--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Weekly News http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/18/ Debian Weekly News - May 2nd, 2006 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to this year's 18th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. Jörg Jaspert [1]reported that the web content for past Debian Conferences is online again. In an effort to remove old cruft Andreas Barth [2]proposed to remove packages from unstable which are neither available in the current [3]sarge nor in the upcoming [4]etch distribution. 1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/02/msg01032.html 2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2006/04/msg00067.html 3. http://www.debian.org/releases/sarge/ 4. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/ PowerPC Port needs Help. Frans Pop [5]asked for help with the PowerPC port of the [6]debian-installer. In particular someone is needed to take responsibility for architecture-specific issues. This comprises of regularly testing of the installer, keeping an eye on installation reports, taking care of architecture specific components of the installer, resolving bugs and taking care of daily builds. 5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2006/03/msg00490.html 6. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ Relicensing the Debian Web Pages. Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña [7]pointed out that there is still an open [8]bug in the [9]bug tracking system which is about the non-[10]DFSG-free license for the current Debian web pages. It was suggested to use an modified FreeBSD documentation [11]license. Some others want to use the GPL for the web pages. There are also technical, legal and practical problems which needs to be resolved before the license could be changed. The [12]discussion is still ongoing on the [13]debian-www mailing list. 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-www/2006/04/msg00126.html 8. http://bugs.debian.org/238245 9. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/ 10. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines 11. http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-doc-license.html 12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-www/2006/04/threads.html 13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-www/ Avoiding native Debian Packages. Panu Kalliokoski [14]wondered why one should not add Debian packaging information to upstream packages. Lars Wirzenius [15]explained the benefits as keeping package fixes out of upstream and to simplify things if the upstream maintainer is no longer a Debian developer. Henning Makholm [16]added that the lack of Debian-specific information indicates that the package might be useful by any GNU/Linux distribution. 14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/02/msg01193.html 15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/02/msg01194.html 16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/02/msg01207.html /usr/doc Transition finished. Joey Hess [17]announced that he has opened bug reports for the last remaining packages which still create /usr/doc symlinks. This final step marks the end of the era of regular documentation in /usr/doc. 17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/03/msg00166.html Device Mapper Support for Block Device ID Library. Theodore Ts'o [18]reported that he has received a patch which allows the block device id library to properly handle device mapper partitions. Since this would essentially drag in three more libraries into everybody's systems he wondered if this would be acceptable. Mike Hommey [19]stated that two of them have already been added via other packages. 18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/03/msg00265.html 19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/03/msg00267.html New Features of Buildd.Net. Ingo Jürgensmann [20]announced new features of [21]buildd.net such as tracking packages for sarge [22]backports, various new package state checks, estimation of time needed for building all packages in a queue, a new mailing-list for discussions and as a bonus the source is [23]available under a sane license. 20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/03/msg00437.html 21. http://www.buildd.net/ 22. http://www.backports.org/ 23. http://www.buildd.net/source/ Stable Installer Update. Frans Pop [24]proposed how to deal with ABI changes introduced by the recent kernel [25]security [26]updates and to rebuild the installer images using the new kernel udebs. This will break some existing installation images. The main problem is going to be testing the new images as it will not be possible to run an installation and download udebs from different sources. 24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/04/msg00715.html 25. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1018 26. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1017 Removing Log Files during Package Purge? Martin Krafft [27]proposed to alter the policy to not remove log files upon package purge. He argued that this removal may put an administrator into legal trouble with the authorities in Europe. Marco d'Itri [28]suggested to run a backup prior to the package purge or not purge it at all if not all files should be removed anyway. 27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/03/msg00688.html 28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/03/msg00691.html Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update your systems if you have any of these packages installed. * DSA 1043: [29]abcmidi -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 1044: [30]mozilla-firefox -- Several vulnerabilities. * DSA 1045: [31]openvpn -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 1046: [32]mozilla -- Several vulnerabilities. * DSA 1047: [33]resmgr -- Unauthorised access. * DSA 1048: [34]asterisk -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 1049: [35]ethereal -- Several vulnerabilities. 29. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1043 30. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1044 31. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1045 32. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1046 33. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1047 34. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1048 35. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1049 New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive [36]recently or contain important updates. 36. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main * [37]aircrack-ng -- Wireless WEP/WPA cracking utilities. * [38]bibledit -- Bible translation tool. * [39]enemylines3 -- Semi-abstract first person 3d-shooter game. * [40]epylog -- New logs analyser and parser. * [41]gaupol -- Subtitle editor for text-based subtitle files. * [42]gulm -- Server-based unified cluster/lock manager for GFS. * [43]hoichess -- Xboard compatible chess engine to play chess with. * [44]krecipes -- Recipes manager for KDE. * [45]matchbox-keyboard -- On-screen keyboard. * [46]mktemp -- Makes unique filenames for temporary files. * [47]paps -- UTF-8 to PostScript converter using Pango. * [48]php4-memcache -- Memcache extension module for PHP4. * [49]php5 -- PHP5 - HTML-embeddable scripting language. * [50]php5-memcache -- Memcache extension module for PHP5. * [51]squashfs-source -- Source for the squash filesystem. * [52]simpleopal -- Simple example from the OPAL project. * [53]slugimage -- NSUL2 firmare image manipulation utility. * [54]sqlfairy -- SQL translation utilities. * [55]sysrqd -- Small daemon intended to manage Linux SysRq over network. * [56]unionfs-tools -- Tools to manage unionfs filesystems. * [57]xen-utils-3.0 -- XEN administrative tools. * [58]xprint-utils -- Utilities for Xprint, the X11 print system. * [59]xserver-xorg-input-wacom -- X.Org X server -- wacom input driver. * [60]xtrkcad -- Sillub Technologies Model Train Track CAD Program. 37. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/aircrack-ng 38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/bibledit 39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/enemylines3 40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/epylog 41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gaupol 42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/gulm 43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/hoichess 44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/krecipes 45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/embedded/matchbox-keyboard 46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/mktemp 47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/paps 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/php4-memcache 49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/php5 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/php5-memcache 51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/squashfs-source 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/simpleopal 53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/slugimage 54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/sqlfairy 55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/sysrqd 56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/unionfs-tools 57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/xen-utils-3.0 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xprint-utils 59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xserver-xorg-input-wacom 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/xtrkcad 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 [61]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED] 61. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing 62. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] This issue of Debian Weekly News was edited by Sebastian Feltel and Martin 'Joey' Schulze. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
