Re: bzip2 compressed files

[Josip Rodin]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 03:28:04PM +, Russell Coker wrote:
> >> Would it be possible to have files such as Contents*.gz also provided in 
> >> bzip2
> >> format to reduce download times when using slow links?
> >
> >Good idea. And Packages files too.
> >
> >But that would need implementation in dselect, and will only work
> >if bzip2 is already installed. Bzip2 package is not in base IIRC,
> >and that would require a bit more changing, like adding another
> >180.6k to base_2.2.tgz. I'm sure that there are more problems...
> 
> I believe that eventually bzip2 support should be added to dselect and
> dpkg (I would like to have packages such as xbooks compressed by bzip2).

That would be nice as an additional option...

> I doubt that 180K would be added if it became base_2.2.tbz2, in fact
> it would probably be smaller.

...but I wouldn't do that *and* remove that .tgz completely, or
having all the .debs converted to tbz2.

Bzip2 is very nice, and has become pretty fast, but gzip's advantage
is that it is very widely used, and has become a tradition. Making
Debian files uncompressable on most other systems just to reduce the
size of some files by let's say 15% seems unreasonable *now*.

Believe me, I *would* feel the difference (writing this at CONNECT 16800),
but I feel also that it is not worth of this kind of radical change.

BTW if we leave the tgz-inside debs along with tbz2-inside ones, the
mirror list would shorten, because it would double (already alarming :)
archive size.

> htget ftp://ftp.debian.org/.../Packages.bz2 | bzip2 -d >
> /var/state/apt/lists/ftp.debian.org.whatever
> 
> Then you have to get apt to recognise the files, once APT is happy then
> everything will be fine.

I'll try that, thanks.

> But the real solution is to change dselect and dpkg.

Indeed, but only as an option, not the default.

--
enJoy -*/\*- http://jagor.srce.hr/~jrodin/

Re: off-topic! Anonymous CVS access?

[Johnie Ingram]

"Oliver" == Oliver Elphick  writes:

Oliver> The package `makepasswd' provides an easier command line...
Oliver>makepasswd --crypt --clear=your_password

Heh, you'd be surprised how controversial that command line is in the
BTS  :-)

-  PGP  E4 70 6E 59 80 6A F5 78  63 32 BC FB 7A 08 53 4C
 
   __ _Debian GNU Johnie Ingram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  mm   mm
  / /(_)_ __  _   ___  __"netgod" irc.debian.org  mm mm
 / / | | '_ \| | | \ \/ / m m m
/ /__| | | | | |_| |>  <  Yes, I'm Linus, and I am your God. mm   mm
\/_|_| |_|\__,_/_/\_\   -- Linus, keynote address, Expo 98   GO BLUE

Re: off-topic! Anonymous CVS access?

[Oliver Elphick]

Tom Lees wrote:
  >1. Put a file "passwd" in $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/,
  >   containing a line like this:-
  >   
  >anonymous:tLE75Q0w/AnU2
  >
  >The password is "anonymous". Generate it like this:-
  >
  >echo 'main(){printf("%s\n",crypt("password","tL"));}'>t.c; \
  > gcc -o t t.c -lcrypt; ./t; rm t t.c
  >
  >NB, replace "tL" with two random characters, and "password" with your desire
  >d
  >password.
 
The package `makepasswd' provides an easier command line...

   makepasswd --crypt --clear=your_password

-- 
Oliver Elphick[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Isle of Wight  http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
   PGP key from public servers; key ID 32B8FAA1
 
 "He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack..."   
 Proverbs 28:27 

Re: MD5sum in Packages (was: No ldd?)

[Jason Gunthorpe]

On 21 Jan 1999, Riku Saikkonen wrote:

> George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >Note that I am using the apt method of dselect using the round-robin
> >mirrors so I have no idea which site I was really connected to when I got
> >the bad .deb
> 
> Does apt check the MD5sum of the package against that in the Packages
> file? Does dpkg do that (I suppose not, since I don't think it reads
> Packages files)?

APT does if it downloads it and dpkg cannot really..

Jason

Re: Dpkg Update Proposal

[Joey Hess]

Craig Sanders wrote:
> 300 sounds like a lot...are you including all shared libs and -dev and
> -altdev packages?

