------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Debian Project http://www.debian.org/ Debian Project News debian-public...@lists.debian.org March 14th, 2011 http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2011/04/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to this year's fourth issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include: * The Debian project wins awards at CeBIT * Debian named the most important GNU/Linux distribution * Report from CeBIT 2011 * Bits from the Debian Project Leader * Happy birthday, FSFE! * Upcoming election for the Debian Project Leader * Geographical mirror selection as default? * New version of Cupt coming up * Bits from ARM and embedded sprint * More graphs for the Debian Bug Tracking System * Further "This week in Debian" interviews * ... and much more. The Debian project wins awards at CeBIT --------------------------------------- The Debian project won the Linux New Media award in two categories [1] at the recent CeBIT conference in Hanover, Germany. Not only was Debian named as the "Best Open Source Server Distribution" for its "pioneering work" both in the technical field and in the definition of free software standards and processes, but it also won the prestigious award for "Outstanding contribution to Open Source/Linux/Free Software", presented by Karsten Gerloff, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, who donned a snazzy Debian tie just for the occasion. 1 : http://www.debian.org/News/2011/20110304 The full text of his speech [2] has been made available, including a short explanation of why this award is so important: the jury consists of over 300 FLOSS community members, developers, journalists, and companies, selected through secret ballot. The award is not awarded by a publisher, but by the representatives of the entire Free Software Community! 2 : http://lists.debian.org/20110307084157.gu15...@melusine.alphascorpii.net Debian named the most important GNU/Linux distribution ------------------------------------------------------ IT journalist Bruce Byfield published an article analyzing in detail the [3] "market share" and influence of the Debian distribution. Gathering various data (e.g. the number of active Debian derivatives [4] according to DistroWatch [5]; 63% of these are directly or indirectly based upon Debian) he also lists various specialties of Debian and its derivatives. His conclusion: "It's not quite true to say that, if you can think of a specialty, then there is at least one Debian or Ubuntu derivative is designed for it. However, it is not much of an exaggeration, either." This was also mentioned on Slashdot [6] under the title "Debian is the most important Linux [7]". 3 : http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3926941/Linux-Leaders-Debian-and-Ubuntu-Derivative-Distros.htm 4 : http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=All&origin=All&basedon=All¬basedon=None&desktop=All&architecture=All&status=Active 5 : http://distrowatch.com/ 6 : http://slashdot.org/ 7 : http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/03/05/013205/Debian-Is-the-Most-Important-Linux Report from CeBIT 2011 ---------------------- Alexander Reichle-Schmehl sent a report [8] of this year's CeBIT [9] where he and other Debian Contributors has represented Debian joining the booth of Univention, a company which bases its product on Debian. In three days nearly two hundred people had visited the Debian booth, mostly asking how to help and join the Debian Project or asking more specific questions regarding, for example, Debian's stance on LibreOffice or the internal structure of the project and its governance. Many people also visited the booth simply to express their appreciation for the release of "Squeeze", the new website layout, and the new spacefun theme. At the booth a Debian GNU/kFreeBSD box was also present, as a technological preview, which attracted some interest from visitors. Alexander wants to thank our sponsors Univention [10] and Deutsche Messe AG, as well as the Debian folks who help with the booth. 8 : http://lists.debian.orgt/2011/03/msg00020.html 9 : http://www.cebit.de/home 10 : http://www.univention.de/ Bits from the Debian Project Leader ----------------------------------- Debian Project Leader Stefano Zacchiroli sent an email describing the aftermath of the [11] "Squeeze" release. One of the important points in his email is the discussions between Debian and the Free Software Foundation. The discussions touch on the different areas of focus of the two projects even though both projects are working to develop Free Software. Stefano also lists a number of interviews in various places regarding the "Squeeze" release. There are also some links in the email to talks given and clearly he's been quite busy. 11 : http://lists.debian.org/20110306183248.ga5...@upsilon.cc Happy birthday, FSFE! --------------------- The Free Software Foundation Europe [12] is celebrating its 10th birthday [13]! Congratulations! To celebrate this important date, it is planned to highlight important events in FSFE's history [14]. 12 : http://fsfe.org 13 : http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110310-01 14 : http://fsfe.org/about/history/birthday10 Upcoming elections for the Debian Project Leader ------------------------------------------------ Debian Project Secretary Kurt Roeckx published the time line for this year's Debian project leader elections [15]. The Nomination period has already ended on Friday, March 11. The current Debian Project Leader Stefano Zacchiroli will again be a candidate [16]. From Saturday, March 12 until April 1, candidates will campaign and discuss, followed by the actual voting period from Saturday, April 2, 2011 until Friday, April 15 2011. 