path: root/english/News/weekly/2010/14/index.wml

#use wml::debian::projectnews::header PUBDATE="2010-10-18" SUMMARY="State of Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q>, ask.debian.net, updated DebianEdu, new <q>sloppy</q> backports, Debian project membership"
#use wml::debian::acronyms

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<p>Welcome to this year's fourteenth issue of DPN, the newsletter for the
Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:</p>
<toc-display/>



<toc-add-entry name="squeeze">State of Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q></toc-add-entry>

<p>After the release team recently met in Paris they published <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/20101005202925.GU4622@halon.org.uk">meeting
minutes and gave a release update</a>.  Aside from updating the documentation
for point releases and deciding about the future of the <a
href="https://www.debian.org/volatile/">volatile archive</a>, a major topic
was the progress of the upcoming release of Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q>.
They called for content for the Release Notes, which should document all
potential problems during an upgrade.  They also noted that all transitions
have been done, and named the current blockers of the release: <a
href="https://bugs.debian.org/571255">a bug in udev</a> which might cause
problems during upgrades (a patch has been proposed in the meantime); a
<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/546528">problem in the preinstallation
script of dash</a> (a patch has been proposed and is currently being
investigated); the need for debian-installer to reach its final
release; the lack of proper documentation in the Release Notes for <q>Squeeze</q> installs
and upgrades; and finally the requirement for the security archive to support the new source
format 3.0.</p>

<p>All in all the release team hopes to have these blockers sorted out by the
end of October, which would allow a release before Christmas.  The release team
also points out that the help of everyone is needed to get this
accomplished, be it by squashing the remaining bugs, providing facilities
for real life bug squashing parties, writing the Release Notes, or
supporting translations.</p>

<p>Some real life bug squashing parties have already been announced for
<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP2010/Paris">Paris</a> and <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/1287061434-sup-6309@meteor.durcheinandertal.local">Bern</a>.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="ask">New question and answer service at ask.debian.net</toc-add-entry>

<p>With the help of the <a href="http://shapado.com/">Shapado Project</a>,
members of the Debian project started a new user oriented service at <a
href="http://ask.debian.net/">ask.debian.net</a>.  It lets users ask
specific questions and find answers, while also providing rating systems
and badges for users.  It allows Debian Developers and other
contributors to easily stay in touch with the community.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="edu">Updated DebianEdu released</toc-add-entry>

<p>The DebianEdu Project has released an <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/201010052157.38081.holger@layer-acht.org">updated
version</a> of its Debian Pure Blend targeting schools and similar
environments.  This update includes an updated installer to support new
hardware as well as various bug fixes and documentation improvements.  Other
notable changes are improvements of site summary where several Nagios checks
have been added to monitor system health as well as a fix for
shutdown-at-night.</p>




<toc-add-entry name="sloppy">New <q>sloppy</q> backports suite for stable Debian <q>Lenny</q></toc-add-entry>

<p>Gerfried Fuchs from Debian's backports team <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/20101004201643.GA8231@edna.deb.at">announced a new suite on
backports</a> for Debian <q>Lenny</q>: <q>lenny-backports-sloppy</q>.  Its usage is
similar to the regular backports suite, but there's a major difference
in the contents of the suites:  while users of the normal
backports suite can expect to update without major problems to the next
Debian stable release (as it only contains backports of the next
following distribution), users of the newly created backports-sloppy suite may need
to take special precautions, as the backports of the sloppy suite are not
restricted to coming from the next distribution, but may come from the second-next.
The new suite thus may also contain newer packages (e.g. during the
freeze already from the <q>unstable</q> branch). It therefore allows
users to easily access newer versions of packages; but users can
not just upgrade to the following stable release.  They will at least need to
upgrade to using the backports suite for the next release.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="membership">General resolution about Debian project membership</toc-add-entry>

<p>After Debian Project Leader Stefano Zacchiroli proposed a general
resolution about <a href="https://www.debian.org/vote/2010/vote_002">non-packaging Debian
project members</a>, this resolution is currently being
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/20101004194749.GS4622@halon.org.uk">voted
on</a>.  If it passes it would invite Debian's Account Managers to
establish procedures to evaluate and accept non-packaging contributors to
the project including full voting rights.  Non-packaging contributors
include for example documentation writers and translators.</p>

<p>In related news, Enrico Zini from the New Maintainer Front Desk sent a <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/20101013074217.GA8889@enricozini.org"><q>bits
from</q> mail</a>.  He welcomed Xavier Oswald as full member of the
Front Desk and noted that applicants to become Debian Developers will need
stronger GPG keys from now on.  Following the recent <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/20100914051848.GH22220@gwolf.org">bits from the keyring
maintainers</a>, the use of 1024 bit DSA keys is discouraged.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="hybrid">Hybrid installer image for optical and USB devices</toc-add-entry>

<p>Joey Hess blogged about a <a
href="http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/Debian_USB_install_from_hybrid_iso/">hybrid
debian-installer for USB and optical discs</a>.  While it has been possible to
boot debian-installer from USB sticks for quite some time, the procedure
to make such a bootable USB stick has been quite difficult.  The new
hybrid ISO image can be burned to CDs as well as simply copied raw
(with <tt>cat</tt>) to USB devices.  It is also very easy to add additional
firmware. Joey also mentions that due to problems with the jigdo
templates, currently only a minimal hybrid image is created, but he points
out that it is very easy to make the existing ISO images suitable for USB
sticks by using the <tt>isohybrid</tt> command from the <a
href="https://packages.debian.org/syslinux">syslinux</a> package.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="removal">About the non-news of package removals in Debian's testing branch</toc-add-entry>

<p>Is it newsworthy if packages, even popular ones like the <a
href="https://packages.debian.org/chromium-browser">Chromium web
browser</a>, get removed or added to Debian's testing branch?
Debian Project Leader Stefano Zacchiroli <a
href="http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/10/Debian_squeezes_Chromium_back_in/">doesn't think so</a>
and points out that Chromium is a good example for the non-newsworthiness
of these things.  It had been removed from Debian's testing branch, causing
a media fuss and some criticism, as it appeared that Chromium would
not be part of the next stable release.  However, as the release critical
bugs have been fixed, the package was allowed back again.  Which is -
according to Stefano - actually not newsworthy either.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="microblog">Following Debian Mailing lists via micro-blogging services</toc-add-entry>

<p>Valessio Brito <a href="https://lists.debian.org/20100909150907.57032hggzrpdivur@ssl.eumx.net">announced</a>
the <a href="http://follow.debianart.org/">beta version</a>
of a new service allowing users of micro-blogging services to
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/20100908013207.13173fq11p6fp613@ssl.eumx.net">follow
the topics</a> of various Debian mailing lists.
It is possible to search for particular tags, bugs, meetings, or specific work.
</p>



<toc-add-entry name="mentees"><q>Four days</q> promise for Debian Mentees</toc-add-entry>

<p>The current approach of mentoring new package maintainers who can't
upload packages themselves is far from perfect as it doesn't ensure
mentees get feedback. Asheesh Laroia and Niels Thykier tried to come up
with a solution.  As a first step they started a <a
href="http://www.asheesh.org/note/debian/four-days.html">campaign</a> <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2010/10/msg00005.html">promising</a> to
ensure that all mails on the <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors">debian-mentors list</a>
get an answer within four days.  The second step is a rewrite of the <a
href="http://mentors.debian.net">mentors.debian.net</a> service allowing
mentees to upload packages to a central location.  <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/alpine.DEB.2.00.1010081045040.10500@rose.makesad.us"><q>debexpo</q></a>
will not only allow mentees to upload their packages and run some limited
tests, but will also allow mentors and other people to check and comment on
the packages.  However, some help is still needed before the new service
can go online.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="who">Who's using Debian?</toc-add-entry>