No, I was just including everything that ended with a number. That excludes
the -dev packages and it probably includes some things that don't belong. As
I said, it's a "crude" count.

> in any case, i don't see it as a problem.  IMO, the fact that they have
> different package names is USEFUL information. it tells me that there's
> something possibly weird or dangerous going on and i should be extra
> careful before i select it in dselect...maybe even switch to another
> shell and investigate further by unpacking the package in /tmp and
> reading the changelog or readme.Debian before installing it.

So you want new users to be scared/confused into doing this with all 300
packages?

-- 
see shy jo

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Joey Hess]

Brian White wrote:
> Disclamers are of marginal use.  It will appear as installable and tell
> people to "install me" just as an elevator buttun tells people "push me".

Installing a kernel 2.2 source package just dumps a tar file in /usr/src. I
don't see how this could break a system. Actually building and installing
that source package is more difficult than pushing an elevator button (even
with kernel-package ;-)

> Adding a disclaimer is like taking a door with a big, "pull me" handle
> and putting a "push" sign above it.  The "affordance" of the handle
> talks far more loudly than the sign.

/usr/src/kernels-source-2.0.tar.gz

Adding this file to the distribution really doesn't add a handle to the
door. A better analogy would be adding a locked door with a numeric keypad.
You have to go hunt in the archives (/usr/doc) to find out the conbination
you need to open the door.

> There is good reason to have new kernels in "unstable", but we're
> talking "stable", here.

But keep in mind we're also talking about a _source_package_.

-- 
see shy jo

Re: xxgdb should get pulled

[Daniel Martin]

"J.H.M. Dassen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 11:28:29 -0500, Daniel Martin wrote:
> > Is my only other choice for a graphical debugger the "lesstif-induced
> > segfault" ddd?
> 
> Glad to see my work is appreciated. Perhaps this is where I need to point
> you to the power of having the source? You could e.g. try fixing LessTif
> and/or DDD rather than bitch about it, fix xxgdb, package up UPS, gdbtk,
> tgdb, or deet; or (if you're not fully on the straight and narrow) use
> Motif-linked DDD binaries, or buy Motif and build a Motif-linked DDD for
> Debian, or package up KDbg, or Code Medic.

Part of the problem of having a development model in which the primary 
reward for work is ego gratification (assuming one buys all of ESR's
"Homesteading the Noosphere") is that developers tend to get
emotionally attached to their packages, much in the same way that
academics develop an emotional attachment to their theories or
results.

I have yet to learn how to navigate this area, and am often surprised
at how strongly an offhand comment is taken.  (I've discovered myself 
suddenly CC:ed in a thread on the ddd-devel list which is apparently
speculating about what this lesstif bug might be - when I get it
reproducing reliably, I'll make a real bug report)

Yes, I am grateful that DDD exists and is packaged for Debian, and
that the form it is packaged in allows me to keep one more non-free
package off my system.  Yes, I understand that maintaining a package is
difficult; the most complicated packaging I have to deal with is mixed 
Tcl and C code - I don't even want to imagine what is involved in
getting ddd, ddd-smotif and ddd-dmotif out of the same source.

Also, I appreciate the names of the other debuggers.  I'm looking
closely at Code Medic now.  (Though I'm surprised it isn't already on
the wnpp list)

Re: Debian goes big business?

[David Stern]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 10:38:54 +0100, "J.H.M. Dassen" wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 20:26:12 +1100, Craig Sanders wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 20, 1999 at 06:12:14PM -0500, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> > > They should have `a word to say', and they do--they can subscribe to
> > > Debian lists and give their feedback and advice, which developers are
> > > free to follow or ignore.  But they do not, and should not, IMO, have
> > > the privilege of voting or otherwise setting policy.  Users are not
> > > developers and shouldn't presume to be.
> >
> > i mostly agree but wouldn't put it anywhere near that strongly.
> 
> I would. Ben's phrasing strongly reminds me of Robert A. Heinlein;
> especially of the concept of TANSTAAFL and the political system he describes
> in "Starship Troopers", where the right to vote must be earned through a
> tour of duty of public (not necessary military) service.
> 
> In the case of Debian, users do not have the right of vote, but can earn it
> by becoming developers (i.e. by maintaining packages, but also by writing
> documentation, maintaining the website etc.).

