Debian Project News - November 22nd, 2010
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The Debian Project http://www.debian.org/
Debian Project News debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
November 22nd, 2010 http://debian.org/News/project/2010/16/
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Welcome to this year's sixteenth issue of DPN, the newsletter for the
Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:
* State of Debian 6.0 "Squeeze"
* Highlights from the Debian linux-2.6 Meeting
* New default artwork for Debian "Squeeze"
* Debian Women IRC Training Sessions
* Bits from the Debian Project Leader
* Bits from the Debian Multimedia Maintainers
* Interview with Debian Developer Joey Hess
* Revival of the m68k port?
* ... and much more.
State of Debian 6.0 "Squeeze"
----------------------------
Release Manager Neil McGovern gave an update for the upcoming Debian 6.0
"Squeeze" stable release. As "Squeeze is almost in its final form" he
calls for upgrade and installation tests (see also the separate
announcement for that [1]). He also notes that even (experienced) users
who have no systems available for installation or upgrade tests can help
by triaging installation reports [2] and upgrade reports [3], or propose
text for the release notes [4].
1 : http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101116b
2 : http://bugs.debian.org/installation-reports
3 : http://bugs.debian.org/upgrade-reports
4 : http://bugs.debian.org/release-notes
Highlights from the Debian linux-2.6 Meeting
--------------------------------------------
A report from Maximilian Attems on the Debian kernel group's meeting at
the Paris mini-Debconf in October was sent to the Debian kernel mailing
list. Among the things they discussed was the move to Git as a source
code management tool, allowing the kernel group to not have to "update
infrastructure in separate branches as we have to do now." The report
also mentions the reduction of Linux kernel patches for Wheezy: "Several
patches got pushed or landed since 2.6.32, thus state is in general
good." Much more (e.g. about different patches for virtualisation, the
need for automated tests, and Linux Security Modules) can be read in
theoriginal email [5].
5 : http://lists.debian.org/20101111135212.GU19612@vostochny.stro.at
New default artwork for Debian "Squeeze"
----------------------------------------
Yves-Alexis Perez announced the results of the Debian Squeeze Artwork
contest [6]: the winner is the theme Space Fun [7] by Valessio Brito.
Congratulations! The new theme has been added to the desktop-base [8]
package, and is already available in Debian's development branch "Sid" .
6 : http://lists.debian.org/1289334281.2898.2.camel@hidalgo
7 : http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/SpaceFun
8 : http://packages.debian.org/desktop-base
Debian Women IRC Training Sessions
----------------------------------
The Debian Women project launched a new initiative to encourage more
people, and specifically women, to contribute to Debian while introducing
them to different aspects of the Debian Project: IRC Training Sessions
[9]. The first session took place last Thursday, and was visited by many
interested people. Longtime Debian contributor Lars Wirzenius gave an
introduction to Debian packaging and was available for all kinds of
questions. The training session is also available as a tutorial on the
Debian wiki [10]. More training sessions with topics like "Bug Tracking
System usage", "Using Git", and "Python libraries and application
packaging" (and many other interesting topics) arealready planned in the
Debian wiki [11].
9 : http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101116a
10 : http://wiki.debian.org/IntroDebianPackaging
11 : http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWomen/TrainingSessions
Bits from the DPL
-----------------
Debian Project Leader Stefano Zacchiroli sent another bits from the DPL
[12] report. He mentions events he has attended (see for example his
separate short report about the Ubuntu Developer Summit [13]) and the
Debian Sprint program [14], making it easier for Debian Contributors to
meet for developer gatherings. Last but not least he also asks for
midterm feedback [15] about his work as DPL.
12 : http://lists.debian.org/20101113034904.GA12174@upsilon.cc
13 : http://lists.debian.org/20101110105635.GA9155@upsilon.cc
14 : http://lists.debian.org/20101031153712.GB26445@upsilon.cc
15 : http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/10/midterm_feedback_sought/
Bits from the Debian Multimedia Maintainers
-------------------------------------------
Alessio Treglia sent some bits from the Debian Multimedia Maintainers
[16]. While also giving a small introduction to this team, he
concentrates on multimedia related features for consumers as well as
producers in the upcoming Debian 6.0 "Squeeze". Some of the highlights
for consumers are a "non-crippled" version offfmpeg [17] and the
introduction of a mencoder [18] package. He also gave an overview of
multimedia production related platforms, technologies and end user
applications.
