Debian Weekly News - August 6th, 2002
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2002/30/
Debian Weekly News - August 6th, 2002
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Welcome to this year's 30th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. The former Debian developer zhaoway wrote a
[1]Chinese article about Jigdo for IBM developerWorks/China. Nice to
see the word spread. This seemed to be an easy week, many developer
were probably enjoying their holliday, but the security team became
hyperactive. That also applies to Branden Robinson, apparently, since
he [2]announced Debian packages for XFree86 4.2.
1. http://www-900.ibm.com/developerWorks/cn/linux/platform/debian/jigdo/index.shtml
2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-x-0208/msg00041.html
Ceasing Security with the DMCA? CNET News.com [3]reports about an
incident invoking the controversial [4]Digital Millennium Copyright
Act (DMCA). Hewlett Packard has threatened to sue a team of
researchers who published a vulnerability in Tru64 Unix. Since HP
distributes Debian and two members of the Debian Security Team are
U.S. citizens, are they in danger of a similar threat? One week later,
HP released a [5]press release saying that they will not use the DMCA
to stifle research or impede the flow of information that would
benefit their customers and improve their system security.
3. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-947325.html
4. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.2281.ENR:
5. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-947740.html
Backing up a Debian System. Drew Daniels wrote a [6]report that
describes methods of backing up a Debian system. This includes uses of
the program cruft to find files that are not covered by properly
installed packages. The sysadmin guide also includes a chapter about
making [7]backups.
6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0207/msg02232.html
7. http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/system-administrator/ch-sysadmin-backup.html
There aint no such Thing as a Free Font? Ben Armstrong did some
[8]research on truetype fonts included in the Debian distribution.
Alarmed by a non-free font in a package he maintains, Ben started
looking for a suitable replacement font under a DFSG-free license.
However, he was disappointed to find that virtually every so-called
'free' font he found failed the DFSG.
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0208/msg00080.html
Debian Release Party in Germany. It's been [9]announced recently that
some German developers planned a [10]Debian Release Party next
weekend. The party is meant to be fun after all and only a barbecue
and breakfast are planned, despite interesting discussions and
probably hacking. The [11]party takes place in Minden, Germany and
people should [12]sign up in time.
9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0208/msg00200.html
10. http://www.debian.org/events/2002/0810-party
11. http://www.infodrom.org/Debian/party/
12. http://www.infodrom.org/Debian/party/signon.php3
Packaging Dock Apps. Josselin Mouette started a [13]discussion about
packaging WindowMaker dock apps. There are currently 28 such dock apps
packaged for Debian and [14]dockapps.org lists even 90 of them. All of
these dockapps are likely to be packaged one day or another by DD's
using them. Packaging each dock app as single package and packaging
all dock apps as one large package seem to be suboptimal, though.
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0208/msg00149.html
14. http://dockapps.org/
New ping and inetd Packages. Marco d'Itri [15]announced that he plans
to replace the version of ping and inetd with programs from OpenBSD.
The new inetd is already up for public [16]review. It supports IPv6,
built-in libwrap support, binding to specific addresses and socket
buffers tuning.
15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0208/msg00170.html
16. http://www.bofh.it/~md/ipv6/
Installing Debian on IBM RS/6000 Workstation. Rolf Brudeseth released
a [17]howto document describing how to install Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 on
an IBM RS/6000 44P-170 workstation. It should also work for other
low-end systems such as the 260, 270 and B80, even though this wasn't
exactly tested. Rolf also expects the installation to work similar on
the mid- and high-end POWER3 systems.
17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0208/msg00008.html
Sarge CD Images? Anthony Towns [18]requested that CD images for sarge
should be automatically generated every week. He explained that don't
need to be bootable yet, but should be available as jigdo images.
Getting CD images out as soon as possible is important if we're going
to get off on the right foot for releasing sarge any time soon.
18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-cd-0208/msg00006.html
Debian Woody CD Covers. Robert Dodd [19]announced that he created 3
covers for Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (codename "Woody"). The images are
freely available from [20]here. If the covers need more information or
if anyone wants to use it but needs more information on the cover or a
different format, [21]Robert Dodd would be happy to fix that.
19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-cd-0207/msg00372.html
20. http://www.dodddigitaldesign.com/debian_cd_covers.htm
21. mailto:rdodd@airmail.net
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
* [22]gallery -- Remote exploit.
* [23]super -- Format string vulnerability.
* [24]libpng -- Buffer overflow.
* [25]mpack -- Buffer overflow.
* [26]OpenAFS -- Integer overflow.
* [27]Kerberos -- Integer overflow.
* [28]wwwoffle -- Security related problems.
22. http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-138
23. http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-139
24. http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-140
25. http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-141
26. http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-142
27. http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-143
28. http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-144
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
Debian archive recently or contain important updates.
* [29]acme -- Enables the "multimedia buttons" found on laptops.
* [30]affix -- User space utilities for the Affix Bluetooth protocol
stack.
* [31]amsn -- An MSN messenger written in tcl.
* [32]dnotify -- Execute a command when the contents of a directory
change.
* [33]docbookide -- An Emacs Major Mode for Editing DocBook
Documents.
* [34]dvbtune -- Simple tuning application for DVB cards.
* [35]ekg -- Console gadu gadu client for UNIX systems.
* [36]facturalux -- ERP/CRM software for Linux.
* [37]framerd -- a scalable knowledge base development and
application platform.
* [38]minc-tools -- MNI medical image format tools.
* [39]mtink -- Status monitor for epson inkjet printer.
* [40]printbill -- Sophistocated print billing / accounting system
for lprng.
* [41]rockdodger -- Dodge and blow up rocks with your spaceship.
* [42]snui-client -- Simple Network User Information - Client.
* [43]xshisen -- Shisen-sho puzzle game for X11.
* [44]xtunes -- electronic music library.
29. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/acme.html
30. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/affix.html
31. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/amsn.html
32. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/dnotify.html
33. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/docbookide.html
34. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/dvbtune.html
35. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ekg.html
36. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/facturalux.html
37. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/framerd.html
38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/minc-tools.html
39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/mtink.html
40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/printbill.html
41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/rockdodger.html
42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/snui-client.html
43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/xshisen.html
44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/xtunes.html
Orphaned Packages. 2 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 97 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [45]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.
45. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
* [46]cvsweb -- A CGI interface to your CVS repository.
([47]Bug#155047)
* [48]wavtools -- WAV play, record, and compression.
([49]Bug#155263)
46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/cvsweb.html
47. http://bugs.debian.org/155047
48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/wavtools.html
49. http://bugs.debian.org/155263
Seen something interesting? Please drop us a note whenever you see
something noteworthy that you think is appropriate for inclusion in
DWN. We don't notice everything, unfortunately. Of course, we are also
thankful for completely written items from volunteer writers. Please
see the [50]contributing page. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [51]dwn@debian.org.
50. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
51. mailto:dwn@debian.org
--
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