I thought it used to be that the website maintainer had no vote and 
that package maintainers only had to subscribe to -devel.  If still 
true, this is not a "earn voting right by public service" system (per 
JHMD's definition) and regular direct feedback between users and 
developers is not actively promoted (per Ben).  What's the official 
word on this now?

I agree with Craig that Ben's view is in the right direction, but is 
worded too strongly.  i.e.: I'm not sure when a user presumed to be a 
developer.  I wonder if someone has been outgrowing hats lately.

David Stern

logo in Gnome

[Havoc Pennington]

Hi,

Gnome ships with icons for different kinds of files, and right now .deb
packages have the Debian logo as icon. I've been asked to make sure this
is OK from a trademark point of view. I can't find the logo license on the
web site (?) - could someone clue me in on the current status, or give
special permission to use the icon in Gnome?

Alternatively, someone could draw a better icon for .deb packages. ;-)

Thanks,
Havoc

Re: off-topic! Anonymous CVS access?

[Tom Lees]

On Tue, Jan 19, 1999 at 11:56:16PM -0600, Oleg Krivosheev wrote:
> 
> Hi, All
> 
> can someone tell me how to setup anonymous read-only
> access to CVS tree via pserver in slink?
> Of course with minimum security problems...
> 
> thanks a lot in advance

Read the CVS info file, look under Admin files, then one of either
"readers" or "writers".

Basically, you want to do the following:-

1. Put a file "passwd" in $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/,
   containing a line like this:-
   
anonymous:tLE75Q0w/AnU2

The password is "anonymous". Generate it like this:-

echo 'main(){printf("%s\n",crypt("password","tL"));}'>t.c; \
gcc -o t t.c -lcrypt; ./t; rm t t.c

NB, replace "tL" with two random characters, and "password" with your desired
password.

2. Then, put a file "readers" containing:-

anonymous

Alternatively, create an empty file "writers" (possibly more secure...).

Then, make sure you have the repository exported (run cvsconfig as
root), and pserver enabled.

More info is available in the CVS documentation.

-- 
Tom Lees <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  http://www.lpsg.demon.co.uk/
PGP Key: finger [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.lpsg.demon.co.uk/pgpkeys.asc.

Status of Gnome libraries and applications?

[Douglas Bates]

Can someone give me an overview of the current state of gnome
libraries and applications in the unstable distribution?  I would like
to try our gnumeric.  If I try to install it with apt I get dependency
problems
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~# apt-get install gnumeric
 Updating package status cache...done
 Checking system integrity...ok
 The following NEW packages will be installed:
   gnumeric 
 0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
 Sorry, but the following packages are broken - this means they have unmet
 dependencies:
   gnumeric: Depends:libglib1.1 Depends:libgnome0 Depends:libgtk1.1 
Depends:giflib3g
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~# dpkg -l 'libglib1.1*'
 Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge
 | Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
 |/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
 ||/ NameVersionDescription
 +++-===-==-
 pn  libglib1.1   (no description available)
 un  libglib1.1-dev   (no description available)
 un  libglib1.1.10-d  (no description available)
 un  libglib1.1.10-d  (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.11(no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.11-d  (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.11-d  (no description available)
 ri  libglib1.1.12   1.1.12-1   Developers' release of the GLib library of C
 pn  libglib1.1.12-d  (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.12-d  (no description available)
 un  libglib1.1.13-d  (no description available)
 un  libglib1.1.13-d  (no description available)
 un  libglib1.1.14-d  (no description available)
 un  libglib1.1.14-d  (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.5 (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.5-db  (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.5-de  (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.6 (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.6-db  (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.6-de  (no description available)
 un  libglib1.1.7-db  (no description available)
 un  libglib1.1.7-de  (no description available)
 un  libglib1.1.8-db  (no description available)
 un  libglib1.1.8-de  (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.9 (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.9-db  (no description available)
 pn  libglib1.1.9-de  (no description available)

Here I am embarrassed to say that I don't know how to get the complete
name of a package that has not been installed.  It appears that
packages like libglib1.1.14-dev should be available but I can't get
information on them.
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~# dpkg --print-avail 'libglib1.1.14-dev'
 Package `libglib1.1.14-dev' is not available.

I realize that some of these packages are development snapshots.  If
the projected release time is "soon", I suppose I can wait (lots of
Real Work^tm to do anyway).

