Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/44/
Debian Weekly News – November 4th, 2003
Welcome to this year’s 44th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter
for the Debian community. Bruce Perens [1]reserved nonfree.org as a
possible home for non-free if it ever spins off of Debian.
Currently it’s just a CNAME to ftp ftp.debian.org but with a little work
it could be a good facility to manage a non-free cut-over.
1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02212.html
Debian faster than Gentoo? Matt Garman [2]wondered why his C++
program ran dramatically slower when compiled on a Gentoo machine
than when compiled with Debian Sid. He later [3]reported that
recompiling the Gentoo C++ libraries with less aggressive
optimization flags (-O2 instead of -O3) eliminated the speed
difference. Matt also [4]added that Debian and other distributions
are conservative, but set up by very experienced people.
2. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/50924
3. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/50973
4. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/50953
System Recovery with Knoppix. IBM Developerworks has an
[5]article by Carla Schroder that describes how to rescue a
non-booting Linux system, edit files, mount networked filesystems,
and do a bare-metal rebuild with only a [6]Knoppix disk and an
Internet connection.
5. http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-knopx.html
6. http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/
Improving KDE Maintainership. Some people may have been alarmed
to see that many of the core KDE packages were orphaned last week
by Chris Cheney. Fortunately, this was done to pave the way for the
Qt/KDE Maintainers group of which Chris Cheney is a member. A
[7]mailing list for this group was created and a draft [8]policy
document is being discussed.
7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qt-kde/
8. http://people.debian.org/~madkiss/debian-kde-policy.html
Amendment of the Social Contract. Branden Robinson [9]proposed
to amend the [10]Social Contract. Some of his [11]amendments change
the meaning of the Social Contract, whereas others are only
editorial. One of his key proposals is that Debian’s commitment to
a non-free archive be deleted. This means that Debian would be free
to stop providing non-free software if it chose. The proposal was
[12]discussed on Slashdot, where Bruce Perens [13]suggested [14]how
removing non-free might work. The proposal would also make the
Social Contract a bit separate from the Debian Free Software
Guidelines.
9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0310/msg00106.html
10. http://www.debian.org/social_contract
11. http://www.xs4all.nl/~dark/draft-sc-amendment-20031030.html
12.
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/03/10/30/1618243.shtml?tid=185&tid=90
13.
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=84151&cid=7352420
14.
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=84151&cid=7352723
Debian in the Enterprise? James Maguire [15]wondered if there is
a place for Debian in the enterprise world. He talks about
certification or rather the lack of and missing vendor support
which is compensated by third party support from different
companies. Use of Debian depends on the requirements of the end
user. If they were technically self supporting, and they don’t want
to pay a different vendor, they could deploy Debian — and it would
lead to greater return on investment.
15. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22602.html
Draft Position Statement regarding GNU FDL. Manoj Srivastava
[16]reported about the effort writing a document that attempts to
address some concerns that members of the Debian project have about
the GNU [17]Free Documentation License (FDL). This [18]document
attempts to present the reasoning behind the conclusion that the
GNU FDL is not regarded as a license that can easily satisfy the
[19]Debian Free Software Guidelines.
16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project-0310/msg00178.html
17. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
18. http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html
19. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
Constitutional Amendment Results. Proposal A in the [20]vote to
disambiguate [21]Constitution section 4.1.5 [22]succeeded over the
other options. This means that the [23]Debian Social Contract and
[24]Debian Free Software Guidelines are now “Foundation Documents”,
and may be modified by a 3:1 majority of Developers. The amendment
also clarified the status of non-technical documents, ensuring that
Developers may issue, supersede and withdraw various statements,
including position statements about issues of the day.
20. http://www.debian.org/vote/2003/vote_0003
21. http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0310/msg00114.html
23. http://www.debian.org/social_contract
24. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
Debconf Templates Style Guide. Christian Perrier [25]announced a
style guide for writing debconf templates. During his work
translating debconf templates to French, Christian often found
templates which seemed to be inconsistent with some written or
unwritten rules. It became evident that some formalisation of
writing rules and recommendations could help package maintainers to
prepare “well-written” debconf templates. General style
harmonisation could also greatly improve the perception of Debian,
giving it a more “professional” presentation.
