path: root/english/News/weekly/2004/03/index.wml

#use wml::debian::weeklynews::header PUBDATE="2004-01-20" SUMMARY="Java, Translations, Award, Installer, BTS, Event, Ext2, Missing Things, libtool"
# $Id$

<p>Welcome to this year's third issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the
Debian community.  Looks like we are popular among <a
href="http://slashdot.org/">Slashdot</a> readers as well, since we were <a
href="http://slashdot.org/articles/04/01/14/1319228.shtml">quoted</a> by the
word recently.  Another news site, <a href="http://www.symlink.ch/">\
Symlink</a>, recently <a
href="http://www.symlink.ch/articles/04/01/14/1658210.shtml">noticed</a> that
the most important <a href="http://www.google.de/search?q=contract">\
contract</a> is Debian's <a href="$(HOME)/social_contract">social
contract</a>.  Domenico Andreoli also <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg00791.html">noticed</a> another
Free Software developer <a href="http://survey.bdf-net.com/">survey</a>.</p>

<p><strong>Moving Java Packages from contrib to main.</strong>
<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/avdyk/">Arnaud Vandyck</a>
started to investigate whether Java-using packages in Debian's
contrib archive can move into main by using
<a href="http://packages.debian.org/kaffe">kaffe</a> or
<a href="http://packages.debian.org/gcj">gcj</a> instead
of a non-free Java environment.  His progress
<a href="http://java.debian.net/index.php/MovingJavaToMain">notes</a>
suggest that a few packages can indeed be used with free Java environments.</p>

<p><strong>Outdated Web Site Translations.</strong>  Peter Karlsson has been
working on <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-www-0401/msg00044.html">\
identifying</a> outdated web site translations.  He prepared a <a
href="http://people.debian.org/~peterk/outdated/">report</a> which lists, for
each language, all documents not updated for two weeks.  Once normal <a
href="http://cvs.debian.org/webwml/?cvsroot=webwml">CVS</a> operations are
restored, Peter's
intention is to start removing all translation pages that have not been
updated six months after the original document has changed.  Keeping outdated
translations on-line only confuses readers rather than helping them.</p>

<p><strong>Debian Developer wins Sun Award.</strong> The Sydney Morning Herald
<a href="http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/14/1073877881076.html">\
reported</a> that Matthew Palmer, a Debian developer, has won the 2004
national Regional Delegates Program Award at Australia's national <a
href="http://linux.conf.au/">Linux conference</a>.  Matthew was given the
award for development and management of eight software packages for the Debian
project. <a href="http://www.sun.com/">Sun Microsystems</a> also said that he
had made a significant contribution to the <a
href="http://www.cbnsw.org.au/">NSW ComputerBank</a> project, an initiative to
supply free GNU/Linux systems to low-income individuals, community groups and
disadvantaged schools.</p>

<p><strong>Debian-Installer Beta 2.</strong> Joey Hess <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0401/msg00006.html">\
announced</a> the second beta release of the Debian sarge installer for the
i386, PowerPC, and IA-64 architectures.  Besides the addition of the IA-64
architecture, new features in this release include an improved and streamlined
installation process, support for installation from USB mass storage (USB
keychain, etc.) and support for systems with only 32&nbsp;MB of memory on the
i386 architecture.  The installer is also translated completely or nearly completely
into 16 languages.</p>

<p><strong>Debian used for Data Mining in Business.</strong> Rodney Gedda
<a href="http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?id=351192284">\
reported</a> in Computerworld about the use of Debian by <a
href="http://www.csiro.au/index.asp">Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organization</a> (CSIRO) in Australia.
Principal computer scientist for enterprise data mining, Dr. Graham
Williams, stated that CSIRO uses a number of toolkits
including R, GNOME, and Python scripting,
running on the Debian GNU/Linux operating system.
"The Department of Health and Ageing has
 a 200&nbsp;CPU cluster running Debian GNU/Linux", Williams said. "Debian
is a stable server operating system that is easy to maintain and we also
use it on desktops."</p>

<p><strong>Remote Debian Installation over Red Hat.</strong> Emma Jane Hogbin <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-user-0401/msg02972.html">proclaimed</a>
the success of her remote Debian installation on the Debian user list.  This
method does not use <a href="http://packages.debian.org/debootstrap">\
debootstrap</a>, and is documented in two files, which describe the <a
href="http://xtrinsic.com/geek/config/remoteinstall.txt">installation</a> and
the post-installation <a
href="http://xtrinsic.com/geek/config/postinstall.txt">configuration</a>.
Emma Jane acknowledged the helpful mails and original HOWTOs of <a
href="http://twiki.iwethey.org/Main/DebianChrootInstall">Karsten Self</a> and
<a href="http://trilldev.sourceforge.net/files/remotedeb.html">Erik
Jacobson</a> and described her notes as a bit rough, but most people will find
them well documented.</p>

