Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/28/
Debian Weekly News – July 16th, 2003
Welcome to this year’s 28th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter
for the Debian community. This issue is a bit shorter (in text)
than usually because Joey organised LinuxTag and hence didn’t have
time to produce DWN during the event. According to [1]Heise (German
only) the salary management system for the Japanese government will
be redesigned with GNU/Linux.
1. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-09.07.03-000/
Talks during Debian Conference. Andreas Schuldei [2]announced
the [3]schedule for talks during this years’ DebConf. Among other
talks Jonas Öberg will talk about legal aspects of Free
Software, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña will speak
about security and internationalisation efforts, Branden Robinson
will demonstrate how to manage Debian packages using
Subversion.
2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0307/msg00005.html
3. http://www.debconf.org/debconf3/schedule.php
Saving an old Laptop with Knoppix. Peter Johansson [4]wrote on
Newsforge that he had to reinstall his laptop due to a filesystem
breakdown. He decided to copy the Knoppix CD-ROM with its
compressed filesystem onto the hard disk. The kernel and initrd
files have to be copied from the boot.img file afterwards for use
with lilo or grub. This way, even machines with tight disk space
can use fully fledged systems.
4. http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/07/06/212212.shtml
The Organizational Model for Open Source. Harvard Business
School professor Siobhán O’Mahony [5]discusses her research
on foundations formed around the projects: Debian, GNOME and
Apache. She says that hackers who contribute to the open source
community are often intrinsically motivated. It is important to
realize, however, that hackers are a diverse group. It is not safe
to generalize about all of the values that hackers share, but they
tend to agree on at least one thing: Respect must be earned and
cannot be derived from position.
5.
http://workingknowledge.hbs.edu/pubitem.jhtml?id=3582&t=technology
Report from Linuxwochen Vienna. Gerfried Fuchs submitted the
[6]report about the Debian presence at this years’ event in Vienna.
The first day was used for setting up the booth while talks aimed
at business people mostly. He was also [7]interviewed by Radio
Orange where he could talk about Linuxwochen and Debian.
6. http://www.debian.org/events/2003/0605-linuxwochen-report
7. http://cba.fro.at/show.php?lang=en&eintrag_id=1288
BSD Glibc in Alioth. Robert Millan [8]announced the start of the
[9]glibc-bsd project for maintenance of Glibc-based BSD ports of
Debian. There is a mailing list for general port discussion, and
for discussing maintenance of the base component packages of
FreeBSD.
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0307/msg00032.html
9. http://alioth.debian.org/projects/glibc-bsd
Decision on Software Patents in Europe. The European Parliament
has [10]postponed the vote on the software patent directive back to
the original date of 1st of September. Members of Parliament from
all parties had complained that it was impossible to react
adequately within a timeframe of 10 days. Many software
professionals have been contacting their Members of Parliament in
recent days and told them how software patents would hurt them.
10. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/
Debian in German Government IT guidelines. The [11]KBSt, a
consulting agency for IT within the German government includes
Debian in their small roundup of GNU/Linux distributions in their
recently [12]published migration [13]guidelines (large PDF file in
German). Aside from mentioning that Debian is a volunteer effort,
it lists the freeness of Debian, the bug tracking and handling, the
high quality, the long release cycles, and the package system. It
says: “Debian is one of the most stable and bug free distributions.
Long release cycles are characteristic to Debian, which entails the
high quality of the distribution.”
12. http://www.itworld.com/Man/2685/030710germanopensource/
13. http://download.bund.de/mlf_v1_de.pdf
Status of the G++ 3.2 Transition. Matthew Wilcox [14]reported
about the status of the [15]G++ 3.2 transition. He thinks that
technically these problems are to be considered release-critical. A
[16]list of packages need to be recompiled with GCC 3.3.
14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00106.html
15. http://people.debian.org/~willy/gcc-transition/
16. http://people.debian.org/~willy/gcc-transition/src-packages-2.95
EICAR Installer for Debian. Marc Haber [17]reported that the
installer package for anti-virus test file from the [18]European
Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research (EICAR) was rejected. A
native package is [19]not possible due to a missing license, and an
installer package for only a few kilobytes is not appreciated
either.
17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00170.html
19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00377.html
Logging of Package Installations. Joey Hess posted an [20]idea
of logging package installations so displayed messages won’t get
lost in the void. So the basic idea is that instead of using echo
for these messages, we provide some interface for them. Instead of
adding log support to dpkg he opted for a more flexible dpkg-log
program.
