Debian Weekly News - May 31st, 1999
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/current/issue/
Debian Weekly News - May 31st, 1999
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome Debian Weekly News, a newsletter for the Debian developer
community.
Configuration management, a way to store answers to install-time
questions in a database for use later, is an idea that has been
floating around for a long time. There have been detailed
specifications, like [8]Wichert's proposal. However, until recently,
this was all vaporware. Recently, two mostly-complete implementations
of configuration management systems have [9]appeared. Neither of these
are as complete as the as the old proposal. However, they have one big
thing going for them: they are a "small hack which is actually
implemented", not a "ideal hack which has been debated for years and
never implemented".
An [10]article about Linux Expo paints a clear picture of the Debian
presence there: "The Debian booth didn't even have chairs; everyone
sat cross-legged on the floor. But Debian had the best hats and the
best music, and among those who made the Debian booth their De facto
home base at LinuxExpo were several celebrated free software
programmers and hackers". It also features quotes of developer Sean
Perry. But the depressing side of this article is its discussion of
the highly corporate nature of the Expo and the marginalization of the
Free Software community there. "The forlorn groups hidden away back on
poverty row were Linux when Linux wasn't cool"
That ties in with a [11]thread DWN missed last week, a discussion
about whether Debian should spend money on booths at these trade
shows. Most people think a small booth in the back is sufficient, so
long as there are plenty of free CD's to give away.
A Debian slide show is under development. The [12]first version is
aimed at Linux newbies.
The Debian JP project continues to merge more packages into Debian.
Here is a [13]rather frightening long list of packages they intend to
add. DWN was also told that the term of office of the Debian JP
steering team has expired and elections are beginning.
New packages added to Debian this week include the following and
[14]33 more, many of them GNOME-related:
* [15]apcupsd: APC UPS Power Management
* [16]august: Tcl/Tk HTML editor.
* [17]cdcd: Command line or console based CD player
* [18]gcombust: GTK+ based CD mastering and burning program
* [19]gnofin: GNOME financial manager
* [20]gnu-smalltalk: An implementation of Smalltalk-80
* Linux 2.2.9 [[21]headers, [22]kernel image, and [23]source]
* [24]levee: A very small vi clone
* [25]madoka: IRC personal proxy, stationing, logger and bot program
* [26]rxp: A validating XML parser
KDE and GNOME: People still using stable can get [27]updated GNOME
debs for all GNOME packages in unstable. Debian sparc users can now
get [28]unofficial KDE 1.1.1 packages.
Server News:
* samosa.debian.org is now running an i386 build daemon, which will
autobuild i386 .deb's when packages are first built for other
architectures. It's already made quite a few uploads, which
underscores the [29]fact that "'Ports' are no longer ports
anymore, but primary development platforms for many people."
* samosa also has an [30]upload queue running on it, which could be
useful if you're in the US and closer to samosa than master.
Thanks to Katsura S. Yoshio and Christian Meder for [31]contributing.
_________________________________________________________________
[33]Back issues of this newsletter are available.
Debian Weekly News is edited by [34]Joey Hess.
_________________________________________________________________
References
8. http://www.debian.org/~wakkerma/config6/
9. http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-devel-9905/msg01900.html
10. http://www.techsightings.com/cgi-bin/ts_review.pl?317
11. http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-devel-9905/msg01487.html
12. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/1999/22/mail#1
13. http://www.debian.or.jp/Lists-Archives/debian-devel/199905/msg00411.html
14. http://master.debian.org/~tausq/newpkgs.html
15. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/utils/apcupsd.html
16. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/editors/august.html
17. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/sound/cdcd.html
18. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/otherosfs/gcombust.html
19. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/utils/gnofin.html
20. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/interpreters/gnu-smalltalk.html
21. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/devel/kernel-headers-2.2.9.html
22. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/base/kernel-image-2.2.9.html
23. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/devel/kernel-source-2.2.9.html
24. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/editors/levee.html
25. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/net/madoka.html
26. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/rxp.html
27. http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-user-9905/msg03598.html
28. http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-sparc-9905/msg00201.html
29. http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-devel-9905/msg02302.html
30. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/1999/22/mail#2
31. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
33. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/
34. mailto:joeyh@debian.org
--
see shy jo
Reply to: