--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Weekly News http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/15/ Debian Weekly News - April 15th, 2003 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to this year's 15th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. Watch your machines people, because if you don't, bad things can happen. If you notice a burning smell, check your power supply for [1]loitering dragonfly brooches as Hugh Saunders [2]experienced. 1. http://h.arqz.com/broachfan.jpg 2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-curiosa-0303/msg00008.html Libcupsys2 Splitting. Jeff Licquia [3]announced that following a grave bug filed against libcupsys2, he has built the libcupsimage libraries and header files as separate "libcupsimage2{-dev}" packages (as of version 1.1.18-3). Although it was technically [4]possible to address the bug by splitting only the -dev packages, Jeff had other [5]good reasons and also generally prefers not to have foo-dev packages without corresponding foo packages. 3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00581.html 4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00617.html 5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00645.html Debian Popularity Contest Web Pages. Bill Allombert [6]thought the Debian [7]Popularity Contest was a good idea, but wondered if it could be improved. The Popularity Contest uses anonymised data gathered from users who install the popularity-contest package to find out which packages are most popular. Igor Genibel [8]advised that he is integrating the Popularity Contest information into the [9]Debian Developer's Packages Overview. The Popularity Contest maintainer, Avery Pennarun, [10]said that each week the number of user submissions increases, but he does not have time to improve the system. 6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00607.html 7. http://people.debian.org/~apenwarr/popcon/ 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00609.html 9. http://qa.debian.org/developer.php 10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00632.html New Debian Menu System proposed. Enrico Zini [11]thought that Debian's current desktop menu system needs some redesign to keep up and integrate with the other existing systems. He proposes that Debian switches to the format of the [12]Desktop Menu Specification for desktop entries, and that Debian continues to provide menu information for applications that do not have their own. Colin Walters, who maintains the [13]Debian Desktop subproject, gave his backing to the proposal. 11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00800.html 12. http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu/draft/menu-spec/menu-spec.html 13. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-desktop/ Information Law Training for Debian Developers. James Miller has been teaching an online course in information law at Southeastern University. He is [14]considering offering the course to interested Debian Developers. The course is demanding but gives those in computer science and information technology fields an understanding of the sources of law in the U.S., the major substantive areas of law, and issues of intellectual property. Students could apply that knowledge to regulatory infrastructures and the internet, privacy, and security. James envisages having 10-15 students in the course, however there is currently a need to buy an expensive textbook. 14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0304/msg00126.html Removal of orphaned Packages. Martin Michlmayr [15]announced that he intends to request the removal of several packages in two weeks time, since they have been on the [16]Work Needed and Prospective Packages list for a long time. These packages are not maintained in Debian anymore and contain release-critical bugs. If anyone wants to keep one these packages they should ensure they follow the steps Martin has outlined. This issue is being discussed on [17]debian-devel. 15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0304/msg00005.html 16. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/ 17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00872.html Status of the m68k Port. Marco d'Itri [18]asked whether the m68k architecture is currently in a state ready for release, after he spent quite a while figuring out why Mutt doesn't build on this architecture anymore. Wouter Verhelst [19]explained that some of the buildds failed recently and that there were severe problems with the toolchain, which were fixed recently, with kudos to Matthias Klose. 18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00355.html 19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00432.html Categories or Sections? Erich Schubert [20]announced a new version of his [21]Package Browser that intends to help categorise Debian packages. This should improve browsing packages through hierarchical categories instead of sections as he earlier [22]proposed. Mark Howard [23]considered freshmeat style trove categorisation is a quite interesting idea. However this would be problematic for the existing tools. 20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0303/msg01371.html 21. http://debian.vitavonni.de/packagebrowser/ 22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0111/msg00253.html 23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00451.html Debian User Analysis. Enrico Zini [24]posted a document about user analysis as part of usability improvements. He saw many practical proposals about Debian improvements, but rarely saw them backed with an analysis identifying the needs and the goals that they are supposed to address. He identified four types of interesting information to gather. Understanding users expectations should help us understand the usability problems. 24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00503.html Debian for x86-64? Daniel Whelan is [25]interested in a port to the Opteron processor (x86-64) from AMD and wondered about the status of this port. Michael Banck [26]said we would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to get access to hardware, and Adam Conrad [27]reported that [28]SuSE has already done the groundwork with kernel and glibc. Masanori Goto [29]added that this architecture is capable of running 64- and 32-bit programs, requiring special considerations. 25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00700.html 26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00723.html 27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00711.html 28. http://www.suse.com/ 29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg00726.html Debian NetBSD for Sparc. Matthew Garrett [30]demonstrated his success in building a Debian system on the Sparc architecture on top of the [31]NetBSD kernel. Additionally Joel Baker [32]reported about significant work for the NetBSD/x86 port, such as dpkg and APT, that will work without additional patches. 30. