Debian Project News - August 14th, 2017

Welcome to this year's second issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:

We hope that you are enjoying this edition of DPN.

This issue is brought to you from DebConf17 in Montreal by the now extended group of Debian Project News editors. So we expect DPN will see more frequent releases in the future.

For other news, please read the official Debian blog Bits from Debian, and follow https://micronews.debian.org which feeds (via-RSS) the @debian profile on several social networks.

Debian's Security Team releases current advisories on a daily basis (Security Advisories 2017). Please read them carefully and subscribe to the security mailing list.

At the end of this Project News we've added a Quick Links section which links to a selection of the posts made through our other media streams during the last months.

New DPL

In April, Chris Lamb was elected as the new Debian Project Leader. Chris has already posted several monthly updates on his work as DPL, for April, May, June and July.

Stretch released

In June, we welcomed the release of Debian 9 (codename stretch ). If you haven't upgraded your systems yet, you might like to do so soon to enjoy the improvements in the new release. Security support for the old Debian 8 release is expected to be available until around June 2018.

A group of CD set images have been dropped in this release, in favor of the DVD sets and netinst ISOs. With Stretch, several images for usage in different cloud providers are available too.

DebConf17 in Montreal, videos online

DebConf17, the annual Debian conference, has just been held in Montreal. We have been enjoying many interesting talks and productive discussions. Videos of many talks are already available by visiting the talks' individual pages linked from the schedule. Read the article in the Debian blog about DebConf17 for more details (including the group photo!).

DebCamp

Before the main conference started, some Debian teams gathered for the DebCamp week of work sessions and discussions. The Debian Perl Group held a Rolling Sprint at DebCamp, and the teams for OpenStack, pkg-emacsen and Debian Policy also held meetings and sprints. DebCamp17 may have been the biggest DebCamp ever, with 117 attendees.

Chinese translation of the Debian website

The Chinese language team has been relaunched with new contributors, and the Debian Installer, many pages in the Debian website, and other documents are being updated and translated into Chinese. If you want to join this effort, ask in the Chinese language team mailing list for details.

New and noteworthy packages

1042 packages were added to the unstable Debian archive in this quarter. Among many others there are:

Upcoming events

Debian Day 2017

Debian Day is almost here!

Debian is turning 24 this year and several local groups have already added to the schedule their own events to celebrate, on or around Wednesday August 16.

Add your own event to the Debian Day 2017 wiki page and join our groups in Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Sweden and Venezuela on this special occasion.

Alioth replacement sprint

Debian's development platform alioth is due for a major restructuring since the underlying software will no longer be supported in the future. A sprint to replace alioth will take place in Hamburg, Germany, from 18 to 20 August 2017.

Event Reports

The Debian Groupware team recently sent a report about their meeting held in April 2017. The Debian Policy team also reported about their work in the last months. You can also read the recently sent Status update from the Reproducible Builds project.

Some Debian contributors have written about their attendance to DebCamp and DebConf17: Michal Čihař about Weblate and Mike Gabriel about Ayatana indicators, Debian Edu, and a global summary of his work at DebConf, about Flatpak. (More reports will probably be published in the following weeks in the Debian Planet.)

Once upon a time in Debian:

Teams needing help

The Publicity team welcomes the new contributors to continue making possible new DPN issues, as well as encouraging content submissions for the Debian blog and micronews.debian.org. Watch our talk at DebConf17 about the team channels for more details.

Misc Developer News #44 has been published, including information and calls for help about Debian derivatives in the website, and the Debian Live Team.

The Welcome team is growing; come by #debian-welcome or get in touch with MagicFab if you're interested in helping new users and contributors.

Creating a more welcoming and respectful environment in Debian is a collective effort. We encourage any Debian contributor to assume an active role fostering diversity in Debian!

Packages needing help:

Currently 1106 packages are orphaned and 167 packages are up for adoption: please visit the complete list of packages which need your help.

