Debian Weekly News - January 10th, 2006

Jeroen van Wolffelaar [1]reported that
[2]packages.debian.org has been disabled due to performance issues.
Neil McGovern [3]called for sponsorship requests for active Debian
people for the last time for the upcoming [4]Debian Conference.

 1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/01/msg00035.html
 2. http://packages.debian.org/
 3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/01/msg00000.html
 4. http://www.debian.org/events/2006/0514-debconf

Status of non-free Firmware. Sven Luther [5]explained the status of
non-free [6]firmware blobs in the Debian Linux kernel. Some of them
have been relicensed and are redistributable again, others have been
separated from the kernel into userland to be used by the
request_firmware infrastructure. Steve Langasek plans to start a
general resolution to decide whether Debian requires the source code
for firmware blobs.

 5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2006/01/msg00241.html
 6. http://wiki.debian.org/KernelFirmwareLicensing

FOSDEM Booth for Debian. Wouter Verhelst is [7]looking for volunteers
to help man the booth at the upcoming [8]FOSDEM conference. He is
also interested in suggestions for something they could show at the
booth. The Debian project will also have a developers room in which
talks will be held.

 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu/2006/01/msg00021.html
 8. http://www.debian.org/events/2006/0225-fosdem

Bits from the Release Team. Andreas Barth [9]reported about the
expectations of the release team for 2006 which includes to release
[10]etch at the beginning of December. He asked to take more care
about release critical bugs now and to be careful when performing
non-maintainer uploads. The essential toolchain and kernels will be
frozen at the end of July.

 9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/01/msg00001.html
 10. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/

New Technical Committee Members. After extensive consultation with the
existing members of the technical committee and earlier resignations
of Wichert Akkerman, Jason Gunthorpe, and Guy Maor Branden Robinson
has [11]appointed Steve Langasek, Anthony Towns, and Andreas Barth as
new members of the technical committee.

 11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/01/msg00013.html

Stable Aliases for CD Drives. Marco d'Itri [12]reported that the
convenient /dev/cdrom symlink will not be supported anymore. Joey Hess
[13]added that this link needs to be available in an installed system
for APT to work properly with a local CD attached. Adrian von Bidder
[14]stated that similarly stable Ethernet interface names which
suddenly become unstable after an upgrade are not funny.

 12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg01390.html
 13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg01412.html
 14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg01467.html

Debian Archive Split and AMD64 Integration? Martin Zobel-Helas
[15]asked about the status of the archive split and the integration of
the [16]AMD64 port. Anthony Towns [17]mentioned the archive split that
prevents AMD64 from being integrated into the normal Debian
development environment earlier already. New patches need to be
tested.

 15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/01/msg00019.html
 16. http://www.debian.org/ports/amd64/
 17. http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/blog/2005/11/16#2005-11-16-dak

GnuPG Error during Upgrade. Bernd Prager [18]noticed that upgrading
Debian fails with a missing key error since a new archive key is used
for signing. Lee Chinook [19]provided the path to the new [20]key and
the instructions to incorporate it.

 18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2006/01/msg00593.html
 19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2006/01/msg00675.html
 20. http://ftp-master.debian.org/ziyi_key_2006.asc

Obsoleted Package: xlibs-dev. David Nusinow [21]announced that with
the upload of X.org 6.9 to unstable the xlibs-dev metapackage is no
longer [22]built. As a result many packages fail to build until their
build dependencies have been adjusted to list only the required
libraries. Since all such libraries are also available in [23]sarge
the packages can still be backported easily.

 21. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/01/msg00003.html
 22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/11/msg00022.html
 23. http://www.debian.org/releases/sarge/

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

 * DSA 929: [24]petris -- Buffer overflow.
 * DSA 930: [25]smstools -- Format string vulnerability.
 * DSA 931: [26]xpdf -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 932: [27]kdegraphics -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 933: [28]hylafax -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 934: [29]pound -- Several vulnerabilities.

 24. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-929
 25. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-930
 26. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-931
 27. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-932
 28. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-933
 29. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-934

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [30]recently or contain important updates.

