Debian Weekly News - August 8th, 2006

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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/32/
Debian Weekly News - August 8th, 2006
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Welcome to this year's 32nd issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. Enrico Zini [1]noticed that the description for
Pike packages contains a long explanation of Pike which produces
erroneous search results, Helmut Wollmersdorfer [2]added that PHP
packages have similar issues. Erich Schubert [3]called for artists to
design artwork for the [4]etch release that could be used as the
desktop background.

 1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/07/msg00281.html
 2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/07/msg00332.html
 3. http://blog.drinsama.de/erich/en/linux/debian/2006072002-debian-etch-artwork
 4. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/

New SPI Board Officers elected. David Graham, secretary of
[5]Software in the Public Interest, Inc. (SPI), [6]announced that
during the board meeting on August 1st Bdale Garbee was elected as
president, Michael Schultheiss as vice president, Neil McGovern as
secretary and Josh Berkus as treasurer for the 2006-2007 fiscal year.
The last three board members have beforehand been [7]elected to the
board by a total of 125 [8]voters (33 % of all eligible voters).

 5. http://www.spi-inc.org/
 6. http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-announce/2006/000136.html
 7. http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-announce/2006/000135.html
 8. http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/votes/vote5/results.html

Debian Architectures Statistics. Petter Reinholdtsen [9]reported on
the architecture distribution in Debian, as reported by the
[10]popularity contest. He noted that an increasing number of users
are using the [11]ARM port whereas the [12]Alpha and [13]Sparc ports
are losing market share. Joey Hess [14]suggested that the Linksys
NSLU2 machines are a good reason for this increase in ARM users. The
[15]popularity contest package is also used to decide the installation
CD for a particular package.

 9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/07/msg01325.html
 10. http://popcon.debian.org/
 11. http://www.debian.org/ports/arm/
 12. http://www.debian.org/ports/alpha/
 13. http://www.debian.org/ports/sparc/
 14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/07/msg01362.html
 15. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/popularity-contest

New Information Media for Users. Wolfgang Lonien [16]announced the
creation of [17]The Debian User, a website that will aggregate
thoughts and comments of Debian users. The same day, Andreas Barth
[18]announced the launch of [19]DebianTimes, which is intended to
deliver news items to developers and interested Debian users.
DebianTimes is available on the web and as an RSS [20]feed.

 16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/08/msg00187.html
 17. http://www.thedebianuser.org/
 18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/08/msg00030.html
 19. http://times.debian.net/
 20. http://times.debian.net/?format=rss20.xml

Bits from the Stable Release Team. Andreas Barth [21]announced that
Dann Frazier became a member of the Stable Release Team to handle and
improve kernel updates. A new [22]webpage created by Martin
Zoble-Helas is also available to track packages that are waiting to be
accepted for proposed-updates.

 21. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/08/msg00035.html
 22. http://ftp-master.debian.org/proposed-updates.html

Debian adopted in the Extremadura. The project [23]announced that the
local [24]flavour of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 has been adopted by the
local government of the autonomous region of Extremadura in Spain. All
workers of the public administration will also use Open Document
Formats for their office applications as well as PDF for document
exchange. Future versions of additional software also need to be
distributed under a free license.

 23. http://www.debian.org/News/2006/20060803
 24. http://www.linex.org/

Debian for the Uninitiated. Lars Wirzenius [25]wondered how usable
Debian with GNOME is for the uninitiated, or more specifically, for
someone who has been using Windows for a number of years, and switches
to Debian. The experiment will continue for a couple of months. The
first use went pretty well, with only a couple of real problems which
he outlined.

 25. http://liw.iki.fi/liw/log/2006-07.html#20060728c

MiniDebconf Colombia. Santiago Ruano Rincón [26]announced that there
will be a Mini DebConf held at Popayan, Cauca on the 19th and 20th of
August. There will be talks, a hacklab, a bugsquashing party and so
on. The conference is organised through a Wiki [27]page. All
interested people are welcome to attend.

 26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/08/msg00002.html
 27. http://wiki.debian.org/DebianColombia/MiniDebconf2006

Hosting for Debian-related Mailing Lists. Pascal Hakim [28]reported
that he has set up [29]teams.debian.net which aims at providing space
for Debian-related mailing lists and archives, including package
lists, user groups lists and mailing lists for special events. The
service could also act as a temporary server for testing new mailing
lists before making them official on [30]lists.debian.org. Pascal
created a set of [31]rules for using his service.

 28. http://www.redellipse.net/stuff/Debian/teams.debian.net.story
 29. http://teams.debian.net/
 30. http://lists.debian.org/
 31. http://teams.debian.net/request.html

Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.

