Debian Weekly News - November 1st, 2005
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2005/44/
Debian Weekly News - November 1st, 2005
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Welcome to this year's 44th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. Nathanael Nerode [1]reported that current GCC
versions support the old i386 processor again and hence Debian could
retain i386 compatibility in the upcoming [2]etch release.
1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00388.html
2. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/
Calculating Development Package Dependencies. Jay Berkenbilt
[3]proposed to work on a [4]debhelper script that helps calculating
[5]libtool dependencies for development packages. Goswin von
Brederlow [6]pointed out that with [7]multiarch there may be
concurrent .la files to handle. No consensus in favour of such a
script was reached. Junichi Uekawa [8]mentioned the [9]d-shlibs
package that contains scripts to support the maintainer in this
regard.
3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00184.html
4. http://packages.debian.org/debhelper
5. http://packages.debian.org/libtool
6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00519.html
7. http://raw.no/debian/amd64-multiarch-2
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00316.html
9. http://packages.debian.org/d-shlibs
New OpenSSL Package. Christoph Martin has uploaded a new upstream
version of [10]OpenSSL and Aurelien Jarno [11]provided a list of more
than 300 packages that will have to be rebuilt. Jonas Meurer [12]added
maintainer names to it. Henrique Holschuh [13]asked for versioned
symbols for this library since it would cure the problem of linking
against more than one version of the library.
10. http://packages.debian.org/openssl
11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00383.html
12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00372.html
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00226.html
Berlinux Event Report. Meike Reichle wrote a [14]report about the
[15]Berlinux exhibition and conference that took place in Berlin,
Germany at the end of last month. Members of the Debian project ran a
booth and gave several talks that were directly or indirectly related
to Debian. The booth featured a Debian controlled model railway from
Frank Ronneburg and a Nokia 770 from Wolfgang Borgert.
14. http://www.debian.org/events/2005/1021-berlinux-report
15. http://www.debian.org/events/2005/1021-berlinux
Effort to alter RFC Licensing. Simon Josefsson [16]started an
[17]effort to influence the [18]IETF to change the copying conditions
on RFCs to make them more Free Software friendly. He is looking for
signatures from Free Software developers to support his proposed
license change.
16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00214.html
17. http://josefsson.org/bcp78broken/
18. http://www.ietf.org/
Automatic Building Kernel Modules. Russ Allbery [19]wondered how to
deal with a [20]request against the [21]openafs-modules-source to
automatically build kernel modules when the kernel is updated.
Building kernel modules separately from the source package is a very
bad idea since they can't be easily updated by the security team.
Andres Salomon [22]added that the infrastructure for a package to
build -source packages hasn't been implemented yet.
19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00273.html
20. http://bugs.debian.org/168852
21. http://packages.debian.org/openafs-modules-source
22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00382.html
Automatic Test Suite Results Forwarding. Florian Ragwitz [23]wondered
how a package could emit the results of the test suite to the upstream
developers. The test suite is run during the build stage of the
package and is a helpful resource for the developers. Daniel
Jacobowitz [24]proposed to display the results during the build so
they will end up in the build logs, which are publically available.
23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00426.html
24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00428.html
GTK+ Icon Cache Discussion. Josselin Mouette is [25]seeking input on
handling icons caches in the GTK+ library since traversing the entire
directory tree is time consuming. When the cache is not rebuilt for
recently added icons, the corresponding programs can't start as usual.
25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00455.html
Postinst Check for Package Status. Frank Küster [26]wondered if there
is an established method for the postinst script to determine the
status of another package in order to prevent a second invocation of a
time [27]consuming program. He [28]stated that the Zope packages
already try to implement a general post-hook mechnism with APT. Ben
Armstrong [29]quoted a snippet from the [30]libc6 postinst that solves
the original problem.
26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00463.html
27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00467.html
28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00655.html
29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00470.html
30. http://packages.debian.org/libc6
GNOME Meta Package Dependencies. Arthur Edwards [31]complained about
the [32]gnome meta package depending on the [33]gnome-games package
since in some government environments games are prohibited. Ben
Armstrong [34]noted that one doesn't benefit from future goodies if
the meta package is removed, even though it is not essential.
31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00468.html
32. http://packages.debian.org/gnome
33. http://packages.debian.org/gnome-games
34. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/10/msg00475.html
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
* DSA 872: [35]koffice -- Arbitrary code execution.
* DSA 873: [36]net-snmp -- Denial of service.
* DSA 874: [37]lynx -- Arbitrary code execution.
* DSA 875: [38]openssl094 -- Cryptographic weakness.
* DSA 876: [39]lynx-ssl -- Arbitrary code execution.
* DSA 877: [40]gnump3d -- Several vulnerabilities.
* DSA 878: [41]netpbm-free -- Arbitrary code execution.
35. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-872
36. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-873
37. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-874
38. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-875
39. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-876
40. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-877
41. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-878
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [42]recently or contain important updates.
