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

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:

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:

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.

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This issue of Debian Project News was edited by Cédric Boutillier, Francesca Ciceri, Victor Nițu and Justin B Rye.