<p>Are you interested to know why other people use Debian?  No problem!
Debian maintains a <a href="https://www.debian.org/users">list of Debian
users</a> ranging from governmental or educational institutions up to
dozens of companies, of which surprisingly not all are IT related.  Fernando
C. Estrada <a
href="http://news.debian.net/2010/10/06/whos-using-debian/">summarised some
of the entries and their reasons</a>.  You can send us <a
href="https://www.debian.org/users/#submissions">new submissions</a> via
e-mail.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="why">Why do people contribute to Debian?</toc-add-entry>

<p>Why do people contribute to Debian?  Long-term Debian Developer
Rapha&euml;l Hertzog tried to answer that often asked question by
summarising what <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/2010/10/11/5-reasons-why-i-still-contribute-to-debian-after-12-years/">motivates him personally in his contributions to Debian</a>: technical
excellence, inspiring goals, high impact work, working with great people,
and recognition of work.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="twid">Further <q>This week in Debian</q> interviews</toc-add-entry>

<p>Since the last issue of the Debian Project News, three new issues of the
<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/ThisWeekInDebian"><q>This week in
Debian</q> podcast</a> have been published:  with <a
href="http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-2">Ben Hutchings</a>,
member of Debian's kernel maintenance team; with <a
href="http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-3">Margarita
Manterola</a> about the <a href="$(HOME)/women/">Debian Women Project</a>; and with <a
href="http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-4">Neil
McGovern</a>, member of Debian's release team.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="other">Other news</toc-add-entry>

<p>Arnt Ove Gregersen <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2010/10/msg00063.html">created</a>
a <a href="http://user.skolelinux.org/~arntog/iselin/">female version</a>
of the DebianEdu/Skolelinux <a
href="http://www.slx.no/en/logo-and-mascot">mascot</a>.</p>

<p>The <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/600000">600,000th bug</a> has been
<a href="http://blog.ikibiki.org//2010/10/13/How_many/">reported</a> to
the Debian bug tracking system.  The results for the bet on the date of this
bug <a href="http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2010/10/12#bug-600000-now">have been
published</a> and a bet on the submission date of Debian's <a
href="http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2010/10/13#700000-bet">700,000th
bug</a> has been opened.</p>

<p>The Debian Project has been invited to the <a
href="https://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101007">Society for Neuroscience
meeting 2010 in San Diego</a> and will be present with a booth there.</p>

<p>Debian Project Leader Stefano Zacchiroli appointed an additional <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/20101009140120.GA26192@upsilon.cc">Debian
Auditor</a>: Martin Michlmayr joins Luk Claes. Stefano also gave his monthly
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/20101006193309.GA28553@upsilon.cc">DPL report</a>
where he summarised his recent activities. He listed a number of interesting
interviews and talks he gave, what money has been spent on, and his
communication with other teams inside Debian.</p>

<p>Robert Millan reported on <a
href="http://robertmh.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/about-zfs-in-squeeze/">his
personal blog</a> about ZFS integration into the Debian Installer for
kFreeBSD. Aside from a patch for GNU Parted, all other patches needed for a ZFS
root filesystem have been accepted and made it into Debian <q>Squeeze</q>. Robert also
made available a slightly modified version of the Debian Installer Image <a
href="http://people.debian.org/~rmh/zfs/">for downloading</a>.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="newcontributors">New Debian Contributors</toc-add-entry>

	<p>
5 applicants have been
<a href="https://nm.debian.org/nmlist.php#newmaint">accepted</a>
	as Debian Developers and
7 applicants have been
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/E1P4qsO-0001Bw-V3@franck.debian.org">accepted</a>
	as Debian Maintainers, while
13 people <a href="https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/new-maintainers.cgi">started
        to maintain packages</a> since the previous issue of the Debian
	Project News. Please welcome
Salvatore Bonaccorso, Jeffrey Ratcliffe, Deepak Tripathi, Michael Schutte,
Ansgar Burchardt, Federico Ceratto, Tanguy Ortolo, Jonathan Yu, Mats Erik
Andersson, Ryan Kavanagh, Stefan Bauer, Stuart Prescott, Andreas Noteng,
Gustavo Panizzo, Julien Jehannet, Kevin Roy, Marek Brudka, Richard Holland,
David Hannequin, John Feuerstein, Hans-Christoph Steiner, James Goppert,
John Stumpo, Nicolas Bonnefon and M&ograve;nica Ram&iacute;rez Arceda
	into our project!</p>