42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main
* [43]abakus -- Calculator for KDE.
* [44]eclipse-base -- Eclipse distribution base.
* [45]evms-bootdebug -- Enterprise Volume Management System
(boot-time debugger).
* [46]gtkorphan -- Graphical tool to find and remove orphaned
libraries.
* [47]iasl -- Intel ASL compiler/decompiler.
* [48]ksubtile -- Subtitle editor for KDE.
* [49]pngnq -- Tool for optimising PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
images.
* [50]poker2d -- GTK poker client to play on a poker-network server.
* [51]tomcat5 -- Java Servlet 2.4 engine with JSP 2.0 support.
* [52]usermode -- Graphical tools for certain user account
management tasks.
* [53]vblade -- Virtual AoE blade emulator.
* [54]zim -- Desktop Wiki.
43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/abakus
44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/eclipse-base
45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/evms-bootdebug
46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/gtkorphan
47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/iasl
48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/ksubtile
49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/pngnq
50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/poker2d
51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/tomcat5
52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/usermode
53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/vblade
54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/zim
Orphaned Packages. 9 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 206 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [55]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.
55. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
* [56]gtk2-engines-wonderland -- Wonderland theme for GTK+ 2.0.
([57]Bug#335918)
* [58]libhtml-htmltokenizer-ruby -- Simple HTML tokenizer/parser for
Ruby. ([59]Bug#335700)
* [60]libxml-ruby -- Ruby interface to libxml. ([61]Bug#335698)
* [62]libxslt-ruby -- Ruby interface to libxslt. ([63]Bug#335699)
* [64]lmodern -- Scalable PostScript fonts for european character
sets. ([65]Bug#335899)
* [66]netmon-applet -- GNOME2 Network Load Applet. ([67]Bug#335916)
* [68]pyxmms -- Python interface to XMMS. ([69]Bug#335900)
* [70]pyxmms-remote -- Command-line interface to XMMS.
([71]Bug#335901)
* [72]sysv-rc-conf -- SysV init runlevel configuration tool for the
terminal. ([73]Bug#335790)
56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/gtk2-engines-wonderland
57. http://bugs.debian.org/335918
58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/libhtml-htmltokenizer-ruby
59. http://bugs.debian.org/335700
60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/libxml-ruby1.8
61. http://bugs.debian.org/335698
62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/libxslt-ruby1.8
63. http://bugs.debian.org/335699
64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/tex/lmodern
65. http://bugs.debian.org/335899
66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/netmon-applet
67. http://bugs.debian.org/335916
68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/python-xmms
69. http://bugs.debian.org/335900
70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/pyxmms-remote
71. http://bugs.debian.org/335901
72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/sysv-rc-conf
73. http://bugs.debian.org/335790
Removed Packages. 11 packages have been [74]removed from the Debian
archive during the past week:
74. http://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.txt
* libtool1.4 -- Generic library support script (obsolete version)
[75]Bug#266387: Request of QA, obsolete version
* libfilesys-diskfree-perl -- Perl interface to df
[76]Bug#273907: Request of QA, orphaned, better alternatives
* langband -- Langband term-libs
[77]Bug#297426: Request of QA, orphaned, few users, has never been
part of a stable release
* xfs-xtt -- X-TrueType font server
[78]Bug#314882: Request of QA, superseded by X.Org, RC-buggy
* rx320 -- Control a Ten-Tec RX-320 receiver
[79]Bug#328667: Request of QA, unused, out of date
* xtet42 -- Tetris for X, supports one or 2 players
[80]Bug#328799: Request of QA, unused, old, alternatives available
* xezmlm -- Ezmlm mailing list configuration tool for the X Window
System
[81]Bug#332366: Request of maintainer, depends on removed package
(ezmlm)
* libapache2-mod-jk2 -- Apache 2.0 connector for the Tomcat Java
servlet engine
[82]Bug#333884: Request of maintainer, dead upstream; RC buggy;
superseded by libapache2-mod-jk
* ifp-line -- Command line tool to access iRiver iFP audio players
[83]Bug#334018: Request of maintainer, obsoleted by
ifp-line-libifp
* gb -- Gnome Basic - VB compatible Basic for GNOME
[84]Bug#334174: Request of maintainer, abandoned upstream;
superseded by monos BASIC components
* golem -- Lightweight X11 Window Manager
[85]Bug#334777: Request of maintainer, outdated; dead upstream
75. http://bugs.debian.org/266387
76. http://bugs.debian.org/273907
77. http://bugs.debian.org/297426
78. http://bugs.debian.org/314882
79. http://bugs.debian.org/328667
80. http://bugs.debian.org/328799
81. http://bugs.debian.org/332366
82. http://bugs.debian.org/333884
83. http://bugs.debian.org/334018
84. http://bugs.debian.org/334174
85. http://bugs.debian.org/334777
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86. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
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