20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00261.html
Packages still using dh_undocumented. Goswin Brederlow
[21]reported that 469 packages are still using dh_undocumented and
asks for people to check their packages. Joey Hess [22]explained
that he expects that the list will be down to 50 in one year at
which time bug reports should be opened.
21. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00277.html
22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00295.html
Managing the resolv.conf File. Thomas Hood [23]announced
resolvconf, a proposed standard [24]framework for updating the
system’s information about currently available nameservers. Most
importantly, it manages /etc/resolv.conf, but it does a bit more
than that.
23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00438.html
24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00652.html
Using apt-get with rsync. Egmont Koblinger [25]reported about
his success of using apt-get together with rsync. He used a
[26]patch for apt-get by Sviatoslav Sviridoff. Goswin Brederlow
[27]added that rsync uses too much resources on the server side and
a widespread use of rsync for apt-get would choke the rsync mirrors
and do more harm than good.
25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00462.html
26.
http://distro2.conectiva.com.br/pipermail/apt-rpm/2003-January/001085.html
27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00473.html
Bug Squashing Party at Debcamp. David Martinez Moreno
[28]announced that there is a bug squashing party during
[29]debcamp in Oslo. Attending people are trying to fix as many
bugs as possible. Coordination is done on channel #debcamp on
[30]freenode.
28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00746.html
29. http://www.debconf.org/debconf3/debcamp.php
Default MTA for Sarge? Joey Hess started a [31]discussion about
which mail-transport-agent (MTA) should be the default for the next
Debian release. His options include to replace exim with exim4 and
install no MTA per default. Sean Perry [32]added that enough of a
GNU/Linux system assume that an MTA is present that not installing
any would be wrong.
31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00780.html
32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00784.html
Summary of RFC Problems. Martin Quinson tried to [33]summarise
the flamewar we just had about the RFC licensing. The issue here is
that the RFC license is clearly non free. For some people, that’s a
reason to throw this out of main, for some other, RFCs can stay in
main for several reasons.
33. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00787.html
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you
update your systems if you have any of these packages
installed.
- [34]skk, ddskk — Insecure temporary file creation.
- [35]unzip — Directory traversal.
- [36]xbl — Buffer overflow.
- [37]phpsysinfo — Directory traversal.
- [38]teapop — SQL injection.
- [39]traceroute-nanog — Integer overflow.
- [40]nfs-utils — Buffer overflow.
- [41]falconseye — Buffer overflow.
34. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-343
35. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-344
36. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-345
37. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-346
38. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-347
39. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-348
40. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-349
41. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-350
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to
the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important
updates.
- [42]albert — Common Lisp to DocBook documenter.
- [43]cjet — Software PCL emulation for Canon CaPSL laser
printers. - [44]drgeo — Interactive geometry software.
- [45]e2tools — Utilities for manipulating files in an ext2/ext3
filesystem. - [46]extract — Display meta-data from files of an arbitrary
type. - [47]fbpanel — Lightweight X11 desktop panel.
- [48]gcb — Utility to calculate bearing and range to a
location. - [49]gnunet — Secure, trust-based peer-to-peer framework.
- [50]hiki — Wiki Engine written in Ruby.
- [51]ibmonitor — Interactive Bandwidth Monitor.
- [52]ktrack — KDE Satellite tracking program.
- [53]larch — Revision control system.
- [54]linuxtrade — Real-time stock market tracker and news
console. - [55]parsewiki — Documentation System Based on ASCII Text.
- [56]pmk — Utility to configure software sources.
- [57]rhyme — Console based rhyming dictionary.
- [58]rrdcollect — Round-Robin-Database Collecting Daemon.
- [59]statcvs — CVS Repository statistic analysis tool, written
in Java. - [60]t38modem — T.38 Fax over IP Pseudo Modem.
- [61]tcd — CD player with an ncurses interface.
- [62]termnet — Simple Telnet replacement for termnetd.
- [63]termnetd — Terminal Server daemon.
- [64]tpb — Program to use the IBM ThinkPad(tm) special
keys. - [65]ttyd — Remote Modem Utility for Unix.
- [66]vim-latexsuite — Brings the LaTeX power to vim.
- [67]wims — WWW Interactive Mathematics Server (WIMS).
- [68]wmtune — Windowmaker-dockable radio tuner.