Newcomer bugs

Debian has a newcomer bug tag, used to indicate bugs which are suitable for new contributors to use as an entry point to working on specific packages. There are 204 bugs available tagged newcomer .

Contributors

1635 people and 20 teams are currently listed on the Debian Contributors page for 2017.

Discussions

In July 2017, Debian user Rainer Dorsch asked, what is going on here , when he was trying to perform comparisons (less than/greater than) in the shell. Darac Marjal explained what was going on, and Tomás elaborated on that.

Tips and Tricks

Jose M. Calhariz has published a series of blogposts about crossgrading, starting with small tasks and evolving to a real-life example: Crossgrading the kernel in Debian 9, Crossgrading a minimal install of Debian 9, Crossgrading a more typical server in Debian 9, Crossgrading a complex Desktop and Debian Developer Machine running Debian 9, and Crossgrading a complex Desktop and Debian Developer Machine running Debian 9, for real.

The Oregon State University Open Source Lab, one of the Debian partners providing hosting and administration services to the Debian project, launched a student sponsorship crowdfunding campaign with the OSU Foundation, towards funding students working at the lab along with sending them to open source conferences in the coming year. The campaign will be active during August 2017.

LTS Freexian Monthly Reports

Freexian issues monthly reports about the work of paid contributors to Debian Long Term Support.

Reproducible Builds status update

Follow the reproducible builds blog to get the weekly reports on their work in the Stretch cycle.

This is an extract from the micronews.debian.org feed, in which we have removed the topics already commented on in this DPN issue. You can skip this section if you already follow micronews.debian.org or the @debian profile in a social network (Pump.io, GNU Social, Mastodon or Twitter). The items are given unformatted and in descending order by date (recent news at the top).

We have removed from this list the Debian 9 release and the DebConf17 microblogging release coverages. If you are interested on those, you can browse them in the micronews.debian.org site.

August

"Debian: a Commons of Innovation" by Sam Hartman http://hartmans.livejournal.com/96841.html

DebConf17 closes in Montreal and DebConf18 dates announced https://bits.debian.org/2017/08/debconf17-closes.html

Want to read more micronews about debian? contribute! find instructions on http://deb.li/3pSEv

fdisk becoming non-essential, dependencies needed. https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2017/08/msg00005.html

OpenSSL disables TLS 1.0 and 1.1 (in unstable) https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2017/08/msg00004.html

Google Platinum Sponsor of DebConf17 https://bits.debian.org/2017/08/google-platinum-debconf17.html

July

DebCamp17 starts today! https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf17/DebCamp - and DebConf17 next weekend! https://debconf17.debconf.org

Updated Debian 8: 8.9 released https://www.debian.org/News/2017/2017072202

Updated Debian 9: 9.1 released https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170722

Perl 5.26 transition underway in unstable! https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2017/07/msg00003.html

An interview with Chris Lamb, the current Debian Project Leader. http://debianbrasil.org.br/blog/an-interview-with-chris-lamb-the-current-debian-project-leader

New Debian Developers and Maintainers (May and June 2017) https://bits.debian.org/2017/07/new-developers-2017-06.html

June

stretch-backports and jessie-backports-sloppy are now available http://blog.snow-crash.org/blog/stretch-backports-available/

If you use the Debian Live images, consider joining the Debian Live team and help in the development https://lists.debian.org/debian-live/2017/06/msg00064.html

The Debian bug tracker has added the a11y tag for tracking accessibility issues https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#tags

Tails 3.0, based on Debian Stretch, is out! https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tails-30-out

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Platinum Sponsor of DebConf17 https://bits.debian.org/2017/06/hpe-platinum-debconf17.html

Debian9 release party in Tokyo http://henrich-on-debian.blogspot.com/2017/06/debian9-release-party-in-tokyo.html

"alioth needs your help" by Alexander Wirt http://blog.snow-crash.org/blog/alioth-needs-your-help/

Debian GNU/Hurd 2017 released! https://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2017/06/msg00017.html

