--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Project News http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2008/04/ Debian Project News - June 9th, 2008 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to this year's 4th issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian community. Some of the topics covered in this issue: * Release Update * Beta-2 of the Lenny Debian Installer released * Report from LinuxTag 2008 * Call for help by the german translation team * ... and much more. Release Update Marc Brockschmidt reported[1] about the status of the upcoming stable release. After some major transitions, like the ocaml transition[2][3] "Lenny" is in good shape, but still a lot of work needs to be done. Since the armel architecture made great improvements the release team decided to upgrade it to a proper release architecture. 1: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/06/msg00000.html 2: http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2008/05/debian_ocaml_news/ 3: http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2008/06/ocaml_3.10.2_is_in_testing/ Regarding Lenny the Qt/KDE Packaging Team [4]decided that the upcoming release will be shipped with KDE 3.5.9 (and with the KDE 4.1 development platform: kde4libs, kdepimlibs and kdebase-runtime). 4: http://ekaia.org/blog/2008/06/08/lets-go-for-kde-359-in-lenny/ Debian Installer for Lenny Beta-2 ready for testing The second beta version of the Debian Installer for the upcoming release "Lenny" has been released. Some new or improved features are: * Linux Kernel version 2.6.24 * i386 and amd64 have a new boot menu, allowing a more user-friendly selection of boot options (e.g. for the graphical installer) * full support for encrypted partitioning for the graphical installer * The installer will warn users when the translation of the installer to their language is incomplete * When using the KDE or Xfce CD images it is now possible to select additional tasks Images for different installation media and architectures are available for testing[5]. After using the Debian-Installer, please send an installation report, even if there weren't any problems. 5: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ Bits from the ftp-masters Joerg Jaspert sent out "bits from the ftp-masters"[6] containing recent activities of that team, including some personnel changes as well as a lot of code changes regarding Debian's infrastructure improving the overall teamwork, for example by making it easier for the release team to handle transitions. He also asked for volunteers for new ftp assistants. Later he reported[7] that he already got four volunteers as well as several other suggestions for improvements. 6: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/05/msg00012.html 7: http://blog.ganneff.de/blog/2008/06/05/ftp-assistants.html Report from LinuxTag 2008 Bastian Venthur[8] and Noel Koethe[9] reported about this year's Debian booth at the LinuxTag 2008, a major conference about free software in Europe. Marko Jung, one of the organisers, [10]added thanks for the good job the booth staff did. He also notes, that there was a high demand from the visitors' side for a Debian sub-conference at next year's LinuxTag. 8: http://blog.venthur.de/2008/05/31/linuxtag-2008/ 9: http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu/2008/06/msg00001.html 10: http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu/2008/06/msg00003.html Handling of removed packages Marc Brockschmidt wondered about the proper way to handle packages removed between two releases[11]. One of his major concerns are packages becoming unsupported without users noticing it. Several people replied, that package management tools are already trying to notify users, while Frans Pop pointed out[12], that the release notes[13] have a chapter handling this issue. 11: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/05/msg01100.html 12: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/05/msg01103.html 13: http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/release-notes/ch-upgrading#s-obsolete French debconf translations completed Christian Perrier reported[14] that the french translation team finished translating all templates for the debconf system, helping users to configure packages on installation time. He notes, that some of these packages still need to add the translated templates. German, Czech and Portuguese are also quite close to the 100% mark. 14: http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2008/06/01#french-100-virtually Call for help by the German translation team The German translation team sent a call for help[15] for the translation of package descriptions. The upcoming stable release will support showing users translated descriptions of available packages, but currently only 2100 of the more than 18000 package descriptions are translated to German. The statistics[16] for other packages are similar. Information on how to help the ongoing translation effort is available at our website[17]. 15: http://lists.debian.org/debian-user-german/2008/05/msg01534.html 16: http://ddtp.debian.net/ddtss/index.cgi/xx 17: http://www.debian.org/international/l10n/ddtp Other News The 8th issue of the miscellaneous news for developers[18] has been released and covers the following topics: Minor update to the mailing list code of conduct, Document aimed at upstreams in preparation, d-i beta2 in preparation, breaks beta 1, New "transition check" tool. 18: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/05/msg00013.html Christian Perrier reported some news from samba packages development team[19]. He later asked for tests of his packages[20]. 19: http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2008/06/01#samba-may31 20: http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2008/06/01#samba-32rc1%20Samba%203.2.0-rc1 Petter Reinholdtsen found some ways to reduce the boot time of his Debian system by 37,5%[21] and asked for further ideas. 21: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/05/msg01119.html Norbert Tretkowski reported[22], that backports.org, a service providing unofficial updated packages for the current stable release, turned 5 years old on May 27th. Congratulations! 22: http://tretkowski.de/blog/archives/415-5-years-backports.org.html Sandro Tosi uploaded a new version of reportbug[23], which is now maintained in a team. 23: http://sandrotosi.blogspot.com/2008/05/reportbug-340-in-unstable.html Important Debian Security Advisories Debian's Security Team released among others advisories for the packages Samba[24], Linux 2.6.18[25][26] and tomcat 5.5[27]. Please read them carefully and take the proper measures. 24: http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2008/msg00168.html 25: http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2008/msg00166.html 26: http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2008/msg00172.html 27: http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2008/msg00174.html Please note, that those are only the most important security advisories of the last two weeks. If you would like to be always up to date regarding security advisories released by the Debian Security Team, please subscribe to the our mailing list for security announcements[28]. 28: http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/ Work-needing packages Currently 450 packages are orphaned and 107 packages are up for adoption. Please take a look at the recent[29] reports[30] if there are packages you are interested in or view the complete archive of packages requesting help[31]. 29: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/05/msg01144.html 30: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/06/msg00155.html 31: http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested Want to continue reading DPN? 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 our "HOWTO contribute" page[32] to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED] 32: http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute 33: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] This issue of Debian Project News was edited by Meike Reichle, Ana Guerrero and Alexander Schmehl. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