<toc-add-entry name="rcstats">Release-critical bugs statistics for the upcoming release</toc-add-entry>

	<p>According to the <a href="https://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi">bug-tracking
        web interface of the Ultimate Debian Database</a>, the upcoming release,
	Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q>, is currently affected by
327 release-critical bugs. Ignoring bugs which are easily solved
	or on the way to being solved, roughly speaking, about
130 release-critical bugs remain to be solved for the
	release to happen.</p>

	<p>There are also <a
href="http://blog.schmehl.info/Debian/rc-stats/#2010-41">more detailed
	statistics</a> as well as some <a
	href="https://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/RC-Stats">hints on how to
	interpret</a> these numbers.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="dsa">Important Debian Security Advisories</toc-add-entry>

	<p>Debian's Security Team recently released
	advisories for these packages (among others):
<a href="https://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2116">freetype</a>,
<a href="https://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2117">apr-util</a>,
<a href="https://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2118">subversion</a>,
<a href="https://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2115">moodle</a> (updated advisory),
<a href="https://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2119">poppler</a>,
<a href="https://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2120">postgresql-8.3</a>,
	Please read them carefully and take the proper measures.</p>

	<p>Debian's Backports Team released advisories for these packages:
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/4CB187A1.7090108@elego.de">subversion</a>,
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/20101010124845.GA5507@anguilla.debian.or.at">postgresql-8.4</a>,
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/4CB4D710.5080603@debian.org">dovecot</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 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="https://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/">security mailing
list</a> (and the separate <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-backports-announce/">backports
list</a>) for announcements.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="nnwp">New and noteworthy packages</toc-add-entry>

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

<ul>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/algotutor">algotutor &mdash; program for observing the intermediate steps of algorithms</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/auto-multiple-choice">auto-multiple-choice &mdash; multiple choice papers management</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/autojump">autojump &mdash; shell extension to jump to frequently used directories</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/chemical-structures">chemical-structures &mdash; set of molecular structures in open formats</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/glogg">glogg &mdash; smart interactive log explorer using Qt4</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gwibber-themes">gwibber-themes &mdash; social networking client for GNOME (themes)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/hatop">hatop &mdash; interactive ncurses client for haproxy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/imspector">imspector &mdash; instant messenger proxy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/ioquake3">ioquake3 &mdash; game engine for 3D first person shooter games</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/jack-capture">jack-capture &mdash; program for recording soundfiles with Jack</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/jumpapplet">jumpapplet &mdash; autojump notification icon, to jump to frequently used directories</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/pomodoro-applet">pomodoro-applet &mdash; GNOME Panel applet for a time management technique</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/postfix-cluebringer">postfix-cluebringer &mdash; anti-spam plugin for Postfix</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/premake">premake &mdash; build script generator</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/projectfootball">projectfootball &mdash; football (soccer) management simulation game</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/pyro-gui">pyro-gui &mdash; graphical tool for Pyro</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/wikkid">wikkid &mdash; Bazaar-backed wiki</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xul-ext-firexpath">xul-ext-firexpath &mdash; extension for Firebug to edit, inspect, and generate XPath expressions.</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Please note that due to the <a
href="https://www.debian.org/News/2010/20100806">freeze of the upcoming
Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q></a> acceptance of new packages has almost ceased.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="continuedpn">Want to continue reading DPN?</toc-add-entry>

<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="https://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute">contributing
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#use wml::debian::projectnews::footer editor="Martin Zobel-Helas, Alexander Reichle-Schmehl"
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