Debian Weekly News - June 10th, 2003
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/23/
Debian Weekly News - June 10th, 2003
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Welcome to this year's 23rd issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. There is a nice little [1]quiz up at BBspot
which correlates your personality with an operating system. Amazingly
enough, Debian is one of the possible outcomes. Find out if you are a
true Debian user! Unfortunately, the result is printed as a graphics,
lynx and w3m users are kept out apparently.
1. http://bbspot.com/News/2003/01/os_quiz.php
Debian X Strike Force Subversion Repository. Branden Robinson
[2]announced that Debian's XFree86 packages are becoming
team-maintained. In practice they have always been to some extent,
thanks to contributions large and small from many people. As another
improvement Branden has established a Subversion [3]repository. With
the Debian XFree86 packages under version control, he expects the
quality and pace of the work to increase.
2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-x-0306/msg00039.html
3. http://necrotic.deadbeast.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/
Freedesktop Menu System. Chris Cheney [4]asked what was going to
happen to plans for the Debian menu system to migrate to the
[5]desktop menu specification from freedesktop.org. Bill Allombert,
the menu system maintainer, [6]replied that he wasn't sure what the
Debian menu system needed to do. Colin Walters [7]explained that the
Free Software world seems to have settled on the .desktop format as
the standard for menus. The whole idea was to supplant the myriad of
incompatible menu systems used by various distributors.
4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02035.html
5. http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu/draft/menu-spec/menu-spec.html
6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02051.html
7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02071.html
Status of Sarge Release Issues. Drew Scott Daniels [8]posted another
updated list of sarge release issues. This is a list of things to be
done before sarge can be released, with status information and an
estimated priority (of 1-3). Debian-Installer [9]work and [10]porting
remain high on the list and the [11]transition to GCC 3.3 needs
attention. Other issues include [12]problems in testing, the Linux
kernel needs to be [13]handled differently, the [14]X Strike Force
could use some [15]help getting 4.3.0 ready, [16]GNOME 2 should be in
testing soon and libpng is in [17]transition.
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00112.html
9. http://cvs.debian.org/debian-installer/doc/TODO?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup
10. http://people.debian.org/~mckinstry/ports-status.html
11. http://people.debian.org/~rmurray/c++transition.html
12. http://ftp-master.debian.org/testing/testing_probs.html
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg01334.html
14. http://people.debian.org/~branden/xsf/
15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-x-0305/msg00134.html
16. http://people.debian.org/~walters/gnome2.html
17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0304/msg01880.html
Version Control for Packages File. Glenn McGrath [18]suggested putting
the Packages file under some sort of version control in order to
minimise bandwidth requirements. Most people [19]agreed that this
would be a positive move. Anthony Towns [20]pointed out that
[21]apt-pupdate can do this, and Nicolas Kratz [22]suggested trying
[23]apt-rsync.
18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00128.html
19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00236.html
20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00209.html
21. http://people.debian.org/~bjb/
22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00176.html
23. http://home.tiscali.cz:8080/~cz210552/aptrsync.html
Problems Linking to OpenSSL. As has been [24]discussed at length, the
OpenSSL license is incompatible with the GNU [25]General Public
License (GPL). This week, MySQL developers planned to [26]allow MySQL
to link with OpenSSL by offering a blanket exception covering combined
work licensed under one or more OSI approved licenses. The developer
of the gaim-encryption plugin found himself in a similar position, but
plans to [27]rewrite his code to cease dependence on OpenSSL.
24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200210/msg00113.html
25. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00061.html
27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00107.html
ACPI Howto. Emma Jane Hogbin [28]announced the second draft of her
[29]Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Howto. ACPI allows
control of power management from within the operating system. The
document summarises the process of installing and using ACPI on a
Debian laptop with a patched 2.4.20 Linux kernel.
28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-user-0306/msg00985.html
29. http://xtrinsic.com/geek/articles/acpi.phtml
Debian's 10th Birthday. The word is out as Alexander Neumann
[30]noticed and Debian will turn 10 this August. Anniversary parties
are planned on several places on this planet. Details are not yet
available and there will probably be more parties organized, but
preparations for events in [31]Japan, [32]Australia, [33]Germany,
[34]Great Britain and the [35]US were already started.
30. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00058.html
31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00061.html
32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00066.html
33. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00075.html
34. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/debian-uk/2003-June/001487.html
35. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00202.html
Recommendations for Knoppix DVD. Klaus Knopper [36]announced that he
is currently working on a DVD edition of Knoppix for [37]LinuxTag
2003. He would like to know which software people would like to see on
a full featured edition, which will probably contain Fabian Franz' new
Knoppix installer as well. Additional software packages need to be
free, stable and available in binary and source form.
36. http://mailman.linuxtag.org/pipermail/debian-knoppix/2003-June/003062.html
37. http://www.linuxtag.org/2003/en/index.html
Call For Votes: Voting Method GR. The Debian Project Secretary has
[38]posted a call for votes in a Voting Method General Resolution
(GR). Developers are asked to vote on a General Resolution to
[39]amend the constitution to update the Voting Mechanism. Votes may
either be cast in favour of the Clone Proof SSD Condorcet Amendment,
or in favour of further discussion. Votes must be received by
23:59:59, Friday, June 20th, 2003.
38. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0306/msg00004.html
39. http://www.debian.org/vote/2003/vote_0002
Debian GNU/FreeBSD Self-Hosting. Robert Millan [40]announced that he
has managed to get [41]GNU/FreeBSD installed self-hosting. The kernel
runs init, which initialises swap and filesystems, and spawns 8 nice
gettys. He has built a new base [42]tarball (26.9 MB), with only the
minimal utilities plus APT. He has also [43]set up an APT repository
for his GNU/FreeBSD packages, including the toolchain and XFree86.
40. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0306/msg00002.html
41. http://people.debian.org/~rmh/gnu-freebsd/
42. http://people.debian.org/~rmh/gnu-freebsd/pub/
43. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0306/msg00004.html
Accessing CVS with Kerberos. Jennifer Vesperman, author of the book
[44]Essential CVS, wrote an [45]article about using CVS with Kerberos
5 and [46]GSSAPI (Generic Security Services API) on an unstable Debian
system. The document explains how to compile [47]cvs to use GSSAPI and
demonstrates its use. Jennifer also explained several problems that
are likely to occur and how to fix them.
44. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/cvs/index.html?CMP=IL7015
45. http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2003/05/22/cvs_gssapi.html
46. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/kerberos-faq/general/section-84.html
47. http://www.cvshome.org/
Running Debian on an Acer Tablet PC. Dean Townsley managed to install
Debian GNU/Linux on the [48]Acer Travelmate C100 which is a tablet PC
that can also act as normal notebook. Anyone who has setup a few
systems and compiled their own kernel before should be able to install
and set up Debian on such a machine. He [49]described in detail how
the system is booted from the network and how X needs to be configured
in order to support the pen.
48. http://global.acer.com/products/tablet_pc/tmc100.htm
49. http://prometheus.physics.ucsb.edu/~dean/TmC100/AcerTmC100.html
Debian on a Rocket. Andrew Greenberg and Brian O'Neel from the
Portland State Aerospace Society [50]built a 12 pound rocket which
shall launch this September and will travel at three times the speed
of sound to 55,000 feet. The [51]team builds [52]suborbital rockets
that are smaller than commercial rockets, but larger and more powerful
than hobby ones. In addition, the project relies on [53]Free Software,
such as Debian, and hardware, which can dramatically improve the
performance of the rockets.
50. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59144,00.html
51. http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix03/activities.html#rocket
52. http://twiki.psas.pdx.edu/bin/view/PSAS/Projects
53. http://twiki.psas.pdx.edu/bin/view/PSAS/Usenix2003Paper
Packaging large I18n Files. Ben Burton would like to [54]package
internationalisation (i18n) files for [55]koffice, but unfortunately
this would add another 21 MB to the archive. He came up with three
scenarios which all have drawbacks. Adding 37 different packages, one
for each language, or adding one large package containing all
packages, or adding these language files to the kde-i18n-lang
packages. All three don't seem favourable.
54. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00445.html
55. http://packages.debian.org/koffice
Open Software License. Joey Hess [56]dug out a new license which is
used by elfutils, which is included in RPM 4.2. However, Walter Landry
[57]pointed out that this license is not compatible with the GNU GPL.
