path: root/english/News/weekly/2008/15/index.wml

#use wml::debian::projectnews::header PUBDATE="2008-11-19" SUMMARY="First release candidate of Debian Installer for Lenny, Debian screenshots service started, Open Use Logo relicensed"
#use wml::debian::acronyms

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<p>Welcome to this year's 15th issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian
community.<br />
Some of the topics covered in this issue include:</p>
<ul>
  <li>First release candidate of Debian Installer for Lenny</li>
  <li>Debian screenshots service started</li>
  <li><q>Open Use Logo</q> relicensed</li>
</ul>


<p><strong>First Release Candidate for the new Debian Installer</strong></p>

<p>Otavio Salvador <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/11/msg00002.html">announced</a>
the first release candidate for the installer to be shipped with
Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 <q>Lenny</q>.</p>

<p>Improvements since the last beta release include:</p>
<ul>
 <li>Improved support for Live-CD installation media (much faster and more reliable than earlier releases);</li>
 <li>Support for some NAS devices based on Marvell's ARM-compatible Orion chip (QNAP TS-109/TS-209 and TS-409, HP  Media Vault mv2120, Buffalo Kurobox Pro);</li>
 <li>Installer images for Netwinder have been added again;</li>
 <li>Installer images for i386 Xen guests;</li>
 <li>Support for hardware speech synthesis (speakup) has been added;</li>
 <li>Upgrade of packages early in pkgsel, for example to get available security updates for base system packages;</li>
 <li>Support for loading firmware from (removable) media during the installation;</li>
 <li>i386/amd64: support for installing to and loading firmware from MMC/SD cards;</li>
 <li>New translations: Welsh, Irish, Northern Sami, Serbian (Amharic and Marathi were added in beta releases).</li>
</ul>

<p>Images are available for testing at
<a href="http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">the Debian Installer website</a>
which also contains an <a href="http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/errata">errata list</a>.
After testing the installer please send a report about the installation as
explained in the <a href="http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/ch05s04.html#submit-bug">Debian Installer manual</a>.</p>


<p><strong>Debian screenshots service started</strong></p>

<p>Christoph Haas
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/11/msg00003.html">announced</a>
a new <a href="http://screenshots.debian.net">screenshots.debian.net</a> web
site that serves as a public repository of screenshots of applications
contained in the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.  It was created to help users
get an impression of what a given piece of software will look like on their
desktops before they install it. Anybody can take screenshots and upload them;
the site admin team will review the contributions before they become publicly
visible. Support for screenshots has already been built into the
<a href="http://packages.debian.org/synaptic">synaptic</a> package manager, while
integration in specialised package browsers like
<a href="http://packages.debian.org/goplay">goplay</a> and the
<a href="http://packages.debian.org">general web interface</a> are being
discussed.</p>


<p><strong><q>Open Use Logo</q> relicensed</strong></p>

<p>On the occasion of the production of a
<a href="http://ksvichaar.blogspot.com/2008/11/art-quilts-xiii-lucky-break.html">custom
Debian quilt</a> Francesco Poli
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2008/11/msg00045.html">noted</a>
that the license for the <a href="http://www.debian.org/logos/"><q>Open Use
Logo</q></a> (also known as the <q>swirl</q>) has been changed from a license
considered to be non-free to an
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License">MIT style license</a> granting
more rights to everyone.  This fixes a long standing <a
href="https://bugs.debian.org/212895">bug</a>.</p>

<p>The new license grants everyone the right to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute,
sublicense, and/or sell copies of the logo while the logo with the trademarked text <q>Debian</q> may
still only be used to refer to the Debian project.</p>


<p><strong>Tracking GCC 4.4 related build errors</strong></p>

<p>Martin Michlmayr <a href="http://www.cyrius.com/journal/gcc/gcc-4.4-archive-build">announced</a>
the results from an archive rebuild with a snapshot of the upcoming GCC 4.4.
About 220 bugs were filed as part of the archive rebuild and a small number of
build failures still need to be analyzed.  The majority of GCC 4.4 related
build failures are trivial, and are often caused because of
<a href="http://www.cyrius.com/journal/gcc/gcc-4.4-preprocessor-errors">improved</a>
preprocessor checks in GCC 4.4 or
<a href="http://www.cyrius.com/journal/gcc/gcc-4.4-include">missing</a> #include
statements.</p>


<p><strong>Call for Help: Debian 5.0 release notes</strong></p>

<p>Martin Borgert <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc/2008/11/msg00034.html">asked for
help</a> for the release notes of the upcoming release of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0
<q>Lenny</q>.  Some noteworthy problems have not yet been documented, so he
asks for volunteers who understand some of these issues to write about
them.</p>

<p>His mail contains a list of open issues as well as instructions for how texts
should be submitted.</p>


<p><strong>Custom Debian Distributions renamed to Debian Pure Blends and new services available</strong></p>

