--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Weekly News http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2005/34/ Debian Weekly News - August 23rd, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to this year's 34th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. The Debian project leader has [1]delegated to Don Armstrong the authority to make a decision regarding the use of the Debian trademark by the (as currently named) DCC Alliance. Mick Weiss [2]thought about setting up [3]torrents for large sets of data, not only CD and DVD images but also [4]videos. 1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/08/msg00219.html 2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01313.html 3. http://www.debian.org/CD/torrent-cd/ 4. http://dc5video.debian.net/ Installing Debian on Sun Blade 150. Nishant Sharma wrote a short [5]howto on installing Debian on a Sun Blade 150, a 64 bit workstation based on the UltraSPARC processor. The installation goes by the book, using the network installer. Since configuring XFree86 is a bit tricky he provides a proper snippet from the configuration file. 5. http://nishants.net/articles/sunblade150.htm Kernel Version Dependency. Masanori Goto [6]noticed that building glibc is not possible on 2.4 kernels anymore due to NPTL threading support, which requires certain kernel versions. This poses a problem when more architectures get NPTL support while their buildds still run Linux 2.4. 6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-glibc/2005/08/msg00558.html License Incompatibility. Elimar Riesebieter [7]reported that the new version of [8]moc requires the [9]curl library which itself uses the [10]OpenSSL library. This poses a problem since moc is licensed under the [11]GNU GPL which is not compatible with the OpenSSL license. Torsten Landschoff [12]added that the same has happened to [13]libldap2 before. Domenico Andreoli seems to be [14]willing to switch the curl library to [15]GNU TLS. 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00848.html 8. http://packages.debian.org/moc 9. http://packages.debian.org/libcurl3 10. http://packages.debian.org/libssl0.9.7 11. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html 12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00895.html 13. http://packages.debian.org/libldap2 14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01001.html 15. http://packages.debian.org/libgnutls11 Using LSB Init Scripts. Marco d'Itri [16]considered switching the init scripts of his packages to [17]lsb-base, which required it to be promoted to priority important. Petter Reinholdtsen [18]provided an easy way to use the LSB only when it is available. Thomas Hood even [19]noticed the lack of a progress function. The package lsb-base has since then been promoted to the priority important, hence, the provided functions may be used by all init scripts. 16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00854.html 17. http://packages.debian.org/lsb-base 18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00860.html 19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00972.html Removing transitional Packages. Mohammed Adnène Trojette [20]would like to remove transitional [21]packages that were required for the upgrade from woody to sarge, since they are no longer needed for the upgrade to etch. Steve Langasek [22]explained that skipping a release is not supported when upgrading and, hence, these transitional packages are only useless cruft that Debian should strive to get rid of before the etch release. 20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00869.html 21. http://adn.diwi.org/wiki/index.php/DummyPackagesList 22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00898.html Problematic cyclic Dependencies. Lars Wirzenius [23]noticed while working on [24]piuparts that [25]dpkg isn't able to remove some packages, that [26]turned out to have cyclic dependencies. In this case the removal script calls a program from the other package that is already removed, which results in a failure. 23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00925.html 24. http://packages.debian.org/piuparts 25. http://packages.debian.org/dpkg 26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00926.html Report from the first Debian Conference India. Sundara Nagarajan wrote a [27]report about the first [28]Debian Conference India. Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan and Ganesan Rajagopal spoke about the Debian philosophy, process and their experience of becoming Debian contributors. Ganesan also brought up his vision for integrating and merging other India-based free and open source projects with Debian. 27. http://www.debian.org/events/2005/0820-debconf-india-report 28. http://www.debian.org/events/2005/0820-debconf-india Closing old Bug Reports. Hamish Moffatt [29]wondered when it is appropriate to close bug reports for a package that is only around in woody (alias oldstable). Steve Langasek [30]explained how the commands notfound, found and close work with the new version [31]tracking and Gustavo Franco [32]contributed a link to a [33]quick reference. 29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2005/08/msg00062.html 30. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2005/08/msg00068.html 31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/07/msg00010.html 32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2005/08/msg00064.html 33. http://women.alioth.debian.org/wiki/index.php/English/NewBTSHowTo Automatic Installation and Purging. Lars Wirzenius is [34]running [35]piuparts against etch and has discovered a lot of bugs that he would like to report properly. This effort was widely [36]appreciated among readers. Petter Reinholdtsen [37]wondered if this work could be extended to test upgrades from woody to sarge and from sarge to etch. 34. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01133.html 35. http://packages.debian.org/piuparts 36. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01134.html 37. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01182.html Digital Signatures for Bug Handling? Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña had to [38]reopen a bug report that was accidently closed by a spam message. He proposed to start thinking about implementing authentication checks in the [39]bug tracking system. While contributors were not opposed to this idea, they [40]asked not to depend on only valid signatures from Debian developers. 38. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01106.html 39. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/ 40. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01124.html Shared Library Package Naming. Junichi Uekawa [41]reported that the way to decide which -dev package accompanies which runtime library package is to heuristically look at the Packages file to investigate what packages are generated from the same source. Steve Langasek [42]explained several options on how to deal with this in connection with [43]libtool. 41. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01433.html 42. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01440.html 43. http://packages.debian.org/libtool LDAP Gateway to the Bug Tracking System. Andreas Barth [44]announced that the LDAP gateway to the [45]bug tracking system (BTS) is running on master again, on port 10101. It had to be [46]turned off on the machine running the BTS due to horsepower limitations since it also runs the archive as a temporary measurement. 44. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01556.html 45. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/ 46. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01469.html Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update your systems if you have any of these packages installed. * DSA 777: [47]mozilla -- Frame injection spoofing vulnerability. * DSA 778: [48]mantis -- Several vulnerabilities. * DSA 779: [49]mozilla-firefox -- Several vulnerabilities. * DSA 780: [50]kdegraphics -- Denial of service. * DSA 781: [51]mozilla-thunderbird -- Several vulnerabilities. * DSA 782: [52]bluez-utils -- Arbitrary command execution. 47. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-777 48. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-778 49. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-779 50. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-780 51. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-781 52. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-782 New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive [53]recently or contain important updates. 53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main * [54]crystalcursors -- X11 mouse theme with the crystal look&feel. * [55]dconf -- Collect system information. * [56]feed2imap -- Feed aggregator (RSS/Atom) which puts items on a IMAP mail server. * [57]gnome-schedule -- GNOME scheduler for automatic tasks. * [58]inadyn -- Client to alleviate the requirements for an Internet name. * [59]input-utils -- Utilities for the input layer of the Linux kernel. * [60]kasumi -- Simple dictionary utility for Anthy. * [61]ldapscripts -- Add and remove user and groups (stored in a LDAP directory). * [62]nzb -- Usenet binary grabber. * [63]sbackup -- Simple backup suite for desktop use. * [64]soundstretch -- Stretches and pitch-shifts sound independently. * [65]turkey -- Dummy text generator. * [66]twinkle -- Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) SIP Phone. * [67]ufraw -- Standalone importer for raw camera images. * [68]vde -- Virtual distributed ethernet. * [69]vym -- View your mind. 54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/crystalcursors 55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/dconf 56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/feed2imap 57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gnome-schedule 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/inadyn 59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/input-utils 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/kasumi 61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/ldapscripts 62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/nzb 63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/sbackup 64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/soundstretch 65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/turkey 66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/twinkle 67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/ufraw 68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/vde 69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/vym Orphaned Packages. 11 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 [70]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. 70. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/ * [71]fv -- Tool for viewing and editing FITS format files. ([72]Bug#323469) * [73]ifhp -- Printer filter for HP LaserJet printers. ([74]Bug#323471) * [75]kernel-patch-2.4-kgdb -- GDB debugging for the kernel. ([76]Bug#323441) * [77]memprof -- Memory profiler and leak detector. ([78]Bug#324607) * [79]mgm -- HTML documentation for MGM. ([80]Bug#323677) * [81]mindterm -- Java SSH client that can be used as a web applet. ([82]Bug#323802) * [83]mozilla-locale-it -- Mozilla Italian Language/Region Package. ([84]Bug#324484) * [85]psrip -- Extract images from PostScript files. ([86]Bug#323475) * [87]rioutil -- Talk to USB based Diamond MM products. ([88]Bug#323477) * [89]xcircuit -- Draw circuit schematics or almost anything. ([90]Bug#323678) * [91]xed -- Standard text editor for X. ([92]Bug#323679) 71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/fv 72. http://bugs.debian.org/323469 73. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ifhp 74. http://bugs.debian.org/323471 75. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/kernel-patch-2.4-kgdb 76. http://bugs.debian.org/323441 77. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/memprof 78. http://bugs.debian.org/324607 79. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/mgm 80. http://bugs.debian.org/323677 81. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/mindterm 82. http://bugs.debian.org/323802 83. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/mozilla-locale-it 84. http://bugs.debian.org/324484 85. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/psrip 86. http://bugs.debian.org/323475 87. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/rioutil 88. http://bugs.debian.org/323477 89. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/xcircuit 90. http://bugs.debian.org/323678 91. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/xed 92. http://bugs.debian.org/323679 Want to continue reading DWN? 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