Branden Robinson even [58]considered the license to be not compliant
with the [59]Debian Free Software Guidelines.
56. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00025.html
57. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00043.html
58. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00050.html
59. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
Status of UTF-8 Debian Changelogs. Jérôme Marant [60]asked about the
status of using UTF-8 in Debian changelog files, since he's seen some
UTF-8-encoded debian/changelog files. However, he hasn't seen anything
yet mentioning it is allowed in Debian Policy. Josip Rodin
[61]explained that the Debian policy does not need to precede the
implementation.
60. http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy-0306/msg00021.html
61. http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy-0306/msg00025.html
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
* [62]gzip -- Insecure temporary file creation.
* [63]eterm -- Buffer overflow.
* [64]xaos -- Improper setuid-root execution.
* [65]Linux 2.4.18 -- Several vulnerabilities.
* [66]Linux 2.4.18 (powerpc) -- Several vulnerabilities.
62. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-308
63. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-309
64. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-310
65. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-311
66. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-312
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive recently or contain important updates.
* [67]bash-minimal -- The GNU Bourne Again SHell (minimal version).
* [68]bash-static -- The GNU Bourne Again SHell (static version).
* [69]boa-constructor -- RAD tool for Python and WxWindows
application.
* [70]debnest -- Nested Build System of Debian Source Package.
* [71]drivel -- LiveJournal client for the GNOME desktop.
* [72]firehol -- Easy to use but powerful iptables stateful
firewall.
* [73]foo2zjs -- Support for printing to ZjStream-based printers.
* [74]gforge -- Collaborative development tool.
* [75]guidedog -- NAT/masquerading/port-forwarding configuration
tool for KDE.
* [76]jukebox-mercury -- Mercury NSM CD Jukebox Access Utility.
* [77]kq-data -- Graphics and audio data for kq, an adventure game
in the spirit of Final Fantasy.
* [78]latex-ucs -- Support for using UTF-8 input encoding in LaTeX
documents.
* [79]lg-issue91 -- Issue 91 of the Linux Gazette.
* [80]mozilla-firebird -- Light-weight browser based on Mozilla.
* [81]packit -- Network Injection and Capture.
* [82]rsplib1 -- Prototype implementation of the IETF RSerPool
architecture.
* [83]scponly -- Restricts the commands available to scp- and
sftp-users.
* [84]siptoolbox -- Scilab image processing toolbox.
* [85]tau-python-common -- Tuning and Analysis Utilities - support
for python bindings.
* [86]ted-gtk -- Graphical RTF (Rich Text Format) editor,
experimental GTK+ version.
* [87]xmule -- eMule client.
* [88]yasr -- General-purpose console screen reader.
67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/shells/bash-minimal.html
68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/shells/bash-static.html
69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/boa-constructor.html
70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/debnest.html
71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/drivel.html
72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/firehol.html
73. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/foo2zjs.html
74. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/gforge.html
75. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/guidedog.html
76. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/otherosfs/jukebox-mercury.html
77. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/kq-data.html
78. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/tex/latex-ucs.html
79. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/lg-issue91.html
80. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/mozilla-firebird.html
81. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/packit.html
82. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/rsplib1.html
83. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/scponly.html
84. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/siptoolbox.html
85. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/tau-python-common.html
86. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/ted-gtk.html
87. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/xmule.html
88. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/yasr.html
Orphaned Packages. 3 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 186 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [89]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.
89. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
* [90]epic4-script-splitfire -- The only |<-lame irc script!
([91]Bug#196473)
* [92]libzvt2.0-0 -- The GNOME 2 zvt (zterm) widget.
([93]Bug#195969)
* [94]skipstone -- Web Browser based on Mozilla's embed component.
([95]Bug#196457)
90. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/epic4-script-splitfire.html
91. http://bugs.debian.org/196473
92. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libzvt2.0-0.html
93. http://bugs.debian.org/195969
94. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/skipstone.html
95. http://bugs.debian.org/196457
Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this newsletter.
We still need more volunteer writers who investigate the Debian
community and report about events in the community. Please see the
[96]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward
to receiving your mail at [97]dwn@debian.org.
96. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
97. mailto:dwn@debian.org
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