Debian Weekly News - January 3rd, 2006

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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/01/
Debian Weekly News - January 3rd, 2006
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 1. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2005/timeline
 2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2005/10/msg00033.html
 3. http://ftp.gnuab.org/pub/debian-cd/current/
 4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2005/12/msg00114.html
 5. http://www.debian.org/vote/2005/vote_002

Reducing the Archive Size. Gürkan Sengün [6]summarised the effect of
different compression algorithms on the total size of the archive.
Raphaël Hertzog [7]noticed that the support of [8]7-zip archives in
[9]dpkg is evaluated in order to reduce Debian's archive overall
size. Steinar H. Gunderson [10]added that CPU power is also a major
point to take in account.

 6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg00759.html
 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg00809.html
 8. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/p7zip
 9. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Dpkg7Zip
 10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg00760.html

Debian Packages via BitTorrent. George Danchev [11]mentioned
[12]apt-torrent in order to download packages upon an upgrade in
parallel. The packages is composed of an apt proxy and a BitTorrent
package fetcher, i.e. a seeder and a tracker. It run as a system
daemon.

 11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg00190.html
 12. http://sianka.free.fr/documentation.html

Report from FOSS.IN 2005. Kartik Mistry [13]reported about this year's
[14]FOSS.IN conference that was formerly known as [15]Linux Bangalore
and where two Debian related talks were held. Jaldhar Vyas also
[16]reported about meetings with other Indian Debian developers he met
during the conference.

 13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg00538.html
 14. http://foss.in/2005/
 15. http://linux-bangalore.org/
 16. http://www.braincells.com/debian/index.cgi/search/item=121

Archive Architecture Qualification. Anthony Towns [17]started that
decision process about the architectures that should be handled by the
official Debian [18]archive. The main limitation on accepting new
architectures is their space requirement on the servers. Architectures
will need to demonstrate that the effort to support them isn't a
complete waste of time. Strategies for non-release architectures are
also needed so that they could do snapshot releases.

 17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/12/msg00014.html
 18. http://ftp-master.debian.org/

Promoting VIM as default. Joey Hess [19]proposed to use a special
[20]vim package as default vi. Its maintainer has managed to create a
[21]vim-tiny package that is only marginally larger than [22]nvi,
which is the standard vi included in the base system. Some [23]default
settings are not appreciated, though.

 19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg00796.html
 20. http://packages.debian.org/vim
 21. http://packages.debian.org/vim-tiny
 22. http://packages.debian.org/nvi
 23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg00936.html

/var/run versus /run. Thomas Hood [24]wondered whether the Debian
system should use /var/run or /run. Anthony Towns [25]summarised the
arguments pro and contra certain directories and concluded that each
of the solutions has a degree of ugliness.

 24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg00909.html
 25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg00948.html

Thoughts on the Quality of Debian. Lars Wirzenius [26]thought about
ways to make Debian better from a technical point of view. He
summarised several areas where the quality of the Debian distribution
is improved, including using tools with higher levels of abstraction,
reporting and fixing bugs, bug squashing parties, automated testing
and quality assurance.

 26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg01034.html

Using a moving License. Florent Bayle [27]wondered how to treat a
package whose license links to a web page instead of including it.
This license could be altered after the package has been included in
Debian. Decklin Foster [28]explained that Debian may redistribute it
under the license which it has received and that the license text must
be distributed along with the software.

 27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/12/msg00124.html
 28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/12/msg00133.html

General Resolution: GNU Free Documentation License. Anthony Towns
[29]proposed an official statement with regards to the [30]GNU Free
Documentation License. It's been six months after the [31]editorial
changes of the [32]social contract that forbid non-free documentation
to be distributed with Debian.

 29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2005/12/msg00115.html
 30. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
 31. http://www.debian.org/vote/2004/vote_003
 32. http://www.debian.org/social_contract

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [33]recently or contain important updates.

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

 * [34]aspectc++ -- Aspect-oriented programming extension for C++.
 * [35]boost-build -- Build system.
 * [36]bzrtools -- Collection of tools for bzr.
 * [37]cdrbq -- Graphical CD burning frontend.
 * [38]conspy -- Remote control of Linux virtual consoles.
 * [39]cvsnt -- Better CVS.
 * [40]eclipse-cdt -- C/C++ Development Tools for Eclipse.
 * [41]freeloader -- GNOME download manager supporting torrents.
 * [42]gcx -- Astronomical image processing and photometry GTK+
   application.
 * [43]gdebi -- Simple tool to install deb files.
 * [44]gifsicle -- Tool for manipulating GIF images.
 * [45]gnome-sudoku -- Game for the popular Japanese sudoku logic
   puzzle.
 * [46]granule -- Flashcard program for learning new words.
 * [47]grsync -- GTK+ frontend for rsync.
 * [48]kmess -- Instant messenger to use MSN on KDE.
 * [49]knetdockapp -- Network activity monitor applet for KDE.
 * [50]leo -- English-German dictionary using dict.leo.org.
 * [51]linhdd -- GTK frontend for cfdisk/df/hdparm/mkfs.
 * [52]link-grammar -- Carnegie Mellon University's link grammar
   parser for English.
 * [53]ndoc -- Code documentation generator for .NET.
 * [54]pessulus -- Lockdown editor for GNOME.
 * [55]postfix-smtpguard -- Smtpguard policy service daemon for
   Postfix.
 * [56]procinfo -- Displays system information from /proc.
 * [57]qliss3d -- Demonstration tool for Lissajous physiques.
 * [58]runit-services -- UNIX init scheme with service supervision
   (services).
 * [59]smart-notifier -- Graphical hard disk health status notifier.
 * [60]sobby -- Dedicated server for collaborative editing.
 * [61]sudo-ldap -- Provide limited super user privileges to specific
   users.
 * [62]sysprof -- System-wide Linux profiler.
 * [63]tofrodos -- Converts DOS <-> Unix text files, alias tofromdos.
 * [64]uim-el -- Emacs frontend for uim.
 * [65]vamps -- Tool to recompress and modify the structure of a DVD.
 * [66]yample -- Yet Another Mail Processing Language.

 34. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/aspectc++
 35. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/boost-build
 36. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/bzrtools
 37. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/otherosfs/cdrbq
 38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/conspy
 39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/cvsnt
 40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/eclipse-cdt
 41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/freeloader
 42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/gcx
 43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/gdebi
 44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/gifsicle
 45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/gnome-sudoku
 46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/granule
 47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/grsync
 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/kmess
 49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/knetdockapp
 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/leo
 51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/linhdd
 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/link-grammar
 53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/ndoc
 54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/pessulus
 55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/postfix-smtpguard
 56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/procinfo
 57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/qliss3d
 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/runit-services
 59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/smart-notifier
 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/sobby
 61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/sudo-ldap
 62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/sysprof
 63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/tofrodos
 64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/uim-el
 65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/vamps
 66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/yample

Orphaned Packages. 1 package was orphaned this week and requires a new
maintainer. This makes a total of 171 orphaned packages. Many thanks
to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software
community. Please see the [67]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.

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

 * [68]psh -- Interactive shell with the power of perl.
   ([69]Bug#344748)

 68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/shells/psh
 69. http://bugs.debian.org/344748

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 [70]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [71]dwn@debian.org.

 70. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
 71. mailto:dwn@debian.org


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