Debian Weekly News - November 21st, 2001

Searching Bugs per Source Package. Adam Heath added the ability to search for bugs based on source packages to the cgi scripts that exist on https://bugs.debian.org/. A source listing contains all bugs on packages that come from that source. The easy way to access this feature is to use a URL similar to https://bugs.debian.org/src:postgresql. That is "https://bugs.debian.org/src:packagename". Additionally, package listings have links to other packages produced by the same source, in addition to having a link to their source package's bug page. Adam also added more features so you can now select the severities and bug status you want displayed. These features are greatly appreciated by maintainers of multi-binary packages.

Spellchecking Package Descriptions. Matt Zimmerman took the opportunity and fine-tuned his first investigation of spelling problems in package descriptions. His corrections resulted in a 200kB diff file for more than 1,300 (out of 8,000) packages. Matt's mail also contains the guidelines he used for correcting these descriptions.

Debian Environment on top of Mac OS X? A few messages popped up on the debian-devel mailing list covering this. The fink project wants to bring the full world of Unix Open Source software to Darwin and Mac OS X. The project modifies and ports the software so it will run on top of Mac OS X. The files are made available for download as a coherent distribution. Fink uses Debian tools like dpkg and apt-get to provide powerful package management for binary packages.

International Boot-Floppies. A message on the debian-boot list requested the inclusion of Danish in the supported languages on the internationalized root disk. We can refine the choice of languages at any point. Right now, however, it would probably be more productive for people to build internationalized boot-floppies and find out whether one can actually do an install with them. Looking at the date of one translated file, several translations may be out-dated. Translators should check their status.

Debian and the Euro. Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña contributed another document to the Debian Documentation Project (DDP). From January 1st, 2002, several European countries switch to the Euro as their currency. The Debian Euro HOWTO provides comprehensive information about using the Euro symbol with Debian. This includes configuration of the Linux text console, as well as the X Window System. Additionally, special Euro packages were uploaded into the experimental section (euro-support, euro-support-console and euro-support-x) to provide easy support for the Euro.

WNPP Overview. Bas Zoetekouw wrote a script which generates an overview of Work Needed and Prospective Packages (WNPP) entries in the Debian Bug Tracking System. This report ought to help the Quality Assurance (QA) people to clean out WNPP bugs that are not relevant anymore since nobody cares about the packages.

Freeze Update. Anthony Towns sent in an updated report about the Woody freeze process. We're almost into the last week for uploads of base packages. If there are outstanding bugs you'd like to see fixed, provide patches or upload now. We are also getting into the last days for ensuring that standard and task packages get included in the Woody release. At the moment it looks like a lot of packages will be removed from Woody. Among these are a whole bunch of commonly used programs like gpm, Mutt, CVS, Procmail, Apache and Mozilla. People who can fix bugs in these packages and care about them are encouraged to send in patches or upload fixed packages using Anthony's unofficial NMU guidelines.

GNU/Hurd Hardware Compatibility Guide. If you are thinking about running Debian GNU/Hurd, but are not quite sure if you have hardware that will make it happy, you're in luck. James Morrison announced a Hardware Compatibility Guide to make life easy for all the prospective Hurders out there. If you're new to the Hurd, you can find the Hurd Orientation at the beginning of each month on the Debian Hurd mailing list.

New Volunteer Position. Ben Collins put out the request on the debian-project mailing list for a volunteer to handle incoming donations. This includes working with the Web team to keep the donations page updated, placing donations and so forth.

Keep in Touch... If you have any questions or comments, suggestions or news tips, send them to dwn@debian.org. For those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, we hope you have a wonderful holiday!


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This issue of Debian Weekly News was edited by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier and Martin 'Joey' Schulze.