16 : http://lists.debian.org/1289700356.5418.7.camel@alessio-laptop
17 : http://packages.debian.org/ffmpeg
18 : http://packages.debian.org/mencoder
Interview with Debian Developer Joey Hess
-----------------------------------------
Raphaël Hertzog published an interview with long-time Debian Developer
Joey Hess [19], who's already well known to Debian Developers for his
work on debconf [20], the configuration system for Debian packages,
debhelper [21], a collection of helper scripts to ease package creation,
or the debian-installer [22] (d-i for short). When he was asked about his
biggest achievement, he answered: "But while it might sound corny, I am
more proud of the accumulation of all the smaller things done in the
context of Debian". Joey Hess, who by the way also once laid the base for
this newsletter, also gives some insights about his plans for Debian
"Wheezy", what person he most admires, and whether he regrets having
written most of his applications in Perl.
19 : http://raphaelhertzog.com/2010/11/11/people-behind-debian-joey-hess-of-debhelper-fame/
20 : http://packages.debian.org/debconf
21 : http://packages.debian.org/debhelper
22 : http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer
Revival of the m68k port?
-------------------------
Although Debian supported the Motorola 680x0 processors [23] from Debian
2.0 "Hamm", support for that architecture was dropped with Debian 4.0
"Etch" for various reasons. One of the main factors was limited support
of the C library and other parts of the toolchain. However, Thorsten
Glaser recently started to work on theseissues [24]. He has already made
some progress and reports having been able to compile 84 core source
packages for a first [25] "sort of re-bootstrapping" .
23 : http://www.debian.org/ports/m68k/
24 : https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10_e20101016-tg.htm#e20101016-tg_wlog-10
25 : https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10_e20101106-tg.htm#e20101106-tg_wlog-10
Other news
----------
Luca Bruno reported on the Italian l10n community [26]. While he
confesses that the Italian language team has failed at attracting new
members, he also reported about quite successful "online sprints" which
took place recently.
26 : http://kaeso.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/online-sprints-or-how-to-revive-a-l10n-team/
Cyril Brulebois from the X Strike Force gave a report about the state of
X in experimental [27] and also elaborated on dependency handling of X
related packages. Julien Viard de Galbert, who recently joined the X
Strike Force, blogged about his experiences joining the team [28]. His
conclusion? "Working on X isn't that hard!"
27 : http://blog.ikibiki.org/2010/11/10/XServer_1.9/
28 : http://silicone.homelinux.org/2010/11/03/working-on-x-isnt-that-hard/
Petter Reinholdtsen noticed [29] someone creating a three dimensional
Debian swirl [30] with a 3d printer.
29 : http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html
30 : http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/
In a recent poll by the German Pro-Linux Webzine [31], Debian was named
as the most important Linux distribution by 47% of the participants.
31 : http://www.pro-linux.de/umfragen/2/27/welche-ist-die-wichtigste-distribution.html
New Debian Contributors
-----------------------
7 applicants have been accepted [32] as Debian Developers, 5 applicants
have been [33] accepted [34] as Debian Maintainers, and 28 people started
to maintain packages [35] since the previous issue of the Debian Project
News. Please welcome Luis Uribe, Julián Moreno Patiño, Julien Viard de
Galbert, Jeremie Corbier, Muammar El Khatib, Julien Valroff, Heiko
Stuebner, Niels Thykier, David Bremner, John Sullivan, Bernhard Reiter,
Lisandro Damián Nicanor Pérez Meyer, LIU Qi Makoto Yamashita, Hubert
Pham, Mathias Behrle, Andrew Ross, Sascha Girrulat, Barry Warsaw, Michael
Tokarev, Pekko Metsä, Estêvão Samuel Procópio, Roman Haefeli, Massimo
Manghi, Ishan Bansal, William Grzybowski, Daniele Tricoli, David Steele,
Mackenzie Morgan, Fernando Tarlá Cardoso Lemos, Xiangfu Liu, Sten Spans,
David Banks, Stéphan Gorget, Arnout Engelen, Samuel Ribeiro da Costa
Vale, Rosea Grammostola, Daniel Echeverry, Davi Leal, and Williams
Orellana into our project!