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

 * [31]akode-dbg -- Debugging symbols for akode.
 * [32]altermime -- Utility used to alter mime-encoded mailpacks.
 * [33]aspell-et -- Estonian dictionary for Aspell.
 * [34]avahi-daemon -- Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD daemon.
 * [35]bluetooth -- Bluetooth stack utilities.
 * [36]cacao -- Java virtual machine.
 * [37]csync2 -- Cluster synchronisation tool.
 * [38]dbus -- Simple interprocess messaging system.
 * [39]iestonian -- Estonian dictionary for Ispell.
 * [40]kchmviewer -- CHM viewer for KDE.
 * [41]kfaxview -- G3/G4 fax viewer for KDE using kviewshell.
 * [42]knetworkconf -- KDE network configuration tool.
 * [43]lua-mode -- Emacs mode for editing Lua programs.
 * [44]mrd6 -- IPv6 Multicast Routing Daemon.
 * [45]myspell-et -- Estonian dictionary for MySpell.
 * [46]nepenthes -- Versatile tool to collect malware by emulating
   widespread vulnerabilities.
 * [47]orage -- Calendar for Xfce Desktop Environment.
 * [48]thunar -- File Manager for Xfce.
 * [49]user-setup -- Set up initial user and password.
 * [50]webcheck -- Website link and structure checker.

 31. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libdevel/akode-dbg
 32. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/altermime
 33. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/aspell-et
 34. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/avahi-daemon
 35. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/bluetooth
 36. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/cacao
 37. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/csync2
 38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/dbus
 39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/iestonian
 40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kchmviewer
 41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/kfaxview
 42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/knetworkconf
 43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/lua-mode
 44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/mrd6
 45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/myspell-et
 46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/nepenthes
 47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/orage
 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/thunar
 49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/user-setup
 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/webcheck

Orphaned Packages. 1 package was orphaned this week and requires a new
maintainer. This makes a total of 166 orphaned packages. Many thanks
to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software
community. Please see the [51]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.

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

 * [52]sqlobject -- Object Relational Manager for providing an object
   interface to your database. ([53]Bug#347193)

 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/python2.3-sqlobject
 53. http://bugs.debian.org/347193

Removed Packages. 9 packages have been [54]removed from the Debian
archive during the past week:

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

 * guitar -- GTK+ archive extraction/viewing tool
   [55]Bug#300627: Request of QA, dead upstream; better alternatives
   exist
 * cabot -- Set of helper scripts for GPG/PGP keysigning paperwork
   [56]Bug#320961: Request of QA, has never been part of a stable
   release; orphaned; dead upstream; better alternatives exist
 * libpng3 -- PNG library - runtime
   [57]Bug#338016: Request of maintainer, superseded by libpng
 * procmeter -- X based system status monitor, older version
   [58]Bug#341505: Request of maintainer, dead upstream, superseded
   by procmeter3
 * queue -- Transparent load balancing system
   [59]Bug#341663: Request of maintainer and QA; dead upstream;
   unusable
 * cursel -- Simple language to provide text application interfaces
   [60]Bug#342637: Request of maintainer, RC-buggy; FTBFS
 * ipmenu -- Cursel iptables/iproute2 GUI
   [61]Bug#342754: Request of maintainer, Obsolete
 * libmusicbrainz-2.0 -- Second generation incarnation of the CD
   Index - development
   [62]Bug#342776: Request of maintainer, superseded by
   libmusicbrainz-2.1
 * baseconfig-udeb -- Run base-config from within debian-installer
   (udeb)
   [63]Bug#344970: Request of maintainer, obsolete

 55. http://bugs.debian.org/300627
 56. http://bugs.debian.org/320961
 57. http://bugs.debian.org/338016
 58. http://bugs.debian.org/341505
 59. http://bugs.debian.org/341663
 60. http://bugs.debian.org/342637
 61. http://bugs.debian.org/342754
 62. http://bugs.debian.org/342776
 63. http://bugs.debian.org/344970

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 64. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
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