Debian Edu / Skolelinux Stretch released — a complete Linux solution for your school https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170618

First update for Stretch: debian-archive-keyring with the keys to sign Debian's Release files https://lists.debian.org/debian-stable-announce/2017/06/msg00000.html

Debian 9 "stretch" has been released! https://bits.debian.org/2017/06/stretch-released.html #releasingstretch

5 years of Debian Diversity Statement http://www.enricozini.org/blog/2017/debian/5-years-of-debian-diversity-statement/

"What to expect on Debian release day" by Jonathan Wiltshire http://www.jwiltshire.org.uk/content/2017/06/13/what-to-expect-on-debian-release-day/

"Debian Developers living in South America" by Eriberto Mota http://eriberto.pro.br/blog/?p=2290

"Upcoming Alioth sprint" by Alexander Wirt http://blog.snow-crash.org/blog/upcoming-alioth-sprint/

"Vmdb2 first alpha release: Debian disk image creation tool" by Lars Wirzenius http://blog.liw.fi/posts/2017/06/04/vmdb2_first_alpha_release_debian_disk_image_creation_tool/

"Jessie live on UEFI part 2" by Enrico Zini http://www.enricozini.org/blog/2017/debian/debian-jessie-live-on-uefi-part-2

"Jessie live on UEFI systems" by Enrico Zini http://www.enricozini.org/blog/2017/debian/jessie-live-on-uefi-systems

May

Debunking some Debian myths http://ral-arturo.org/2017/05/11/debian-myths.html

Debian Policy 4.0.0.0 released https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2017/05/msg00005.html

Debian CI: data retention policy https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2017/05/msg00004.html

"Last minute stretch bugs" by Steinar H. Gunderson http://blog.sesse.net/blog/tech/2017-05-26-13-55_last_minute_stretch_bugs.html

"The #newinstretch game: dbgsym packages in Debian/stretch" by Michael Prokop https://michael-prokop.at/blog/2017/05/26/the-newinstretch-game-dbgsym-packages-in-debianstretch/

"The #newinstretch game: new forensic packages in Debian/stretch" by Michael Prokop https://michael-prokop.at/blog/2017/05/25/the-newinstretch-game-new-forensic-packages-in-debianstretch/

"Getting ready for Stretch" by Steve Kemp https://blog.steve.fi/getting_ready_for_stretch.html

"Debian stretch: changes in util-linux #newinstretch" by Michael Prokop https://michael-prokop.at/blog/2017/05/19/debian-stretch-changes-in-util-linux-newinstretch/

"Interview With Maria Glukova: Debian GNOME Outreachy Intern" by Shirish Agarwal https://itsfoss.com/interview-with-maria-glukova/

New Debian Developers and Maintainers (March and April 2017) https://bits.debian.org/2017/05/new-developers-2017-04.html

Debian Brasil at Cryptorave 2017 http://debianbrasil.org.br/blog/debian-brasil-at-cryptorave-2017

"New in Debian stable Stretch: GitHub's Icon font, fonts-octicons" by Hideki Yamane http://henrich-on-debian.blogspot.com/2017/05/new-in-debian-stable-stretch-githubs.html

"Be careful: Upgrading Debian Jessie to Stretch, with Pacemaker DRBD and an nested ext4 LVM hosted on VMware products" by Patrick Matthäi https://www.linux-dev.org/2017/05/be-careful-upgrading-debian-jessie-to-stretch-with-pacemaker-drbd-and-an-nested-ext4-lvm-hosted-on-vmware-products/

"New in Debian stable Stretch: nftables" by Arturo Borrero González http://ral-arturo.org/2017/05/05/debian-stretch-stable-nftables.html

"Intel's remote AMT vulnerablity" by Matthew Garrett http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/48429.html

April

MiniDebConf Colombia in Pereira, May 6th 2017 https://wiki.debian.org/DebianColombia/MiniDebconf2017

