Debian Weekly News – April 24th, 2002

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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2002/17/
Debian Weekly News - April 24th, 2002
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Welcome to this year's seventeenth issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter
for the Debian community. Since the Debian project joined (is planning
to join) [1]OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured
Information Standards) we will keep an eye on them. One thing that was
reported last week covered IBM's [2]patent reservation which would
render ebXML (an open standard for electronic transactions and
business collaboration) useless. However, later IBM [3]clarified the
issue.

 1. http://www.oasis-open.org/
 2. http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/ebxml-cppa/200203/msg00155.html
 3. http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml/200204/msg00004.html

Debian GNU/FreeBSD Base Tarball. Nathan Hawkins recently [4]announced
a new base tarball for those of you who would like to see Debian
GNU/FreeBSD live. A whole bunch of packages had to be [5]modified for
this purpose, but the work seems to be worth it. People should also
check the [6]status of this port.

 4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0204/msg00021.html
 5. http://people.debian.org/~utsl/freebsd-i386/patched/
 6. http://people.debian.org/~utsl/freebsd-i386/status.html

Say Thanks. As a reaction to the most recent [7]flamebait Sean Perry
[8]noted, that we should say thanks to the people who make our day
easier. He says, that just mailing out a big "thank you, your work is
used every day and I love it" is worth more than anything.

 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0204/msg01289.html
 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0204/msg01316.html

Why XFree86 4.2 Isn't in Woody. As another reaction to the most recent
[9]flamebait on missing XFree86 4.2 packages Branden Robinson sent an
[10]article to the list. He explains that he has been busy with
getting 4.1.x stable, which has to run on no less than 11
architectures. [11]XFree86 doesn't test or prepare distribution
tarballs for several of these architectures. Hence, Debian is the de
facto portability laboratory for XFree86 on Linux.

 9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0204/msg01289.html
 10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0204/msg01343.html
 11. http://www.xfree86.org/

Hurd Ceased? Some people may have noticed that all packages from the
hurd-i386 architecture have been removed recently. Don't worry too
much, since Jeff Bailey [12]requested this, so the Hurd team can start
uploading packages with the new [13]ABI (Application Binary
Interface), the interface by which an application program gains access
to operating system and other services. It's probably best to wipe out
your existing Hurd system and re-install it. No effort has been made
to make this an easy transition.

 12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd-0204/msg00096.html
 13. http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?ABI

Activating Keys on Extended Keyboards. It's a frequently asked
question from laptop owners: How is one supposed to make use of
additional keys? If the Linux kernel and XFree86 generate key codes
for them, [14]hotkeys or just plain [15]xmodmap may be helpful. If
Linux doesn't know about the keys, you'll have to go [16]patching the
kernel first.

 14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-laptop-0204/msg00369.html
 15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-laptop-0204/msg00376.html
 16. http://fake.by-infonet.de/laptop/

Potato's Fate? Several users [17]wondered what will happen to Debian
2.2 alias Potato when Woody has been released. Those who have slow or
small machines that run Potato just fine, may be reluctant to upgrade
to Woody, since Woody requires more space and more powerful machines
than Potato. One thing is certain, once Woody is released, the Potato
release will be moved to the [18]archive where other old releases like
buzz, rex, bo, hamm and slink are saved. The security team might
support the old stable release for a while after Woody has been
released, but it would be better not to depend on that, revealed Josip
Rodin.

 17. http://debianplanet.org/article.php?sid=646
 18. ftp://archive.debian.org/debian-archive/dists/

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

 * [19]archivemail -- Archive and compress your old email.
 * [20]asnparser -- ASN.1 to C/C++ converter.
 * [21]bins -- Generate static HTML photo albums using XML and EXIF
   tags.
 * [22]gpsdrive -- Car navigation system.
 * [23]iodbc -- GTK config frontend for the iODBC Driver Manager.
 * [24]kmplot -- KDE function plotter.
 * [25]mpb -- MIT Photonic-Bands.
 * [26]odontolinux -- Dental office management software (PHP4 +
   PostgreSQL).
 * [27]ohphone -- Command line H.323 client with X, SVGA and SDL
   support.
 * [28]openam -- H.323 answering machine.
 * [29]openmcu -- H.323 conferencing server.
 * [30]pygfarm -- Collection of add-on modules for Pygopherd.
 * [31]python-dns -- DNS client module for Python.
 * [32]switchconf -- Change network config for laptops.
 * [33]sylpheed -- Light weight e-mail client with GTK+.
 * [34]turba -- A web based contact manager.
 * [35]ucstring -- Unicode support for eiffel.
 * [36]webcamd -- Capture images from video devices.

 19. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/mail/archivemail.html
 20. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/devel/asnparser.html
 21. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/web/bins.html
 22. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/utils/gpsdrive.html
 23. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/misc/iodbc.html
 24. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/math/kmplot.html
 25. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/science/mpb.html
 26. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/web/odontolinux.html
 27. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/comm/ohphone.html
 28. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/comm/openam.html
 29. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/comm/openmcu.html
 30. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/net/pygfarm.html
 31. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/interpreters/python-dns.html
 32. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/utils/switchconf.html
 33. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/mail/sylpheed.html
 34. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/web/turba.html
 35. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/libs/ucstring.html
 36. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/net/webcamd.html

Orphaned Packages. 7 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 88 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [37]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.

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

 * [38]chos -- Easy Boot loader with a Boot-Menu. ([39]Bug#143650)
 * [40]ditty -- Allows you to play melodies from your built-in
   speaker. ([41]Bug#143758)
 * [42]gkermit -- A serial and network communications package..
   ([43]Bug#143652)
 * [44]gnuhtml2latex -- A Perl script that converts html files to
   latex. ([45]Bug#143681)
 * [46]hermes1 -- The Hermes pixel-format library. ([47]Bug#143651)
 * [48]kascade -- Client for Kascade, a distributed Open directory
   search-engine. ([49]Bug#143759)
 * [50]zope-pygresqlda -- A Zope Database Adapter for PostgreSQL.
   ([51]Bug#142845)

 38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/chos.html
 39. http://bugs.debian.org/143650
 40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/ditty.html
 41. http://bugs.debian.org/143758
 42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/gkermit.html
 43. http://bugs.debian.org/143652
 44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/gnuhtml2latex.html
 45. http://bugs.debian.org/143681
 46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/hermes1.html
 47. http://bugs.debian.org/143651
 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/kascade.html
 49. http://bugs.debian.org/143759
 50. http://packages.debian.org/stable/web/zope-pygresqlda.html
 51. http://bugs.debian.org/142845

Got News? Please inform us about everything that is happening in the
Debian community. We are always looking for any interesting stories to
add, especially new items by volunteer writers, and topics we tend to
miss. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at
[52]dwn@debian.org.

 52. mailto:dwn@debian.org


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