42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/albert.html
43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/cjet.html
44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/drgeo.html
45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/e2tools.html
46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/extract.html
47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/fbpanel.html
48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/gcb.html
49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gnunet.html
50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/hiki.html
51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ibmonitor.html
52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/ktrack.html
53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/larch.html
54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/linuxtrade.html
55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/parsewiki.html
56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/pmk.html
57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/rhyme.html
58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/rrdcollect.html
59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/statcvs.html
60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/t38modem.html
61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/tcd.html
62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/termnet.html
63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/termnetd.html
64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/tpb.html
65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ttyd.html
66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/vim-latexsuite.html
67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/wims.html
68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/wmtune.html
Orphaned Packages. 47 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 227 orphaned
packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed
to the Free Software community. Please see the [69]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.
69. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
- [70]agrep — Text search tool with support for approximate
patterns. ([71]Bug#201367) - [72]aseqview — ALSA Sequencer Event Viewer.
([73]Bug#201357) - [74]bock — Bootstrap-only compiler kit for a subset of
Java(tm). ([75]Bug#201409) - [76]chameleon — Application for putting pictures or color in
the root window. ([77]Bug#200974) - [78]cmap-adobe-cns1 — CMaps for Adobe-CNS1.
([79]Bug#201374) - [80]cmap-adobe-gb1 — CMaps for Adobe-GB1.
([81]Bug#201375) - [82]cmap-adobe-japan1 — CMaps for Adobe-Japan1.
([83]Bug#201377) - [84]cmap-adobe-japan2 — CMaps for Adobe-Japan2.
([85]Bug#201378) - [86]cmap-adobe-korea1 — CMaps for Adobe-Korea1.
([87]Bug#201379) - [88]cyrus-imapd — CMU Cyrus mail system (POP3 support).
([89]Bug#201359) - [90]fltk — Fast Light Toolkit, and the Fluid user interface
designer. ([91]Bug#201360) - [92]frotz — Interpreter of Z-code story-files.
([93]Bug#201407) - [94]ftape — Bleeding Edge floppy tape driver (source).
([95]Bug#201345) - [96]ftape-doc — Documentation for the bleeding edge floppy
tape driver. ([97]Bug#201346) - [98]ftape-tools — Bleeding Edge floppy tape driver
(utilities). ([99]Bug#201347) - [100]gbiff — Mail notification program supported GTK+ and
Gnome. ([101]Bug#201383) - [102]gnome-print — GNOME Print architecture.
([103]Bug#201414) - [104]gs-cjk-resource — Resource files for gs-cjk, ghostscript
CJK-TrueType extension. ([105]Bug#201380) - [106]int-fiction — Support files for interactive fiction
interpreters. ([107]Bug#201408) - [108]lclint — Tool for statically checking C programs.
([109]Bug#201348) - [110]lclint-doc — Documentation for LCLint Package.
([111]Bug#201349) - [112]libgtop — Libraries for gtop system monitoring library.
([113]Bug#201265) - [114]libnews-nntpclient-perl — News::NNTPClient, Perl support
for accessing NNTP servers. ([115]Bug#201361) - [116]libsnmp-session-perl — Perl support for accessing
SNMP-aware devices. ([117]Bug#201362) - [118]moosic — Daemon/client combo to easily queue music files
for playing. ([119]Bug#200977) - [120]murasaki — Another HotPlug Agent. ([121]Bug#201384)
- [122]ng — Nihongo MicroGnuEmacs with Latin support.
([123]Bug#201371) - [124]openh323 — H.323 aka VoIP library. ([125]Bug#200472)
- [126]pips — Photo Image Print System for Linux (EPSON
PM-820C/PM-3300C). ([127]Bug#201386) - [128]propsel — Propagate X selections between displays.
([129]Bug#201410) - [130]pwlib — Portable Windows Library. ([131]Bug#200473)
- [132]pychecker — Finds common bugs in python source code.
([133]Bug#200976) - [134]rocks-n-diamonds — Boulderdash-like game.
([135]Bug#201411) - [136]scansort — CSV-based image sorter and verifier.
([137]Bug#201364) - [138]scigraphica — Scientific graphics and data manipulation
(Gnome version). ([139]Bug#201372) - [140]since — tail(1) work-alike that saves and uses state
information. ([141]Bug#201365) - [142]texi2html — Convert Texinfo files to HTML.
([143]Bug#201381) - [144]usbmgr — User-Mode daemon which loads/unloads USB kernel
modules. ([145]Bug#201385) - [146]vje-delta — VJE Delta Ver 2.5 for Linux/BSD installer.
