1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
|
#use wml::debian::weeklynews::header PUBDATE="2002-10-01" SUMMARY="Debian Uses, Smart Cards, Manpage translations, Debiandoc, Indy Booting, Hackmeeting"
# $Id$
<p>Welcome to this year's 38th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the
Debian community, which includes items by Ludovic Rousseau and Andrew Pollock
this time. After over four years (1757 days) of computation effort and
millions of CPU-hours of work, <a
href="http://www.distributed.net/">distributed.net</a> has <a
href="http://www.rsasecurity.com/news/releases/pr.asp?doc_id=1400">brute
forced</a> the key to RSA Security's 64 bit encryption <a
href="http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/challenges/">challenge</a>, winning a
US$ 10,000 prize.</p>
<p><strong>High-profile Uses of Debian.</strong> Colin Walters <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0209/msg01609.html">announced</a>
that he is gathering information about high-profile <a
href="$(HOME)/users/">usage</a> of Debian. Good examples include
deployment as a standard workstation at a university or college, as a server
for well known web sites such as Sourceforge and Thawte.com, or in a
high-reliability/availability context (such as a life support system in a
hospital).</p>
<p><strong>Support for Smart Cards.</strong> Ludovic Rousseau packaged most of
the <a href="http://linuxnet.com/musclecard/index.html">MuscleCard
utilities</a> provided by <a href="http://linuxnet.com/">Muscle</a> (Movement
for the Use of Smart Card in a Linux Environment). This includes high-level
abstraction libraries as <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libcflexplugin">\
libcflexplugin</a> for a Schlumberger Cryptoflex card and <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libmcardplugin">\
libmcardplugin</a> for the generic JavaCard card. On top of these <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libmusclepkcs11">\
libmusclepkcs11</a> provides a <a
href="http://developer.netscape.com/support/faqs/pkcs_11.html">PKCS#11</a> API
(Application Program Interface).</p>
<p><strong>Using Smart Cards.</strong> The API mentioned above is used by Mozilla to delegate
cryptographic functions to a cryptographic token (like a smart card). So your
authentication and signing key used by Mozilla will never leave your smart
card and will not be stored on the computer (RSA key pairs are generated
onboard the smart card). Additionally <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/xcardii">xcardii</a>
provides a graphical user interface and <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/muscletools">muscletools</a>
a commandline frontend to manage your smart card.</p>
<p><strong>Using CVS for Manpage Translations.</strong> Julien Louis <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc-0209/msg00113.html">wondered</a> how
to coordinate the translation of Debian specific manpages. This effort could
be maintained through CVS, sorted by language and section. Denis Barbier <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc-0209/msg00134.html">adds</a> that the
<a href="http://cvs.debian.org/manpages/?cvsroot=debian-doc">cvs directory</a>
already exists and that we could use similar tools to those that are used
for maintaining translations of the website.</p>
<p><strong>Debiandoc versus Docbook.</strong> Susan Kleinman <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc-0209/msg00094.html">believed</a> that
it would be a good idea to revise the policy stating that all Debian
documentation should be written in Debiandoc. Susan proposed that Debian
adopts an XML-based language. The following discussion lists several pros and
cons against this proposal.</p>
<p><strong>Is Debian Losing Influence?</strong> A <a
href="../../oldurl?http://www.debianplanet.org/node.php?id=813">comment</a> on Debian
Planet discussed the little attention Debian has received from GNU/Linux
websites following the release of woody two months ago in comparison to other
distributions. There are very few online reviews of Debian 3.0, compared
to Red Hat 7.3, for example, which has had four reviews since its release
around five months ago. Should the Debian community be concerned about the
lack of popular interest in its distribution?</p>
<p><strong>Bootable ISO-Image for SGI Indy.</strong> Florian Lohoff <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-mips-0209/msg00055.html">announced</a> the
first ISO image for Debian/mips which is bootable on SGI I2 and SGI Indy
machines. All you need to do is enter the PROM and click on Software
installation from local CD-ROM. Then follow the usual steps to install Debian
on the machine. This was <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-mips-0209/msg00048.html">developed</a>
during this year's <a href="http://oldenburger.linuxtage.de/Oldenburg2002/">\
developers meeting</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Debian at Spanish National Hackmeeting.</strong> Eric Van
Buggenhaut reported that the <a
href="http://www.sindominio.net/hackmeeting/eng/madhack.html">Spanish National
Hackmeeting</a> will be held in Madrid this year, on October 4th - 6th. This
show is the largest annual concentration of geeks and Free Software in Spain.
