I had a nice discussion recently how we could relaunch DWN. Idea was, that if we would get more contributors for times.debian.net, we could easyly produce a weekly summary out of that. But for that, we need more contributors. So if you think this is a good idea, and are good in writing, feel free to post possible submissions to debian-publicity@lists.debian.org. No Tags

For the next upcoming stable update, which should happen around October, 16th, is just sent the first preparation mail. Procedure is as usual, intervene if you think, we do something completely wrong here. An up-to-date version of my mail can allways be found here. Next update on that mail will follow in about 10-15 days. release

The best you can do on a tepidly summer evening like today? Drinking a glass of single malt scottish whisky while reading a good book and enjoying the sunset. Stuff

This blog should serve both as a reminder of the planned BSPs around the world the upcoming weekends and as a proposal for some tasks to tackle then. At this point there are two “real-life” BSPs planned for this weekend, 08th-10th September in Vienna (Austria) and Z rich (Switzerland) and another two BSPs planned for the weekend 15th-17th September in J lich (Germany) and San Cristoba (Venezula). If you would like to attend one of these parties, you can find additional links regarding these events here. First a few necessary words on coordination: #debian-bugs on irc.debian.org will be the main channel for overall coordination. Do not hesitate to ask there before tackling any task; there will certainly be people available that can advise against tackling problematic tasks or tasks already worked on, and give general advice. When working on specific bugs, please claim them or let a DD claim them for you. See also here for list of claims. Tasks that can not be expressed by a claim but are big enough to warrant a notice for others should be noted on http://wiki.debian.org/OngoingBSP or pages linked from there. There should be plenty of bugs for all levels of complexity, programming language or legal skills and time requirements. So if you never attended to a BSP before and want to help, now is the right time to start. The RC Bug Squashing HOWTO by Steve Langasek gives a good introduction and is probably a must-read for beginners. But don’t hesitate to ask questions in #debian-bugs, we will be eager to help you to do some work. Non-DDs can also easily contribute by creating patches and/or testing existing ones. Just send them to the related bug report, a DD can easily pick it up from there. See also the end of this mail for a list of useful links. Procedures:
During the BSPs we should use a 0-Day NMU policy again, that means uploads that fix RC bugs that are more than a week old can be uploaded directly. If you feel unsure about a patch and/or if the patch is rather invasive, please consider asking on #debian-bugs for review and/or giving the maintainer some time to react by uploading to the DELAYED queue. If you are unsure whether your package upload might break an ongoing transition, PLEASE speak up on #debian-release and ask for advice there. Help Etch forward:

• RC-Bugfixing. One way to help is fixing release critical bugs. Here you can find a list of RC bugs affecting Etch.
• Test the installer. d-i beta3 was just released recently and should be tested by many people to help the people working on it judge whether it is a worthy release candidate (they sure hope it is See the Debian Installer Website for more information on how to get it, known issues, etc.
• Test Sarge->Etch upgrades. This is particularly useful with “real” systems since you might notice problems that will never occur in more or less clean chroots (hint: there is no one saying you can’t use a copy of your real system
• Verify Release Goals. As one of our major release goals is pervasive IPv6 support, all network related applications should be able to work with both, IPv4 and IPv6. If you have the possibility to do so, please test IPv6 integration in all packages you use and report bugs to the BTS or even better, fix them.
• Translate. There are quite a few .pot files out there waiting for you. Debian’s l10n website is a good starting point. (If you’re new to l10n and/or new to l10n in Debian, try to find someone at your BSP or on IRC to guide you through the first steps. This helps avoid wasted effort and frustration.)
• Fix bugs in orphaned packages. In the list of packages maintained by the QA Group you can find all bugs in orphaned packages, free to be squashed by anyone.
• Fix bugs tagged “help”. This this list.
• Fix bugs in your own packages and in packages you often use. Also help on reproducing bugs, if there are unreproducible.

