Debian Project News - November 8th, 2010
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The Debian Project http://www.debian.org/
Debian Project News debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
November 8th, 2010 http://debian.org/News/weekly/2010/15/
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Welcome to this year's fifteenth issue of DPN, the newsletter for the
Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:
* Debian and "Google Code-in 2010"
* Report from openSUSE Conference
* Debian Installer 6.0 Beta1 release
* Minutes from mini-DebConf Paris
* Mini-DebConf in Ho Chi Minh City
* Bits from the Website Team
* Further "This week in Debian" interviews
* ... and much more.
Debian and "Google Code-in 2010"
--------------------------------
After Debian has been successfully participated in the last "Google
Summer of Code" , where Google sponsored students during the summer
holidays to work on specific task for Open Source projects, a new
campaign for pre-university students is now started: theGoogle Code-in
2010 [1]. In this new contest, pre-university students may work on
smaller tasks during one or two weeks, and in the end may win T-Shirts,
money and other prices. Coordination is done again by Obey Arthur Liu
[2], who already started a general wiki page [3] and is now collecting
tasks [4].
1 : http://code.google.com/intl/en/opensource/gci/2010-11/
2 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/10/msg00342.html
3 : http://wiki.debian.org/GoogleCodeIn2010
4 : http://wiki.debian.org/GoogleCodeIn2010/Tasks
Report from openSUSE Conference
-------------------------------
Gerfried Fuchs sent a report [5] of the openSUSE Conference [6] where
she has been representing Debian through a talk about "Debian - The
Project and its Resources" whoseslides [7] are available. One topic
raised was about package naming schemes, sometimes diverting from
upstream for consistency reasons, so inter-distribution tools would
require some layer to map the package name from one distribution to
another.
5 : http://lists.debian.org/20101027075154.GA29575@anguilla.debian.or.at
6 : http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Conference
7 : http://deb.li/DebSuSE
Debian Installer 6.0 Beta1 release
----------------------------------
The first beta release of the installer for Debian Squeeze has been
released on October 30th, 2010 [8]. This release is dedicated to Frans
Pop, who was heavily involved in several aspects of Debian Installer
until he passed away [9], and whose loss is deeply regretted.
8 : http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/News/2010/20101030
9 : http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20100831
Many improvements are added in this release of the installer: new
platforms (Marvell GuruPlug and OpenRD-Ultimate for example), isohybrid
images, and 67 languages are supported, and many more. The errata [10]
gather details and a full list of known issues. You are welcome to test
the installer and report bugs; media and other information are available
on the Debian Installer pages [11]. Especially, the new Win32-Loader
should be tested on all Windows versions for all languages.
10 : http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/errata
11 : http://www.debian.org//devel/debian-installer
Minutes from mini-DebConf Paris
-------------------------------
The first mini-DebConf Paris [12] has just been held a week ago in the
PPS laboratory of Université Paris 7. According to Stefano Zacchiroli,
it was a complete success [13] gathering about 150 people from all over
Europe. Stefano finalized the Debian Sprint Program [14], and Lucas
Nussbaum [15] worked on UDD [16] and his piuparts replacement [17]
between two [18] talks [19]. The Bug Squashing Party [20] also permitted
to close (and fill) some bugs.
12 : http://fr2010.mini.debconf.org/
13 : http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/10/mini_debconf_paris_-_success/
14 : http://wiki.debian.org/Sprints
15 : http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/blog/?p=593
16 : http://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi
17 : http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/collab-qa/debcluster/scripts/tasks/instest.rb
18 : http://www.loria.fr/~lnussbau/files/minidebconfparis2010-debian-ubuntu.pdf
19 : http://www.loria.fr/~lnussbau/files/minidebconfparis2010-debian-qa.pdf
20 : http://wiki.debian.org/BSP2010/Paris
Mini-DebConf in Ho Chi Minh City
--------------------------------
For the first time in Vietnam, the fifth mini-DebConf in Asia [21] will
be held during FOSSASIA 2010 in Ho Chi Minh City on November 12-14,
2010. The mini-DebConf will feature talks from different Debian
Developers and contributers covering technical, social and policy
topics, as well as a translation workshop to foster the Vietnamese
translation community and to teach how to translate in Debian. More
information is available at the organisation page [22].
21 : http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101102
22 : http://wiki.debian.org/DebianVietnam/MiniDebConf2010
Bits from the Website Team
--------------------------
Gerfried Fuchs sent some Bits from the Website Team [23] in which she
summarized the recent activities of the team. Besides announcing that
www-master was recently moved to another host, she reported the progress
made in the website redesign process. Since several months, in fact,
Gerfried Fuchs and Martin Zobel-Helas are working on implementing the
Kalle Söderman's proposal [24] for the new website design across
different sites and there are already available several previews:
www.deb.at [25], debienna.at [26], dsa.debian.org [27], git.deb.at [28],
lists.deb.at [29], packages.deb.at [30], and planet.deb.at [31]. You can
follow the further progress on the related wiki page [32] and help the
team testing new design with different web browser. The mail ends with a
call for further contributors, which are always welcome. A lot of
different things need to get done, and not all of them require specific
skills.