32 : https://nm.debian.org/nmlist.php#newmaint
33 : http://lists.debian.org/E1PIzQC-0000rc-El@franck.debian.org
34 : http://lists.debian.org/E1PEHHd-0005Cu-FP@franck.debian.org
35 : 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
[36], the upcoming release, Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" , is currently affected
by 200 release-critical bugs. Ignoring bugs which are easily solved or on
the way to being solved, roughly speaking, about 123 release-critical
bugs remain to be solved for the release to happen.
36 : http://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi
There are also more detailed statistics [37] as well as some hints on how
to interpret [38] these numbers.
37 : http://blog.schmehl.info/Debian/rc-stats/#2010-46
38 : http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/RC-Stats
Important Debian Security Advisories
------------------------------------
Debian's Security Team recently released an advisory for this package
(among others): pidgin [39] (updated advisory). Please read it carefully
and take the proper measures.
39 : http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2038
Debian's Backports Team released advisories for these packages: iceweasel
[40], nss [41]. Please read them carefully and take the proper measures.
40 : http://lists.debian.org/20101102155532.GI2261@melusine.alphascorpii.net
41 : http://lists.debian.org/20101102150603.GH2261@melusine.alphascorpii.net
Debian's Volatile Team released an update announcement for the package:
tzdata [42]. Please read it carefully and take the proper measures.
42 : http://lists.debian.org/20101117103321.GA17437@thrall.0x539.de
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 [43] (and the separate backports
list [44] and volatile list [45]) for announcements.
43 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/
44 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-backports-announce/
45 : http://lists.debian.org/debian-volatile-announce
New and noteworthy packages
---------------------------
The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive recently
(among others [46]):
46 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg
* 2ping -- ping utility to determine directional packet loss [47]
* a2jmidid -- daemon for exposing legacy ALSA MIDI in JACK MIDI systems [48]
* anything-el -- open anything / QuickSilver-like candidate-selection framework [49]
* autotalent -- pitch correction LADSPA plugin [50]
* bar -- show information about a data transfer [51]
* bootchart2 -- boot process performance analyser [52]
* browser-plugin-packagekit -- plugin to install missing plugins using PackageKit [53]
* btag -- interactive command-line based multimedia tag editor [54]
* clustershell -- distributed shell that provides an efficient python interface [55]
* cmip5-cmor-tables -- CMIP5 tables for the Climate Model Output Rewriter library [56]
* daemonfs -- real time monitoring software [57]
* dhcpcd-gtk -- GTK+ frontend for dhcpcd and wpa_supplicant [58]
* drumstick-tools -- Qt4/C++ wrapper for ALSA sequencer - utilities [59]
* dtd-ead -- Encoded Archival Description Document Type Definition [60]
* dumpet -- dump information about bootable CDs and other similar formats [61]
* el-get -- install and manage elisp code for Emacs [62]
* eurephia -- flexible OpenVPN authentication module [63]
* feed2omb -- announces new articles in a feed to an open microblogging service [64]
* felix-latin -- Latin-French dictionary, by Felix Gaffiot [65]
* fped -- footprint editor [66]
* gally -- teaches sign languages [67]
* getdp -- general environment for the treatment of discrete problems [68]
* ghostess -- graphical DSSI plugin host [69]
* git-annex -- manage files with Git, without checking their contents into Git [70]
* gmtkbabel -- graphical interface for mtkbabel [71]
* gmtp -- simple MP3 player client for MTP based devices [72]
* gnome-gmail -- support for Gmail as the preferred email application in GNOME [73]
* goban-ss -- Goban screensaver [74]
* gsql -- integrated database development tool for GNOME [75]
* gstreamer0.10-packagekit -- GStreamer plugin to install codecs using PackageKit [76]
* jack-mixer -- JACK audio mixer [77]
* kcov -- code coverage analysis using DWARF debugging information [78]
* kmetronome -- ALSA MIDI Metronome [79]
* ladvd -- minimal LLDP/CDP sender [80]
* letterize -- phone digits to letter-mnemonics [81]
* mercurial-nested -- Mercurial extension to work with nested repositories [82]
* mididings -- MIDI router and processor based on Python [83]
* midistream -- streams MIDI notes and controls over RTP [84]
* moria -- A roguelike game with an infinite dungeon [85]
* mriconvert -- medical image file conversion utility [86]
* multicat -- set of tools for multicast and transport stream manipulation [87]
* notmuchsync -- utility to sync notmuch tags with maildir flags [88]
* openfetion -- open source implemention of fetion protocol client [89]
* pidgin-twitter -- Pidgin plugin for Twitter [90]
* playitslowly -- Plays back audio files at a different speed or pitch [91]
* ptpd -- Precision Time Protocol daemon [92]
* pymca -- Python applications and toolkit for X-ray fluorescence analysis [93]
* qmidinet -- MIDI Network Gateway via UDP/IP Multicast [94]
* rheolef -- finite elements for partial differential equations (unix commands) [95]
* roarplaylistd -- RoarAudio PlayList Daemon (RPLD) [96]
* rtkit -- Realtime Policy and Watchdog Daemon [97]
* scenic -- telepresence software for live performances and installations [98]
* sea-defender -- Sea Defender [99]
* shrinksafe -- JavaScript "compression" system [100]
* sisc -- Java integrated, fully R5RS compliant Scheme system [101]
* sm-archive -- milter for archiving email [102]
* stardict-czech -- Stardict package for Czech dictionary of foreign words [103]
* swig2.0 -- generate scripting interfaces to C/C++ code [104]
* tinyeartrainer -- tool to learn recognizing musical intervals [105]