15 : http://lists.debian.org/20110304183818.ga24...@roeckx.be 16 : http://lists.debian.org/20110306152941.ga1...@upsilon.cc Geographical mirror selection as default? ----------------------------------------- The topic of using some kind of GeoMirror for new installations has been brought up on the debian-boot [17] mailing list, and later also on the general debian-devel [18] list. Various pros and cons were exchanged including possible problems with DNSSEC and different approaches based upon apt-spy [19] or netselect-apt [20], or DNS based approaches. APT developer Michael Vogt posted some hints that apt recently had a useful feature [21] added for a similar purpose, allowing general deb mirrors:// lines to be specified as apt sources. Just the server side [22] is missing, but that's already being worked on [23]. 17 : http://lists.debian.org/201103050951.00942.el...@debianpt.org 18 : http://lists.debian.org/1299747535.3524.12.ca...@havelock.lan 19 : http://packages.debian.org/apt-spy 20 : http://packages.debian.org/netselect-apt 21 : http://lists.debian.org/20110310195545.GA24278@localhost 22 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/03/msg00512.html 23 : http://lists.debian.org/20110311112014.gd9...@anguilla.noreply.org New version of Cupt coming up ----------------------------- Eugene Lyubimkin blogged about an upcoming release of Cupt [24], an alternative front-end for the dpkg package manager. The most notable feature: if there's no solution to satisfy the actions requested by a user, Cupt will not only show an error message, but also show why the dependencies couldn't be resolved. 24 : http://jackyf.livejournal.com/115115.html Bits from ARM and embedded sprint --------------------------------- The ARM and embedded Debian teams had the opportunity to meet up at ARM offices in Cambridge for a Debian Sprint [25]. There are lots of things happening on ARM and in embedded land. There is an ongoing effort to build a new Debian port (named armhf [26]) which will provide a more efficient userland, suitable for modern ARM chips (v7), as found in recent netbooks, tablets, nettops, and smartphones. 25 : http://lists.debian.org/20110301110302.GA25977@enorme 26 : http://wiki.debian.org/ArmHardFloatPort There have also been great improvements in support for "multiarch". This will make it possible to cross-install libraries from a foreign userland, and thus run things like i386 non-free Flash on amd64 systems. Cross-building support is also being integrated into Debian itself, so developers should soon be able to easily create applications on their desktops to run on their ARM devices running Debian. Inspired by Eben Moglen's vision of a small, cheap, and simple computer that serves freedom in the home, the teams are building a Debian based platform for distributed applications which could help replace centralized services provided by the cloud. FreedomBox is about privacy, control, ease of use, and decentralization. More graphs for the Debian Bug Tracking System ---------------------------------------------- Mike Hommey added several new features to the graphs of Debian's Bug Tracking System [27]. Besides having per package graphs, it's now also possible to have data for multiple packages consolidated into a single graph, or graphs per maintainer [28]. 27 : http://glandium.org/blog/?p=1817 28 : http://qa.debian.org/data/bts/graphs/by-maint/tolimar.png Further "This week in Debian" interviews ---------------------------------------- Since the last issue of the Debian Project News, three new issues of the [29] "This week in Debian" podcast have been published: with Stefano Zacchiroli [30], Debian Project Leader; with Jon [31] "Maddog" Hall, about Project Cauã; and with Adnan Hodzic [32], about Debconf 2011 in Bosnia. 29 : http://wiki.debian.org/ThisWeekInDebian 30 : http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-19 31 : http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-20 32 : http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-21 There has also been one further "People behind Debian" interview: with Christian Perrier [33], translation coordinator. 33 : http://raphaelhertzog.com/2011/03/03/people-behind-debian-christian-perrier-translation-coordinator/ Other news ---------- The 26th issue of the miscellaneous news for developers [34] has been released and covers the following topics: 34 : http://lists.debian.org/1299689793.12966.64.camel@chianamo * DebConf news * Multiarch support * win32-loader.exe available from the mirrors network * Team-specific NM questions * Debian games team meeting Yves-Alexis Perez gave an update on Xfce 4.8 [35]. The packages for the new upstream release of the desktop environment have been assembled in Debian's "experimental" branch and he's now synchronizing with the release team over when an upload to Debian's "unstable" branch will be possible. 35 : http://www.corsac.net/?rub=blog&post=1528 Cyril Brulebois published the seventh issue of the [36] "Debian XSF News". He mentions various events concerning Debian's X.org packages, and closes with an impressive statistic: the number of open bug reports for X.org-related packages has dropped from 880 in November down to 540 now. 36 : http://blog.ikibiki.org/2011/03/04/DXN-7/ Holger Levsen, Moray Allan, and Gunnar Wolf have been delegated as [37] "DebConf Chairs". While the organization of the yearly Debian Conference remains unchanged, the three will now act as liaison between the Debian Project and the DebConf project. 37 : http://lists.debian.org/20110309091510.ga22...@upsilon.cc FTP-Master Jörg Jaspert announced an upcoming meeting of the FTP-Team [38] from the 21st to the 27th of March in the LinuxHotel [39] in Essen, Germany. He also announced the current agenda for the meeting (ranging from internal stuff like "buildd autosigning" up to end-user-oriented services likedata.debian.org). 