Debian: Debian Weekly News for the week of April 24th is out. Subjects covered include why XFree86 4.2 isn’t included in Woody, Hurd, activating keys on extended keyboards, and more.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Weekly News http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2002/17/ Debian Weekly News - April 24th, 2002 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to this year's seventeenth issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. Since the Debian project joined (is planning to join) [1]OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) we will keep an eye on them. One thing that was reported last week covered IBM's [2]patent reservation which would render ebXML (an open standard for electronic transactions and business collaboration) useless. However, later IBM [3]clarified the issue. 1. http://www.oasis-open.org/ 2. http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/ebxml-cppa/200203/msg00155.html 3. http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml/200204/msg00004.html Debian GNU/FreeBSD Base Tarball. Nathan Hawkins recently [4]announced a new base tarball for those of you who would like to see Debian GNU/FreeBSD live. A whole bunch of packages had to be [5]modified for this purpose, but the work seems to be worth it. People should also check the [6]status of this port. 4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd-0204/msg00021.html 5. http://people.debian.org/~utsl/freebsd-i386/patched/ 6. http://people.debian.org/~utsl/freebsd-i386/status.html Say Thanks. As a reaction to the most recent [7]flamebait Sean Perry [8]noted, that we should say thanks to the people who make our day easier. He says, that just mailing out a big "thank you, your work is used every day and I love it" is worth more than anything. 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0204/msg01289.html 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0204/msg01316.html Why XFree86 4.2 Isn't in Woody. As another reaction to the most recent [9]flamebait on missing XFree86 4.2 packages Branden Robinson sent an [10]article to the list. He explains that he has been busy with getting 4.1.x stable, which has to run on no less than 11 architectures. [11]XFree86 doesn't test or prepare distribution tarballs for several of these architectures. Hence, Debian is the de facto portability laboratory for XFree86 on Linux. 9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0204/msg01289.html 10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0204/msg01343.html 11. http://www.xfree86.org/ Hurd Ceased? Some people may have noticed that all packages from the hurd-i386 architecture have been removed recently. Don't worry too much, since Jeff Bailey [12]requested this, so the Hurd team can start uploading packages with the new [13]ABI (Application Binary Interface), the interface by which an application program gains access to operating system and other services. It's probably best to wipe out your existing Hurd system and re-install it. No effort has been made to make this an easy transition. 12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd-0204/msg00096.html 13. http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?ABI Activating Keys on Extended Keyboards. It's a frequently asked question from laptop owners: How is one supposed to make use of additional keys? If the Linux kernel and XFree86 generate key codes for them, [14]hotkeys or just plain [15]xmodmap may be helpful. If Linux doesn't know about the keys, you'll have to go [16]patching the kernel first. 14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-laptop-0204/msg00369.html 15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-laptop-0204/msg00376.html 16. http://fake.by-infonet.de/laptop/ Potato's Fate? Several users [17]wondered what will happen to Debian 2.2 alias Potato when Woody has been released. Those who have slow or small machines that run Potato just fine, may be reluctant to upgrade to Woody, since Woody requires more space and more powerful machines than Potato. One thing is certain, once Woody is released, the Potato release will be moved to the [18]archive where other old releases like buzz, rex, bo, hamm and slink are saved. The security team might support the old stable release for a while after Woody has been released, but it would be better not to depend on that, revealed Josip Rodin. 17. http://debianplanet.org/article.php?sid=646 18. ftp://archive.debian.org/debian-archive/dists/ New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the Debian archive recently or contain important updates. * [19]archivemail -- Archive and compress your old email. * [20]asnparser -- ASN.1 to C/C++ converter. * [21]bins -- Generate static HTML photo albums using XML and EXIF tags. * [22]gpsdrive -- Car navigation system. * [23]iodbc -- GTK config frontend for the iODBC Driver Manager. * [24]kmplot -- KDE function plotter. * [25]mpb -- MIT Photonic-Bands. * [26]odontolinux -- Dental office management software (PHP4 + PostgreSQL). * [27]ohphone -- Command line H.323 client with X, SVGA and SDL support. * [28]openam -- H.323 answering machine. * [29]openmcu -- H.323 conferencing server. * [30]pygfarm -- Collection of add-on modules for Pygopherd. * [31]python-dns -- DNS client module for Python. * [32]switchconf -- Change network config for laptops. * [33]sylpheed -- Light weight e-mail client with GTK+. * [34]turba -- A web based contact manager. * [35]ucstring -- Unicode support for eiffel. * [36]webcamd -- Capture images from video devices. 19. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/mail/archivemail.html 20. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/devel/asnparser.html 21. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/web/bins.html 22. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/utils/gpsdrive.html 23. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/misc/iodbc.html 24. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/math/kmplot.html 25. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/science/mpb.html 26. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/web/odontolinux.html 27. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/comm/ohphone.html 28. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/comm/openam.html 29. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/comm/openmcu.html 30. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/net/pygfarm.html 31. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/interpreters/python-dns.html 32. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/utils/switchconf.html 33. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/mail/sylpheed.html 34. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/web/turba.html 35. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/libs/ucstring.html 36. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/net/webcamd.html Orphaned Packages. 7 packages were orphaned this week and require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 88 orphaned packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software community. Please see the [37]WNPP pages 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. 37. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/ * [38]chos -- Easy Boot loader with a Boot-Menu. ([39]Bug#143650) * [40]ditty -- Allows you to play melodies from your built-in speaker. ([41]Bug#143758) * [42]gkermit -- A serial and network communications package.. ([43]Bug#143652) * [44]gnuhtml2latex -- A Perl script that converts html files to latex. ([45]Bug#143681) * [46]hermes1 -- The Hermes pixel-format library. ([47]Bug#143651) * [48]kascade -- Client for Kascade, a distributed Open directory search-engine. ([49]Bug#143759) * [50]zope-pygresqlda -- A Zope Database Adapter for PostgreSQL. ([51]Bug#142845) 38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/chos.html 39. http://bugs.debian.org/143650 40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/ditty.html 41. http://bugs.debian.org/143758 42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/gkermit.html 43. http://bugs.debian.org/143652 44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/gnuhtml2latex.html 45. http://bugs.debian.org/143681 46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/hermes1.html 47. http://bugs.debian.org/143651 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/kascade.html 49. http://bugs.debian.org/143759 50. http://packages.debian.org/stable/web/zope-pygresqlda.html 51. http://bugs.debian.org/142845 Got News? Please inform us about everything that is happening in the Debian community. We are always looking for any interesting stories to add, especially new items by volunteer writers, and topics we tend to miss. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [52]dwn@debian.org. 52. mailto:dwn@debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-news-request@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
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