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Debian Weekly News – September 17th, 2002


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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2002/36/
Debian Weekly News - September 17th, 2002
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Welcome to this year's 36th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. We are happy to include two items from Richard
Wale this time. It was recently [1]reported (German only) that the
German [2]Federal Cartel Office will use a modified Debian system on
their [3]desktop computers (German only) system and servers.

 1. http://www.pro-linux.de/news/2002/4664.html
 2. http://www.bundeskartellamt.de/english_.html
 3. http://www.natural-computing.de/inhalte_d/produkt/produkt_sites/desktop.html

Debian supporting Sincere Choice? Gustavo Noronha Silva [4]asked
whether the Debian project is going to support [5]Sincere Choice,
which was recently founded by former Debian project leader Bruce
Perens. Sincere Choice is a political platform for projects and
individuals who believe that there should be a fair, competitive
market for computer software, both proprietary and Open Source. It was
founded in response to a [6]clever fraud.

 4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project-0209/msg00035.html
 5. http://www.sincerechoice.com/
 6. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/26616.html

XFree86 4.2.x. Branden and his X Strike Force colleagues continue to
work towards a 4.2.x release for Debian, with new "experimental"
pre-release [7]packages. He also [8]responded to the recently
announced Xlib security hole; Debian is not affected as "XFree86 4.2.0
hasn't been released to it yet." Since then he has released packages
for [9]XFree86 4.2.1-0pre1v1, which contains the fix.

 7. http://people.debian.org/~branden/
 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-x-0209/msg00038.html
 9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-x-0209/msg00050.html

Debian on RS/6000. After the recent pSeries-related activity on the
PowerPC mailing list [10]proposing a kernel repository for "working"
kernels for RS/6000 machines, [11]discussion jumped from
debian-powerpc to debian-boot suggesting that CHRP/PReP kernels be
revised to work towards a set of working install floppies. While no
timescales are mentioned, the consensus seems to be the current
CHRP/PReP kernels are broken (where RS6K's are concerned) and need
[12]investigation and reworking. Hopefully over time, Debian will
become more viable on the pSeries platform.

 10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc-0208/msg00486.html
 11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0209/msg00063.html
 12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0209/msg00065.html

Status of Perl 5.8.0 Update. Brendan O'Dea [13]reported that the
transition to Perl 5.8.0 in the unstable distribution (sid) is almost
complete. Three architectures haven't rebuilt the packages, but for
those that were released with woody, this should probably be fixed by
the most recent source package. Brendan lists five remaining packages
that still suffer from dependency problems. In general the transition
went as smoothly as possible.

 13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-perl-0209/msg00012.html

How can I help? Several people have shown that they don't know how to
help to improve Debian. Not all people raise their voice when they are
swamped and need help. To help, we provide some links to common
resources. To improve the quality of Debian, see this small [14]HOWTO
document. If would like to spend time on packaging, the [15]wnpp list
(Work-Needing and Prospective Packages) refers to packages that
require work. As a general task, the debian-installer requires
[16]assistance with non-i386 architectures. For those who would like
to work on the web services, this [17]list contains tasks for the
website. Finally, here's a list of overall [18]tasks that require
help.

 14. http://qa.debian.org/howto.html
 15. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
 16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0207/msg00013.html
 17. http://www.debian.org/devel/website/todo
 18. http://www.infodrom.org/Debian/jobs.html

GNOME Transition Stagnated. A while ago we reported about [19]ongoing
[20]discussions that [21]deal with the process of adding GNOME 2 to
the Debian archive. Finally, a [22]discussion was held on IRC
involving the technical committee (ctte) and the GNOME release
manager. It seems that people agree to keep GNOME 1 libraries as long
as possible and that GNOME 2 should replace GNOME 1 at some stage in
the future. However, it doesn't seem to be decided yet where to
develop GNOME 2 packages. Raphaël would rather like to see a
[23]decision by the Technical Committee rather than [24]implementing a
staging area.

