Debian Weekly News - January 27th, 2004
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2004/04/
Debian Weekly News - January 27th, 2004
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Welcome to this year's fourth issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. Ognyan Kulev fixed a long-standing drawback and
released an unofficial [1]patch for the Hurd to finally allow ext2
filesystems with more than 2 GB. Joe Barr was [2]looking for a large
escape key for the brain, a mind-rotting time waster that truly allows
you to escape for a bit. Then he discovered [3]frozen-bubble, but
managed to write his article as well. The February issue of the
Italian [4]Linux Pro magazine contains a snapshot of Debian sarge
(testing) on a DVD or on 4 CDs respectively.
1. http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2004-01/msg00095.html
2. http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/12/02/1252249
3. http://www.frozen-bubble.org/
4. http://www.linuxpro.it/
New deaf portmap Package. Josselin Mouette [5]announced a new
[6]portmap package that doesn't listen on the network by default. The
package has been modified this way since it is installed on a wide
range of desktop boxes without the need to listen to the whole
network, introducing a potential security weakness for desktop users.
5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01512.html
6. http://packages.debian.org/portmap
FOSDEM: Call for Papers. Wouter Verhelst [7]called for papers about
any subjects to be held in the shared developers' room at the upcoming
[8]FOSDEM. Given the general context of the event, which is aimed at
developers rather than users, talks should be of a more or less
technical manner, and should have a duration of about one hour.
7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu-0401/msg00065.html
8. http://www.debian.org/events/2004/0221-fosdem
Removing the Exim Dependency. Marc Haber [9]wondered what to do with
about 50 packages in the archive that still declare a dependency to
[10]exim instead of [11]exim4. Since Exim 3 is no longer supported
upstream, and Exim 4 is the default MTA for sarge he intended to file
wishlist bugs against these packages. However, Exim 4 is not a drop-in
[12]replacement for Exim 3, since it uses a different configuration
file format that cannot be converted in an easy way.
9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01184.html
10. http://packages.debian.org/exim
11. http://packages.debian.org/exim4
12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01190.html
Removing the "operator" User. Colin Watson [13]wanted to know which
home directory should be used for the "operator" user. Historically,
this user existed only to run dumps of the disks and log in remotely
without NIS, NFS and the like. However, since it doesn't have a real
home directory as default, the account didn't [14]provide this
functionality anyway. The discussion [15]persuaded Colin to remove
this user from fresh installations.
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01324.html
14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01626.html
15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01625.html
Amending the Debian Release Process? Lucas Nussbaum [16]proposed to
disregard stable releases and only assign working branches, where
packages would go when the maintainer ask for it, like Raphaël Hertzog
described in his [17]platform. Adrian Bunk [18]objected and explained
that many packages have to go into testing at exactly the same time to
avoid uninstallable packages. He also raised the question of security
support for these snapshots.
16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01366.html
17. http://www.debian.org/vote/2002/platforms/raphael#release1
18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01554.html
Comparing the two General Resolutions. Anthony DeRobertis [19]compared
Raul Miller's [20]draft and Andrew Suffield's proposed [21]general
resolution for amending the [22]social contract. He compares both
proposals sentence by sentence. This should help people to understand
the differences in both intentions.
19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0401/msg01609.html
20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0401/msg01453.html
21. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0401/msg01526.html
22. http://www.debian.org/social_contract
Public Debian GNU/Hurd Machine. Gürkan Sengün [23]announced a public
machine running Debian GNU/Hurd which he has made [24]available.
Interested developers should send him a [25]mail and ask for an
account, if they want to explore Debian GNU/Hurd or test or compile
their packages.
23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd-0401/msg00050.html
24. http://hurd.she.kicks-ass.org:8084/
25. mailto:gurkan@linuks.mine.nu
Installing Debian on Thunderbird mini-ITX. Henry Kingman [26]explained
how to install Debian GNU/Linux on a Lippert Thunderbird mini-ITX
motherboard based on a Pentium-M processor. It is not specifically an
embedded project, but it does present obstacles similar in nature to
those faced by embedded Linux developers working with boards with
relatively new chip sets. The article included descriptions of
starting with the bf24 boot-floppies and setting up X11 and sound.
26. http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT5006522831.html
Linux on Mac Primer. David Mertz [27]explained that Linux isn't only
for x86 boxes, but runs equally well on PowerPC machines. He explained
the reasons why users would want to run Linux on a Mac and evaluated
Debian, Knoppix, Yellow Dog, and Mandrake on the PowerPC. David felt
he couldn't really recommend Debian, mainly because of difficulties he
experienced trying to get X11 working.
