Debian Weekly News - August 15th, 2006
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/33/
Debian Weekly News - August 15th, 2006
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Welcome to this year's 33rd issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. Debian turns 13 this week, so make sure you find
a [1]party nearby. With enough time compose a melody before the new
release Julien Danjou [2]published his etch song. David Sugar
[3]wondered if the Free Software community should learn to write more
buggy code and invent reasons to reboot the system all the time after
a change has been made in order to be more attractive for the desktop.
1. http://wiki.debian.org/Debian13th
2. http://julien.danjou.info/blog/index.php/2006/08/01/312-etch-song
3. http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/1692
Distribution-wide Tracker Tool. Arnaud Fontaine [4]reported about the
status of Wotomae, the [5]distribution-wide tracker tool. The DWTT is
a tool to easily track changes affecting packages, like a library
transition, a switch of the default Python version or a policy change.
It is written during Google's [6]Summer of Code. A demo website is
also [7]available with most of the features up for testing.
4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2006/08/msg00039.html
5. http://wiki.debian.org/DWTT
6. http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
7. http://netu.naquadah.org:8080/
New Version Naming for Pre-Releases. Martin F. Krafft [8]announced
that the archive software finally supports the use of the tilde ('~')
in version numbers. This special character is intended to be used to
denote pre-releases of software. It is sorted before the zero-length
string, so that version 1.0~rc4-1 will be superseded by the final
version 1.0-1. The build daemon software can't cope with this new
character yet, though.
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/08/msg00006.html
Release Update: First Packages frozen. Andreas Barth [9]announced
that the essential toolchain has been [10]frozen. He is also seeking
input for the release notes and asks library maintainers to talk to
the release team before uploading new packages that may require other
packages to be rebuilt. They are still seeing many uncoordinated
uploads to unstable.
9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/08/msg00005.html
10. http://ftp-master.debian.org/testing/hints/freeze
Status of the Python Transition. Matthias Klose [11]reported that the
default version of Python will soon be changed to version 2.4. He
reported that 90 % of the first batch of bug reports are solved and
that another batch has been filed against all remaining packages that
contain private Python modules, which mostly need to be byte-compiled
again. The preliminary [12]documentation explains the scripts running
during this change.
11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/08/msg00004.html
12. http://people.debian.org/~doko/tmp/python-rtupdate.txt
Debian turns 13. On August 16th, 1993 Ian Murdock [13]announced a new
type of distribution and listed the goals he wanted to achieve. 13
years later the Debian community will [14]celebrate this birthday
around the world. A lot has happened since Ian's first mail: The
project is lead by its ninth leader and more than a thousand
developers are registered to work voluntarily on one of the largest
distributions of Free Software.
13. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.development/msg/a32d4e2ef3bcdcc6?output=gplain
14. http://wiki.debian.org/Debian13th
Project Leader Report. Anthony Towns published a new [15]report in
which he resumes the past. Steve McIntyre has been added to the leader
alias and helps managing the project. He reported about two women who
became developers recently, thanked the organisers of this year's
[16]Debian conference, explained delays for the next stable update,
and reported on a meeting with the Australian Attorney-General's
department regarding the drafting of changes to the Australian
copyright act.
15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/08/msg00007.html
16. http://www.debian.org/events/2006/0514-debconf
Debian-Installer Etch Beta 3 Released. Frans Pop [17]announced the
release of the third beta release of the installer for Debian
GNU/Linux etch. It is the first release to install the AMD64
architecture from official Debian mirrors and to use and install the
2.6.16 kernel. 2.6 is now the default kernel for the [18]Sparc,
[19]MIPS, [20]little endian MIPS and [21]S/390 architectures.
Installation CDs, other media and detailed errata are [22]available.
All changes are documented in the development version of the
[23]installation guide.
17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/08/msg00009.html
18. http://www.debian.org/devel/ports/sparc
19. http://www.debian.org/devel/ports/mips
20. http://www.debian.org/devel/ports/mipsel
21. http://www.debian.org/devel/ports/s390
22. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
23. http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
* DSA 1146: [24]krb5 -- Privilege escalation.
* DSA 1147: [25]drupal -- Cross-site scripting.
* DSA 1148: [26]gallery -- Several vulnerabilities.
* DSA 1149: [27]ncompress -- Potential code execution.
* DSA 1150: [28]shadow -- Privilege escalation.
* DSA 1151: [29]heartbeat -- Denial of service.
24. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1146
25. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1147
26. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1148
27. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1149
28. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1150
29. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1151
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [30]recently or contain important updates.
30. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main
* [31]biosquid -- Utilities for biological sequence analysis.
* [32]cdrskin -- Burns preformatted data to CD-R or CD-RW via
libburn.
* [33]ceferino -- Action game similar to Super Pang.
* [34]dmenu -- Dynamic menu.
* [35]elfutils -- Collection of utilities to handle ELF objects.
* [36]foff -- X/GTK+ FTP client - Free Open FTP Face.
* [37]kerry -- Beagle desktop search daemon frontend for KDE.
* [38]komparator -- Directories comparator for KDE.
* [39]ksystemlog -- System log viewer tool for KDE.
* [40]omins -- Collection of LADSPA plugins aimed at modular
synthesisers.
* [41]oxine -- Xine OSD (on screen display) GUI.
* [42]pymsnt -- MSN transport for Jabber.
* [43]rest2web -- Web site builder using ReStructured Text as basic
content format.
* [44]rocklight -- Xmms visualisation plugin for Thinklights on IBM
Thinkpads.
* [45]ser -- Sip Express Router, very fast and configurable SIP
proxy.
* [46]serendipity -- Weblog manager with extensive theming and
plugin support.
* [47]svn-autoreleasedeb -- Automatically release/upload Debian
packages from SVN.
