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Debian Glossary Only.

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0

0

uid 0, see also root

A

Advocate

A Debian member that advocates an application. They should know the applicant fairly well and should be able to give an overview of the applicant's work, interests and plans. Advocates are often the sponsors of an applicant.

Alioth

Alioth is a collaborative development environment based on the FusionForge software and aimed at the Debian project and community.

Alioth (guest) account

People willing to participate in the packaging or development of a software can ask for an Alioth guest account, then ask for commit right to a given project.

Applicant

A person requesting membership in the Debian project; prospective Debian developer.

Application Manager

A Debian member who is assigned to an applicant to collect the information needed by the Debian account managers to decide about an application. One application manager can be assigned to more than one Applicant.

APT (Advanced Packaging Tool)

1. A library that handle fetching the list of packages, resolving packages dependency, etc. It then uses dpkg to perform the actual package installation, removal, etc.
2. APT is commonly used to refer to the front-end tools that uses the library (especially apt-get and aptitude, but also GUI tools like synaptic).

B

backports

Backports are packages from testing and unstable which can run on a stable Debian distribution.

BTS
Acronym for Bug Tracking System

bts-link

A system for synchronising bug status in the Debian BTS with bug tracking systems like Bugzilla. See this mail.

C

CDBS
Acronym for Common Debian Build System.

CDD (Custom Debian Distributions)

See Custom Debian Distributions

Custom Debian Distributions (CDD)

The old name for subset of Debian that are configured to support a particular target group out-of-the-box. Now known as Debian Pure Blends

D

DAM (Debian Account Manager)

See Debian Account Manager.

DDPO (Debian Developer's Packages Overview)

the list of the packages maintained by a Debian Developper or a Team (see http://qa.debian.org/developer.php)

Debian Account

A Debian account is typically the login account of a Debian Developer. The term Debian Account is sometime also used to refer to Debian Maintainer account. See also Alioth account.

Debian Account Manager (DAM)

A Debian member that was delegated to manage the Debian account creation and removal by the Debian project leader. The DAM has the final decision over an application.

Debian Developer (DD)

A Debian Project member, who has gone through the New Maintainer process and had their application accepted is called a Debian Developer.

Debian-Installer (D-I)

Debian Installer is the set of program used to install Debian on your hard disk "The first day". It is not the program you use to install (add|remove) more program (packages) once Debian Installed (see apt).

Debian New Maintainer

The person or the process of becoming an official Debian Developer (DD). See also Applicant.

Debian Maintainer (DM)

1. The status of a person who passed the Debian Maintainer process. A Debian Maintainers is granted some of the rights to manage packages, especially the right to upload packages to the archive. DM aren't member of the Debian Project (i.e they can't vote).

2. See also package #maintainer and Debian Developer, Alioth account.

Debian Member

The member of the Debian Project are named Debian Developers.

Debian Policy Manual
It describes what packages should contain, how they should be configured, and generally how packages fit together to create a Debian system.

Debian Project

An organization of free software developers spread around the world with a common goal, to produce a completely free operating system. See the Debian web pages for more information.

Debian Pure Blends

A subset of Debian that is configured to support a particular target group out-of-the-box. Debian Pure Blends were formerly known as Custom Debian Distributions (CDD).

DEHS
Acronym for Debian External Health Status.

D-I (Debian-Installer)

see Debian-Installer

DM (Debian Maintainer)

See Debian Maintainer (DM).

DPMT (Debian Python Modules Team)

see Debian Python Modules Team

E

F

FHS (Filesystem Hierarchy Standard)

See Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.

Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS)

the FilesystemHierarchyStandard defines the main directories and their contents in Linux and other Unix-like computer operating systems. The Debian Policy Manual only explains the exceptions applying to Debian.

Freeze

The distribution development freeze is a period of time, when Debian Project finalize to stabilize the content of the testing distribution, in order to release it. (i.e resolving release critical bugs, making final tweaks to Debian-Installer, deciding Debian-CDs content, etc.). Due to Debian's release policy, which is mostly driven by the Release when Ready motto, The length of the freeze period isn't fixed. FYI, in the past, it usually took a few month (6 month or more).

Front Desk

The front desk members receive the initial applications, advocation messages and final application reports. They are the point of contact if problems with the application arise.

G

H

I

IANAL (I am not a lawyer)

often used on debian-legal mailing list. (see IANAL on Wikipedia).

ITA (Intents to Adopt)

In documentation, this means that the author intents to adopt a given set of documentation. (see DDP).

ITD (Intend to Document)

a documentation maintainer that is going to start writing a document. The use of the WNPP for avoids people duplicating effort writing the same documentation. (see DDP).

ITP (Intent To Package)

Someone (a DD or Maintainer) intends to package a software (see WNPP).

ITT (Intend to Translate)

a translator is going to start translating a document. As above, this tries to prevent duplicate efforts (see DDP).

J

K

L

M

Maintainer

1. The maintainer of a package is the person, or group of person that are responsible for a package (packaging, bugs, etc.) see Debian Policy.

  • See also Debian Maintainer (DM), Debian New Maintainer (process).

  • Mass bug filing

    Reporting a great number of bugs for the same problem (see Debian Developer's Reference).

    MBF (Mass bug filing)

    See Mass Bug Filing.

