path: root/english/News/weekly/2004/35/index.wml

#use wml::debian::weeklynews::header PUBDATE="2004-09-07" SUMMARY="Upgrade, Sarge, PAM, Environment, RFC, buildds, Cron, Sender ID, Knoppix, FAI"
# $id: index.wml,v 1.2 2004/07/06 20:09:11 joey Exp $

<p>Welcome to this year's 35th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the
Debian community.  We've been <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-i18n/2004/09/msg00015.html">informed</a>
about a <a
href="http://www.openlabs.it/dtp/">Debian translation party</a> taking place
on September 11th, in a place close to Milan (Italy).  Lars Wirzenius
has recently <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2004/09/msg00009.html">updated</a>
the <a href="http://liw.iki.fi/liw/texts/debian-lessons">Debian lessons</a>
document that covers project management.  The Hong Kong Aircrew Officers
Association <a
href="http://www.asiacomputerweekly.com/acw_ViewArt.cfm?Magid=1&amp;Artid=24450">\
revealed</a> that they use Debian for its fast setup process.</p>

<p><strong>Sparc Upgrade Trouble.</strong> Joshua Kwan <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2004/09/msg00082.html">noticed</a>
that currently one can't run <code>dist-upgrade</code> from woody to sarge on
sparc without upgrading the kernel since glibc complains and refuses to
install.  However, to upgrade the kernel, one first has to get the new glibc.
Steve Langasek has asked him to build transitional kernels which are also
needed for true <a href="http://people.debian.org/~joey/pr/3.1/i386.html">i386
machines</a>.</p>

<p><strong>Testing Migration uncovered.</strong> Andreas Barth <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2004/09/msg00002.html">\
explained</a> some bits of the testing migration scripts that are of interest
for Debian package maintainers.  In particular he explained what "outdated on
..." means and how packages in testing affect the migration of more recent
versions.  Manual <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/testing/hints/">\
hinting</a> is also required for packages with circular dependencies.</p>

<p><strong>Configuration of Authentication Methods.</strong> Fabio
Tranchitella <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01698.html">\
reported</a> that he and Giuseppe Sacco are writing two small utilities to
update the pam modules configuration and to manage
<code>/etc/nsswitch.conf</code>.  Their target is the automatic configuration
of <a href="http://www.kobold.it/update-pam/">pam modules</a> and the <a
href="http://www.kobold.it/update-nsswitch/">NSS service</a> for LDAP, NIS+
and other network environments.</p>

<p><strong>Supporting system-wide Environment Variables.</strong> Sami
Dalouche <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01725.html">\
wondered</a> if Debian provides a similar mechanism to Gentoo's
<code>env-update</code>.  Daniel Burrows <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01727.html">\
pointed</a> out that the <a
href="$(HOME)/doc/debian-policy/ch-opersys.html#s9.9">Debian
Policy Manual</a> says that a program must not depend on environment variables
to get reasonable defaults since not all shells support system-wide
configuration files where they could be set.</p>

<p><strong>Removing non-free RFC files.</strong> Anibal Monsalve Salazar <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01746.html">wondered</a>
if he needs to remove RFC files from the <code>.orig.tar.gz</code> archive as
well, since their license don't comply to the <a
href="$(HOME)/social_contract#guidelines">Debian Free Software
Guidelines</a>.  Stephen Frost <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01856.html">added</a>
that he should ask upstream to remove the files instead and Peter Eisentraut
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01862.html">\
asserted</a> that upstream may consider the removal as action to diminish the
overall value of their package.</p>

<p><strong>Unofficial buildd Network shut down.</strong> Goswin von Brederlow
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/08/msg01991.html">\
stated</a> that the unofficial buildd network he is involved with has been
shut down.  As reason he reports about concerns which have been raised about
developers signing uploads built on systems that don't belong to the developer
or weren't accepted for the official buildd network.  Ingo Jürgensmann <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/09/msg00299.html">added</a>
that this network has helped maintainers in getting their packages into sarge
and helped in speeding up the tiff3g transition.</p>

<p><strong>Unbuildable Packages in Sarge.</strong> Bastian Blank <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/09/msg00078.html">reported</a>
about 250 packages that currently don't <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/09/msg00084.html">build</a> in
a pure sarge environment.  He used a temporary i386 buildd network.  Only some
build <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/debian/build-sarge/">failures</a> are
the result of build dependencies that cannot be satisfied in sarge.</p>

