Debian Weekly News - August 9th, 2005
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2005/32/
Debian Weekly News - August 9th, 2005
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Welcome to this year's 32nd issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. Andreas Barth [1]reported that etch has almost
800 release-critical bugs due to small glitches in connection with the
new compiler and asked maintainers to fix their bugs soon.
1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/07/msg00020.html
Risk of a Package Upload. Loïc Minier [2]requested a tool that is
able to display the risk of an upload at build time. This would help
when transitions are in place or when a lot other packages [3]wait
for a fulfilled dependency in order to enter testing, where a new
upload would cause the quarantine to be reset and may cause more
problems than it solves.
2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2005/08/msg00001.html
3. http://bjorn.haxx.se/debian/stalls.html
GNUstep, FHS and Debian. Eric Heintzmann [4]wondered how to continue
maintaining GNUstep in Debian since its directory layout is not
compatible with the [5]Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) and
upstream developers don't want to change the layout. He had to admit
that he's not able to make GNUstep FHS compliant without breaking it.
4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2005/07/msg00128.html
5. http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
Debian Core Consortium. Florian Weimer [6]wondered how the [7]Debian
Core Consortium was related to the Debian project. Ian Murdock
[8]explained that it won't be called that way and refers to a group
of companies and non-profit organisations that build Debian
derivatives. The goal is to build a common core that is 100 % Debian.
6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/07/msg00202.html
7. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1836184,00.asp
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/07/msg00216.html
MySQL Transition Plan. Christian Hammers [9]proposed to use version
4.1 as default and drop version 4.0, since version 5.0 has been
uploaded into experimental. This would require 75 packages to be
rebuilt as [10]libmysqlclient12 would disappear from the archive.
Andreas Barth [11]appreciated to reduce the number of MySQL-packages
in Debian, but adding more transitions at the moment would call for
trouble.
9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2005/07/msg00145.html
10. http://packages.debian.org/libmysqlclient12
11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2005/08/msg00000.html
GNOME Transition. Andreas Barth [12]reported that a reasonable part of
the Debian archive requires GNOME 2.10 in etch before these packages
can enter etch themselves. Maintainers should not upload new versions
of such packages so the quarantine won't be reset. Nathanael Nerode,
however, [13]asserted that the GNOME won't happen for quite a while
since it needs to wait for the X.Org transition.
12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2005/08/msg00003.html
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2005/08/msg00011.html
Debian Science Group. Helen Faulkner [14]announced the creation of the
[15]debian-science mailing list. It is aimed to encourage discussions
about how best to [16]use Debian as an operating system for scientific
research and how to improve Debian by making it more useful to
scientists and people working in related fields. It should also
provide an address for scientists where they can ask questions about
Debian or software in Debian and get useful answers.
14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01555.html
15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-science/
16. http://wiki.debian.net/?DebianScience
X Strike Force moving forward. David Nusinow [17]reported about the
release of X.Org 6.9. He has ported all but one patch from the Debian
package for version 6.8 to the new version, which only took about half
a week due to the new quilt-based [18]patch system. He's going to
begin work on 7.0 as soon as 6.9 hits experimental.
17. http://www.livejournal.com/users/gravityboy/17763.html
18. http://www.livejournal.com/users/gravityboy/17175.html
Mass Installation in Vienna. The Vienna city council [19]reported
about the city of Vienna providing a customised version of Debian with
KDE ("Wienux") for the 18,000 desktop computers of the city. It is up
to the individual workers, though, to choose if they prefer a KDE
Desktop or something else. The officials expect only a few hundred
GNU/Linux machines in the first year, but have found out that more
than 4 thousand computers could run the free operating system.
19. http://www.magwien.gv.at/vtx/vtx-rk-xlink?SEITE=020050705010
Debian mourns the loss of Jens Schmalzing. Jens (also known as jensen)
[20]died on July 30th in a tragic accident at his workplace in Munich,
Germany. He was involved in Debian as a maintainer and supporter of
the PowerPC port. As a member of the kernel team he was instrumental
in taking the PowerPC kernel package to version 2.6. He left behind a
wife and three children. The contribution of [21]Jens will be
continued by other developers.