27. http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-pmac.html
MD/Software RAID Support in debian-installer. Paul Fleischer
[28]announced that he has been working on getting MD support into
[29]debian-installer. He has prepared a mdadm-udeb package and a mdcfg
udeb package, which contains the debconf stuff needed for setup, and
the necessary block file for partconf. Paul has [30]made the
[31]source packages available, although the process currently fails
when trying to configure a kernel for the system, requiring the user
to install mdadm on the target partition, and retry the operation.
28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0401/msg02298.html
29. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
30. http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0401/msg02337.html
31. http://proguy.dk/d-i/
New Popularity Contest. Bill Allombert [32]announced
[33]popcon.debian.org that contains package usage statistics. If you
want the survey to include information about the software used on your
own machines, simply install the [34]popularity-contest package. Among
other things, the results are used to decide which packages should go
on the installer CD instead of on supplementary discs.
32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-www-0401/msg00266.html
33. http://popcon.debian.org/
34. http://packages.debian.org/popularity-contest
Proper Use of @debian.org Addresses. Michael Banck released the
[35]results of his [36]survey about the proper use of @debian.org
addresses. About one hundred developers responded, which is about one
ninth of the registered developers. Using @debian.org addresses in
relation with Free Software or on personal homepages was clearly
considered to be alright, while uses not connected to Free Software or
just as general purpose email address were quite clearly considered
not alright.
35. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project-0401/msg00051.html
36. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project-0401/msg00011.html
New Standard Text Browser. James Troup [37]announced that he demoted
the text browser [38]lynx from priority standard to optional. The new
standard text browser is now [39]w3m, which features e.g. support for
tables. There were some discussions whether [40]links should have been
promoted instead, but up to now the decision hasn't been reverted.
37. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01727.html
38. http://lynx.isc.org/
39. http://www.w3m.org/
40. http://links.sourceforge.net/
Booting from a USB Stick. Rene Mayrhofer [41]announced a new version
of [42]mkinitrd-cd which supports booting from USB CD-ROM/DVD drives,
USB sticks and USB harddisks. Hence, it is no longer only an
all-in-one package for creating live, bootable CD-ROMs. He wondered if
he should rename the package.
41. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01507.html
42. http://packages.debian.org/mkinitrd-cd
KDE 3.1.5 in unstable. Chris Cheney [43]reported that all components
of KDE 3.1 were uploaded into unstable. However, since the buildd
network hasn't updated their g++ due to its [44]policy to spend as
little time as possible, most packages weren't yet built for other
architectures than IA-32.
43. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01629.html
44. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01652.html
Build Daemon Statistics. Ingo Jürgensmann [45]announced additional
[46]information about the Debian build [47]network. It reads the
wanna-build database and displays it. Additional information was added
about machines for all architectures, including the status, machine
types, CPU and disk specification.
45. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01689.html
46. http://www.buildd.net/
47. http://buildd.debian.org/
Documentation of Source Archives. Henning Makholm [48]noticed that
Debian doesn't ship sufficient [49]documentation about pristine and
other source archives and hence prepared draft text. He is seeking
feedback on the draft and would also like to know where to add it.
48. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg01796.html
49. http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ap-pkg-sourcepkg.html#s-pkg-sourcearchives
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
* [50]GnuPG -- Cryptographic weakness in ElGamal signing keys.
50. http://www.debian.org/security/2004/dsa-429
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [51]recently or contain important updates.
51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main
* [52]baycomepp -- Drivers for the HB9JNX packet radio epp modem.
* [53]baycomusb -- Drivers for the HB9JNX packet radio usb modem.
* [54]cl-rlc -- Common LISP RLC Circuit Simulator.
* [55]convertfs -- In-place filesystem conversion.
* [56]elmo -- Text-based mail-reader supporting SMTP and POP3.
* [57]freefem3d -- Language and solver for partial differential
equations in 3D.
* [58]gpe-contacts -- Contact manager for GPE.
* [59]irda-utils -- IrDA management and handling utilities.
* [60]kodos -- Visual regular expression editor.
* [61]kregexpeditor -- Graphical regular expression editor plugin.
* [62]mell -- Emacs LISP library written by Hiroyuki Komatsu.
* [63]opensc -- SmartCard utilities with support for PKCS#15
compatible cards.
* [64]prime -- Japanese PRedictive Input Method Editor.
* [65]qgis -- Geographic Information System (GIS).
* [66]sary -- Suffix array library (program).
* [67]sipcalc -- Advanced console-based ip subnet calculator.
* [68]slbackup -- Skolelinux Backup system.
* [69]tor -- Anonymous communication system.
52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/baycomepp
53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/baycomusb
54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/cl-rlc
55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/convertfs
56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/elmo
57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/freefem3d
58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/gpe-contacts
59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/irda-utils
60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/kodos
61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kregexpeditor
62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/mell
63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/opensc
64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/prime
65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/qgis
66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/sary
67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/sipcalc
68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/slbackup
69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/tor
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 [70]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [71]dwn@debian.org.
70. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
71. mailto:dwn@debian.org
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