Debian Weekly News - August 23rd, 2005
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2005/34/
Debian Weekly News - August 23rd, 2005
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Welcome to this year's 34th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. The Debian project leader has [1]delegated to
Don Armstrong the authority to make a decision regarding the use of
the Debian trademark by the (as currently named) DCC Alliance. Mick
Weiss [2]thought about setting up [3]torrents for large sets of
data, not only CD and DVD images but also [4]videos.
1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/08/msg00219.html
2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01313.html
3. http://www.debian.org/CD/torrent-cd/
4. http://dc5video.debian.net/
Installing Debian on Sun Blade 150. Nishant Sharma wrote a short
[5]howto on installing Debian on a Sun Blade 150, a 64 bit
workstation based on the UltraSPARC processor. The installation goes
by the book, using the network installer. Since configuring XFree86 is
a bit tricky he provides a proper snippet from the configuration file.
5. http://nishants.net/articles/sunblade150.htm
Kernel Version Dependency. Masanori Goto [6]noticed that building
glibc is not possible on 2.4 kernels anymore due to NPTL threading
support, which requires certain kernel versions. This poses a problem
when more architectures get NPTL support while their buildds still run
Linux 2.4.
6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-glibc/2005/08/msg00558.html
License Incompatibility. Elimar Riesebieter [7]reported that the new
version of [8]moc requires the [9]curl library which itself uses the
[10]OpenSSL library. This poses a problem since moc is licensed under
the [11]GNU GPL which is not compatible with the OpenSSL license.
Torsten Landschoff [12]added that the same has happened to
[13]libldap2 before. Domenico Andreoli seems to be [14]willing to
switch the curl library to [15]GNU TLS.
7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00848.html
8. http://packages.debian.org/moc
9. http://packages.debian.org/libcurl3
10. http://packages.debian.org/libssl0.9.7
11. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00895.html
13. http://packages.debian.org/libldap2
14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01001.html
15. http://packages.debian.org/libgnutls11
Using LSB Init Scripts. Marco d'Itri [16]considered switching the init
scripts of his packages to [17]lsb-base, which required it to be
promoted to priority important. Petter Reinholdtsen [18]provided an
easy way to use the LSB only when it is available. Thomas Hood even
[19]noticed the lack of a progress function. The package lsb-base has
since then been promoted to the priority important, hence, the
provided functions may be used by all init scripts.
16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00854.html
17. http://packages.debian.org/lsb-base
18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00860.html
19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00972.html
Removing transitional Packages. Mohammed Adnène Trojette [20]would
like to remove transitional [21]packages that were required for the
upgrade from woody to sarge, since they are no longer needed for the
upgrade to etch. Steve Langasek [22]explained that skipping a release
is not supported when upgrading and, hence, these transitional
packages are only useless cruft that Debian should strive to get rid
of before the etch release.
20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00869.html
21. http://adn.diwi.org/wiki/index.php/DummyPackagesList
22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00898.html
Problematic cyclic Dependencies. Lars Wirzenius [23]noticed while
working on [24]piuparts that [25]dpkg isn't able to remove some
packages, that [26]turned out to have cyclic dependencies. In this
case the removal script calls a program from the other package that is
already removed, which results in a failure.
23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00925.html
24. http://packages.debian.org/piuparts
25. http://packages.debian.org/dpkg
26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00926.html
Report from the first Debian Conference India. Sundara Nagarajan wrote
a [27]report about the first [28]Debian Conference India. Ramakrishnan
Muthukrishnan and Ganesan Rajagopal spoke about the Debian philosophy,
process and their experience of becoming Debian contributors. Ganesan
also brought up his vision for integrating and merging other
India-based free and open source projects with Debian.
27. http://www.debian.org/events/2005/0820-debconf-india-report
28. http://www.debian.org/events/2005/0820-debconf-india
Closing old Bug Reports. Hamish Moffatt [29]wondered when it is
appropriate to close bug reports for a package that is only around in
woody (alias oldstable). Steve Langasek [30]explained how the commands
notfound, found and close work with the new version [31]tracking and
Gustavo Franco [32]contributed a link to a [33]quick reference.
29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2005/08/msg00062.html
30. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2005/08/msg00068.html
31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/07/msg00010.html
32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2005/08/msg00064.html
33. http://women.alioth.debian.org/wiki/index.php/English/NewBTSHowTo
Automatic Installation and Purging. Lars Wirzenius is [34]running
[35]piuparts against etch and has discovered a lot of bugs that he
would like to report properly. This effort was widely [36]appreciated
among readers. Petter Reinholdtsen [37]wondered if this work could be
extended to test upgrades from woody to sarge and from sarge to etch.
34. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01133.html
35. http://packages.debian.org/piuparts
36. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01134.html
37. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01182.html
Digital Signatures for Bug Handling? Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña
had to [38]reopen a bug report that was accidently closed by a spam
message. He proposed to start thinking about implementing
authentication checks in the [39]bug tracking system. While
contributors were not opposed to this idea, they [40]asked not to
depend on only valid signatures from Debian developers.
38. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01106.html
39. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/
40. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01124.html
Shared Library Package Naming. Junichi Uekawa [41]reported that the
way to decide which -dev package accompanies which runtime library
package is to heuristically look at the Packages file to investigate
what packages are generated from the same source. Steve Langasek
[42]explained several options on how to deal with this in connection
with [43]libtool.
41. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01433.html
42. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01440.html
43. http://packages.debian.org/libtool
LDAP Gateway to the Bug Tracking System. Andreas Barth [44]announced
that the LDAP gateway to the [45]bug tracking system (BTS) is running
on master again, on port 10101. It had to be [46]turned off on the
machine running the BTS due to horsepower limitations since it also
runs the archive as a temporary measurement.
44. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01556.html
45. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/
46. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01469.html
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
* DSA 777: [47]mozilla -- Frame injection spoofing vulnerability.
* DSA 778: [48]mantis -- Several vulnerabilities.
* DSA 779: [49]mozilla-firefox -- Several vulnerabilities.
* DSA 780: [50]kdegraphics -- Denial of service.
* DSA 781: [51]mozilla-thunderbird -- Several vulnerabilities.
* DSA 782: [52]bluez-utils -- Arbitrary command execution.
47. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-777
48. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-778
49. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-779
50. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-780
51. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-781
52. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-782
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [53]recently or contain important updates.
53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main
* [54]crystalcursors -- X11 mouse theme with the crystal look&feel.
* [55]dconf -- Collect system information.
* [56]feed2imap -- Feed aggregator (RSS/Atom) which puts items on a
IMAP mail server.
* [57]gnome-schedule -- GNOME scheduler for automatic tasks.
* [58]inadyn -- Client to alleviate the requirements for an Internet
name.
* [59]input-utils -- Utilities for the input layer of the Linux
kernel.
* [60]kasumi -- Simple dictionary utility for Anthy.
* [61]ldapscripts -- Add and remove user and groups (stored in a
LDAP directory).
* [62]nzb -- Usenet binary grabber.
* [63]sbackup -- Simple backup suite for desktop use.
* [64]soundstretch -- Stretches and pitch-shifts sound
independently.
* [65]turkey -- Dummy text generator.
* [66]twinkle -- Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) SIP Phone.
* [67]ufraw -- Standalone importer for raw camera images.
* [68]vde -- Virtual distributed ethernet.
* [69]vym -- View your mind.
54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/crystalcursors
55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/dconf
56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/feed2imap
57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gnome-schedule
58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/inadyn
59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/input-utils
60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/kasumi
61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/ldapscripts
62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/nzb
63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/sbackup
64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/soundstretch
65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/turkey
66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/twinkle
67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/ufraw
68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/vde
69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/vym
Orphaned Packages. 11 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 190 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [70]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.
70. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
* [71]fv -- Tool for viewing and editing FITS format files.
([72]Bug#323469)
* [73]ifhp -- Printer filter for HP LaserJet printers.
([74]Bug#323471)
* [75]kernel-patch-2.4-kgdb -- GDB debugging for the kernel.
([76]Bug#323441)
* [77]memprof -- Memory profiler and leak detector. ([78]Bug#324607)
* [79]mgm -- HTML documentation for MGM. ([80]Bug#323677)
* [81]mindterm -- Java SSH client that can be used as a web applet.
([82]Bug#323802)
* [83]mozilla-locale-it -- Mozilla Italian Language/Region Package.
([84]Bug#324484)
* [85]psrip -- Extract images from PostScript files.
([86]Bug#323475)
* [87]rioutil -- Talk to USB based Diamond MM products.
([88]Bug#323477)
* [89]xcircuit -- Draw circuit schematics or almost anything.
([90]Bug#323678)
* [91]xed -- Standard text editor for X. ([92]Bug#323679)
71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/fv
72. http://bugs.debian.org/323469
73. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ifhp
74. http://bugs.debian.org/323471
75. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/kernel-patch-2.4-kgdb
76. http://bugs.debian.org/323441
77. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/memprof
78. http://bugs.debian.org/324607
79. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/mgm
80. http://bugs.debian.org/323677
81. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/mindterm
82. http://bugs.debian.org/323802
83. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/mozilla-locale-it
84. http://bugs.debian.org/324484
85. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/psrip
86. http://bugs.debian.org/323475
87. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/rioutil
88. http://bugs.debian.org/323477
89. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/xcircuit
90. http://bugs.debian.org/323678
91. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/xed
92. http://bugs.debian.org/323679
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 [93]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [94]dwn@debian.org.
93. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
94. mailto:dwn@debian.org
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