23 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2010/11/msg00001.html
24 : http://kalleswork.net/projects/debian/
25 : http://www.deb.at/
26 : http://debienna.at
27 : http://dsa.debian.org/
28 : http://git.deb.at/
29 : http://lists.deb.at/
30 : http://packages.deb.at/
31 : http://planet.deb.at/
32 : http://wiki.debian.org/KallesDesign
Further "This week in Debian" interviews
-----------------------------------------
Since the last issue of the Debian Project News, four new issues of the
[33] "This week in Debian" podcast have been published: with Axel
Beckert [34], member of the kFreeBSD Project; with Samuel Thibault [35],
member of Debian's accessibility team; with Moritz Muehlenhoff [36],
member of the Security Team from the Debian Project; and with Niels
Thykier [37], maintainer of the Eclipse Package and Java Package.
33 : http://wiki.debian.org/ThisWeekInDebian
34 : http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-5
35 : http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-6
36 : http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-7
37 : http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-8
Other news
----------
The twenty-fourth issue of the miscellaneous news for developers [38]
has been released and covers the following topics:
38 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2010/11/msg00002.html
* Screenshots on packages.d.o
* BTS version tracking explained
* Latest features of dpkg-dev
* Searching for bugs using Ultimate Debian Database
* Re-evaluate the state of backported packages
Beside the already announced Bug Squashing Parties in Paris [39] (just
ended a week ago) and Bern [40] (27th and 28th November), there will
also be a real live BSP on the 13th and 14th November in Manchester
[41].
39 : http://wiki.debian.org/BSP2010/Paris
40 : http://wiki.debian.org/BSP2010/Bern
41 : http://wiki.debian.org/BSP2010/Manchester
Raphaël Hertzog created a nice presentation template for OpenOffice.org
[42].
42 : http://raphaelhertzog.com/2010/10/29/nice-openoffice-org-template-for-debian-presentations/
Debian decided to officially welcome non-packaging contributors [43]via
a General Resolution [45]. Enrico Zini, on behalf of the Debian
Account Managers team, already sent some guidelines for applying as
non-uploading DD [46].
43 : http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101019
45 : http://www.debian.org/vote/2010/vote_002
46 : http://lists.debian.org/20101103095926.GA14829@enricozini.org
New Debian Contributors
-----------------------
6 people started to maintain packages [47] since the previous issue of
the Debian Project News. Please welcome Daniele Napolitano, Tshepang
Lekhonkhobe, Roy Marples, Dipankar Patro, Deepak Tripathi, Bilal Akhtar
and Etienne Millon into our project!
47 : 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
[48], the upcoming release, Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" , is currently
affected by 284 release-critical bugs. Ignoring bugs which are easily
solved or on the way to being solved, roughly speaking, about 126
release-critical bugs remain to be solved for the release to happen.
48 : http://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi
There are also more detailed statistics [49] as well as some hints on
how to interpret [50] these numbers.
49 : http://blog.schmehl.info/Debian/rc-stats/#2010-43
50 : http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/RC-Stats
Important Debian Security Advisories
------------------------------------
Debian's Security Team recently released advisories for these packages
(among others): TYPO3 [51], glibc [52], NSS [53], and Xulrunner [54].
Please read them carefully and take the proper measures.
51 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2121
52 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2122
53 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2123
54 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2124
Debian's Backports Team releases advisories for these packages:
mailscanner [55], and pidgin [56]. Please read them carefully and take
the proper measures.
55 : http://lists.debian.org/01010221226.20261.waja@cyconet.org
56 : http://lists.debian.org/201010221319.31927.waja@cyconet.org
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 [57] (and the separate backports
list [58]) for announcements.
57 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/
58 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-backports-announce/
New and noteworthy packages
---------------------------
The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive
recently (among others [59]):
59 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg
* pithos -- Pandora Radio client for the GNOME desktop [60]
* salome-extras -- numerical simulation pre- and post-processor [61]
* wesnoth-1.9 -- fantasy turn-based strategy game - complete suite (branch 1.9) [62]
Please note that due to the freeze of the upcoming Debian 6.0 [63]
"Squeeze" acceptance of new packages has almost ceased.
60 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/pithos
61 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/salome-extras
62 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/wesnoth-1.9
63 : 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 [64] to find out how to help. We're
looking forward to receiving your mail at
debian-publicity@lists.debian.org [65].
64 : http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute
65 : mailto:debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
This issue of Debian Project News was edited by Francesca Ciceri, David
Prevot and Alexander Reichle-Schmehl [66].
66 : mailto:debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
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