 * DSA 1131: [32]apache -- Buffer overflow.
 * DSA 1132: [33]apache2 -- Buffer overflow.
 * DSA 1133: [34]mantis -- Execution of arbitrary web script code.
 * DSA 1134: [35]mozilla-thunderbird -- Several vulnerabilities.
 * DSA 1135: [36]libtunepimp -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 1136: [37]gpdf -- Denial of service.
 * DSA 1137: [38]tiff -- Several vulnerabilities.
 * DSA 1138: [39]cfs -- Denial of service.
 * DSA 1139: [40]ruby1.6 -- Privilege escalation.
 * DSA 1140: [41]gnupg -- Denial of service.
 * DSA 1141: [42]gnupg2 -- Denial of service.
 * DSA 1142: [43]freeciv -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 1143: [44]dhcp -- Denial of service.
 * DSA 1144: [45]chmlib -- Denial of service.
 * DSA 1145: [46]freeradius -- Several vulnerabilities.

 32. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1131
 33. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1132
 34. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1133
 35. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1134
 36. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1135
 37. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1136
 38. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1137
 39. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1138
 40. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1139
 41. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1140
 42. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1141
 43. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1142
 44. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1143
 45. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1144
 46. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1145

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [47]recently or contain important updates.

 47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main

 * [48]avarice -- Use GDB with Atmel's JTAG ICE for the AVR.
 * [49]epix1 -- Create mathematically accurate line figures, plots
   and movies.
 * [50]kdetv -- TV viewer for KDE.
 * [51]kdmtheme -- Theme manager for KDM.
 * [52]keep -- Backup system for KDE.
 * [53]kflickr -- KDE application to upload photos to Flickr.
 * [54]knowledgeroot -- Web-based knowledge-base system.
 * [55]mediawiki1.7 -- Website engine for collaborative work.
 * [56]ndisc6 -- IPv6 diagnostic tools.
 * [57]phpunit2 -- Unit testing suite for PHP5.
 * [58]usplash -- Userspace bootsplash utility.

 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/avarice
 49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/tex/epix1
 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kdetv
 51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kdmtheme
 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/keep
 53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kflickr
 54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/knowledgeroot
 55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/mediawiki1.7
 56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ndisc6
 57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/phpunit2
 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/usplash

Orphaned Packages. 3 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 329 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [59]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. To find out which orphaned packages are
installed on your system the wnpp-alert program from devscripts may be
helpful.

 59. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/

 * [60]august -- Tcl/Tk HTML editor. ([61]Bug#381207)
 * [62]cipe -- Lightweight encrypted IP tunnels over UDP.
   ([63]Bug#381162)
 * [64]pronto -- Highly modularised GTK+ mail client written in Perl.
   ([65]Bug#381111)

 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/august
 61. http://bugs.debian.org/381207
 62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/cipe-common
 63. http://bugs.debian.org/381162
 64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/pronto
 65. http://bugs.debian.org/381111

Removed Packages. 8 packages have been [66]removed from the Debian
archive during the past week:

 66. http://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.txt

 * iceme -- Graphical menu editor for IceWM
   [67]Bug#227054: Request of QA, orphaned, outdated
 * icepref -- Yet another configuration tool for IceWM
   [68]Bug#227077: Request of QA, orphaned, outdated
 * openmcl -- Native code ANSI Common LISP compiler and runtime
   environment
   [69]Bug#297473: Request of QA, orphaned, no installations,
   RC-buggy
 * openmcl-build-tools -- OpenMCL Common Lisp tools for building
   system
   [70]Bug#297475: Request of QA, orphaned, useless without OpenMCL
 * newsflash -- Gets news with the newnews command from a server
   [71]Bug#312208: Request of QA: orphaned, upstream gone, few users,
   plenty of alternatives
 * postit -- Sends news from your local server to a remote host
   [72]Bug#312209: Request of QA: orphaned, upstream gone, no users,
   plenty of alternatives
 * libkpathsea3 -- Path search library for teTeX (devel part)
   [73]Bug#369096: Request of maintainer, superseded by tetex-bin
 * tomcat4 -- Java Servlet engine (core libraries)
   [74]Bug#377734: Request of maintainer, superseded by tomcat5

 67. http://bugs.debian.org/227054
 68. http://bugs.debian.org/227077
 69. http://bugs.debian.org/297473
 70. http://bugs.debian.org/297475
 71. http://bugs.debian.org/312208
 72. http://bugs.debian.org/312209
 73. http://bugs.debian.org/369096
 74. http://bugs.debian.org/377734

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 [75]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [76]dwn@debian.org.

 75. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
 76. mailto:dwn@debian.org

This issue of Debian Weekly News was edited by David Graham,
Mohammed Adnène Trojette, Sebastian Feltel and Martin 'Joey' Schulze.


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