Debian Project News - July 26th, 2010
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The Debian Project http://www.debian.org/
Debian Project News debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
July 26th, 2010 http://debian.org/News/weekly/2010/08/
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Welcome to this year's eighth issue of DPN, the newsletter for the
Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:
* Debian Day in New York coming up
* Mini Debian conference in India
* Debian Installer beta1 coming up
* "This week in Debian" podcast?
* How to make Debian more attractive for users?
* ... and much more.
Debian Day in New York coming up
--------------------------------
The organisers of the DebConf10, the upcoming annual Debian Developer
conference, announced that there will again be a Debian Day [2] for
everybody interested in free software. It will be on the 1st of August
at the Columbia University in New York City. During this event, there
will be a full day of talks on several subjects such as free software in
government, design and free software, free software advocacy as well as
string of talks about the Debian project and operating system. Debian
Day is free of charge, but a registration via e-mail is required to ease
the organisation of that event. More information is available on
http://debianday.org/ [3].
2 : http://blog.debconf.org/blog/debconf10/ms_dc10debianday.dc
3 : http://debianday.org/
Mini Debian conference in India
-------------------------------
Kartik Mistry announced a mini Debian Conference in India [4]. It will
take place on 7th and 8th of August in Pune. Topics on the agenda range
from an introduction of the "univeral operating system" to a discussion
about "Debian community activities". A bug squashing party is planed as
well. More details are available in theDebian wiki [5].
4 : http://ftbfs.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/minidebconf-in-india/
5 : http://wiki.debian.org/DebianIndia/MiniDebConf2010
Debian Installer beta1 coming up
--------------------------------
Christian Perrier reported about the status of the upcoming beta1 of the
Debian Installer for [6] "Squeeze" . This version has been translated
into 65 languages, work for additional languages is already on the way.
Christian also gave some tips on how this beta may already be tested,
although the packages haven't completly migrated to Debian "Squeeze",
yet.
6 : http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2010/07/19#di-squeeze-beta1-l10n
"This week in Debian" podcast?
------------------------------
Debian Project Leader Stefano Zacchiroli was contacted by Jonathan
Nadeau, who produces several podcast for the wider free software
community, about creating a podcast about Debian [7]. This weekly
podcast should interview someone, who refers about a Debian related
topic. As Stefano emphasizes: "Any Debian-related topic is a good
candidate: a team, an initiative, a general discussion about a relevant
project aspect, etc. You don't even need any particular upfront
preparation, as it'll be interview-like." Coordination for that has
already been started on awiki page [8].
7 : http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/07/debian_podcast_planning/
8 : http://wiki.debian.org/ThisWeekInDebian
How to make Debian more attractive for Users?
---------------------------------------------
Petter Reinholdtsen noticed [9] that the number of submissions to
Debian's Popularity Contest [10] (popcon for short) is decreasing since
some weeks. Popcon is a system which anonymously sends a list of
installed software packages to Debian, which allows Debian to prioritise
their work (e.g. ordering of packages on installation media). Currently
popcon isn't activated by default, so it was discussed, if this should
be done, and if there was a way to do that in way not affect users
privacy. Soon the discussion turned into the topic on how to make Debian
more attractive to users [11].
9 : http://lists.debian.org/20100720124149.GF6444@login2.uio.no
10 : http://popcon.debian.org
11 : http://lists.debian.org/4C46DD3B.5080805@gmx.de
Some of the ideas raised (beside others) where:
* offer phone support for Debian [12]
* offer CD/DVD images allowing the installation of non-free material [13]
(such as firmware files; it later turned out, that this has already
been implemented)
* automatic backports of updated packages [14]
* improving Debian's webpage [15] (especially the front)
* making it easier to submit bugs [16]
12 : http://lists.debian.org/4C46DD3B.5080805@gmx.de
13 : http://lists.debian.org/02905573d5290737d21b0f6fe761d612.squirrel@www.linux-dev.org
14 : http://lists.debian.org/AANLkTik1TYnUJvsCiN8DspD7GYYoEkVM5byOcrXiTwUk@mail.gmail.com
15 : http://lists.debian.org/20100721160822.GG12007@onerussian.com
16 : http://lists.debian.org/AANLkTinpA7yJqnfde4_lhVkvw8HhOXg2HHehoN0GX6Uw@mail.gmail.com
Other news
----------
Raphael Hertzog noted that the upcoming version of dpkg [17] - the core
package maintainance tool - won't depend on perl anymore thus making
dpkg even more suitable for embedded systems.
17 : http://raphaelhertzog.com/2010/07/22/quick-news-dpkg-collab-maint-alioth-and-the-future/
Giuseppe Iuculano pointed some differences [18] between Debian's
chromium-browser packages [19] and google-chrome out.