([147]Bug#201388) - [148]vtcl — Tcl GUI builder. ([149]Bug#201415)
- [150]wmmatrix — View The Matrix in a Window Maker dock
application. ([151]Bug#201368) - [152]wmxmms-spectrum — XMMS spectrum analyser plugin for the
Window Maker dock. ([153]Bug#201366) - [154]x-ttcidfont-conf — Configure TrueType and CID fonts for
X. ([155]Bug#201376) - [156]xfonts-jmk — James M. Knoble’s character-cell fonts for
X. ([157]Bug#201390) - [158]xhangglider — Hanggliders fly around in your X root
window. ([159]Bug#201373) - [160]xvt — X terminal-emulator similar to xterm, but smaller.
([161]Bug#201412) - [162]yadex — WAD file editor for doom-style WADs.
([163]Bug#201391)
70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/agrep.html
71. http://bugs.debian.org/201367
72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/aseqview.html
73. http://bugs.debian.org/201357
74. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/bock.html
75. http://bugs.debian.org/201409
76. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/chameleon.html
77. http://bugs.debian.org/200974
78. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/cmap-adobe-cns1.html
79. http://bugs.debian.org/201374
80. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/cmap-adobe-gb1.html
81. http://bugs.debian.org/201375
82. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/cmap-adobe-japan1.html
83. http://bugs.debian.org/201377
84. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/cmap-adobe-japan2.html
85. http://bugs.debian.org/201378
86. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/cmap-adobe-korea1.html
87. http://bugs.debian.org/201379
88. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/cyrus-imapd.html
89. http://bugs.debian.org/201359
90. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/oldlibs/libfltk1.html
91. http://bugs.debian.org/201360
92. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/frotz.html
93. http://bugs.debian.org/201407
94. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/ftape-source.html
95. http://bugs.debian.org/201345
96. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/ftape-doc.html
97. http://bugs.debian.org/201346
98. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/ftape-util.html
99. http://bugs.debian.org/201347
100. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gbiff.html
101. http://bugs.debian.org/201383
102. http://packages.debian.org/stable/libs/libgnomeprint-bin.html
103. http://bugs.debian.org/201414
104. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/gs-cjk-resource.html
105. http://bugs.debian.org/201380
106. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/int-fiction.html
107. http://bugs.debian.org/201408
108. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/lclint.html
109. http://bugs.debian.org/201348
110. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/lclint-doc.html
111. http://bugs.debian.org/201349
112. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libgtop1.html
113. http://bugs.debian.org/201265
114.
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libnews-nntpclient-perl.html
115. http://bugs.debian.org/201361
116.
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libsnmp-session-perl.html
117. http://bugs.debian.org/201362
118. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/moosic.html
119. http://bugs.debian.org/200977
120. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/murasaki.html
121. http://bugs.debian.org/201384
122. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/ng-common.html
123. http://bugs.debian.org/201371
124. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libopenh323-1.11.7.html
125. http://bugs.debian.org/200472
126. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/pips760.html
127. http://bugs.debian.org/201386
128. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/propsel.html
129. http://bugs.debian.org/201410
130. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libpt-1.4.11.html
131. http://bugs.debian.org/200473
132. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/pychecker.html
133. http://bugs.debian.org/200976
134. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/rocks-n-diamonds.html
135. http://bugs.debian.org/201411
136. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/scansort.html
137. http://bugs.debian.org/201364
138. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/scigraphica.html
139. http://bugs.debian.org/201372
140. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/gc.html
141. http://bugs.debian.org/201365
142. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/texi2html.html
143. http://bugs.debian.org/201381
144. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/usbmgr.html
145. http://bugs.debian.org/201385
146. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/vje-delta.html
147. http://bugs.debian.org/201388
148. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/visual-tcl.html
149. http://bugs.debian.org/201415
150. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/wmmatrix.html
151. http://bugs.debian.org/201368
152. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/wmxmms-spectrum.html
153. http://bugs.debian.org/201366
154. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/x-ttcidfont-conf.html
155. http://bugs.debian.org/201376
156. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xfonts-jmk.html
157. http://bugs.debian.org/201390
158. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/xhangglider.html
159. http://bugs.debian.org/201373
160. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xvt.html
161. http://bugs.debian.org/201412
162. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/yadex.html
163. http://bugs.debian.org/201391
Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this
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the Debian community and report about events in the community.
Please see the [164]contributing page to find out how to help.
We’re looking forward to receiving your mail at [165][email protected]
.
164. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
165. mailto:[email protected]