38 : http://lists.debian.org/87ipx0g76w....@gkar.ganneff.de 39 : http://www.linuxhotel.de/ Tollef Fog Heen wondered if it would be useful to harmonize the naming of flags to enable and disable services [40] via their configuration snippets in /etc/default. Others added in the thread that there could also be better (UI-)tools to do so, or to customize runlevels. It was also pointed out that the interface has been complicated by the introduction of insserv [41]. 40 : http://lists.debian.org/87zkpi5xwo....@qurzaw.varnish-software.com 41 : http://packages.debian.org/insserv New Debian Contributors ----------------------- 1 applicant has been accepted [42] as a Debian Developer, 5 applicants have been accepted [43] as Debian Maintainers, and 4 people have started to maintain packages [44] since the previous issue of the Debian Project News. Please welcome Frédéric-Emmanuel Picca, Stephen Kitt, Higuchi Daisuke, Alberto Garcia, Sergey B Kirpichev, Roland Dreier, Miguel Colonn, Pietro Monteiro, Boris DuÅ¡ek, and Mahyuddin Susanto into our project! 42 : https://nm.debian.org/nmlist.php#newmaint 43 : http://lists.debian.org/e1pvenu-0002h8...@franck.debian.org 44 : http://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/new-maintainers.cgi Important Debian Security Advisories ------------------------------------ Debian's Security Team recently released advisories for these packages (among others): samba [45], cups [46], pywebdav [47], pango1.0 [48], dtc [49], iceape [50], subversion [51], logwatch [52], nbd [53], isc-dhcp [54], proftp-dfsg [55], iceweasel [56], icedove [57], webkit [58], chromium-browser [59], and wordpress [60]. Please read them carefully and take the proper measures. 45 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2175 46 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2176 47 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2177 48 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2178 49 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2179 50 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2180 51 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2181 52 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2182 53 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2183 54 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2184 55 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2185 56 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2186 57 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2187 58 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2188 59 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2189 60 : http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2190 Debian's Stable Release Team released advisories for these packages: clive [61] and tzdata [62]. Please read them carefully and take the proper measures. 61 : http://lists.debian.org/1299948170.22892.1634.ca...@hathi.jungle.funky-badger.org 62 : http://lists.debian.org/1299949646.22892.1737.ca...@hathi.jungle.funky-badger.org Debian's Volatile Team released update announcements for the packages: tzdata [63] and clamav [64]. Please read them carefully and take the proper measures. 63 : http://lists.debian.org/20110312195826.ga4...@thrall.0x539.de 64 : http://lists.debian.org/20110313103241.ga21...@thrall.0x539.de Please note that these are a selection of the more important security advisories of the last weeks. If you need to be kept up to date about security advisories released by the Debian Security Team, please subscribe to the security mailing list [65] (and the separate backports list [66], and stable updates list [67] or volatile list [68], for "Lenny", the oldstable distribution) for announcements. 65 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/ 66 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-backports-announce/ 67 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-stable-announce 68 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-volatile-announce New and noteworthy packages --------------------------- The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive recently (among many others [69]): 69 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg * banshee-extension-ampache -- Ampache extension for Banshee [70] * banshee-extension-clutterflow -- CoverFlow functionality for Banshee [71] * banshee-extension-jamendo -- Jamendo extension for Banshee [72] * banshee-extension-lastfmfingerprint -- Last.FM fingerprinting extension for Banshee [73] * banshee-extension-openvp -- visualizations extension for Banshee [74] * banshee-extension-randombylastfm -- random by Last.FM extension for Banshee [75] * banshee-extension-zeitgeistdataprovider -- Zeitgeist data provider extension for Banshee [76] * classads -- Condor's classad utilities [77] * comixcursors-lefthanded -- X11 mouse pointer themes with a comic art feeling (LH, translucent) [78] * comixcursors-lefthanded-opaque -- X11 mouse pointer themes with a comic art feeling (LH, opaque) [79] * comixcursors-righthanded -- X11 mouse pointer themes with a comic art feeling (RH, translucent) [80] * comixcursors-righthanded-opaque -- X11 mouse pointer themes with a comic art feeling (RH, opaque) [81] * cpm -- curses based password manager using PGP-encryption [82] * doxygen-latex -- documentation system for C, C++, Java, Python and other languages [83] * drupal6-mod-views-charts -- views_charts modules for Drupal 6 [84] * drupal6-mod-views-groupby -- views_groupby modules for Drupal 6 [85] * eq10q -- LV2 equalizer [86] * failmalloc -- memory allocation failure crash-test tool [87] * git-el -- fast, scalable, distributed revision control system (Emacs support) [88] * grub-imageboot -- boot ISO and floppy images with GRUB 2 and Syslinux MEMDISK [89] * gscanbus -- scan IEEE1394 (FireWire/i.Link) bus [90] * ibus-sunpinyin -- SunPinyin engine for IBus [91] * kdesrc-build -- tool for building KDE from its source repositories [92] * live-config-systemd -- Debian Live - system configuration scripts (systemd backend) [93] * live-tools -- Debian Live - system support scripts [94] * miniupnpc -- UPnP IGD client lightweight library client [95] * nagircbot -- IRC bot that announces Nagios status [96] * pd-hcs -- Pd library of experiments in UNIX, the Pd GUI, and more [97] * python2.7 -- interactive high-level object-oriented language (version 2.7) [98] * qt-assistant-compat -- Qt Assistant compatibility binary (legacy) [99] * qt4-qmlviewer -- Qt 4 QML viewer [100] * qtmobility-examples -- Qt Mobility examples [101] * ranger -- file manager with an ncurses frontend written in Python [102] * rgbpaint -- simple pixel-based painting program [103] * rhythmbox-ampache -- play audio streams from an Ampache server [104] * scim-sunpinyin -- SunPinyin engine for SCIM [105] * servicefw -- Qt Mobility Service Framework tool [106] * sunpinyin-utils -- simplified Chinese input method from Sun (utilities) [107] * termit -- simple terminal emulator based on VTE library, embedded Lua [108] * tryton-proteus -- Tryton application platform (Proteus) [109] * xsunpinyin -- standalone XIM server for SunPinyin [110] * xul-ext-firetray -- system tray extension for thunderbird/firefox alike apps [111] * xul-ext-ubiquity -- browser interface based on natural language input [112] 70 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/banshee-extension-ampache 71 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/banshee-extension-clutterflow 72 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/banshee-extension-jamendo 73 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/banshee-extension-lastfmfingerprint 74 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/banshee-extension-openvp 75 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/banshee-extension-randombylastfm 76 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/banshee-extension-zeitgeistdataprovider 77 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/classads 78 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/comixcursors-lefthanded 79 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/comixcursors-lefthanded-opaque 80 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/comixcursors-righthanded 81 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/comixcursors-righthanded-opaque 82 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/cpm 83 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/doxygen-latex 84 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/drupal6-mod-views-charts 85 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/drupal6-mod-views-groupby 86 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/eq10q 87 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/failmalloc 88 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/git-el 89 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/grub-imageboot 90 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gscanbus 91 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/ibus-sunpinyin 92 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/kdesrc-build 93 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/live-config-systemd 94 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/live-tools 95 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/miniupnpc 96 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/nagircbot 97 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/pd-hcs 98 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/python2.7 99 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/qt-assistant-compat 100 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/qt4-qmlviewer 101 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/qtmobility-examples 102 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/ranger 103 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/rgbpaint 104 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/rhythmbox-ampache 105 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/scim-sunpinyin 106 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/servicefw 107 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/sunpinyin-utils 108 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/termit 109 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/tryton-proteus 110 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xsunpinyin 111 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xul-ext-firetray 112 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xul-ext-ubiquity Work-needing packages --------------------- Currently 329 packages are orphaned and 144 packages are up for adoption: please visit the complete list of packages which need your help [113]. 113 : 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 to watch the Debian community and report about what is going on. Please see the contributing page [114] to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at debian-public...@lists.debian.org [115]. 114 : http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute 115 : mailto:debian-public...@lists.debian.org This issue of Debian Project News was edited by Hector Oron, Francesca Ciceri, Jeremiah C. Foster and Alexander Reichle-Schmehl [116]. 116 : mailto:debian-public...@lists.debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-news-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110314195048.gb9...@melusine.alphascorpii.net