<p>Andreas Tille
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/11/msg00001.html">announced</a>
that the Custom Debian Distributions (more or less, package sets
for specific needs maintained inside Debian) should now be referred to as
<q>Debian Pure Blends</q>. The name has been changed, since the old one was
misleading. Many people thought Custom Debian Distributions were something
maintained outside of Debian and which added new features. After some
discussion members of all these teams agreed on the new name, hoping it would
clarify their status (though this
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/11/msg00202.html">was</a>
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/11/msg00249.html">not</a>
universally seen as a success).</p>

<p>He also announced two web services for quality assurance: one can be used to
list bugs reported against packages of Debian Pure Blends, while the second one
lists packages of interest for them.  URLs for the services for each of the
Pure Blends are given in his mail.</p>


<p><strong>Lenny Release Critical Bugs Ordered by Popularity</strong></p>

<p>Enrico Zini
<a href="http://www.enricozini.org/2008/tips/popzimmer.html">developed a new script</a>
that shows Lenny release critical bugs ordered by popularity.  For those who
are looking to squash the bugs that are causing the most pain, this script lays
out exactly where to look.  Anyone interested in running the script will need
access to <tt>people.debian.org</tt> where the script can be found at <tt>~enrico/popzimmer</tt>.</p>


<p><strong>Survey about the Debian Wiki</strong></p>

<p>Anne Goldenberg, a PhD student in communication and sociology, who is currently
studying the Debian Wiki,
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/10/msg00757.html">announced</a>
a <a href="http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/labcmo/portraitdulibre/index.php?sid=65733&amp;lang=en">survey</a>
aimed at gaining a better understanding of the uses and conceptions
of the Debian Wiki within the Debian community. The results will be put online
under a free license and announced via the mailing-lists.</p>

<p>A <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWikiSurvey">Debian Wiki page describing
the survey</a> is also available.</p>


<p><strong>New Developers</strong></p>

<p>3 applicants have been
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2008/11/msg00027.html">accepted</a>
as Debian Maintainers since the previous issue of the Debian Project News.
Please welcome Giuseppe Iuculano, Thorsten Glaser and Franck Joncourt to our
project!</p>


<p><strong>Other news</strong></p>

<p>Florian Weimer
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/11/msg00310.html">noted</a>
that the names of source packages should not be reused, even if the name has
not been used for a while.  Some parts of Debian's infrastructure (including
the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org">package tracking system</a> and the
<a href="http://security-tracker.debian.net/tracker/">security tracker</a>)
don't handle this very well.</p>

<p>Vincent Bernat
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/11/msg00343.html">wondered</a>
how to name system accounts used for installed services. Referring to a
<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AccountHandlingInMaintainerScripts">wiki page</a>
he asked to standardise the naming scheme.  Some packages use a prefix
<tt>debian-</tt>, while there is also some support for the way OpenBSD handles it by
prefixing system accounts with an underscore.</p>

<p>Holger Levsen <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2008/11/msg00038.html">announced</a>
a web service showing how far DebianEdu (the Debian Pure Blend
taking care of the needs of teachers and schools) is away from Debian itself.</p>


<p><strong>Important Debian Security Advisories</strong></p>

<p>Debian's Security Team recently released advisories for these packages (among others):
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1662">mysql</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1663">net-snmp</a> and
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1666">libxml2</a>.
Please read them carefully and take the proper measures.</p>

<p>Please note that these are a selection of the more important security
advisories of the last two weeks. If you need to be kept up to date about
security advisories released by the Debian Security Team, please subscribe to
the <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/">security
mailing list</a> for announcements.</p>


<p><strong>New and noteworthy packages</strong></p>

<p>The following packages were recently added to the unstable Debian archive
(<a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg">among
others</a>):</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/grhino-data">\
	grhino-data -- othello/reversi boardgame - data-files</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/libc-client2007d">\
	libc-client2007d -- c-client library for mail protocols - library files</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/mseide-msegui">\
	mseide-msegui -- FreePascal-based GUI development library and IDE</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Debian Package of the Day featured the packages
<a href="http://debaday.debian.net/2008/11/16/remind-a-text-based-agenda-and-todolist-manager/">remind</a>
(a text based agenda and todolist manager) and
<a href="http://debaday.debian.net/2008/11/09/apt-p2p-peer-to-peer-downloading-of-debian-packages/">apt-P2P</a>
(peer-to-peer downloading for Debian packages).</p>


<p><strong>Work-needing packages</strong></p>

<p>Currently 489 packages are orphaned and 118 packages are up for adoption.
Please take a look at the
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/11/msg00104.html">recent</a>
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/11/msg00330.html">reports</a>
to see if there are packages you are interested in or view the complete list of
<a href="http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested">packages which need
your help</a>.</p>


<p><strong>Want to continue reading DPN?</strong></p>

<p>Please help us create this newsletter.  We still need more volunteer writers
to watch the Debian community and report about what is going on. Please see the
<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute">contributing
page</a> to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail
at debian-publicity@lists.debian.org.</p>


#use wml::debian::projectnews::footer editor="Jon Evans, Justin Rye, Andre Felipe Machado, Martin Michlmayr, Christoph Haas, Jeff Richards, Meike Reichle, Alexander Reichle-Schmehl"