 19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte-0208/msg00000.html
 20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-gtk-gnome-0207/msg00450.html
 21. http://lists.debian.org/debian-gtk-gnome-0208/msg00021.html
 22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte-0209/msg00000.html
 23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte-0209/msg00018.html
 24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte-0209/msg00021.html

Discussing the Task System. Eduard Bloch started a [25]discussion
about the task system and proposed to add more tasks for the user.
This includes a division between GNOME, KDE and plain X11 and basic
internet clients for X11 or the text console. It turned out that the
scope of the task system isn't clearly defined. Some people believe
that it should help new users install software without knowing
details, while others believe that tasks exist to install large chunks
of software in one batch.

 25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0209/msg00643.html

Debian Jobs Database. Andreas Müller [26]reported that he finished
implementing a [27]job database for Debian and asked for a public beta
test. This is a job database for Debian related jobs, based on a
Debian-LAMP system. The database aims at both companies that seek new
employees as well as people seeking a new employer.

 26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0209/msg01124.html
 27. http://jobs.debian.net/

Blender is Free Software. After the company behind [28]Blender, a very
fast and versatile 3D modeller and renderer, went bankrupt, the
[29]Blender Foundation was created. The purpose was to secure and
maintain the Blender source. 100,000 Euro were required to purchase
the source from the company, and this was donated by many
[30]volunteers from around the world. To celebrate this, a
[31]conference will be held in October, closing with a party at which
Blender 2.26 will be released as free software.

 28. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/blender.html
 29. http://www.blender3d.com/
 30. http://vrotvrot.com/openBlender/donations/list.php
 31. http://www.blender3d.com/conference.html

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

 * [32]PostgreSQL -- Integer and buffer overflows.
 * [33]Purity -- Buffer overflow.
 * [34]kdelibs -- Cross site scripting.
 * [35]OpenSSL -- Multiple remote exploits.

 32. http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-165
 33. http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-166
 34. http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-167
 35. http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-136

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

 * [36]6in4tunnel -- Interactively setup a tunnel to the IPv6
   network.
 * [37]adonthell -- A 2D graphical roleplaying game.
 * [38]ccrypt -- Secure encryption and decryption of files and
   streams.
 * [39]chntpw -- NT SAM password recovery utility.
 * [40]decompyle -- Python byte-code decompiler.
 * [41]doclifter -- Convert troff to DocBook.
 * [42]drbd -- RAID 1 over tcp/ip for Linux utilities.
 * [43]dvbstream -- Broadcast a DVB Transport stream over a LAN.
 * [44]dvdrecord -- A tool for writing DVD's and CD's.
 * [45]fbiterm -- FrameBuffer Internationalized TERMinal emulator
   (fbiterm).
 * [46]iog -- Network I/O byte grapher.
 * [47]makejail -- Automatically create chroot jails for programs.
 * [48]mftrace -- Converts Metafont fonts into Type1 fonts.
 * [49]synergy -- Share mouse and keyboard over the network.
 * [50]thy -- A tiny and fast http daemon.
 * [51]vux -- Rating-based ogg and mp3 player.
 * [52]wuzzah -- Inobtrusively monitor your friends.
 * [53]xiterm -- Internationalized Terminal Emulator for X.

 36. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/6in4tunnel.html
 37. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/adonthell.html
 38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/ccrypt.html
 39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/chntpw.html
 40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/decompyle.html
 41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/doclifter.html
 42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/drbd.html
 43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/dvbstream.html
 44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/dvdrecord.html
 45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/fbiterm.html
 46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/iog.html
 47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/makejail.html
 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/tex/mftrace.html
 49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/synergy.html
 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/thy.html
 51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/vux.html
 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/wuzzah.html
 53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xiterm.html

Orphaned Packages. 2 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 111 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [54]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.

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

 * [55]filterproxy -- A filtering proxy, which can among other things
   remove ads.. ([56]Bug#160773)
 * [57]gnut -- A command-line based client compatible with
   Gnutella-net. ([58]Bug#160363)

 55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/filterproxy.html
 56. http://bugs.debian.org/160773
 57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gnut.html
 58. http://bugs.debian.org/160363

Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this newsletter.
Currently, it's mostly a one-man show, which is anticipated to fail in
the long term. We urgently need volunteer writers who prepare items.
Please see the [59]contributing page to find out how to help. We're
looking forward to receiving your mail at [60]dwn@debian.org.

 59. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
 60. mailto:dwn@debian.org

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