I personally will attend the BSP in J lich and hope to see many of you during that weekend there or on IRC. Community

After Sarge r3 is pushed out to the mirrors now, i thought it might be a good idea to start with the preparation of Sarge r4 early, thus i already started accepting packages into proposed-updates again.
Release of r4 is currently scheduled around October 16th, but that may vary a bit, depending on packages uploaded to proposed-updates and on the DSAs issued in the mean time. Happy hacking… release

The package list for Sarge r3 has been frozen today, though we still wait for one package from one architecture to be uploaded. I hope it makes it before dinstall. Lets see….
FINALLY! release

m68k is blocking the release for Debian Sarge r3 now for longer than a week. We are currently only waiting for one (essential) package from this arch: debian-installer. For some curious reasons this package did not build on any of the build-deamons and as porter machines are still locked down after compromise one can’t even do hand-builds. Wouter is currently doing this on one of his machines, but that might take a while… So one can still say what we said pre-sarge release: “It’s ready when it’s done”. Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion and reflects neither the opinion of the whole release team nor is consensus there.

The moderation queue of proposed-updates is now down to four packages, with one waiting to be accepted by ftpmaster. As soon as the Debian Installer is now build on the still missing architectures (alpha, arm and m68k), we should be ready to release Sarge r3 realy soon. Update: two packages are now waiting for ftpmasters, thanks to dannf, who’s first accept this was.

One of the things I've been working on, on and off for the last few months is teams.debian.net. Along with a few others, we felt that there were not enough options for Debian-related mailing list hosting. While this may seem strange to some, a number of people at DebConf5 found the idea to be worthwhile. Most Debian-related lists which would not be considered for lists.debian.org could find hosting at teams.debian.net instead. The main purposes behind teams.debian.net are:

• Test bed for new software/methods that can then be deployed to lists.debian.org. In particular, we'd like to see EoC which would provide us with a few advantages over Smartlist which is currently in use on lists.debian.org.
• the ability to have temporary mailing lists
• Mailing list hosting for local Debian user groups
• Mailing list hosting for Debian related events and sub-events

To request a new mailing list, simply follow the instructions on teams.debian.net Of course, like any free software project, there are still some things which are needed. The main one is currently the lack of a public web archive for lists which want it. I wanted to try to replace MHonArc with something that looked a little better and was more user-friendly, but I have yet to find something which I think would be an appropriate replacement. While some have suggested Lurker, I feel that is not very useable in a long term hosting environment, as it is harder to navigate around older entries. While this is acceptable in some places, it's definitely not in others. You can consider a "Dear Lazyweb" paragraph if you wish. Many thanks to Andreas Barth and Martin Zobel-Helas for their help in setting this up, providing machine space, and prodding me along when necessary.

In collaborative work of Alexander Wirt, Marc Brockschmidt, Julien Danjou and me there is now a public list of packages which are in proposed-updates and await moderation currently. The backlog in that queue is currently decreasing drastically, thanks to AJ. Builds of the new D-I for Sarge r3 should start as soon as all needed packages are now spread to all mirrors. Update: Ooops, perhaps i should also add the link to that page.

modprobe scx200_gpio
mknod /dev/soekris_error_led c 254 20
echo 1 > /dev/soekris_error_led Now my router can morse errors

I am currently sitting at Berlin Tegel airport and waiting for my plane to arrive. My wife is already on her way to D ren where we both will leave for Madrid tomorrow, where we will pick up h01ger and amaya for the DebianEDU Meeting in Extramadura. Happy to have some vacation now.

As i already wrote, i am currently organizing a couple of Bug Squashing Parties this fall. My idea is that we have up to four or five BSPs on one weekend around the globe, and this repeated on three weekends directly after the base freeze. This should help us to get the RC count down to some reasonable number so we can release Etch in - this time. As i have been asked to stick to iso 8601 or rfc 3339 date format (yes, i should have thought about this before sending out the announcement), here are the current planed dates (in a better readable format for international readers):

1. August 11th, 2006 - August 13th, 2006: Testing d-i and fixing bugs in the installation process
2. September 08th, 2006 -September 10th, 2006: Testing upgrades from pre-release etch and sarge and fix remaining bugs
3. October 06th, 2006 - October 8th, 2006: Fixing remaining bugs in core packages

The following places so far have been offered to host a BSP:

• University of Z rich, Switzerland
• University of Darmstadt, Germany
• cole Centrale Paris, France
• Argentina (no exact place given yet)
• maybe: Student Dorm Salesianum Don Bosco, Vienna, Austria

I still hope we get round about 15 different locations world-wide for all events. If none of the dates above meet your diary, but you would be able to host a BSP on a different date within that timeframe, fine with me, just commit it to the wiki. Or your place is not yet listed, do the same. There is not much you need to host a BSP, just online connection, a room/place where the actual bug squashing will happen and a place where non-local DDs could find a place to sleep. See here for more information. Even so it will be a bit stressful i still plan to attend on all of the above weekends to one BSP in Europe.

