Debian Project News - December 8th, 2010
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The Debian Project http://www.debian.org/
Debian Project News debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
December 8th, 2010 http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2010/17/
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Welcome to this year's seventeenth issue of DPN, the newsletter for the
Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:
* Updated Debian GNU/Linux: 5.0.7 released
* Debian WWW Sprint
* ZFS support in "Squeeze"
* Interview with Debian Developer Colin Watson
* Further "This week in Debian" interviews
* ... and much more.
Updated Debian GNU/Linux: 5.0.7 released
----------------------------------------
A new update for Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 [1] "Lenny" has been released.
Due to an issue with the preparation, the linux-2.6 [2] packages
included in this point release do not incorporate the security fixes
released in DSA 2110-1 [3]. DSA 2126-1 [4], which has just been
released, includes the updates from both DSA 2110-1 [5] and the
linux-2.6 packages from this point release. All other recent security
updates have been added as well as some fixes for critical issues. New
CD and DVD images as well as update CDs and DVDs are available.
1 : http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101127
2 : http://packages.debian.org/src:linux-2.6
3 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2110
4 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2126
5 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2110
Debian WWW Sprint
-----------------
Gerfried Fuchs announced an upcoming Debian WWW Sprint [6] to finalise
the last bits that are needed to get the new design for the website
happening. The sprint will happen on the weekend of December 17 to 19 in
Vienna, Austria. People interested in attending with a somewhat firm
knowledge of CSS are welcome to get in contact as soon as possible. A
preliminary agenda [7] for the meeting is available.
6 : http://lists.debian.org/20101129165411.GA16334@anguilla.debian.or.at
7 : http://wiki.debian.org/Sprints/2010/WwwSprint
ZFS support in "Squeeze"
------------------------
Robert Millan is pleased to announce that the last missing patch for ZFS
support has been added [8]to the official Installer. This updates the
already existing ZFS integration into the Debian Installer [10] we
relayed less than two months ago [11].
This means that Debian "Squeeze" will be one of the first GNU
distributions to support ZFS.
8 : http://robertmh.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/about-zfs-in-squeeze-2/
10 : http://robertmh.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/about-zfs-in-squeeze/
11 : http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2010/14/#13
Interview with Debian Developer Colin Watson
--------------------------------------------
Raphaël Hertzog published an interview with long-time Debian Developer
Colin Watson [12], who has been taking care of man-db for more than ten
years. He has done a lot of work on the debian-installer [13],
especially the partitioner, and plans to design a new interface to
handle disk naming consistently for "Wheezy" . He also works on GRUB 2,
which may be the best opportunity to "reduce the need for the current
mass of boot loaders" . Colin Watson also provides information about
Ubuntu and what persons he admires most among Debian developers.
12 : http://raphaelhertzog.com/2010/11/25/people-behind-debian-colin-watson/
13 : http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer
Further "This week in Debian" interviews
----------------------------------------
Since the last issue of the Debian Project News, two new issues of the
[14] "This week in Debian" podcast have been published: with Lars
Wirzenius [15], author of Debian's Upstream Guide and member of the
Front Desk project; and with Jeremiah Foster [16], discussing Maemo and
Debian derivatives.
14 : http://wiki.debian.org/ThisWeekInDebian
15 : http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-9
16 : http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-10
Other news
----------
Final and official dates [17] for DebConf11 have been published: DebCamp
will be held from July 17 to 23 2011, followed by DebConf from July 24
to 30, in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
17 : http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20101130.222843.ea312c68.en.html
Petter Reinholdtsen produced some statistics of distribution usage [18]
from almost 100,000 computers registered with popularity-contest [19]:
more than 60% of them are running "Lenny" , the current stable release.
18 : http://lists.debian.org/2flwro8mrlg.fsf@login2.uio.no
19 : http://popcon.debian.org/
Paul Wise sent an update about the Debian derivatives front desk [20],
reporting about what has already been achieved, and sharing thoughts
about what could be done in the future. He proposes quarterly
derivatives meeting on IRC and annual face-to-face meetings at DebConf,
and also invites updates of the census of Debian derivatives [21].