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0304/msg00001.html 31. http://www.netbsd.org/ 32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0303/msg00009.html Debian-Gentoo Collaboration on Hurd? Robert Millan [33]suggested that Debian and Gentoo porters for the Hurd work together closely. Both share the same goal, to port a lot of Free Software. Many patches for applications were reported through the Debian [34]bugtracking system and applied either in the Debian package or upstream. 33. http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd-0303/msg00125.html 34. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/ Alioth Updated. Wichert Akkerman [35]reported that [36]alioth was changed to GForge, partly due to a request from [37]VA Software not to use their logo and name. This change had already been planned for a later date however the work caused some unforseen problems that are being resolved. If you discover any other problems, please do not hesitate to file a support request using the support request [38]tracker for the [39]siteadmin project. 35. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0304/msg00006.html 36. http://alioth.debian.org/ 37. http://www.vasoftware.com/ 38. https://alioth.debian.org/tracker/?group_id=1 39. https://alioth.debian.org/projects/siteadmin/ New SPI Board Members elected. Branden Robinson [40]announced that Bruce Perens, John Goerzen, and Benjamin "Mako" Hill have been appointed to the [41]Board of Directors of [42]Software in the Public Interest, Inc. (SPI), as of 11 March 2003. This action recognizes and implements the outcome of the recent election. The board now consists of 10 people and should be in a proper state for meetings again. 40. http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-announce/2003/000051.html 41. http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/board 42. http://www.spi-inc.org/ Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update your systems if you have any of these packages installed. * [43]glibc -- Arbitrary code execution. * [44]xfsdump -- Insecure file creation. * [45]kdegraphics -- Arbitrary command execution. * [46]lprng -- Insecure temporary file creation. * [47]gs-common -- Insecure temporary file creation. * [48]epic -- DoS and arbitrary code execution. 43. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-282 44. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-283 45. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-284 46. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-285 47. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-286 48. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-287 New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important updates. * [49]ara -- Utility for queries on the Debian package database. * [50]aspell-sv -- The Swedish dictionary for GNU aspell. * [51]bbappconf -- Configuration tool for Blackbox application windows. * [52]ctrlproxy -- IRC proxy with multiserver support. * [53]ctxextensions -- Context Menu Extensions for Mozilla. * [54]debbuggtk -- GTK applications for managing Debian bug reports. * [55]dnstop -- Console tool to analyze DNS traffic. * [56]ipython -- Enhanced interactive Python shell. * [57]karamba -- Program improving the eyecandy of KDE. * [58]mailfront -- Mail server network protocol front-ends. * [59]mozplugger -- Plugin allowing external viewers to be launched inside Mozilla. * [60]sqcwa -- Workaround for Squid not caching some pages. * [61]tabextensions -- Tabbed browsing extensions for Mozilla. * [62]therion -- Cave surveying - 2D and 3D drawing software. 49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/ara.html 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/aspell-sv.html 51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/bbappconf.html 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ctrlproxy.html 53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/ctxextensions.html 54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/debbuggtk.html 55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/dnstop.html 56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/ipython.html 57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/karamba.html 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/mailfront.html 59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/mozplugger.html 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/sqcwa.html 61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/tabextensions.html 62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/therion.html Orphaned Packages. 12 packages were orphaned this week and require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 200 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]fribidi -- Free Implementation of the Unicode BiDi algorithm. ([65]Bug#188662) * [66]gap4 -- Testfiles for GAP4. ([67]Bug#188800) * [68]gap4-doc-dvi -- DVI-Docu files for GAP4. ([69]Bug#188803) * [70]gap4-doc-html -- HTML Documentation for GAP4. ([71]Bug#188801) * [72]gap4-doc-ps -- Postscript files for GAP4. ([73]Bug#188798) * [74]gap4-gdat -- Group data libraries for GAP4. ([75]Bug#188802) * [76]gap4-tdat -- Table data libraries for GAP4. ([77]Bug#188799) * guppi -- GNOME graph and plot component, interface to Gnumeric. ([78]Bug#188498) * [79]libgd-gif -- GD Graphics Library with gif support (development version). ([80]Bug#188456) * [81]nail -- BSD mail(1) supporting MIME, SMTP, POP3/SSL and UTF-8. ([82]Bug#188806) * [83]pam-pgsql -- PAM module to authenticate using a PostgreSQL database. ([84]Bug#188658) * [85]prboom -- clone of the legendary first person shooter Doom. ([86]Bug#188807) 64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libfribidi0.html 65. http://bugs.debian.org/188662 66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/gap4.html 67. http://bugs.debian.org/188800 68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/gap4-doc-dvi.html 69. http://bugs.debian.org/188803 70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/gap4-doc-html.html 71. http://bugs.debian.org/188801 72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/gap4-doc-ps.html 73. http://bugs.debian.org/188798 74. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/gap4-gdat.html 75. http://bugs.debian.org/188802 76. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/gap4-tdat.html 77. http://bugs.debian.org/188799 78. http://bugs.debian.org/188498 79. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libgd-gif1.html 80. http://bugs.debian.org/188456 81. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/nail.html 82. http://bugs.debian.org/188806 83. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/non-us/libpam-pgsql.html 84. http://bugs.debian.org/188658 85. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/prboom.html 86. http://bugs.debian.org/188807 Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this newsletter. Some people are submitting items already, but we are still in need of volunteer writers who prepare items. Please see the [87]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [88]dwn@debian.org. 87. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing 88. mailto:dwn@debian.org
