Debian Weekly News - May 29th, 2006
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/22/
Debian Weekly News - May 29th, 2006
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Welcome to this year's 22nd issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. Joey Hess has produced a [1]detailed
explanation and HOWTO for secure apt in Debian. Martin Michlmayr
[2]reported about this year's [3]FOSDEM event and noted that there
seems to be a six month delay before a new applicant is assigned an
Application Manager which hinders the big-endian ARM port.
1. http://wiki.debian.org/SecureApt
2. http://www.cyrius.com/journal/travel/crazy-fosdem
3. http://www.debian.org/events/2006/0225-fosdem
Creating a Debian Layout for Desktops. Luis Matos [4]asked for a
Debian theme layout to [5]improve the [6]user experience of the
Debian desktop. The theme should include a background image, splash
screens and [7]icons. He also proposed a guided contest to be
organised.
4. http://bugs.debian.org/368594
5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-desktop/2006/05/msg00007.html
6. http://bugs.debian.org/288393
7. http://bugs.debian.org/368599
Debian IRC moving to OFTC. Steve McIntyre [8]announced that the
Debian project will move the Alias irc.debian.org over to the [9]Open
and Free Technology Community (OFTC) network on June 4th, since many
discussions have been moved to OFTC already. OFTC is also a sister
organisation of Debian, as both are supported and represented by
[10]Software in the Public Interest, Inc. The Debian project has been
using the [11]Freenode IRC network for many years.
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/05/msg00012.html
9. http://www.oftc.net/
10. http://www.spi-inc.org/
11. http://freenode.net/
Debian Projects accepted for Summer of Code. Baruch Even [12]reported
that nine Debian projects have been accepted for Google's [13]Summer
of Code. The plan is that students who have a blog or setup one for
the Summer of Code will be added to [14]Planet Debian so everyone can
follow their progress on their quest to help Debian improve.
12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/05/msg00263.html
13. http://code.google.com/soc/
14. http://planet.debian.org/
Optimising the Boot Time. Margarita Manterola [15]gave a talk at
[16]DebConf6 about possible improvements to the booting of Debian
systems. From her conclusions and audiences remarks, she [17]wondered
if init scripts could use [18]dash instead of bash (it saves a 10 % of
boot time) and [19]asked about the necessity of running depmod at
boot-time. As a result, Marco d'Itri [20]proposed to remove depmod
from the [21]module-init-tools init script.
15. https://debconf6.debconf.org/comas/general/proposals/77
16. http://www.debian.org/events/2006/0514-debconf
17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/05/msg02063.html
18. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/shells/dash
19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/05/msg02081.html
20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/05/msg02487.html
21. http://packages.debian.org/module-init-tools
Supporting Solaris/i386. Eras Benson [22]provided a patch for [23]dpkg
to support a Solaris-based system since [24]Sun Microsystems Inc. has
opened up its kernel. In response Josselin Mouette [25]wondered
whether the legal situation of dpkg being linked with a
GPL-incompatible C library has been fixed. Russ Allbery [26]explained
that the special exception of the [27]GNU GPL that allows linking and
distribution against a GPL-incompatible library only applies if the
binaries are not accompanied with the operating system itself.
22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/04/msg00064.html
23. http://packages.debian.org/dpkg
24. http://www.sun.com/
25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/04/msg00067.html
26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/04/msg00081.html
27. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
Debian Project at FrOSCon. Martin Zobel-Helas [28]reported that the
Debian project will be participating in the [29]Free and Open Source
Conference (FrOSCon) to be held on the 24th and 25th of June in Sankt
Augustin (Germany). On the 24th there will be a Debian sub-conference.
Martin is seeking speakers who want to deliver talks about Debian
itself and Debian technologies in particular.
28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu/2006/05/msg00009.html
29. http://www.froscon.org/wiki/FrOSCon
Creative Commons 3.0 License Suite Draft. Evan Prodromou [30]announced
that there is a [31]public draft of the [32]Creative Commons 3.0
license suite. Evan asserted that the main changes to these licenses
has been to bring them in line with the [33]DFSG and to make at least
the Attribution and Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licenses compatible
with the DFSG and acceptable for Debian.
30. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/05/msg00102.html
31. http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2006-May/003557.html
32. http://www.creativecommons.org/
33. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
Bug Squashing Marathon. Martin Zoble-Helas [34]announced three bug
squashing [35]parties with particular themes to be organised this fall
in order to help the release of [36]etch. In August the
[37]debian-installer shall be tested and bugs in the installation
process shall be fixed. In September upgrades from pre-release etch
and sarge are to be reviewed and remaining bugs shall be fixed. In
October the remaining bugs in core packages shall be fixed. He is
seeking [38]hosting for at least two of these parties.
34. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/05/msg00014.html
35. http://wiki.debian.org/BSPMarathon
36. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/
37. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
38. http://wiki.debian.org/HostingBSP
Release Goals for Etch. Andreas Barth [39]announced changed in the
release plan for [40]etch. Approved release goals are the use of GCC
4.1, LSB 3.1 compatibility, SELinux support, pervasive IPv6 and large
file support and a new Python framework. June 15th is the last chance
to switch to GCC 4.1 and Python 2.4, and on July 30th the essential
toolchain and the kernel are to be frozen in order to be able to
release in December.
39. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/05/msg00015.html
40. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
* DSA 1074: [41]mpg123 -- Arbitrary code execution.
* DSA 1075: [42]awstats -- Arbitrary command execution.
* DSA 1076: [43]lynx -- Denial of service.
* DSA 1077: [44]lynx-ssl -- Denial of service.
* DSA 1078: [45]tiff -- Denial of service.
* DSA 1079: [46]MySQL 4.0 -- Several vulnerabilities.
* DSA 1080: [47]dovecot -- Directory traversal.
* DSA 1081: [48]libextractor -- Arbitrary code execution.
* DSA 1082: [49]Linux 2.4.17 -- Several vulnerabilities.
41. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1074
42. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1075
43. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1076
44. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1077
45. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1078
46. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1079
47. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1080
48. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1081
49. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1082
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [50]recently or contain important updates.
50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main
* [51]locales-all -- GNU C Library: Precompiled locale data.
51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/locales-all
Orphaned Packages. 10 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 297 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [52]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. To find out which orphaned packages are
installed on your system the wnpp-alert program from devscripts may be
helpful.
52. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
* [53]animal -- AN IMAging Library written in C. ([54]Bug#369209)
* [55]ascpu -- AfterStep look & feel CPU statistics monitor tool.
([56]Bug#369069)
* [57]asmix -- Displays a volume knob. ([58]Bug#369066)
* [59]asmounter -- Monitoring mount points tool. ([60]Bug#369067)
* [61]fvwm-icons -- XPMs for fvwm. ([62]Bug#369068)
* [63]malaga -- System for automatic language analysis.
([64]Bug#369161)
* [65]plucker -- Pluck stuff from the web and read it on your PalmOS
device. ([66]Bug#369095)
* [67]pyching -- Python program to cast and interpret I Ching
hexagrams. ([68]Bug#368820)
* [69]xboing -- Blockout game for X. ([70]Bug#369065)
* [71]xpat2 -- Generic patience game for X11. ([72]Bug#369407)
53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libdevel/libanimal-dev
54. http://bugs.debian.org/369209
55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ascpu
56. http://bugs.debian.org/369069
57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/asmix
58. http://bugs.debian.org/369066
59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/asmounter
60. http://bugs.debian.org/369067
61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/fvwm-icons
62. http://bugs.debian.org/369068
63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/malaga-bin
64. http://bugs.debian.org/369161
65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/otherosfs/plucker
66. http://bugs.debian.org/369095
67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/pyching
68. http://bugs.debian.org/368820
69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/xboing
70. http://bugs.debian.org/369065
71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/xpat2
72. http://bugs.debian.org/369407
Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this newsletter.
We still need more volunteer writers who watch the Debian community
and report about what is going on. Please see the [73]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [74]dwn@debian.org.
73. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
74. mailto:dwn@debian.org
This issue of Debian Weekly News was edited by Luis Matos,
Mohammed Adnène Trojette, Sebastian Feltel, Frederick Noronha and
Martin 'Joey' Schulze.
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