path: root/english/News/weekly/2003/46/index.wml

#use wml::debian::weeklynews::header PUBDATE="2003-11-18" SUMMARY="Desktop, Caching, Impi, Merchandise, Installer, Release Progress, dpatch"
# $Id$

<p>Welcome to this year's 46th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the
Debian community.  Daniel Silverstone <a
href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/debian-uk/2003-November/001909.html">\
announced</a> a Debian Christmas or rather a Santa Claus <a
href="http://wiki.earth.li/DebianXmasMeet">meeting</a> on December 6th in
Cambridge.  The <a href="http://www.w3c.org/">World Wide Web Consortium</a>
has released the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-PNG-20031110/">specification</a> as a W3C
recommendation, which has also become an international ISO standard.</p>

<p><strong>Getting GNU/Linux on the Desktop.</strong> At the recent <a
href="http://www.butrain.com/itp/desklinux.asp?source=15632">Desktop Linux
Conference</a> Bruce Perens suggested that in order to get GNU/Linux on to
the enterprise desktop, the community <a
href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/10/HNdesktopwalk_1.html">\
should</a> base their <a
href="http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,61166,00.html">\
efforts</a> on one single distribution, namely on Debian.  Bruce went on to
say that enterprises will be willing to pay companies to engineer versions of
GNU/Linux to suit their needs, but that the base distribution should remain <a
href="$(HOME)/social_contract#guidelines">free</a>.</p>

<p><strong>Installing Debian on a Lindows MobilePC.</strong> Steve Hastings <a
href="http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7165">explained</a> in Linux
Journal how he got Debian GNU/Linux properly running on a <a
href="http://info.lindows.com/mobilepc/mobilepc.htm">Lindows MobilePC</a>,
which is a USB- and network-bootable notebook and comes with LindowsOS 3.0
pre-installed.  Basically he inspected the list of installed packages and
exchanged the packages.</p>

<p><strong>Debian Package Caching.</strong> Jonathan Oxer <a
href="http://articles.linmagau.org/modules.php?op=modload&amp;name=Sections&amp;file=index&amp;req=viewarticle&amp;artid=451">\
wrote</a> about caching Debian packages in order to save bandwidth when
updating or installing multiple Debian machines.  The <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/apt-cacher">apt-cacher</a> utility was
originally written by Nick Andrew to maintain two Debian systems over a slow
modem connection.  It runs as CGI program and only needs to be set up on one
machine.</p>

<p><strong>New Child: South African Impi Linux.</strong> The new Debian
spin-off <a href="http://www.impi.org.za/">Impi Linux</a> was <a
href="http://www.tectonic.co.za/default.php?action=view&amp;id=240">\
announced</a> <a
href="http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/11/12/1649248">\
recently</a>.  It is mainly based on Debian with components borrowed from <a
href="http://www.knoppix.org/">Knoppix</a> and is currently aimed at providing
an office desktop, but there are plans to create a server version as well.  By
releasing a South African Linux operating system, the creators are
demonstrating that Africans can be self determined in the digital world.</p>

<p><strong>Cafepress Shops with Debian Merchandise.</strong> Javier
Fernández-Sanguino Peña <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-project-0311/msg00061.html">noticed</a>
that several shops were set up at <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/">\
Cafepress</a> that help selling Debian merchandise articles.  He was worried
to see so many shops related to Debian and wondered which of them really
endorse the Debian project.  Some say they do, but do they really provide back
a percentage of their sales as some claim?

<p><strong>Debian Installer Review.</strong> Jonathan Oxer wrote an
encouraging <a
href="http://articles.linmagau.org/modules.php?op=modload&amp;name=Sections&amp;file=index&amp;req=viewarticle&amp;artid=455">\
review</a> about the beta version of the next generation <a
href="$(HOME)/devel/debian-installer/">Debian installer</a>.  This is how
Debian is constructing the future of what is known to be its Achilles heel.
The article explains why having a graphical installer is not a priority and
reports how it now auto-detects hardware, and how the module selection stage
has been streamlined.
This was previously one of the more confusing parts of the installation for
newbies.</p>

<p><strong>Progress towards Debian 3.1.</strong> Adrian Bunk <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-release-0311/msg00067.html">summarised</a>
some personal observations and opinions regarding the progress towards the
next Debian release.  His impression is that many Debian developers don't use
Debian 3.0, and hence don't know how outdated it is.  He reported that during
the last few months, the number of release-critical bugs in packages in unstable
was constantly at the 700 bugs mark and has come to the conclusion that one cannot
freeze testing at any time.</p>

