Debian Weekly News - September 17th, 2001
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2001/22/
Debian Weekly News - September 17th, 2001
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Another new architecture? Stefan Gybas has [1]requested a new
architecture: s390x. He writes: "s390 is used on IBM mainframes up to
G6 (generation 6) and is based on 31bit addresses (yes, 31 bits, not
32!). The newer models (G7) use 64bit addresses and the architecture
is called s390x. Kernels for s390x also include an 31bit emulation
layer, so we can run s390 binaries on s390x." He also told us that a
buildd for s390x is already running, all important packages are
compiled and the installation will be the same as with s390, so it
could even be released with Woody.
Getting isdnlog into Woody. Paul Slootman [2]discovered a severe
problem with the isdnutils package. The reason lies in a binary-all
package depending on an architecture-dependend package which is not
available for all architectures, since it requires supported ISDN
hardware for that architecture. Thus the dependency cannot be
satisfied for certain architectures which locks the package out of
Woody.
Call for lintian patches. Sean 'Shaleh' Perry [3]announced that he's
back and asks people who have any beefs or patches to read the
[4]bugtracking system and submit them accordingly.
Aptitude broken with HTTP. Daniel Burrows [5]wrote that he broke
aptitude and doesn't want people telling him. Well... The HTTP method
breaks badly when run from aptitude. It's a known problem which
originates in the apt libraries, allegedly. Daniel will upload a
workaround soon. Please don't send tons of bug reports about it or he
will have to deal with merging bug reports instead of dealing with the
workaround.
Alternatives in Build-Dependencies. Bdale Garbie has [6]discovered
that the current way the buildd handles alternatives in Build-Depends
is somewhat suboptimal. The sbuild which buildd uses will always use
the first option. Maintainers who use alternatives in Build-Depends
should be aware of this fact when they start using such alternatives.
Anthony Towns has added some descriptive [7]scenarios.
Personal Package Builder. Junichi Uekawa has [8]announced pbuilder, a
personal builder for Debian packages. It is a convenient program to
create a chroot system, and build Debian packages inside of it. Our
buildd systems use a component (sbuild) which also build packages.
However, sbuild focuses on building a package for buildd, while
pbuilder focuses on integrating the process of building a chroot
environment (debootstrap) and compiling Debian packages. Version 0.3
has already entered the archive.
Graphing Debian. Edward Betts seems to be deeply in love with xplanet.
He has used the program for a set of analysis such as trying to locate
the [9]center of Debian, or calculating the [10]distance between
developers, or [11]visualizing the keyring. Peter Palfrader has also
created some [12]images visualizing the keyring. Be warned, they are
huge.
Overclocking Tips. Rajesh Fowkar is looking for advice on
[13]overclocking an Asus motherboard and Celeron CPU. Seems that the
machine has some issues with compiling a kernel.
FAI 2.2 was released on Sunday. Thomas Lange [14]announced that Fully
Automatic Installation 2.2 was ready to go. FAI is a non-interactive
system for adding Debian GNU/Linux machines to a cluster.
Yum, new boot-floppies! Adam Di Carlo [15]announced that version
3.0.14 of the boot floppies are available for testing for PPC and
i386. Hammer on them and send reports, comments or praise to
[16]debian-boot@lists.debian.org.
Evils of /usr/share/java/repository. Does the current setup for Java
in Debian leave something to be desired? There's a [17]discussion on
the Debian-Java mailing list about Java classpaths. Apparently Java
Policy is being looked at, so any interested Debian Java users and
developers might want to follow this discussion and possibly join in.
New dpkg-deb Feature. Wichert Akkerman has [18]added a showformat
feature for dpkg-deb. It's now in CVS for anyone that is interested in
getting their hands on it.
New Packages. This a short list of a few of the new and noteworthy
packages for Debian this week. Note that this is by no means an
all-inclusive list or in any way a snub against any packages not
mentioned. Any maintainer who releases a package that they'd like to
call attention to should send us a note. Any maintainer that gripes
after the fact that his or her package was ignored will be summarily
ignored or ridiculed.
* [19]dpsyco -- System configuration packages, to be used to add
users, groups, patches and more.
* [20]mantis -- Mantis is a Web-based bugtracking system that uses
PHP and MySQL.
* [21]waba -- Waba is a small JVM aimed at portable devices.
* [22]alamin-server and [23]alamin-client -- Alamin allows sending
of SMS messages over a GSM network and process messages.
Recent Security Advisories. No new security advisories this week.
Got News? As always, send your news tips or announcements to
[24]dwn@debian.org.
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References
1. http://bugs.debian.org/111311
2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0109/msg00841.html
3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0109/msg00818.html
4. http://bugs.debian.org/lintian
5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0109/msg00782.html
6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0109/msg00685.html
7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0109/msg00702.html
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0108/msg01895.html
9. http://people.debian.org/~edward/globe/average/
10. http://people.debian.org/~edward/globe/distance/
11. http://people.debian.org/~edward/globe/earthkeyring/
12. http://www.palfrader.org/misc/weboftrust/20010826/gfx/
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2001/debian-user-200109/msg02168.html
14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-beowulf/2001/debian-beowulf-200109/msg00012.html
15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2001/debian-boot-200109/msg00255.html
16. mailto:debian-boot@lists.debian.org
17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-java/2001/debian-java-200109/msg00047.html
18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2001/debian-dpkg-200109/msg00025.html
19. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/dpsyco.html
20. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/mantis.html
21. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/waba.html
22. http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/alamin-server.html
23. http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/alamin-client.html
24. mailto:dwn@debian.org
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