Several Debian developers will be present and run a Debian booth to
demonstrate the benefits of our favourite system to the public.</p>
<p><strong>Enabling Daemons.</strong> Noah Meyerhans <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0209/msg01760.html">noted</a> that
Debian currently doesn't support situations when a daemon package is installed
and the daemon isn't started upon startup. Noah wondered why Debian doesn't
support the BSDish /etc/rc.conf system which contains a variable for each
daemon.</p>
<p><strong>New or Noteworthy Packages.</strong> The following packages were
added to the Debian archive recently or contain important updates.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/otherosfs/basilisk2">basilisk2</a>
-- 68k Macintosh emulator.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/tcptrace">tcptrace</a>
-- Tool for analyzing tcpdump output.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/umlrun">umlrun</a>
-- Run commands inside User-Mode Linux.
</ul>
<p><strong>Orphaned Packages.</strong> 19 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 139 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software
community. Please see the <a href="$(HOME)/devel/wnpp/">WNPP pages</a> 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.</p>
<ul>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/argus-server">argus</a>
-- IP network transaction auditing tool.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/163005">Bug#163005</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/argus-client">argus-client</a>
-- IP network transaction auditing tool.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/163006">Bug#163006</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/blt">blt</a>
-- the BLT libraries for TK/TCL.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162857">Bug#162857</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/chkrootkit">chkrootkit</a>
-- Checks for signs of rootkits on the local system.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/163009">Bug#163009</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/eeyes">eeyes</a>
-- The Electric Eyes graphics viewer/editor.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162305">Bug#162305</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/generator">generator</a>
-- Genesis emulator.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162407">Bug#162407</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/gnome-vfs-extras">gnome-vfs-extras</a>
-- GPL gnome-vfs modules, includes SMB support.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162408">Bug#162408</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/gnome-vfs-extras2">gnome-vfs-extras2</a>
-- GPL gnome-vfs modules, includes SMB and Rio500 support.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162409">Bug#162409</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/gtk-engines-cleanice">gtk-engines-cleanice</a>
-- CleanIce theme for GTK+ 1.2.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162410">Bug#162410</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/gtk-engines-cleanice2">gtk-engines-cleanice2</a>
-- CleanIce theme for GTK+ 2.x.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162411">Bug#162411</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/gtk-engines-mgicchikn">gtk-engines-mgicchikn</a>
-- Magic Chicken theme for GTK+ 2.x.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162412">Bug#162412</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libhdf4g">libhdf4g</a>
-- The Hierarchical Data Format, version 4.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162608">Bug#162608</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/saml">saml</a>
-- Simple Algebraic Math Library.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162536">Bug#162536</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/screem">screem</a>
-- GNOME website development environment.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162887">Bug#162887</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/tct">tct</a>
-- Forensics related utilities.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/163007">Bug#163007</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/thttpd">thttpd</a>
-- tiny/turbo/throttling HTTP server.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/163004">Bug#163004</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/utah-glx">utah-glx</a>
-- Hardware accelerated GLX module for XFree86.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162609">Bug#162609</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xfonts-gimpers">xfonts-gimpers</a>
-- X11 fonts created by Artwiz, TigerT and Daniel Erat.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162476">Bug#162476</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/xwave">xwave</a>
-- Wave sound file editor.
(<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/162607">Bug#162607</a>)</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Want to continue reading DWN?</strong> Please help us create this
newsletter. Currently, it's mostly a one-man show, which is anticipated to
fail in the long term. We urgently need volunteer writers who prepare items.
Please see the <a href="$(HOME)/News/weekly/contributing">contributing
page</a> to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at <a href="mailto:dwn@debian.org">dwn@debian.org</a>.</p>
#use wml::debian::weeklynews::footer
|