Re: the Great X Reorganization, package splits, and renaming

[Oliver Elphick]

Shaleh wrote:
  >
  >On 22-Jan-99 Rafael Kitover wrote:
  >> Sorry to jump in like this, but this seems to only be a problem when
  >> someone would be using apt-get exclusively. Does xbase recommend the
  >> various other packages people expect to have? That would make it simple
  >> enough, a person would then just need to apt-get update;apt-get
  >> dist-upgrade then go into dselect and put on the finishing touches (with
  >> help from various recommends fields). Or is this wrong?
  >> 
  >
  >I think part of the problem is also packages like xfntcyr -> xfont-cyrilic. 
  >Nothing depends on it (nor suggests it).  So the package gets happily skippe
  >d.
 
I believe that it is not desirable for xbase to recommend all the many
parts of X.  Could the problem be solved by hacking the dpkg database in
xbase's installation scripts?  The method would be something like this:

   scan the database for the renamed packages
   for each renamed package that is installed
   mark the package for removal
   mark its replacement for installation


-- 
Oliver Elphick[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Isle of Wight  http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
   PGP key from public servers; key ID 32B8FAA1
 
 "He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack..."   
 Proverbs 28:27 

Re: Unsatisfied depends in slink main

[Dale Scheetz]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:

> 
> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> 
> > > > The script that I am working on unpacks all of the .deb files it finds 
> > > > and
> > > > collects Package:, Provides:, Pre-Depends:, Depends:, Recommends:, and
> > > > Suggests: field information and deterines several things.
> > > 
> > > You do realize that is why we have a 'Packages' file?
> > 
> > Yes, and the current packages file indicates that ppp is in base, but it
> > isn't there. The whole reason for scanning the archives was to catch such
> > errors.
> 
> saens{jgg}/org/ftp.debian.org/ftp/dists/slink/main/binary-i386#ls */ppp*
> base/ppp_2.3.5-2.deb@ net/ppp-pam_2.3.5-2.deb@
> base/pppconfig_1.1.deb@   net/pppupd_0.23-9.deb
> 
> Oh? The package file is 100% accurate anything else is a serious bug.

Well, I have everything in your list _but_ ppp_2.3.5-2.deb. I mirror
ftp.debian.org on a daily basis. If I get some time today, I'll take a
look at master and see what else I'm missing.

Thanks,

Dwarf
--
_-_-_-_-_-   Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide"  _-_-_-_-_-_-

aka   Dale Scheetz   Phone:   1 (850) 656-9769
  Flexible Software  11000 McCrackin Road
  e-mail:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tallahassee, FL  32308

_-_-_-_-_-_- If you don't see what you want, just ask _-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Re: Unsatisfied depends in slink main

[Dale Scheetz]

On 21 Jan 1999, Jim Pick wrote:

> 
> Dale Scheetz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> > giflib3g-dev  gdk-imlib-dev
> > giflib3g-dev  imlib-dev
> > giflib3g-dev  libfnlib-dev
> 
> The full dependencies for these is more like:
> 
> libungif3g-dev | giflib3g-dev
> 
> Basically, the unfree giflib stuff has to be in the depends field,
> because it's in an "or" relationship with the equivalent free package.

You are correct. I haven't dealt properly with the or conditions.

Thanks,

Dwarf
--
_-_-_-_-_-   Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide"  _-_-_-_-_-_-

aka   Dale Scheetz   Phone:   1 (850) 656-9769
  Flexible Software  11000 McCrackin Road
  e-mail:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tallahassee, FL  32308

_-_-_-_-_-_- If you don't see what you want, just ask _-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Re: Unsatisfied depends in slink main

[Dale Scheetz]

On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, James R. Van Zandt wrote:

> 
> Dale Sheetz writes:
> ...
> >
> >Package not in archives   Package which depends on
> >  Package not in archives
> >   
> ...
> >tclx  emacspeak
> >tclx74emacspeak
> >tclx75emacspeak
> 
> Here's the actual dependency for emacspeak:
>  Depends: tclx76|tclx75|tclx74|tclx, emacs20
> 
> We have 
> /debian/dists/unstable/main/binary-i386/oldlibs/tclx76_7.6.0-3.deb
> in slink, but older packages would also suffice.  What's wrong with
> this?