"Prometheus in Jessie(bpo) and Stretch" by Martín Ferrari https://blog.tincho.org/posts/Prometheus_in_Jessie__40__bpo__41___and_Stretch/

Bits from the Debian CD^WImages Team https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2017/04/msg00014.html

Stretch is coming soon. Time to plan a Release Party in your city! https://wiki.debian.org/ReleasePartyStretch

Debian is shutting down soon its public FTP services https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170425

"Debian GNU/Linux port for RISC-V 64-bit (riscv64)" by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo "https://people.debian.org/~mafm/posts/2017/20170422_debian-gnulinux-port-for-risc-v-64-bit-riscv64/

"Stretch images for Amazon EC2, round 2" by Noah Meyerhans https://noah.meyerhans.us/blog/2017/04/20/stretch-images-for-aws/

Statement concerning the arrest of Dmitry Bogatov https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170417

DPL elections 2017, congratulations Chris Lamb! https://bits.debian.org/2017/04/results-dpl-elections-2017.html

Montreal Bug Squashing Party report by Antoine Beaupré http://anarc.at/blog/2017-04-09-montreal-bsp-report/

OpenVPN deployment with Debian Stretch by Arturo Borrero http://ral-arturo.org/2017/04/07/openvpn-debian-stretch.html

manpages.debian.org: what's new since the launch? by Michael Stapelberg https://people.debian.org/~stapelberg//2017/04/09/manpages-debian-org-news.html

Unknown parallel universe uses Debian https://bits.debian.org/2017/04/unknown-parallel-universe-uses-debian.html

March

MiniDebConf Curitiba 2017 - a brief report http://softwarelivre.org/debianbrasil/blog/minidebconf-curitiba-2017-a-brief-report

DebConf17 welcomes its first eighteen sponsors! https://bits.debian.org/2017/03/dc17-welcome-its-first-sponsors.html

No Google Summer of Code for Debian in 2017, but we continue participating in Outreachy https://wiki.debian.org/Outreachy/Round14

Debian Project Leader Elections 2017: Call for nominations https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2017/03/msg00000.html

February

De-Branding of Icedove, reintroducing Thunderbird packages into Debian https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2017/02/msg00004.html

DebConf18 will be hosted in Hsinchu, Taiwan https://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20170215.171536.9b1203f9.en.html

"Using FAI to customize and build your own cloud images" by Noah Meyerhans "http://noah.meyerhans.us/blog/2017/02/10/using-fai-to-customize-and-build-your-own-cloud-images/

Debian contributors survey - preliminary analysis available https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2017/02/msg00012.html

Call for projects and mentors for the June-August round of Debian internships https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2017/02/msg00003.html

Bits from Debian Community at CPBR10 in Brasil http://softwarelivre.org/debianbrasil/blog/bits-from-debian-community-at-cpbr10

The Debian System Administration Team needs to refresh hardware in 2017; interested partners contact partners@debian.org for details

"SE Linux in Debian/Stretch" by Russell Coker https://etbe.coker.com.au/2017/02/06/selinux-stretch/

Bits from the Release Team: stretch is frozen https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2017/02/msg00001.html

"Interview With Debian GSoC Winners 2016" by Shirish Agarwal https://itsfoss.com/interview-debian-gsoc-winners-2016/

Debian welcomes its outreachy interns https://bits.debian.org/2017/02/welcome-outreachy-interns-2016-2017.html

"First Tails beta release based on Stretch" by Intrigeri https://people.debian.org/~intrigeri/blog/posts/Tails_3.0-beta1_is_out/

January

Debian at FOSDEM 2017 https://bits.debian.org/2017/01/debian-at-fosdem-2017.html

Please help us create this newsletter. We still need more volunteer writers to watch the Debian community and report about what is going on. Please see the contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at debian-publicity@lists.debian.org.

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This issue of Debian Project News was edited by The Publicity Team with contributions from Shirish Agarwal, Jean-Pierre Giraud, Justin B Rye, Joost van Baal-Ilić and Fabián Rodríguez and Moray Allan.