug#218699) * [66]gfpoken -- Recreate a grid of mirrors from clues given by tests. ([67]Bug#219061) * [68]glotski -- Slide the blocks to reach a goal. ([69]Bug#219062) * [70]lwm -- Lightweight Window Manager. ([71]Bug#219063) * [72]overkill -- Bloody 2D action deathmatch-like game in ASCII-art. ([73]Bug#218157) * [74]pong -- Preference/Property dialogs maker for GNOME. ([75]Bug#218462) * [76]sourcenav -- Source code analysis, editor, browser and build tool. ([77]Bug#218158) * [78]tuxeyes -- Fancy version of xeyes. ([79]Bug#219065) * [80]typespeed -- Zap words flying across the screen by typing them correctly. ([81]Bug#219064) 64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/findimagedupes.html 65. http://bugs.debian.org/218699 66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/gfpoken.html 67. http://bugs.debian.org/219061 68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/glotski.html 69. http://bugs.debian.org/219062 70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/lwm.html 71. http://bugs.debian.org/219063 72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/overkill.html 73. http://bugs.debian.org/218157 74. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/pong.html 75. http://bugs.debian.org/218462 76. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/sourcenav.html 77. http://bugs.debian.org/218158 78. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/tuxeyes.html 79. http://bugs.debian.org/219065 80. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/typespeed.html 81. http://bugs.debian.org/219064 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 [82]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED] 82. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing 83. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