My mistake. The script parses out each depends and doesn't pay attention
to the or-ness. Looks like time for a redesign ;-)

Thanks,

Dwarf
--
_-_-_-_-_-   Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide"  _-_-_-_-_-_-

aka   Dale Scheetz   Phone:   1 (850) 656-9769
  Flexible Software  11000 McCrackin Road
  e-mail:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tallahassee, FL  32308

_-_-_-_-_-_- If you don't see what you want, just ask _-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Re: the Great X Reorganization, package splits, and renaming

[Shaleh]

On 22-Jan-99 Rafael Kitover wrote:
> Sorry to jump in like this, but this seems to only be a problem when
> someone would be using apt-get exclusively. Does xbase recommend the
> various other packages people expect to have? That would make it simple
> enough, a person would then just need to apt-get update;apt-get
> dist-upgrade then go into dselect and put on the finishing touches (with
> help from various recommends fields). Or is this wrong?
> 

I think part of the problem is also packages like xfntcyr -> xfont-cyrilic. 
Nothing depends on it (nor suggests it).  So the package gets happily skipped.

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Michael Meskes]

On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 10:02:52PM -0500, Brian White wrote:
> No.  We had enough problems upgrading from 2.0.35 to 2.0.36.  This would
> be a major change and have corresponding reprocussions.  I'm sure it's
> very stable, but it will have incompatibilities.

But that was changing the default kernel. WHy not add just another one?

Michael
-- 
Michael Meskes | Go SF 49ers!
Th.-Heuss-Str. 61, D-41812 Erkelenz| Go Rhein Fire!
Tel.: (+49) 2431/72651 | Use Debian GNU/Linux!
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  | Use PostgreSQL!

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Michael Meskes]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 02:13:32PM +0900, Ionutz Borcoman wrote:
> Can you put 2.2 at least in potato ? I am using here 2.1.131 but didn't
> try to upgrade to 2.2.preX as I have understood that there were some
> problems. Are the problems solved ? Can I safely grab the kernel, build
> it with kernel-package and install the result ?
> Are there many system configuration changes to be done to get 2.2.pre
> kernels working ? 

The only one I can remember is to switch from lp1 to lp0 for the printer.

Michael
-- 
Michael Meskes | Go SF 49ers!
Th.-Heuss-Str. 61, D-41812 Erkelenz| Go Rhein Fire!
Tel.: (+49) 2431/72651 | Use Debian GNU/Linux!
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  | Use PostgreSQL!

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Michael Meskes]

On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 08:24:37PM -0500, Allan M. Wind wrote:
> Most ppl. need a printer and /dev/lp changed radically betewen 2.0 and
> 2.2. diald/ppp in slink does not work with 2.2.0-pre7 (on my box, at
> least).  I am sure that there are other things as well.

What's the problem with ppp? I run it all the time and it works fine with
all kernels up to 2.2.0-pre8. The final pre version (pre9) will be tested in
a few minutes.

michael
-- 
Michael Meskes | Go SF 49ers!
Th.-Heuss-Str. 61, D-41812 Erkelenz| Go Rhein Fire!
Tel.: (+49) 2431/72651 | Use Debian GNU/Linux!
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  | Use PostgreSQL!

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Michael Meskes]

On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 05:23:22PM -0600, David Welton wrote:
> The kernel is stable, but is the kernel + debian stable?  No one
> knows.  

>From my experience, yes. After all we also have packages that won't work
with kernel 2.0.* like pciutils.

> I think we should include it, as a service to people who don't want to
> download the whole thing, but attach a note saying "As 2.2 was
> released just before we released slink, we are including it, but there
> may be problems, it might eat your computer... we are not responsible
> for anything at all..."

Okay with me.

Michael
-- 
Michael Meskes | Go SF 49ers!
Th.-Heuss-Str. 61, D-41812 Erkelenz| Go Rhein Fire!
Tel.: (+49) 2431/72651 | Use Debian GNU/Linux!
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  | Use PostgreSQL!

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Michael Meskes]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 12:43:27AM -0500, Johnie Ingram wrote:
> Little things that few notice, apparently -- I would've sworn slink
> and 2.2.0-final work perfectly until someone pointed out that
> /usr/sbin/procinfo complains.   Been running 2.1.1xx in production
> with frozen for months.

