Debian Weekly News - August 31st, 2004
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2004/34/
Debian Weekly News - August 31st, 2004
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Welcome to this year's 34th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. In an [1]interview, id Software's Timothee
Besset confirmed that he loves the Debian distribution. In a different
[2]review Leo Spalteholz described how he tried to escape Debian and
switch to an "easier" distribution, but ended up with Debian again.
1. http://www.linuxgames.com/?dataloc=articles/ttimo/
2. http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=7314
Splitting the Packages File. Daniel Ruoso [3]wondered how he could
keep a 486 with 8 MB RAM updated in unstable with only PPP on the
serial line. He proposed to split the Packages file into sections so
that clients can operate on smaller files. Peter Eisentraut
[4]asserted that with more than 30 sections this would make the
sources.list file unmaintainable. He added that most but very
specialised clients would probably need to include all sections
anyway.
3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01221.html
4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01234.html
Standard 2.4 kernel for Sarge? Dann Frazier [5]proposed to use 2.4.27
as the 2.4 kernel for all architectures with 2.4 kernels in the
upcoming release. The strongest [6]argument is that this version
supports several architectures natively and binary packages for all
architectures supporting 2.4 are already available. Joey Hess
contributed a [7]d-i kernel update checklist and Steve Langasek
[8]agreed that this is the way to go.
5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2004/08/msg00381.html
6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2004/08/msg00632.html
7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2004/08/msg00389.html
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2004/08/msg00405.html
Debian Cloaks on Freenode. Göran Weinholt [9]announced that he is a
group contact for Debian on the [10]freenode IRC network. He is
currently the only one and is supposed to be some sort of relay
between the Debian project and the freenode staff. His main reason for
volunteering for this position is so that we can get cloaks working
for all interested Debian developers whose nickname is [11]registered.
9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2004/08/msg00136.html
10. http://freenode.net/
11. http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#nicksetup
Sarge Release Update. Steve Langasek sent in an [12]update on the
upcoming sarge release. Several library transitions were finished and
brought GIMP 2.0 to sarge, among other packages. Instead of only a
flurry of new and fixed packages it was more like a snowstorm, keeping
the buildd network busy. The number of release critical bugs is lower
than last time, but not as low as hoped. Hence, there is progress
towards the release, but it is going slower than expected.
12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2004/08/msg00017.html
What's new in Sarge? Bartosz Fenski [13]asked about the most important
changes between woody and sarge. Kevin McCarty [14]named several
packages that will be updated to a newer version or added. Among
others these are GNOME 2.6, KDE 3.2, GIMP 2, Firefox and Thunderbird,
Linux 2.6 and OpenOffice.org.
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01487.html
14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01495.html
Ceasing Upstream Development... Daniel Burrows [15]wondered if he
should request the removal of [16]noteedit, a music editor for KDE,
since upstream has decided to cease development. He has already
orphaned the package, so it's not properly maintained in Debian
anymore either. Roland Stigge [17]mentioned the nice list of import
and export formats and reminded people that a package in a stable
Debian release isn't changed a lot during its lifetime.
15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01527.html
16. http://packages.debian.org/noteedit
17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01601.html
Outdated Packages for contrib and non-free. Jeroen van Wolffelaar
[18]reminded maintainers of packages in contrib and non-free, that
they are responsible for getting all supported architectures in sync.
More recent versions of these packages won't be able to be released at
the same time as sarge otherwise. These packages cannot be auto-built.
18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2004/08/msg00399.html
Debian experimental Kaffe runs Tomcat4 on PowerPC. Arnaud Vandyck
[19]wrote that the free Java environment has reached an important
milestone. He asserted that although free Java environments are not as
full as proprietary ones, in some cases, they are far better. After
experiencing multiple problems with IBM's proprietary JDK on the
PowerPC architecture he managed to get the free environment running
Tomcat4.
19. http://www.livejournal.com/users/avdyk/6508.html
GNU/Linux on the Desktop. KDE Developers Kévin Ottens and Peter Rockai
[20]spoke about their work on the [21]Kalyxo project, which aims to
improve KDE integration on Debian systems as well as making KDE and
non-KDE applications work well together. They are working on a common
look and feel as well, which is why they packaged the
[22]qt-gtk-engine for Debian users.
20. http://dot.kde.org/1093794087/
21. http://www.kalyxo.org/
22. http://www.kalyxo.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/GtkQtEngine
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
* [23]Qt -- Arbitrary code execution and denial of service.
* [24]krb5 -- Several vulnerabilities.
23. http://www.debian.org/security/2004/dsa-542
24. http://www.debian.org/security/2004/dsa-543
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [25]recently or contain important updates.
25. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main
* [26]adtool -- Command line utility for Active Directory
administration.
* [27]bld -- Black List Daemon, automatically build blacklists.
* [28]buffy -- Heavy duty browser for mail folders.
* [29]codegroup -- Convert any file, including binary, into 5 letter
code.
* [30]freeradius-dialupadmin -- Set of PHP scripts for administering
a FreeRADIUS server.
* [31]gfc-examples -- GTK+ Foundation Classes Examples.
* [32]gnome-nettool -- Network information tool for GNOME.
* [33]gweled -- Diamond Mine puzzle game.
* [34]ikvm -- Java virtual machine/compiler implemented in .NET
(Mono).
* [35]kitchensync -- Synchronization framework.
* [36]kleopatra -- KDE Certificate Manager.
* [37]kompose -- Full screen task manager for KDE.
* [38]lxdoom -- Unix port of boom, an enhanced version of DOOM.
* [39]lxmusserv -- Linux music server for Doom and Heretic.
* [40]mathomatic -- Portable computer algebra system.
* [41]ncompress -- Original Lempel-Ziv compress/uncompress programs.
* [42]netapplet -- User-friendly network interface control applet.
* [43]pnet -- DotGNU C# compiler, runtime, (dis)assembler.
* [44]randomplay -- Command-line based shuffle music player that
remembers songs between sessions.
* [45]silky -- SILC (Secure Internet Live Conferencing) GTK+ based
client.
* [46]wininfo -- Displays information about X windows under the
mouse cursor.
* [47]xmldiff -- Tree 2 tree correction between xml documents.
26. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/adtool
27. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/bld
28. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/buffy
29. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/codegroup
30. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/freeradius-dialupadmin
31. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/gfc-examples
32. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gnome-nettool
33. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/gweled
34. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/ikvm
35. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kitchensync
36. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/kleopatra
37. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kompose
38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/lxdoom
39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/lxmusserv
40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/mathomatic
41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/ncompress
42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/netapplet
43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/pnet
44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/randomplay
45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/silky
46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/wininfo
47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/xmldiff
Debian Packages introduced last Week. Every day, a different Debian
package is [48]featured from the testing distribution. If you know
about an obscure package you think others should also know about, send
it to [49]Andrew Sweger. Debian package a day introduced the following
packages last week.
48. http://www.livejournal.com/users/debaday/
49. http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=debaday
* [50]dictd -- Dictionary Server.
* [51]samhain -- Data integrity and host intrusion alert system.
* [52]privoxy -- Privacy enhancing HTTP Proxy.
50. http://www.livejournal.com/users/debaday/31531.html
51. http://www.livejournal.com/users/debaday/31897.html
52. http://www.livejournal.com/users/debaday/32035.html
Orphaned Packages. 12 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 184 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [53]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.
53. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
* [54]dip -- Tool for handling SLIP/PPP dialup IP connections.
([55]Bug#268909)
* [56]distmp3 -- Perl client and daemon for distributed audio
encoding. ([57]Bug#267912)
* [58]libapache-mod-gzip -- HTTP compression module for Apache.
([59]Bug#268738)
* [60]mico -- Fully compliant CORBA implementation. ([61]Bug#268868)
* [62]noteedit -- KDE Music Editor. ([63]Bug#268206)
* [64]siege -- HTTP regression testing and benchmarking utility.
([65]Bug#268739)
* [66]terraform -- Height field manipulation program.
([67]Bug#267911)
* [68]tex4ht -- LaTeX and TeX for Hypertext (HTML). ([69]Bug#268126)
* [70]x10 -- Operate X-10 electrical power control modules.
([71]Bug#268912)
* [72]x10-automate -- GUI interface for x10 power line control
utility. ([73]Bug#268911)
* [74]xpaint -- Reasonably versatile X-based image editing tool.
([75]Bug#268910)
54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/dip
55. http://bugs.debian.org/268909
56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/distmp3
57. http://bugs.debian.org/267912
58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/libapache-mod-gzip
59. http://bugs.debian.org/268738
60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/mico
61. http://bugs.debian.org/268868
62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/noteedit
63. http://bugs.debian.org/268206
64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/siege
65. http://bugs.debian.org/268739
66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/terraform
67. http://bugs.debian.org/267911
68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/tex/tex4ht
69. http://bugs.debian.org/268126
70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/x10
71. http://bugs.debian.org/268912
72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/x10-automate
73. http://bugs.debian.org/268911
74. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/xpaint
75. http://bugs.debian.org/268910
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 [76]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [77]dwn@debian.org.
76. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
77. mailto:dwn@debian.org
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