Debian Project News - May 27th, 2013
Welcome to this year's eleventh issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:
- Debian GNU/Hurd release
- DebConf 13: Call for Papers
- Debian Edu Wheezy second alpha release
- Bits from the piuparts maintainers
- Debian/Ubuntu Community Conference Italia 2013
- Other news
- Upcoming events
- Important Debian Security Advisories
- New and noteworthy packages
- Work-needing packages
- Want to continue reading DPN?
Debian GNU/Hurd release
The Debian GNU/Hurd team announced
the release of Debian
GNU/Hurd 2013. This is not an official Debian release, but it is an official
Debian GNU/Hurd port release.
On the
Debian Ports
archive you can find the installation ISO images to download (netinst, CD or DVD), as
well as a pre-installed disk image which makes it even easier to try Debian GNU/Hurd.
Debian GNU/Hurd is currently available for the i386 architecture with more than
10,000 software packages available.
Please make sure to read the
configuration information,
the FAQ, and the
translator primer to get a grasp of the great features of GNU/Hurd.
DebConf 13: Call for Papers
Debian
invites submissions of proposals for papers, presentations, discussion
sessions and tutorials for its
DebConf13 conference which will take place in Le Camp, Vaumarcus,
Switzerland, in August.
Submissions are not limited to traditional talks: you could propose a
performance, art installation, debate, or anything else. Official
submissions will be accepted until 1 June 2013, 23:59 UTC.
DebConf talks will be broadcast live on the Internet where possible, and videos of the talks will be published on the web along with the presentation slides and papers. Regular sessions will be 45 minutes long, including time for questions, with a 15 minute break between events.
Debian Edu Wheezy second alpha release
Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, made its second Wheezy based alpha release on 14 May. Aiming to provide an out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school network, this release features a number of software updates and fixes, which are all documented in the release announcement.
If you'd like to contribute to the project's development, please access the wiki page for new Debian Edu contributors.
Bits from the piuparts maintainers
Holger Levsen sent some bits
from the piuparts maintainers.
piuparts is an automated tool aimed at testing for errors in the installation,
upgrading and removal of .deb packages.
In his mail, Holger reported that piuparts recently received a few infrastructure
upgrades, providing considerably improved speeds for the service.
The main improvement made was moving
piuparts.debian.org away from the machine piatti.debian.org to the new
cluster running
at Bytemark.
Debian/Ubuntu Community Conference Italia 2013
On 1-2 June 2013, the second edition of the Debian/Ubuntu Community Conference
Italia (DUCC-IT 2013) will take place in Fermo, Italy. The experience of
DUCC-IT 2013, which follows on from the first such event held in Perugia in 2010, is aimed
both at members of the two communities and at all Free Software
enthusiasts, offering an excellent opportunity to get in touch and learn more
about one another.
You can read the announcement (in Italian) and the full event schedule on
the Italian community website.
Other news
Ana Guerrero reported that, after the recent discovery of a large number of
security issues in the various X client libraries,
several security
fixes for Squeeze and Wheezy systems are now available thanks to the work of the Debian Security and
X.org teams.
You can check the full
list of updates in the debian-security-announce mailing list archive.
Hideki Yamane announced that the Debian Developer's Reference, the document containing guidelines and information for Debian Developers, is now also available in epub format.
The DebConf team published the DebConf12 final report.
Upcoming events
There are several upcoming Debian-related events:
- May 28-29, Paris, France — Debian booth at Solutions Linux
- June 1-2, Palazzo dei Priori, Fermo, Marche, Italy — Debian/Ubuntu Community Conference Italia 2013
You can find more information about Debian-related events and talks on the events section of the Debian web site, or subscribe to one of our events mailing lists for different regions: Europe, Netherlands, Hispanic America, North America.
Do you want to organise a Debian booth or a Debian install party? Are you aware of other upcoming Debian-related events? Have you delivered a Debian talk that you want to link on our talks page? Send an email to the Debian Events Team.
Important Debian Security Advisories
Debian's Security Team recently released advisories for these packages (among others): xen, mysql-5.5, linux-2.6, linux, request-tracker3.8, request-tracker4, kfreebsd-9, libdmx, libxv, libxvmc, libxfixes, libxrender, mesa, xserver-xorg-video-openchrome, libxt, libxcursor, libxext, libxi, libxrandr, libxp, libxcb, libfs, libxres, libxtst, libxxf86dga, libxinerama, libxxf86vm, libx11 and spip. Please read them carefully and take the proper measures.
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 security mailing list (and the separate backports list, and stable updates list) for announcements.
New and noteworthy packages
417 packages were added to the unstable Debian archive recently. Among many others are:
- assword — simple and secure password management and retrieval system
- ergo — quantum chemistry program for large-scale calculations
- init-system-helpers — helper tools for all init systems
- libc++1 — LLVM C++ Standard library
- lldb — next generation, high-performance debugger
- ostinato — network packet/traffic generator and analyzer
- perlrdf — RDF command line utilities
- stoken — software token for cryptographic authentication
- taopm — sound synthesis software with physical models
- wxhexeditor — hexadecimal editor for massive files
- zotero-standalone — tool to organize and share your research sources
Work-needing packages
Currently 505 packages are orphaned and 140 packages are up for adoption: please visit the complete list of packages which need your help.
Want to continue reading DPN?
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This issue of Debian Project News was edited by Cédric Boutillier, Francesca Ciceri, Victor Nițu and Justin B Rye.