<p><strong>Debian Installation over DSL?</strong> Goswin Brederlow and Marco
d'Itri <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0311/msg01164.html">\
discussed</a> whether it would be possible for the debian-installer to support
a network installation over DSL.  One problem is that USB modems require a lot
of firmware packages and not all of them can be provided by Debian.  They
could be put on a business card sized CD, though.  A configuration frontend would still
be required.  Any takers?</p>

<p><strong>Does Debian promote non-free Software?</strong> Mathieu Roy <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0311/msg00911.html">noticed</a>
that upon installation of GIMP 1.2 a message is displayed suggesting the
installation of gimp1.2-nonfree.  Tollef Fog Heen <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0311/msg00918.html">explained</a>
that Suggests are technically ok but Recommends and Depends aren't.  However,
non-free software is still mentioned, which is one of Richard Stallman's
complaints about Debian.</p>

<p><strong>Debian Installer Template Polishing.</strong> Christian Perrier <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0311/msg01214.html">reported</a>
that the <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0310/msg01686.html">\
polishing</a> of all user interaction screens by the Debian installer team is
mostly finished.  The purpose of this work is getting a simple setup process,
even for Unix newcomers &ndash; a recent <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0311/msg00983.html">review</a>
mentioned the complexity of some
screens and the use of too technical or too "internal" jargon.  This work also
includes full proofreading of original English screens as well as much work by
all translation teams.</p>

<p><strong>New major dpatch Version.</strong> Gergely Nagy <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0311/msg01295.html">announced</a> a
new major version of <a href="http://packages.debian.org/dpatch">dpatch</a>,
patch maintenance system for Debian source packages, which was uploaded into
experimental.  The tool has been rewritten, but from the users perspective it
should be fully backwards compatible.  The new version is more flexible
towards different trees and selectively applied patches.</p>

<p><strong>SPI Board Elections Debate Transcript.</strong> A <a
href="http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-announce/2003/000063.html">\
transcript</a> of the debate between the candidates for the three vacant positions
on the Board of <a href="http://www.spi-inc.org/">Software in the Public
Interest, Inc.</a> (SPI), which was held over Internet Relay Chat,
is now available.  The candidates
answered several questions about their plans for the board and SPI's
past and future.
<a href="http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/votes/vote2/">Voting</a>
runs through Thursday 20 November 2003 (i.e. ends midnight, Friday
morning UTC) and is open to all contributing members, including
those who join this week.</p>

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

<ul>
<li><a href="$(HOME)/security/2003/dsa-401">hylafax</a> --
    Remote root exploit.
<li><a href="$(HOME)/security/2003/dsa-402">minimalist</a> --
    Remote command execution.
</ul>

<p><strong>New or Noteworthy Packages.</strong> The following packages were
added to the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important updates.</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/br2684ctl">br2684ctl</a>
    -- Utility for configuring RFC 2684 ATM/Ethernet bridging.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/dmidecode">dmidecode</a>
    -- Dump Desktop Management Interface data.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/docbook-slides">docbook-slides</a>
    -- XML Slides DTD and XSL Stylesheets.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/freeguide">freeguide</a>
    -- Displays TV listings.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/gnubiff">gnubiff</a>
    -- Mail notification program for GNOME.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/hawxy">hawxy</a>
    -- Script that makes PHP-enabled webservers to HAWHAW proxies.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/openrpg">openrpg</a>
    -- Client/server application to play RPG over the Internet.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/rmail">rmail</a>
    -- UUCP remote mail handler.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/rtfm">rtfm</a>
    -- RT FAQ Manager.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/slune">slune</a>
    -- 3D racing and car-crashing game.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/songwrite">songwrite</a>
    -- Guitar tablature editor and player.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/sound-icons">sound-icons</a>
    -- Sounds for speech enabled applications.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/speech-dispatcher">speech-dispatcher</a>
    -- Common interface to speech synthesizers.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/sysfsutils">sysfsutils</a>
    -- Utilities for querying sysfs.
</ul>

<p><strong>Orphaned Packages.</strong> 2 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer.  This makes a total of 185 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/admin/cryptoapi-core-source">cryptoapi-core-source</a>
     -- CryptoAPI core kernel module.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/220577">Bug#220577</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/cryptoloop-source">cryptoloop-source</a>
     -- CryptoAPI's Cryptoloop Module.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/220578">Bug#220578</a>)</li>
</ul>

<p><strong>Want to continue reading DWN?</strong> 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 <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 editor="Thomas Fogwill, Christian Perrier, Andre Lehovich, Martin 'Joey' Schulze"