One can usethe following Playlist URLs for Hacklab and Tower (for EU streaming mirrors), or Hacklab and Tower (for US streaming mirrors)

By request: Here's a list of people who've confirmed they're going to give a talk in the Debian Devroom at the next FOSDEM. This list isn't final yet (there are some more people who've asked for a time slot but did not confirm yet; and I didn't assign slots yet, either) but it might be interesting for those who are coming to have a preview of the subjects that will be available. Well then.

Lars Wirzenius: Nobody expects the Finnish Inquisition: Confessions of a package torturer

Piuparts tests that .deb packages can be installed, upgraded, and removed without problems. Lars uses it to torture all the packages he can get his hands on. This talk will explain how to use it on your packages before uploading them, and thus improving their quality and not having them suffer in Lars's hands.

Martin Zobel-Helas: Debian-Volatile - behind the scenes

This talk will give an overview of how packages are handled for Debian-volatile; what changes are allowed, how security is handled.

Martin F. Krafft: Improving workflow in Debian through process integration

This talk will be about the same subject as Martin's doctorate thesis. The abstract for that is:
This research paper/project details the technical challenges the Debian project faces as it continues its tremendous growth in size and popularity. It describes a research endeavour designed to increase the use of version control within the project for improved coordination of globally distributed teams of volunteers working on the software packages that make up the system. The research primarily focuses on the integration and consolidation of the involved processes. With tools already available for some parts of these processes as well as the coordination of teams, the goal is not to reinvent the wheel, but rather to reuse and improve these tools, to better integrate them, and to make them more accessible by providing abstraction wrappers with interfaces intuitive to Debian developers. It is further the intent for these tools to be optional and fully compatible to existing practices, thus not forcing developers to adapt. The research starts with process analysis and studies of the work habits on the side of the developers, and targets the final output of tools, which implement improved workflow in Debian package management through meaningful integration of existing (and proven) methods

Enrico Zini: Debtags, and what you can do with it today

This talk will introduce the Debtags project, what it has accomplished so far and the wonderful advanced tools that are now available, using debtags, to make sense of the huge package archive.

Bill Allombert: Inside the Debian menu system

The debian menu system transparently keeps the menus in sync with the list of installed applications; so transparently, in fact, that a lot of developers do not know how the system really works. This talk will detail the various components of the system, what the technical challenges are and how they are solved.

Frans J. Pop: Debian Installer internals

An introduction to the inner workings of Debian Installer. Starting with what happens when the installer boots, the talk will go on to discuss how the dynamic menu structure allows the installer to be adapted for different architectures and installation methods. Other subjects will include the special nature of udebs, the contents of a D-I initrd, how cdebconf knits everything together and allows the use of different frontends, preseeding and the use of hooks. If time allows, a short introduction into the build system and CD building may be provided. Some knowledge of Debian package management (like priorities and dependencies) is assumed in this talk.

Aurelien Jarno: The Debian GNU/kFreeBSD port

Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a port of Debian using the FreeBSD kernel and a GNU libc library. It is currently the most advanced non-Linux port in terms of packages ported.
This talk gives an overview of GNU/kFreeBSD, and a quick comparison between the FreeBSD and the Linux kernel, to give users the necessary information to let them find how the FreeBSD kernel could fill their needs. It then describes the status of the port and the choices made concerning the architecture of the port (libc, threading library, etc.). It will continue by giving the various ways to try out this port and to give help, giving pointers to useful documentation and some useful hints.
Best portability practices are also covered, for both the Debian packaging and the upstream code. It will be based on real examples of non-portable code, and will show the best way to change it into portable code.

Summing the times that people gave me, I'll have anywhere between 5h25 and 6h00 of talks already, and two more people who've shown real interest in doing something in the Debian devroom (but who haven't sent me the information I ask for to be able to confirm their talk; please do so!). I'll probably get 9 hours in all (10 if I squeeze a little bit; but then I might have some issues with the key signing party, which I'm also co-organizing), so there is still some time left for interested parties. However, if you're interested in giving a talk, you shouldn't wait too long anymore!