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Welcome to this year's 8th issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian community. Some of the topics covered in this issue:

TODO:

"Lenny" frozen

Marc Brockschmidt, Release Manager, announced that "Lenny", the upcoming new stable release, has been [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/08/msg00002.html frozen] as [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/07/msg00005.html planed]. Automatic transition of new packages from the development branch "sid" or "unstable" to the current testing branch "lenny" have been stoped and need manual approval. Packages fixing release critical or important bugs or add documentation or translation fixes may be approved by the release team upon request.

Lenny is still scheduled to be released in September.

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 updated and support for newer hardware added

The Debian project [http://www.debian.org/News/2008/20080726 released] an updated version of its current stable release Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 "etch". While this update mainly adds security fixes and fixes for severe bugs, for the first time Debian has added support for newer hardware by adding new drivers with updated Linux kernel and X.org packages. The new drivers are optional and the old version will still be supported.

Detailed instructions are available in the [http://www.debian.org/News/2008/20080726 announcement], the [http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/etchnhalf etch and a half release notes] and the [http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/debian-installer/etchnhalf etch and a half installation guide].

Debian Days around the world

Debian users around the world are preparing to celebrate the [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianDay2008 15th anniversary of the Debian project] on August 16th 2008. Currently Debian Days are planned in Nicaragua, Portugal, Italy, Bulgaria, Chile, Argentina and eight different locations in Brasil. Apart from general celebrating the Debian Days will feature install fests, talks, discussion panels, LAN parties, Debian merchandising, software demonstrations, advanced installation workshops, knowledge exchange and much more.

The brazilian portuguese event will be transmitted on-line by http://tv.softwarelivre.org and torrents will be available after. Other brazilian Debian User Groups interested in their own event transmissions may visit the event page for details.

Limited Xen support in Lenny

A recent discussion on the debian-devel list highlighted that due to the upstream delays in getting Xen support integrated in kernels beyond 2.6.18, Lenny will need to ship with limited Xen support. Pasi Kärkkäinen explained [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/07/msg00475.html the situation] and Bastian Blank wrote [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/07/msg00476.html an article] about the options we have. His conclusion is to support a 2.6.18 kernel in Lenny, until "lenny-and-a-half" adds better Xen support. However, the Lenny team has not yet confirmed the final decision.

Screenshots of GUI applications

Roberto Sanchez [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/07/msg00770.html raised the topic of screenshots for GUI applications]. Since it's often difficult to judge a package soly based on the textual package description. He would like to see the possibilty to add screenshots of specific applications to Debian allowing package search and maintainance tools to show the user what he can expect from a specific package.

During the discussion Raphael Hertzog [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/07/msg00782.html reminded of a previous discussion during the 6th Debian Conference] and Paul Wise [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/07/msg00774.html added], that the Debian Package Games Team already creates screenshots for their games, which are available in the package [http://packages.debian.org/games-thumbnails games-thumbnails] and are used by [http://packages.debian.org/goplay goplay], a debtags based browser for game related packages. Jon Dowland [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/07/msg00877.html pointed possible legal issues out], since screenshots could be seen as derivative works of the original application in some legislations.

Debian Day Brasil 2008, RS, Porto Alegre

The Debian Project users move forward to [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianDay2008 celebrate the 15th anniversary around the world].

And you are invited to participate at [http://wiki.debian.org/pt_BR/DebianDayBrasil2008RsPortoAlegre Debian Day Brasil 2008, RS, Porto Alegre].

It will be a day with talks, discussion panels, lan party with GNU / Linux games, software demonstrations, advanced installation workshops, confraternization, knowledge and hints exchange.

The brazilian portuguese event will be transmitted on-line by http://tv.softwarelivre.org and torrents will be available after. Other brazilian Debian User Groups interested in their own event transmissions may visit the [http://wiki.debian.org/pt_BR/DebianDayBrasil2008RsPortoAlegre event page] for details.

There are [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianDayBrasil2008 six brazilian] Debian User Groups preparing Debian Day events at present date.

Bits from the Debian Eee PC team

Ben Armstrong [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/08/msg00002.html reports] on the current activities of the [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC Debian Eee PC team]: Debian's next release Lenny will work with all of the earliest models of the Eee PC and the Eee PC team hopes to soon realise its goal of a completely DFSG free system for the earliest models of the Eee Pc. Newer models are now able to install using the atl1e ethernet driver from eeepc.debian.net, support for wireless and other aspects of the new hardware will follow soon, also the wireless custom Debian-installer is making good progress. There are currently two Debian-live USB images available: a demo of the [http://lxde.org/ LXDE] (a lightweight desktop environment that is made with the Eee PC in mind) desktop and a minimal console-only image for rescue/backup. The team is also always looking for new members to support Debian's support for the Eee Pc.

SELinux and linux

Russel Coker [http://etbe.coker.com.au/2008/07/31/installing-se-linux-on-lenny/ gave] [http://etbe.coker.com.au/2008/08/01/selinux-activate/ several] [http://etbe.coker.com.au/2008/08/04/lenny-se-linux-on-the-desktop/ updates] about security enhanced linux in the upcoming stable release of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 "Lenny".

adept package manager version 3.0 alpha

Petr Ročkai gave a [http://web.mornfall.net/blog/adept_3.0_alpha_5.html report] about his work on a rewriten version of adept, a package management tool for KDE. He points out, that the new version of adept has been improved regarding speed, reliability and user experience. Beneath the new features he added, he lists full text search and handling of interactive installs (regarding for example debconf and changed configuration files).

Debian Project will be at FrOSCon 2008

From Saturday the 23rd of August 2008 to Sunday the 24th of August 2008, the Debian Project will participate with a booth at Free and Open Source Software Conference 2008 in St. Augustin, Germany. Please see our [http://www.debian.org/events/2008/0823-froscon events page] for further details.

Other news

Stefano Zacchiroli [http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2008/07/reminder:_Homepage_pseudo_fields_are_GONE/ reminded] package maintainers, that the old pseude header in the package description for the upstream Homepage has been replaced by a proper header.

Ian Jackson [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/07/msg00844.html pointed out] how to properly rename a package especially to ease the transition of other packages dependencies.

Juan Luis Belmonte wrote a small [http://gnucrash.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/open-source-people-life-cycle/ article] about how and why he got involved in opensource in general and Debian in special.

Christian von Essen [http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2008/07/msg00105.html reported] about his [http://www.debian.org/News/2008/20080427 Google Summer of Code project]

Important Debian Security Advisories

Debian's Security Team released among others advisories for the packages [http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1613 libgd], [http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1614 iceweasel], [http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1615 xulrunner ], [http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1616 clamav], [http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1620 python2.5], [http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1621 icedove] and [http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1625 cupsys]. Please read them carefully and take the proper measures.

Please note that those are only the most important security advisories of the last two weeks. If you would like to be kept up to date about the security advisories released by the Debian Security Team, please subscribe to the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/ mailing list for security announcements.]

Work-needing packages

Currently x packages are orphaned and y packages are up for adoption. Please take a look at the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/06/msg00762.html recent] [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/08/msg00004.html reports] to see if there are packages you are interested in or view the complete archive of packages requesting [http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested help].

Want to continue reading DPN? Please help us create this newsletter. We still need more volunteer writers who watch the Debian community and report about what is going on. Please see the [http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute contributing page] to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at debian-publicity@lists.debian.org.

AndreFelipeMachado, Graham Cobb, Paul van der Vlis, Meike Reichle and Alexander Reichle-Schmehl contributed to this issue of the Debian Project News.


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