20. http://www.debian.org/News/2005/20050809
21. http://www.theorie.physik.uni-muenchen.de/~jens/
Improving the BTS Interface. Margarita Manterola [22]proposed to have
a friendlier interface to the [23]bug tracking system (BTS) that
allows for bugs to be sorted on the programming language of the code
and the difficulty of solving them. She also [24]explained why
automatically using the debtags [25]information is not sufficient.
22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2005/08/msg00005.html
23. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/
24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2005/08/msg00007.html
25. http://debian.vitavonni.de/packagebrowser/
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
* DSA 772: [26]apt-cacher -- Arbitrary command execution.
26. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-772
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [27]recently or contain important updates.
27. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main
* [28]ant -- Java based build tool like make.
* [29]aqbanking-tool -- Basic command line homebanking utility.
* [30]beagle -- Indexing and search tool for your personal data.
* [31]bsdiff -- Generate/apply a patch between two binary files.
* [32]cowbell -- Easy-to-use tag editor for your music files.
* [33]destar -- Management interface for the Asterisk PBX.
* [34]dhcp-helper -- DHCP relay agent.
* [35]dvdisaster -- Data loss/scratch/aging protection for CD/DVD
medias.
* [36]ffmpeg2theora -- Theora video encoder using ffmpeg.
* [37]freewheeling -- Live looping musical instrument.
* [38]ftpcopy -- FTP clients collection.
* [39]gquilt -- Graphical wrapper for quilt.
* [40]kwalify -- Tiny schema validator for YAML documents.
* [41]lincity-ng -- City simulator game with polished graphics.
* [42]llgal -- Online gallery generator.
* [43]lltag -- Automatic command-line mp3/ogg file tagger.
* [44]mhwaveedit -- Simple and fast GTK2 sound editor.
* [45]msort -- Utility for sorting records in complex ways.
* [46]sendemail -- Email-from-console sending tool.
* [47]sfind -- Improved version of the find utility.
* [48]sim4 -- Tool for aligning cDNA and genomic DNA.
* [49]slate -- Virtual machine for Slate, a high-level programming
language.
* [50]stumpwm -- Window manager written entirely in Common Lisp.
* [51]tailor -- Tool to keep in sync various kinds of repository
(CVS, SVN, ...).
* [52]trayer -- Lightweight GTK2-based systray for UNIX desktop.
* [53]xicc -- Set the ICC colour profile for an X display.
28. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/ant
29. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/aqbanking-tool
30. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/beagle
31. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/bsdiff
32. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/cowbell
33. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/destar
34. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/dhcp-helper
35. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/otherosfs/dvdisaster
36. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/ffmpeg2theora
37. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/freewheeling
38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/ftpcopy
39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gquilt
40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/kwalify
41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/lincity-ng
42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/llgal
43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/lltag
44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/mhwaveedit
45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/msort
46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/sendemail
47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/sfind
48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/sim4
49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/slate
50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/stumpwm
51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/tailor
52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/trayer
53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xicc
Orphaned Packages. 32 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 189 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [54]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.
54. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
* [55]aspseek -- Advanced Internet search engine (Shared library).
([56]Bug#321328)
* [57]bbsload -- System load tool for the blackbox window manager.
([58]Bug#320951)
* [59]bluefish -- Advanced Gtk+ HTML editor. ([60]Bug#322091)
* [61]chastity-list -- Blacklists for SquidGuard. ([62]Bug#321594)
* [63]doxymacs -- E-lisp package for making doxygen usage easier
under Emacs. ([64]Bug#321821)
* [65]epos-ktd -- Czech Epos voices. ([66]Bug#321763)
* [67]epos-lpc -- Czech Epos voices. ([68]Bug#321763)
* [69]epos-ptd -- Czech Epos voices. ([70]Bug#321763)
* [71]gnome-alsamixer -- ALSA sound mixer for GNOME.
([72]Bug#322093)
* [73]gnushogi -- X Window System Japanese Chess (Shogi) Board.
([74]Bug#321334)
* [75]gtk-mist-engine -- A flat theme for GTK+ 1.2. ([76]Bug#320795)
* [77]kdoc -- C++ and IDL Source Documentation System.
([78]Bug#321595)
* [79]ksocrat -- English/Russian and Russian/English Dictionary.