* [48]ttf-sil-charis -- Smart Unicode font family for Roman or
Cyrillic-based writing systems.
* [49]ttf-sil-doulos -- Smart Unicode font for Latin and Cyrillic
scripts.
* [50]unsermake -- Tool for generating Makefiles, a replacement for
automake.
* [51]w3c-linkchecker -- W3C Link Checker.
31. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/biosquid
32. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/otherosfs/cdrskin
33. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/ceferino
34. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/dmenu
35. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/elfutils
36. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/foff
37. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kerry
38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/komparator
39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/ksystemlog
40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/omins
41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/oxine
42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/pymsnt
43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/rest2web
44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/rocklight
45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ser
46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/serendipity
47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/svn-autoreleasedeb
48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-sil-charis
49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-sil-doulos
50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/unsermake
51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/w3c-linkchecker
Orphaned Packages. 13 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 338 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]blogtk -- GTK weblogging client. ([54]Bug#382797)
* [55]classworlds -- Java ClassLoader Framework. ([56]Bug#382813)
* [57]cvsps -- Tool to generate CVS patch set information.
([58]Bug#382809)
* [59]d4x -- Graphical download manager. ([60]Bug#382732)
* [61]forrest -- XML based documentation framework. ([62]Bug#382814)
* [63]gnome-extra-icons -- Optional GNOME icons. ([64]Bug#382810)
* [65]groovy -- Agile dynamic language for the Java Virtual Machine.
([66]Bug#382815)
* [67]jswat -- JPDA Java debugger. ([68]Bug#382816)
* [69]jswat2 -- JPDA Java debugger. ([70]Bug#382817)
* [71]libproc-process-perl -- Perl library for accessing process
table information. ([72]Bug#382811)
* [73]mined -- Powerful text editor with extensive Unicode and CJK
support. ([74]Bug#382750)
* [75]mockobjects -- Framework for developing and using mock
objects. ([76]Bug#382818)
* [77]xearth -- Shows a rotating earth on your X root window.
([78]Bug#382654)
53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/blogtk
54. http://bugs.debian.org/382797
55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/libclassworlds-java
56. http://bugs.debian.org/382813
57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/cvsps
58. http://bugs.debian.org/382809
59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/d4x
60. http://bugs.debian.org/382732
61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/forrest
62. http://bugs.debian.org/382814
63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gnome-extra-icons
64. http://bugs.debian.org/382810
65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/groovy
66. http://bugs.debian.org/382815
67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/jswat
68. http://bugs.debian.org/382816
69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/jswat2
70. http://bugs.debian.org/382817
71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libproc-process-perl
72. http://bugs.debian.org/382811
73. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/mined
74. http://bugs.debian.org/382750
75. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/libmockobjects-java
76. http://bugs.debian.org/382818
77. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/xearth
78. http://bugs.debian.org/382654
Removed Packages. 15 packages have been [79]removed from the Debian
archive during the past week:
79. http://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.txt
* libjpeg-mmx -- Development files for the IJG JPEG library with MMX
optimisation
[80]Bug#158474: Request of QA, RC-buggy, security-buggy, orphaned,
upstream gone
* uncc -- C decompiler for i386
[81]Bug#314672: Request of QA, orphaned, unusable
* acidlab -- Analysis Console for Intrusion Databases
[82]Bug#319389: Request of maintainer, superseded by acidbase
* xcircuit -- Draw circuit schematics or almost anything
[83]Bug#323678: Request of QA, orphaned, RC-buggy
* swt-pocketpc -- Standard Widget Toolkit for PocketPC JAR library
[84]Bug#324778: Request of QA: orphaned, out of date, non-free,
few users
* nsmon -- Intranet/Internet server checker
[85]Bug#327623: Request of QA, orphaned, no upstream, better
alternatives
* qglviewer -- Qt/OpenGL-based viewing widget
[86]Bug#348793: Request of QA: orphaned, upstream gone, out of
date
* psys -- P-system emulation libraries for Chipmunk tools
[development]
[87]Bug#354496: Request of QA, orphaned, unused
* zope-zshell -- Command line interface to Zope
[88]Bug#361018: Request of QA, orphaned, not packaged for current
Zope
* eroaster -- GNOME CD burning frontend
[89]Bug#364280: Request of QA, orphaned, RC-buggy
* rfb -- VNC Server for X11 - exports current display
[90]Bug#364347: Request of QA, orphaned, no upstream, alternatives
available
* ri -- Emacs interface for ri1.6
[91]Bug#367006: Request of maintainer, ruby1.6 removal, RC-buggy
* animal -- AN IMAging Library written in C
[92]Bug#369209: Request of QA, obsolete, orphaned, alternatives
exist
* yank -- Yet another note keeper
[93]Bug#374129: Request of QA, unmaintained, buggy, old, has
replacements
* ruby1.6 -- Curses interface for Ruby 1.6.x
[94]Bug#378111: Request of maintainer, obsolete
80. http://bugs.debian.org/158474
81. http://bugs.debian.org/314672
82. http://bugs.debian.org/319389
83. http://bugs.debian.org/323678
84. http://bugs.debian.org/324778
85. http://bugs.debian.org/327623
86. http://bugs.debian.org/348793
87. http://bugs.debian.org/354496
88. http://bugs.debian.org/361018
89. http://bugs.debian.org/364280
90. http://bugs.debian.org/364347
91. http://bugs.debian.org/367006
92. http://bugs.debian.org/369209
93. http://bugs.debian.org/374129
94. http://bugs.debian.org/378111
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 [95]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [96]dwn@debian.org.
95. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
96. mailto:dwn@debian.org
This issue of Debian Weekly News was edited by Mohammed Adnène
Trojette and Martin 'Joey' Schulze.
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