20 : http://lists.debian.org/AANLkTik_y3OPn_qReDEkpYRBT73pBGSD3jB8vAbHkCeM@mail.gmail.com
21 : http://wiki.debian.org/Derivatives/Census
New Debian Contributors
-----------------------
4 applicants have been accepted [22] as Debian Developers, 4 applicants
have been accepted [23] as Debian Maintainers, and 7 people have started
to maintain packages [24] since the previous issue of the Debian Project
News. Please welcome Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals, Sebastian Reichel,
Jonathan Wiltshire, Michael Hanke, Michael Gilbert, Aron Xu, Christian
Hofstaedtler, Lisandro Damián Nicanor Pérez Meyerand, Mathieu
Trudel-Lapierre, Andreas Rönnquist, Tim Gokcen, Daniel Stender, Iker
Salmón San Millán, Hector Oron and Kilian Valkhof into our project!
22 : https://nm.debian.org/nmlist.php#newmaint
23 : http://lists.debian.org/E1PPW3u-00019d-Oj@franck.debian.org
24 : http://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/new-maintainers.cgi
Release-critical bugs statistics for the upcoming release
---------------------------------------------------------
According to the Bugs Search interface of the Ultimate Debian Database
[25], the upcoming release, Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" , is currently
affected by 246 release-critical bugs. Ignoring bugs which are easily
solved or on the way to being solved, roughly speaking, about 79
release-critical bugs remain to be solved for the release to happen.
25 : http://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi
Alexander also noted that the number of release-critical bugs needing to
be solved in "Squeeze" dropped by a stunning 40 bugs in just one week
[26]!
26 : http://blog.schmehl.info/2010/12/06#2010-48-wow
There are also more detailed statistics [27] as well as some hints on
how to interpret [28] these numbers.
27 : http://blog.schmehl.info/Debian/rc-stats/#2010-48
28 : http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/RC-Stats
Important Debian Security Advisories
------------------------------------
Debian's Security Team recently released advisories for these packages
(among others): openssl [29], linux-2.6 [30], wireshark [31], libxml2
[32], and krb5 [33]. Please read them carefully and take the proper
measures.
29 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2125
30 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2126
31 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2127
32 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2128
33 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2129
Debian's Backports Team released an advisory for the package: znc [34].
Please read it carefully and take the proper measures.
34 : http://lists.debian.org/4CEBF9AB.9030706@debian.org
Debian's Volatile Team released two update announcements for the
packages: tor [35] and clamav [36]. Please read them carefully and take
the proper measures.
35 : http://lists.debian.org/20101122200627.GA17398@thrall.0x539.de
36 : http://lists.debian.org/20101207185109.GA27733@thrall.0x539.de
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 [37] (and the separate backports
list [38] and volatile list [39]) for announcements.
37 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/
38 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-backports-announce/
39 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-volatile-announce
New and noteworthy packages
---------------------------
The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive
recently (among others [40]):
40 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg
* debian-kernel-handbook -- reference to Debian Linux kernel packages and development [41]
* developers-reference-ja -- guidelines and information for Debian developers, in Japanese [42]
* fcitx-tools -- tools for Free Chinese Input Toy for X (XIM) [43]
* gwibber-service-facebook -- Facebook plugin for Gwibber [44]
* gwibber-service-flickr -- Flickr plugin for Gwibber [45]
* gwibber-service-identica -- Identi.ca plugin for Gwibber [46]
* gwibber-service-twitter -- Twitter plugin for Gwibber [47]
* med-cloud -- Debian Med bioinformatics applications usable in cloud computing [48]
* opennebula -- controller which executes the OpenNebula cluster services [49]
* sciteproj -- project manager for usage with the SciTE editor [50]
* sshuttle -- transparent proxy server for VPN over SSH [51]
* trimage -- GUI and command-line interface to optimize image files [52]
* wicd-kde -- wired and wireless network manager - KDE client [53]
Please note that due to the freeze of the upcoming Debian 6.0 [54] "Squeeze"
acceptance of new packages has almost ceased.
41 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/debian-kernel-handbook
42 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/developers-reference-ja
43 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/fcitx-tools
44 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gwibber-service-facebook
45 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gwibber-service-flickr
46 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gwibber-service-identica
47 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gwibber-service-twitter
48 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/med-cloud
49 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/opennebula
50 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/sciteproj
51 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/sshuttle
52 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/trimage
53 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/wicd-kde
54 : http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20100806
Want to continue reading DPN?
-----------------------------
Please help us create this newsletter. We still need more volunteer
writers to watch the Debian community and report about what is going on.
Please see the contributing page [55] to find out how to help. We're
looking forward to receiving your mail at
debian-publicity@lists.debian.org [56].
55 : http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute
56 : mailto:debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
This issue of Debian Project News was edited by David Prévot and
Alexander Reichle-Schmehl [57].
57 : mailto:debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
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