([80]Bug#321596)
* [81]lg-* -- Lg-* - Linux Gazette, 111 packages. ([82]Bug#321795)
* [83]libauthen-pam-perl -- Perl interface to the PAM library.
([84]Bug#322094)
* [85]libauthen-sasl-perl -- Authen::SASL - SASL Authentication
framework. ([86]Bug#322095)
* [87]libconvert-asn1-perl -- Replacement for Convert::BER module.
([88]Bug#322096)
* [89]libconvert-ber-perl -- Perl implementation of Basic Encoding
Rules (BER). ([90]Bug#322097)
* [91]libfcgi-perl -- FastCGI Perl module. ([92]Bug#322098)
* [93]libio-socket-ssl-perl -- Class implementing an object
oriented interface to SSL sockets. ([94]Bug#322099)
* [95]liblingua-ispell-perl -- Perl module encapsulating access to
the ispell program. ([96]Bug#321466)
* [97]libmpeg1 -- MPEG library calls for movie streams.
([98]Bug#321347)
* [99]libnet-google-perl -- Simple OOP-ish interface to the Google
SOAP API. ([100]Bug#322100)
* [101]libnet-ldap-perl -- Client interface to LDAP servers.
([102]Bug#322101)
* [103]rlpr -- Utility for lpd printing without using /etc/printcap.
([104]Bug#321339)
* [105]rxvt -- Multi-lingual VT102 terminal emulator for the X
Window System. ([106]Bug#321340)
* [107]rxvt-beta -- VT102 terminal emulator for the X Window System.
([108]Bug#321341)
* [109]sodipodi -- Vector based drawing program. ([110]Bug#322102)
* [111]squidguard -- Filter, redirector and access controller plug
for Squid. ([112]Bug#321598)
* [113]teg -- Turn based strategy game. ([114]Bug#322103)
* [115]tleds -- Blinks keyboard LEDs indicating TX and RX network
packets. ([116]Bug#321754)
* [117]vgrind -- Runoff preprocessor for program sources.
([118]Bug#321378)
* [119]xruskb -- X localised keyboard switch and autolock.
([120]Bug#321344)
55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/aspseek
56. http://bugs.debian.org/321328
57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/bbsload
58. http://bugs.debian.org/320951
59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/bluefish
60. http://bugs.debian.org/322091
61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/chastity-list
62. http://bugs.debian.org/321594
63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/doxymacs
64. http://bugs.debian.org/321821
65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/epos-ktd
66. http://bugs.debian.org/321763
67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/epos-lpc
68. http://bugs.debian.org/321763
69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/epos-ptd
70. http://bugs.debian.org/321763
71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gnome-alsamixer
72. http://bugs.debian.org/322093
73. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/gnushogi
74. http://bugs.debian.org/321334
75. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/gtk-engines-mist
76. http://bugs.debian.org/320795
77. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/kdoc
78. http://bugs.debian.org/321595
79. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/ksocrat
80. http://bugs.debian.org/321596
81. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/lg-issue100
82. http://bugs.debian.org/321795
83. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libauthen-pam-perl
84. http://bugs.debian.org/322094
85. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libauthen-sasl-perl
86. http://bugs.debian.org/322095
87. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libconvert-asn1-perl
88. http://bugs.debian.org/322096
89. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libconvert-ber-perl
90. http://bugs.debian.org/322097
91. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libfcgi-perl
92. http://bugs.debian.org/322098
93. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libio-socket-ssl-perl
94. http://bugs.debian.org/322099
95. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/liblingua-ispell-perl
96. http://bugs.debian.org/321466
97. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libmpeg1
98. http://bugs.debian.org/321347
99. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libnet-google-perl
100. http://bugs.debian.org/322100
101. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libnet-ldap-perl
102. http://bugs.debian.org/322101
103. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/rlpr
104. http://bugs.debian.org/321339
105. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/rxvt
106. http://bugs.debian.org/321340
107. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/rxvt-beta
108. http://bugs.debian.org/321341
109. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/sodipodi
110. http://bugs.debian.org/322102
111. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/squidguard
112. http://bugs.debian.org/321598
113. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/teg
114. http://bugs.debian.org/322103
115. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/tleds
116. http://bugs.debian.org/321754
117. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/vgrind
118. http://bugs.debian.org/321378
119. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xruskb
120. http://bugs.debian.org/321344
Removed Packages. 24 packages have been [121]removed from the Debian
archive during the past week:
121. http://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.txt
* zed -- Powerful, multipurpose, configurable text editor
[122]Bug#188181: Request of QA, orphaned for more than 2 years,
many alternatives available
* winelib -- WINE bindings for Mono
[123]Bug#316741: Request of Maintainer, obsolete
* decafc -- Compiler for the toy language Decaf
[124]Bug#316767: Request of maintainer, dead upstream
* editex -- MathML editor based on TeX syntax
[125]Bug#317298: Request of maintainer, unsupported upstream,
buggy
* fort -- Framework for OCaml regression testing
[126]Bug#317396: Request of maintainer, unmaintained upstream,
superseded by ounit
* libdbd-ram-perl -- Perl DBI driver for files and data structures
[127]Bug#317409: Request of maintainer: obsolete transitional
package
* isapnptools -- ISA Plug-And-Play configuration utilities.