25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0310/msg01686.html
NetBSD Status Report. Joel Baker [26]posted a NetBSD status
report. Joel will be restarting the archive using debpool (which
should handle uploads via HTTPS PUT, without needing logins on the
box itself). The archive will be based on -current again (aka,
pre-2.0), since he has run into problems which can only be resolved
by having working POSIX Thread support. He is also continuing to
work on the 4-to-3-clause BSD license conversion, with the
permission of the NetBSD Foundation (contacting authors and asking
them to relicense, submitting patches, and working with the Core
team to get them integrated cleanly). So far, this has been
dramatically successful.
26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0310/msg00009.html
Getting HP Hardware supported for Debian. Kianusch Sayah Karadji
is [27]trying to convince [28]HP to add Debian support to their
hardware. HP claims, that since Debian has no figures on how many
users it has on HP servers, they do not know if supporting Debian
would make sense. If you do, please get in touch with Kianusch at
[29]debian@sk-tech.net.
Several HP employees [30]are members of the Debian development
community.
27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-user-0310/msg06517.html
28. http://www.hp.com/
29. mailto:debian@sk-tech.net
30. http://www.opensource.hp.com/opensource_projects.html
Tasksel and custom Debian Distributions. Andreas Tille
[31]wondered how tasksel is supposed to support custom Debian
distributions such as [32]Debian Jr. or [33]Debian-Med. Currently
tasksel displays the debian-jr task but ignores the others. Of
course, a more sophisticated solution should be found to handle
them equally.
31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02048.html
32. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-jr/
33. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med/
Multiple PostgreSQL Packages. Oliver Elphick [34]pondered
whether and how to have multiple versions of the PostgreSQL
packages [35]installed at once. This is to get round problems with
upgrading major versions, and to allow people to have multiple
database clusters, possibly at different software versions.
34. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02058.html
35.
http://cvs.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/common/postgresql-client.html?cvsroot=pkg-postgresql
Debian Project at COMDEX. There’ll be a Debian [36]installation
festival at this year’s [37]Comdex in Las Vegas on Thursday,
November 20th, from 12:00pm to 1:30pm. Everybody is welcome to help
or be helped. Also at Comdex, in the “Open Source and Linux
Innovation Center”, on Tuesday 18th from 1:30pm to 2:00pm a half
hour talk introduces Debian to corporate users and, in the Open
Source conference track, on Wednesday 19th from 3:30pm to 4:45pm a
[38]discussion panel titled “A Practical Guide to Open Source
Operating Systems” will include Debian.
36.
http://www.comdex.com/lasvegas2003/exhib/index.php?s=ic_open_spkr
37. http://www.comdex.com/lasvegas2003/
Alternative Postscript- and PDF-Viewer. Matthias Urlichs
[39]noticed that there are virtual packages for postscript-viewer
and pdf-viewer, but no alternatives, i.e. there’s no
/usr/bin/postscript-viewer. Mark Brown [40]explained that Debian
uses a MIME handler registration system which viewer programs
should be making use of. The run-mailcap program can be used to
find an appropriate program for a given MIME type.
39. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02091.html
40. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02109.html
Localised Bug Reports. Magosányi Arpád
[41]wondered if there is a known or planned way to report bugs to
the Debian Bug Tracking System in a non-english language. He
proposed that if a non-english language is detected, the bug report
is sent to a language package instead the real package. The
maintainers of the language package would then mediate the
communication between the user and the package maintainer.
41. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02141.html
Request for a Debian Kernels List. Francesco Paolo Lovergine
[42]proposed to create a new mailing list debian-kernels in order
to ease the coordination and maintenance of kernels and patches in
Debian. This list would not be limited to Linux kernels but also
include Hurd and *BSD. He also [43]requested the list to be
created.
42. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02173.html
43. http://bugs.debian.org/218923
Circular Build Dependencies. Anthony DeRobertis [44]wondered if
he is the only one who believed that one could build Debian from
source, starting with only essential and build-essential packages.
In particular he stomped over the cdbs – libgd-gd2-*-perl – cdbs
chain. Joel Baker would [45]like to see Debian main in stable and
testing as closed sets in terms of build-dependencies. The current
situation is a pain for porters to a new architecture or
kernel.
44. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0310/msg02223.html
45. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0311/msg00012.html
Split Kernel Header Files. Otto Wyss [46]wondered why
[47]libc6-dev suddenly depended on [48]linux-kernel-headers. Mark
Brown [49]explained that there have always been some kernel headers
included in libc6-dev. They have just been split out into a
separate package now. Several of these headers are referenced by
headers provided by glibc which would break those headers if
linux-kernel-headers is not installed.
46. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0311/msg00033.html
47. http://packages.debian.org/libc6-dev
48. http://packages.debian.org/linux-kernel-headers
49. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0311/msg00037.html
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you
update your systems if you have any of these packages
installed.
- [50]thttpd — Information leak, DoS and arbitrary code
execution.
50. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-396
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to
the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important
updates.
- [51]apache-utils — Utility programs for webservers.
- [52]bookmark-merge — Merge bookmarks from Mozilla, Netscape
and IE. - [53]crosshurd — Install a hurd-i386 system from any running
Debian system. - [54]debian-installer-demo — Debian Installer demo.
- [55]gnue-appserver — GNU Enterprise Application Server.
- [56]gnue-navigator — GNU Enterprise Navigator.
- [57]gridlock — Collection of grid-based board games for
GNUstep. - [58]gtklookat — VRML viewer for GTK+.
- [59]gtodo — GTK-2 todo list.
- [60]ps2eps — Convert PostScript to EPS (Encapsulated
PostScript) files. - [61]udo — Universal DOcument – text processing utility.
- [62]wavesurfer — Sound Manipulation Program.
51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/apache-utils.html
52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/bookmark-merge.html
53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/crosshurd.html
54.
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/debian-installer-demo.html
55.
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/gnue-appserver.html
56.
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/gnue-navigator.html
57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/gridlock.html
58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/gtklookat.html
59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/gtodo.html
60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/ps2eps.html
61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/udo.html
62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/wavesurfer.html
Orphaned Packages. 9 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 190 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]findimagedupes — Finds visually similar or duplicate
images. ([65]Bug#218699) - [66]gfpoken — Recreate a grid of mirrors from clues given by
tests. ([67]Bug#219061) - [68]glotski — Slide the blocks to reach a goal.
([69]Bug#219062) - [70]lwm — Lightweight Window Manager. ([71]Bug#219063)
- [72]overkill — Bloody 2D action deathmatch-like game in
ASCII-art. ([73]Bug#218157) - [74]pong — Preference/Property dialogs maker for GNOME.
([75]Bug#218462) - [76]sourcenav — Source code analysis, editor, browser and
build tool. ([77]Bug#218158) - [78]tuxeyes — Fancy version of xeyes. ([79]Bug#219065)
- [80]typespeed — Zap words flying across the screen by typing
them correctly. ([81]Bug#219064)
64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/findimagedupes.html
65. http://bugs.debian.org/218699
66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/gfpoken.html
67. http://bugs.debian.org/219061
68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/glotski.html
69. http://bugs.debian.org/219062
70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/lwm.html
71. http://bugs.debian.org/219063
72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/overkill.html
73. http://bugs.debian.org/218157
74. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/pong.html
75. http://bugs.debian.org/218462
76. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/sourcenav.html
77. http://bugs.debian.org/218158
78. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/tuxeyes.html
79. http://bugs.debian.org/219065
80. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/typespeed.html
81. http://bugs.debian.org/219064
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[82]contributing page to find out how to help. We’re looking
forward to receiving your mail at [83]dwn@debian.org.
82. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
83. mailto:dwn@debian.org