18 : http://www.iuculano.it/en/linux/debian/chromium-browser-vs-google-chrome/
19 : http://packages.debian.org/chromium-browser
The responsibilities of Debian's package maintainers, Debian's porters
and Debian's buildd administrators (who take care of systems
automatically building packages for specific architectures) has been
discussed [20] on the general Debian project mailing list.
20 : http://lists.debian.org/20100712180545.GA28403@scru.org
New Developers and Maintainers
------------------------------
One applicant has been accepted [21] as Debian Maintainer since the
previous issue of the Debian Project News. Please welcome Antoine
Beaupré into our project!
21 : http://lists.debian.org/E1OZlXt-00051c-11@franck.debian.org
Release-critical bugs statistics for the upcoming release
---------------------------------------------------------
According to the unofficial release-citical bug counter [22], the
upcoming release, Debian 6.0 "Squeeze", is currently affected by 348
release-critical bugs. Ignoring bugs which are easily solved or on the
way of being solved, roughly speaking, about 152 release critical bugs
remain to be solved for the release to happen.
22 : http://bts.turmzimmer.net/details.php
There are also more detailed statistics [23] as well as some hints on
how to interprete [24] these numbers.
23 : http://blog.schmehl.info/Debian/rc-stats/#2010-29
24 : http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/RC-Stats
Important Debian Security Advisories
------------------------------------
Debian's Security Team recently released advisories for these packages
(among others): python-cjson [25], znc [26], freetype [27], libmikmod
[28], libpng [29], mlmmj [30], and ncompress [31]. Please read them
carefully and take the proper measures.
25 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2068
26 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2069
27 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2070
28 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2071
29 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2072
30 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2073
31 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2074
Please note that these are a selection of the more important security
advisories of the last weeks. If you need to be kept up to date about
security advisories released by the Debian Security Team, please
subscribe to the security mailing list [32] for announcements.
32 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/
New and noteworthy packages
---------------------------
The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive
recently (among others [33]):
33 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg
* archivemount -- mounting an archive for access as a file system [34]
* composite -- live performance sequencer [35]
* doctrine -- tool for object-relational mapping in PHP [36]
* extplorer -- web file explorer and manager using Ext JS [37]
* extremetuxracer-extras -- additional courses for Extreme Tux Racer [38]
* freediams -- pharmaceutical drugs prescriptor [39]
* freeplane -- Java program to create and edit mind maps. [40]
* geogebra -- dynamic mathematics software for education [41]
* gnome-paint -- simple, easy to use paint program for GNOME [42]
* goaccess -- log analyzer and interactive viewer for the Apache Webserver [43]
* ifetch-tools -- collector, monitoror, and image viewer from ip cameras [44]
* kbackup -- easy to use backup program [45]
* logfs-tools -- tools to manage LogFS filesystems [46]
* pdfmod -- simple tool for modifying PDF documents [47]
* roaraudio -- sound server for audio mixing [48]
* screenie-qt -- fancy screenshot composer [49]
* slimevolley -- unrealistic 2D volleyball simulation [50]
* spacenavd -- daemon for using 3D input devices from 3Dconnexion [51]
* xen-qemu-dm-4.0 -- Xen Qemu device model virtual machine hardware emulator [52]
* xjadeo -- video player with Jack sync [53]
* xz-lzma -- XZ-format compression utilities - compatibility commands [54]
34 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/archivemount
35 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/composite
36 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/doctrine
37 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/extplorer
38 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/extremetuxracer-extras
39 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/freediams
40 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/freeplane
41 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/geogebra
42 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gnome-paint
43 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/goaccess
44 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/ifetch-tools
45 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/kbackup
46 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/logfs-tools
47 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/pdfmod
48 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/roaraudio
49 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/screenie-qt
50 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/slimevolley
51 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/spacenavd
52 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xen-qemu-dm-4.0
53 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xjadeo
54 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xz-lzma
Work-needing packages
---------------------
Currently 608 packages are orphaned and 143 packages are up for adoption.
Please take a look at the recent [55] reports [56] to see if there are packages
you are interested in or view the complete list of packages which need your
help [57].
55 : http://lists.debian.org/E1OZYnB-00054j-Q5@merkel.debian.org
56 : http://lists.debian.org/E1Oc67w-0004jS-Nf@merkel.debian.org
57 : http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested
Want to continue reading DPN?
-----------------------------
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58 : http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute
59 : mailto:debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
This issue of Debian Project News was edited by Alexander Reichle-Schmehl [60].
60 : mailto:debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
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