[128]Bug#318359: Request of maintainer, obsolete (only for kernel
< 2.4)
* vdslib -- View-dependent simplification library.
[129]Bug#318652: Request of maintainer, dead upstream
* panorama -- Framework for 3D graphics production
[130]Bug#318653: Request of maintainer, dead upstream
* libpcap0.9 -- Dummy package, can be safely removed
[131]Bug#318654: Request of maintainer, unneeded new library
* fox -- FOX C++ GUI toolkit
[132]Bug#318677: Request of maintainer, superseded by fox1.{2,4}
* gimp-print -- Gimp-Print printer drivers for CUPS
[133]Bug#318823: Request of maintainer, superseded by gutenprint
* pyxine -- Interface to the xine media player for Python
[134]Bug#319699: Request of maintainer, dead upstream,
alternative: python-gst
* mp3kult -- Organises your MP3 collection in a MySQL database
[135]Bug#239860: Request of maintainer, request of QA, dead
upstream
* gtk+2.0-directfb -- Development files for the GDK backend based on
DirectFB
[136]Bug#317528: Request of maintainer, obsolete
* librudiments0 -- C++ class library providing base classes
[137]Bug#318006: Request of maintainer, superseded by rudiments
* ferite -- A C-like programming language
[138]Bug#320117: Request of maintainer, buggy, hardly used
* zh-sgmltools -- Wrapper for SGMLtools to process Chinese
[139]Bug#189527: Request of QA, orphaned, hardly used
* kernel-patch-acl -- Extended attributes, and ACL kernel-patches
for ext2/ext3
[140]Bug#273930: Request of QA: orphaned, buggy, obsolete
* phtml -- Extension library for PHP
[141]Bug#320853: Request of maintainer, has never been part of a
stable release
* snui -- Simple Network User Information - Client
[142]Bug#320854: Request of maintainer, never part of stable,
untested and of dubious usefulness
* speedtouch -- Userspace driver for the Alcatel Speedtouch USB ADSL
Adapter
[143]Bug#320673: Request of maintainer, obsoleted by newer kernels
* zeiberbude -- Program for administering Internet cafes. (client)
[144]Bug#307543: Request of QA, orphaned, barely used
122. http://bugs.debian.org/188181
123. http://bugs.debian.org/316741
124. http://bugs.debian.org/316767
125. http://bugs.debian.org/317298
126. http://bugs.debian.org/317396
127. http://bugs.debian.org/317409
128. http://bugs.debian.org/318359
129. http://bugs.debian.org/318652
130. http://bugs.debian.org/318653
131. http://bugs.debian.org/318654
132. http://bugs.debian.org/318677
133. http://bugs.debian.org/318823
134. http://bugs.debian.org/319699
135. http://bugs.debian.org/239860
136. http://bugs.debian.org/317528
137. http://bugs.debian.org/318006
138. http://bugs.debian.org/320117
139. http://bugs.debian.org/189527
140. http://bugs.debian.org/273930
141. http://bugs.debian.org/320853
142. http://bugs.debian.org/320854
143. http://bugs.debian.org/320673
144. http://bugs.debian.org/307543
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 [145]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [146]dwn@debian.org.
145. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
146. mailto:dwn@debian.org
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