* toonloop -- live animation editor [106]
* twatch -- watch torrent trackers and automatically download new torrents [107]
* ukopp -- full and incremental backup to disk or disk-like device [108]
* unscd -- Micro Name Service Caching Daemon [109]
* viridian -- play audio streams from an Ampache server [110]
* woof -- share files through HTTP protocol [111]
* xburst-tools -- tools for Ingenic XBurst CPU USB boot and NAND flash access [112]
* xdot -- interactive viewer for Graphviz dot files [113]
* xsystem35 -- System 3.5 games engine for X Window System [114]
* xul-ext-cacheviewer -- GUI Front-end of "about --cache" [115]
* xul-ext-syncplaces -- synchronise Bookmarks and Passwords via WebDAV [116]
47 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/2ping
48 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/a2jmidid
49 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/anything-el
50 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/autotalent
51 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/bar
52 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/bootchart2
53 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/browser-plugin-packagekit
54 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/btag
55 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/clustershell
56 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/cmip5-cmor-tables
57 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/daemonfs
58 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/dhcpcd-gtk
59 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/drumstick-tools
60 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/dtd-ead
61 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/dumpet
62 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/el-get
63 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/eurephia
64 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/feed2omb
65 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/felix-latin
66 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/fped
67 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gally
68 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/getdp
69 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/ghostess
70 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/git-annex
71 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gmtkbabel
72 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gmtp
73 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gnome-gmail
74 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/goban-ss
75 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gsql
76 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gstreamer0.10-packagekit
77 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/jack-mixer
78 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/kcov
79 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/kmetronome
80 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/ladvd
81 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/letterize
82 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/mercurial-nested
83 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/mididings
84 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/midistream
85 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/moria
86 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/mriconvert
87 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/multicat
88 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/notmuchsync
89 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/openfetion
90 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/pidgin-twitter
91 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/playitslowly
92 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/ptpd
93 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/pymca
94 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/qmidinet
95 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/rheolef
96 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/roarplaylistd
97 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/rtkit
98 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/scenic
99 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/sea-defender
100 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/shrinksafe
101 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/sisc
102 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/sm-archive
103 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/stardict-czech
104 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/swig2.0
105 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/tinyeartrainer
106 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/toonloop
107 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/twatch
108 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/ukopp
109 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/unscd
110 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/viridian
111 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/woof
112 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xburst-tools
113 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xdot
114 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xsystem35
115 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xul-ext-cacheviewer
116 : http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xul-ext-syncplaces
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 [117] to find out how to help. We're
looking forward to receiving your mail at
debian-publicity@lists.debian.org [118].
117 : http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute
118 : mailto:debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
This issue of Debian Project News was edited by Jeremiah C. Foster and
Alexander Reichle-Schmehl [119].
119 : mailto:debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
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