    Micro Kernel

    A Micro Kernel is a minimalistic operating system kernel which provides only the most basic services, which generally include tasks, virtual memory policy, Inter Process Communication and basic hardware drivers. Examples of micro kernels are Mach (and GNUMach, OSKit-Mach) and L4. (sea also Wikipedia Micro_kernel )

    Multi Server

    Multi server refers to a system which has several servers working together running on a MicroKernel to perform the tasks normally done by a monolithic kernel; this is in contrast to a single server which is akin to a monolithic kernel running on a micro kernel.

    N

    New Maintainer

    See also Debian New Maintainer, Applicant, Debian Maintainer.

    NMU (Non-maintainer upload)

    A version of a package that wasn't uploaded by one of it's official Maintainer, but rather by another developer. This typically occurs when the maintainer is on holiday, for mass bug filing and security updates (see Debian Developer's Reference). See NonMaintainerUpload.

    NVIU (Newer Version In Unstable)
    Used in bug reports for package removal, to indicate a more recent version is already packaged.

    O

    O

    see Orphaned

    Orphaned

    A package has been "Orphaned". It needs a new maintainer as soon as possible. If the package has a Priority higher or equal to standard, the severity should be set to important. (see WNPP).

    In Documentation : as the package equivalent, this means that the author intents to orphan a given set of documentation. (see DDP).

    P

    PAPT (Python Applications Packaging Team)

    see Python Applications Packaging Team

    Package Tracking System (PTS)

    The Package Tracking System lets you follow almost everything related to the life of a package. It's of interest for co-maintainers, advanced users, QA members, ... See qa.debian.org/pts

    pinning

    apt-pinning allows you to install a different version of the software used in your distribution (like backports).

    piuparts (Package Installation, UPgrading And Removal Testing Suite)

    see piuparts

    popcon

    1. Popularity contest (popcon) is a package (popularity-contest) that periodically and anonymously submit some statistics about the most used Debian packages on a system.

    2. The popcon score of a package is meant to reflect the popularity of a package in Debian (see http://popcon.debian.org/).

    PTS (Package Tracking System)

    see Package Tracking System

    Q

    QA
    Acronym for Quality Assurance

    R

    root
    1. the root user (uid 0), often named Super-User can do anything on a system (equivalent to "Administrator" on some systems). (see Root)

    2. the root directory is the top level directory "/".
    3. root's directory "/root" is the root user's home directory.

    RFA (Request for Adoption)

    Due to lack of time, resources, interest or something similar, the current maintainer is asking for someone else to maintain this package. They will maintain it in the meantime, but perhaps not in the best possible way. In short: the package needs a new maintainer. (see WNPP).

    RFD (Request for Documentation)

    A user that detects that a given document (manual or other) on a given topic is not yet available on the DDP can ask for it using this tag. DDP members will give priority when deciding which documents need to be written to requests on a given document by a number of users. (see DDP).

    RFH (Request For Help)

    The current maintainer wants to continue to maintain this package, but they need some help to do this, because their time is limited or the package is quite big and needs several maintainers. (see WNPP).

    RFP (Request For Package)

    Someone has found an interesting piece of software and would like someone else to maintain it for Debian. (see WNPP).

    RoRT (Request of Release Team)

    Used in bug reports for package removal, to indicate issues as confirmed by the Release Team.

    S

    sid

    sid is always the codename for unstable.

    Sponsor

    A Debian Member who acts as the mentor of an Applicant: They check packages provided by the Applicant and help to find problems and to improve the packaging. When the sponsor is satisfied with the package, they upload it on behalf of the Applicant to the Debian archive. The Applicant is recorded as the maintainer of such a package, despite the fact Applicants aren't allowed to upload packages themselves.

    T

    testing

    testing is an automatically generated distribution (from unstable).

    TINLA (This is not legal advice)

    often used on debian-legal mailing list. (see IANAL on Wikipedia).

    U

    unstable

    unstable is the Debian distribution where you can find the latest packages introduced into the Debian system.

    V

    W

    WNPP (Work-Needing and Prospective Packages)

    A list of packages in need of new maintainers and prospective packages in Debian (see http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/, ITP, O, RFA, RFH, RFP).

    X

    Y

    Z

    Zombie Maintainer

    A zombie maintainer is a maintainer who does no work on a package but refuses to orphan it. The package bit-rots away in the clutches of his undead hands as he drifts on the margins of existence. His grumblings are occasionally heard on Debian mailing lists --- just enough to keep himself from being pronounced MIA, which would be grounds for deeming the package orphaned.

    Not much is known about these beings; however, experts in paranormal phenomena claim that once a maintainer has become a zombie he cannot let a package go until his work on it is done. However, having lost his spirit, the zombie is incapable of making any progress. The predictable result is that the package becomes a Slum.

    What is certain is that there is a subclass of zombies whom we shall call "guardians". A guardian zombie holds on to a package while justifying himself by saying that he is doing Debian the service of protecting his package from damage in the hands of a mortal maintainer. A guardian zombie may go so far as to invite NMUs, some of which he will allow to pass without comment, to others of which he will react with howls of protest and mutterings of 'my precious'.

    . (dot)

    .deb
    File-extension used for package of debian-based distribution.

    .udeb

    File-extension used for package containing Debian-Installer modules. do not install it in a regular system.