<p><strong>Serialising Cron Scripts.</strong> Abdullah Ramazanoglu <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/09/msg00320.html">proposed</a>
to serialise daily, weekly and monthly cron scripts so that they don't ever
run in parallel.  His solution includes two daily scripts which are run as the
last ones from the daily run and which decide whether to start the weekly or
monthly batch of scripts.  He later <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/09/msg00360.html">noticed</a>
that <a href="http://packages.debian.org/fcron">fcron</a> is already doing
so.</p>

<p><strong>Debian rejects Sender ID.</strong> The Debian project <a
href="$(HOME)/News/2004/20040904">announced</a> that it cannot implement or
deploy Sender ID under the current license terms.  Debian would even be forced
to remove Sender ID support from software packaged in Debian that does support
Sender ID upstream according to the terms of the <a
href="$(HOME)/social_contract">social contract</a>.  This statement
strengthened the <a
href="http://www.apache.org/foundation/docs/sender-id-position.html">\
position</a> of the Apache Software Foundation.</p>

<p><strong>Knoppix Variations on DVD.</strong> The October edition of the
German <a href="http://www.linux-magazin.de/">Linux Magazin</a> is a
ten-year-anniversary edition and features a DVD with eight different live CDs:
<a href="http://www.knoppix.org/">Knoppix</a>, <a
href="http://www.gnoppix.org/">Gnoppix</a>, <a
href="http://www.knoppix-std.org/">Knoppix STD</a>, <a
href="http://kanotix.com/">Kanotix</a>, <a
href="http://www.publicip.net/">ZOneCD</a>, <a
href="http://www.inside-security.de/insert_en.html">Insert</a>, <a
href="http://www.linuks.mine.nu/gnustep/">GNUstep Live CD</a>, <a
href="http://lamppix.tinowagner.com/">Lampixx</a>.  Knoppix and its variants
are based on Debian.  The international <a
href="http://www.linux-magazine.com/">edition</a> seems to <a
href="http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/47/Linux_Magazine_DVD_Inlay.pdf">contain</a>
seven of the eight live CDs.</p>

<p><strong>Interview with FAI Author.</strong> In an <a
href="http://www.golem.de/0408/33190.html">interview</a> (German only), Thomas Lange talked about
the features of the newest <a
href="http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/NEWS">release</a> of the <a
href="http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/">Fully Automatic Installation</a>
(FAI) for Debian.  New features are support for the upcoming
sarge release, booting with either 2.4 or 2.6 kernels, and use of
<a href="http://packages.debian.org/libdiscover2">libdiscover2</a> for hardware recognition.
The most important feature of FAI is however the good customisability,
making it possible to use it in lots of different environments.</p>

<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/x11/gnomad2">gnomad2</a>
    -- Manage a Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/kst">kst</a>
    -- KDE application used for displaying scientific data.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/linphone">linphone</a>
    -- Sip phone.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/matroxset">matroxset</a>
    -- Switch output modes, including TV out, of Matrox video cards.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/mlmmj">mlmmj</a>
    -- Mail server independent mailing list manager.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/tinyca">tinyca</a>
    -- Graphical frontend for a simple certification authority.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-uralic">ttf-uralic</a>
    -- Truetype fonts for Cyrillic-based Uralic languages.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/wzdftpd-mod-perl">wzdftpd-mod-perl</a>
    -- Perl module for wzdftpd.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/xmms-jackasyn">xmms-jackasyn</a>
    -- JACK Output plugin for xmms.
</ul>

<p><strong>Debian Packages introduced last Week.</strong> Every day, a
different Debian package is <a
href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/debaday/">featured</a> from the testing
distribution.  If you know about an obscure package you think others should
also know about, send it to <a
href="http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=debaday">Andrew Sweger</a>.
Debian package a day introduced the following packages last week.</p>

<ul>
<li> <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/debaday/32265.html">lilypond</a>
     -- Program for printing sheet music.
<li> <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/debaday/32619.html">labrea</a>
     -- "Sticky" honeypot and IDS.
<li> <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/debaday/32768.html">pwgen</a>
     -- Automatic Password generator.
<li> <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/debaday/33115.html">an</a>
     -- Very fast anagram generator.
</ul>

<p><strong>Orphaned Packages.</strong> 1 package was orphaned this week and
requires a new maintainer.  This makes a total of 176 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/zonecheck">zonecheck</a>
     -- DNS configuration checker.
     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/270249">Bug#270249</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="Tilman Koschnick, Bastian Kleineidam, Martin 'Joey' Schulze"