<p><strong>Bug Tracking System moved to new Machine.</strong> Colin Watson <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0401/msg00009.html">\
announced</a> that the <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/">bug tracking
system</a> (BTS) has been moved to a dual hyperthreaded Xeon hosted at <a
href="http://www.orst.edu/">Oregon State University</a>, with lots of disk
space and bandwidth.  The reason for this move is that master (the old host)
has been getting rather low on disk space lately, it's difficult to add more
to that particular machine, and it became obvious that trying to run the lists <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/">web archives</a> and BTS on the same machine
is an increasingly painful proposition.</p>

<p><strong>New Approach to coordinate Translations.</strong>
Tim Dijkstra
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-i18n-0401/msg00034.html">explained</a>
how the Dutch and French translation teams coordinate translations through
their mailing lists. They use
<a href="http://www.famdijkstra.org/debian/l10n/pseudo-urls.html">pseudo-urls</a>
in the subject line of the mail for this, much like the
<a href="$(HOME)/devel/wnpp/">wnpp</a> does. A script is generating
this <a href="http://www.famdijkstra.org/debian/l10n/">status page</a>
from their mails. Tim wants to extend this system, so that other
translation teams could benefit from it as well.</p>

<p><strong>Debian at LinuxWorld Expo New York.</strong> The <a
href="http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/linuxworldny/">LinuxWorld Expo &amp;
Conference</a> will once again take place in New York City from Jan 21st to
23rd, 2004, at the Jacob Javits Center.  The Debian project will be in booth
\#2 in the .Org pavilion.  Visitors can get their GnuPG key signed, make a
donation to the Debian project by buying a t-shirt or just to say hello.
If you don't have an entrance pass you can <a
href="http://people.debian.org/~jaldhar/lwceny2004.html">print</a> one out and
register at the show for free access to the expo.</p>

<p><strong>Dependency on Ext2 Checker?</strong> Donggyoo Lee <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg00767.html">wanted</a> to
clean up his system and remove Ext2/3 utilities which are essential.  Thus, he
<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/111651">proposed</a> that <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/util-linux">util-linux</a> includes
<code>/sbin/fsck</code> and suggests packages providing this program for other
filesystems.  Theodore Ts'o, though, hasn't implemented this since this would
only <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg00953.html">\
save</a> a few hundred kilobytes.  Adrian Bunk also <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg00831.html">added</a> that
one must not remove essential packages.</p>

<p><strong>Top 5 missing Things in Debian.</strong> Dan Shearer <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg00794.html">asked</a> about
technologies or significant packages which should be in Debian but are not.
Quickly, mplayer was <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg00820.html">named</a>, <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg00790.html">Mono</a>, which
is in <a href="http://pkg-mono.alioth.debian.org/">progress</a> already,
threaded boot <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg00901.html">scripts</a>,
and good Java <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg00830.html">support</a>,
including a free Java plugin for web browsers.</p>

<p><strong>Dropping Support for old libtool?</strong> Scott James Remnant <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0401/msg00968.html">pondered</a>
removing <a href="http://packages.debian.org/libtool1.4">libtool 1.4</a> since
it is no longer <a
href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libtool/2003-07/msg00127.html">\
maintained</a> upstream and superseded by <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/libtool">libtool 1.5</a>.  The old version is
only required by using Autoconf 2.13, which is also no longer maintained
upstream, and only 10 Debian packages include a <a
href="http://people.debian.org/~keybuk/libtool1.4-rdepends.txt">build
dependency</a> on it.</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="$(HOME)/security/2004/dsa-423">Linux 2.4.17</a> (ia64) --
    Several vulnerabilities.
<li><a href="$(HOME)/security/2004/dsa-424">mc</a> --
    Buffer overflow.
<li><a href="$(HOME)/security/2004/dsa-425">tcpdump</a> --
    Multiple vulnerabilities.
<li><a href="$(HOME)/security/2004/dsa-426">netpbm-free</a> --
    Insecure temporary file creation.
<li><a href="$(HOME)/security/2004/dsa-427">Linux 2.4.17</a> (mips+mipsel) --
    Local root exploit.
<li><a href="$(HOME)/security/2004/dsa-428">slocate</a> --
    Buffer overflow.
</ul>

<p><strong>New or Noteworthy Packages.</strong> The following packages were
added to the unstable Debian archive <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main">recently</a> or contain
important updates.</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/libaire0">libaire0</a>
    -- The (VHDL) Advanced Intermediate Representation for Extensibility.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libdevel/libaltlinuxhyph-dev">libaltlinuxhyph-dev</a>
    -- ALTLinux hyphenation library development files.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libdevel/libassuan-dev">libassuan-dev</a>
    -- IPC library for the GnuPG components.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/scrabble">scrabble</a>
    -- Popular crossword game.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/non-US/siege-ssl">siege-ssl</a>
    -- HTTP/HTTPS regression testing and benchmarking utility.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/non-US/tunnelv">tunnelv</a>
    -- Encrypted network connection within a TCP/IP connection.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/non-US/vtun">vtun</a>
    -- Virtual Tunnel over TCP/IP Networks.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/yahoo2mbox">yahoo2mbox</a>
    -- Retrieve and store Yahoo! Groups messages.
</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="Andre Lehovich, Matt Black, Dan Hunt, Tobias Toedter, Jaldhar Vyas, Martin 'Joey' Schulze"