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Debian Weekly News – June 10, 2003

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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/23/

Debian Weekly News – June 10th, 2003

Welcome to this year’s 23rd issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter
for the Debian community. There is a nice little [1]quiz up at
BBspot which correlates your personality with an operating system.
Amazingly enough, Debian is one of the possible outcomes. Find out
if you are a true Debian user! Unfortunately, the result is printed
as a graphics, lynx and w3m users are kept out apparently.

1. http://bbspot.com/News/2003/01/os_quiz.php

Debian X Strike Force Subversion Repository. Branden Robinson
[2]announced that Debian’s XFree86 packages are becoming
team-maintained. In practice they have always been to some extent,
thanks to contributions large and small from many people. As
another improvement Branden has established a Subversion
[3]repository. With the Debian XFree86 packages under version
control, he expects the quality and pace of the work to
increase.

2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-x-0306/msg00039.html

3. http://necrotic.deadbeast.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/

Freedesktop Menu System. Chris Cheney [4]asked what was going to
happen to plans for the Debian menu system to migrate to the
[5]desktop menu specification from freedesktop.org. Bill Allombert,
the menu system maintainer, [6]replied that he wasn’t sure what the
Debian menu system needed to do. Colin Walters [7]explained that
the Free Software world seems to have settled on the .desktop
format as the standard for menus. The whole idea was to supplant
the myriad of incompatible menu systems used by various
distributors.

4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02035.html

5.
http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu/draft/menu-spec/menu-spec.html

6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02051.html

7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02071.html

Status of Sarge Release Issues. Drew Scott Daniels [8]posted
another updated list of sarge release issues. This is a list of
things to be done before sarge can be released, with status
information and an estimated priority (of 1-3). Debian-Installer
[9]work and [10]porting remain high on the list and the
[11]transition to GCC 3.3 needs attention. Other issues include
[12]problems in testing, the Linux kernel needs to be [13]handled
differently, the [14]X Strike Force could use some [15]help getting
4.3.0 ready, [16]GNOME 2 should be in testing soon and libpng is in
[17]transition.

8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00112.html

9.
http://cvs.debian.org/debian-installer/doc/TODO?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup

10. http://people.debian.org/~mckinstry/ports-status.html

11. http://people.debian.org/~rmurray/c++transition.html

12. http://ftp-master.debian.org/testing/testing_probs.html

13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg01334.html

14. http://people.debian.org/~branden/xsf/

15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-x-0305/msg00134.html

16. http://people.debian.org/~walters/gnome2.html

17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg01880.html

Version Control for Packages File. Glenn McGrath [18]suggested
putting the Packages file under some sort of version control in
order to minimise bandwidth requirements. Most people [19]agreed
that this would be a positive move. Anthony Towns [20]pointed out
that [21]apt-pupdate can do this, and Nicolas Kratz [22]suggested
trying [23]apt-rsync.

18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00128.html

19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00236.html

20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00209.html

21. http://people.debian.org/~bjb/

22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00176.html

23. http://home.tiscali.cz:8080/~cz210552/aptrsync.html

Problems Linking to OpenSSL. As has been [24]discussed at
length, the OpenSSL license is incompatible with the GNU
[25]General Public License (GPL). This week, MySQL developers
planned to [26]allow MySQL to link with OpenSSL by offering a
blanket exception covering combined work licensed under one or more
OSI approved licenses. The developer of the gaim-encryption plugin
found himself in a similar position, but plans to [27]rewrite his
code to cease dependence on OpenSSL.

24.
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200210/msg00113.html

25. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00061.html

27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00107.html

ACPI Howto. Emma Jane Hogbin [28]announced the second draft of
her [29]Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Howto. ACPI
allows control of power management from within the operating
system. The document summarises the process of installing and using
ACPI on a Debian laptop with a patched 2.4.20 Linux kernel.

28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-user-0306/msg00985.html

29. http://xtrinsic.com/geek/articles/acpi.phtml

Debian’s 10th Birthday. The word is out as Alexander Neumann
[30]noticed and Debian will turn 10 this August. Anniversary
parties are planned on several places on this planet. Details are
not yet available and there will probably be more parties
organized, but preparations for events in [31]Japan, [32]Australia,
[33]Germany, [34]Great Britain and the [35]US were already
started.

30. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00058.html

31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00061.html

32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00066.html

33. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00075.html

34.
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/debian-uk/2003-June/001487.html

35. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00202.html

Recommendations for Knoppix DVD. Klaus Knopper [36]announced
that he is currently working on a DVD edition of Knoppix for
[37]LinuxTag 2003. He would like to know which software people
would like to see on a full featured edition, which will probably
contain Fabian Franz’ new Knoppix installer as well. Additional
software packages need to be free, stable and available in binary
and source form.

36.
http://mailman.linuxtag.org/pipermail/debian-knoppix/2003-June/003062.html

37. http://www.linuxtag.org/2003/en/index.html

Call For Votes: Voting Method GR. The Debian Project Secretary
has [38]posted a call for votes in a Voting Method General
Resolution (GR). Developers are asked to vote on a General
Resolution to [39]amend the constitution to update the Voting
Mechanism. Votes may either be cast in favour of the Clone Proof
SSD Condorcet Amendment, or in favour of further discussion. Votes
must be received by 23:59:59, Friday, June 20th, 2003.

38. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0306/msg00004.html

39. http://www.debian.org/vote/2003/vote_0002

Debian GNU/FreeBSD Self-Hosting. Robert Millan [40]announced
that he has managed to get [41]GNU/FreeBSD installed self-hosting.
The kernel runs init, which initialises swap and filesystems, and
spawns 8 nice gettys. He has built a new base [42]tarball (26.9
MB), with only the minimal utilities plus APT. He has also [43]set
up an APT repository for his GNU/FreeBSD packages, including the
toolchain and XFree86.

40. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0306/msg00002.html

41. http://people.debian.org/~rmh/gnu-freebsd/

42. http://people.debian.org/~rmh/gnu-freebsd/pub/

43. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0306/msg00004.html

Accessing CVS with Kerberos. Jennifer Vesperman, author of the
book [44]Essential CVS, wrote an [45]article about using CVS with
Kerberos 5 and [46]GSSAPI (Generic Security Services API) on an
unstable Debian system. The document explains how to compile
[47]cvs to use GSSAPI and demonstrates its use. Jennifer also
explained several problems that are likely to occur and how to fix
them.

44. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/cvs/index.html?CMP=IL7015

45.
http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2003/05/22/cvs_gssapi.html

46. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/kerberos-faq/general/section-84.html

47. http://www.cvshome.org/

Running Debian on an Acer Tablet PC. Dean Townsley managed to
install Debian GNU/Linux on the [48]Acer Travelmate C100 which is a
tablet PC that can also act as normal notebook. Anyone who has
setup a few systems and compiled their own kernel before should be
able to install and set up Debian on such a machine. He
[49]described in detail how the system is booted from the network
and how X needs to be configured in order to support the pen.

48. http://global.acer.com/products/tablet_pc/tmc100.htm

49. http://prometheus.physics.ucsb.edu/~dean/TmC100/AcerTmC100.html

Debian on a Rocket. Andrew Greenberg and Brian O’Neel from the
Portland State Aerospace Society [50]built a 12 pound rocket which
shall launch this September and will travel at three times the
speed of sound to 55,000 feet. The [51]team builds [52]suborbital
rockets that are smaller than commercial rockets, but larger and
more powerful than hobby ones. In addition, the project relies on
[53]Free Software, such as Debian, and hardware, which can
dramatically improve the performance of the rockets.

50. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59144,00.html

51. http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix03/activities.html#rocket

52. http://twiki.psas.pdx.edu/bin/view/PSAS/Projects

53. http://twiki.psas.pdx.edu/bin/view/PSAS/Usenix2003Paper

Packaging large I18n Files. Ben Burton would like to [54]package
internationalisation (i18n) files for [55]koffice, but
unfortunately this would add another 21 MB to the archive. He came
up with three scenarios which all have drawbacks. Adding 37
different packages, one for each language, or adding one large
package containing all packages, or adding these language files to
the kde-i18n-lang packages. All three don’t seem favourable.

54. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00445.html

55. http://packages.debian.org/koffice

Open Software License. Joey Hess [56]dug out a new license which
is used by elfutils, which is included in RPM 4.2. However, Walter
Landry [57]pointed out that this license is not compatible with the
GNU GPL. Branden Robinson even [58]considered the license to be not
compliant with the [59]Debian Free Software Guidelines.

56. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00025.html

57. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00043.html

58. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00050.html

59. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

Status of UTF-8 Debian Changelogs. Jérôme Marant
[60]asked about the status of using UTF-8 in Debian changelog
files, since he’s seen some UTF-8-encoded debian/changelog files.
However, he hasn’t seen anything yet mentioning it is allowed in
Debian Policy. Josip Rodin [61]explained that the Debian policy
does not need to precede the implementation.

60. http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy-0306/msg00021.html

61. http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy-0306/msg00025.html

Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you
update your systems if you have any of these packages
installed.

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to
the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important
updates.

  • [67]bash-minimal — The GNU Bourne Again SHell (minimal
    version).
  • [68]bash-static — The GNU Bourne Again SHell (static
    version).
  • [69]boa-constructor — RAD tool for Python and WxWindows
    application.
  • [70]debnest — Nested Build System of Debian Source
    Package.
  • [71]drivel — LiveJournal client for the GNOME desktop.
  • [72]firehol — Easy to use but powerful iptables stateful
    firewall.
  • [73]foo2zjs — Support for printing to ZjStream-based
    printers.
  • [74]gforge — Collaborative development tool.
  • [75]guidedog — NAT/masquerading/port-forwarding configuration
    tool for KDE.
  • [76]jukebox-mercury — Mercury NSM CD Jukebox Access
    Utility.
  • [77]kq-data — Graphics and audio data for kq, an adventure
    game in the spirit of Final Fantasy.
  • [78]latex-ucs — Support for using UTF-8 input encoding in
    LaTeX documents.
  • [79]lg-issue91 — Issue 91 of the Linux Gazette.
  • [80]mozilla-firebird — Light-weight browser based on
    Mozilla.
  • [81]packit — Network Injection and Capture.
  • [82]rsplib1 — Prototype implementation of the IETF RSerPool
    architecture.
  • [83]scponly — Restricts the commands available to scp- and
    sftp-users.
  • [84]siptoolbox — Scilab image processing toolbox.
  • [85]tau-python-common — Tuning and Analysis Utilities –
    support for python bindings.
  • [86]ted-gtk — Graphical RTF (Rich Text Format) editor,
    experimental GTK+ version.
  • [87]xmule — eMule client.
  • [88]yasr — General-purpose console screen reader.

67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/shells/bash-minimal.html

68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/shells/bash-static.html

69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/boa-constructor.html

70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/debnest.html

71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/drivel.html

72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/firehol.html

73. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/foo2zjs.html

74. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/gforge.html

75. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/guidedog.html

76.
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/otherosfs/jukebox-mercury.html

77. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/kq-data.html

78. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/tex/latex-ucs.html

79. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/lg-issue91.html

80. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/mozilla-firebird.html

81. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/packit.html

82. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/rsplib1.html

83. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/scponly.html

84. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/siptoolbox.html

85.
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/tau-python-common.html

86. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/ted-gtk.html

87. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/xmule.html

88. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/yasr.html

Orphaned Packages. 3 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 186 orphaned
packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed
to the Free Software community. Please see the [89]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.

89. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/

  • [90]epic4-script-splitfire — The only |<-lame irc script!
    ([91]Bug#196473)
  • [92]libzvt2.0-0 — The GNOME 2 zvt (zterm) widget.
    ([93]Bug#195969)
  • [94]skipstone — Web Browser based on Mozilla’s embed
    component. ([95]Bug#196457)

90.
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/epic4-script-splitfire.html

91. http://bugs.debian.org/196473

92. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libzvt2.0-0.html

93. http://bugs.debian.org/195969

94. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/skipstone.html

95. http://bugs.debian.org/196457

Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this
newsletter. We still need more volunteer writers who investigate
the Debian community and report about events in the community.
Please see the [96]contributing page to find out how to help. We’re
looking forward to receiving your mail at [97]dwn@debian.org
.

96. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing

97. mailto:dwn@debian.org

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