But then the latest procinfo works fine again.

Michael
-- 
Michael Meskes | Go SF 49ers!
Th.-Heuss-Str. 61, D-41812 Erkelenz| Go Rhein Fire!
Tel.: (+49) 2431/72651 | Use Debian GNU/Linux!
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  | Use PostgreSQL!

gnome-sql

[Michael Meskes]

Did anyone get this to compile? I'd like to have a look at this frond-end
tool for PostgreSQL and maybe other DBs.

The URL is:
http://www.chez.com/rmoya/software/gnome/gnome-sql/doc/gnome-sql-0.1.tar.gz

Michael
-- 
Michael Meskes | Go SF 49ers!
Th.-Heuss-Str. 61, D-41812 Erkelenz| Go Rhein Fire!
Tel.: (+49) 2431/72651 | Use Debian GNU/Linux!
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  | Use PostgreSQL!

Re: the Great X Reorganization, package splits, and renaming

[Rafael Kitover]

Sorry to jump in like this, but this seems to only be a problem when
someone would be using apt-get exclusively. Does xbase recommend the
various other packages people expect to have? That would make it simple
enough, a person would then just need to apt-get update;apt-get
dist-upgrade then go into dselect and put on the finishing touches (with
help from various recommends fields). Or is this wrong?

-- 
Rafael Kitover
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


pgpozznGphN3F.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: the Great X Reorganization, package splits, and renaming

[Santiago Vila]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Branden Robinson wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 03:18:51PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
> > I have proposed a very simple solution, which, in addition to the
> > empty xbase (I applaud that you accepted this idea), would make the X
> > upgrades *completely* smooth.
> 
> I've tried to say this more delicately.  Obviously that's been the wrong
> approach.

You will notice I'm trying to be delicate as well :-)
 
> Your solution is uglier than hell.

Ugly or not, at least it would *work*.
What you are proposing is *not* to solve the problem at all.
I don't think this is acceptable.

I have nothing to object to "I believe the new names are less cryptic.",
but if the renaming creates a problem (and certainly it will), I think you
should allow this problem to be fixed in *some* way.

Otherwise it will be clear that the package renaming creates more problems
that it solves and it would be wiser to go back to the old names right
now, before we release slink.

> I will implement it only at gunpoint.  There has got to be a better way.

Well, I do not require *you* to implement it. I just say that something
like this, or better[*], should be implemented. I can create the packages
for you, if you like, or even I could maintain them for slink, if it's that
what you need.

[*] The best thing would be to add a new dpkg field, of course,
but then dpkg would have to be the first package to be upgraded.
I hope we will agree that we can discard this method.

> One junk package I can live with due to the complexity of the issue.
> 
> Ten is intolerable.

I would call intolerable to create a problem and then not allowing it
to be fixed.

> Please followup to the list, or do not reply at all if you don't have any
> alternative ideas.

Well, I'm sorry to reply, then, but I really *really* think that this must
be fixed before slink relase.

I have only a "better" proposal, which is to get back to the old names. 

But if you rename the packages, then we will have to accept the
consecuencies: we will *need* compatibility packages or else the upragde
will *not* be smooth.

Thanks.

-- 
 "7211f09c6366bda0c5061950ef363d67" (a truly random sig)

Errors in 2.2.0-pre8

[vaidhy]

Hi All,

I got the kernel pre5 and applied patches till pre9. However, after applying 
pre8, the compilation gave an error in the program fs/autofs/dirhash.c pre9 
does not fix this problem.

The actual error is at the end of dirhash.c and has the following lines..

struct auto_fs..   *ent,*nent;

  for()
 for(ent=..;ent;ent=nent)
   nent = ent->next;


My pre8 patch changed the definition into 
struct auto_fs..  *ent;

However, the pre8 patch had the diff for this program as

  for(ent=...;ent;ent=ent->next)  (second for as a reference line)

So my guess is that the probelm was fixed in one of the ac's, but somehow got 
missed in the patch. 

Did anyone else have the same problem? Can someone who has a local kernel 
mirror check it out ? 

Thanks,
Vaidhy





**
Alike for those who for Today prepare
And those that after a Tomorrow stare;
A Muezzin from Tower of Darkness cries,
"Fools, your reward is nether here nor there".
  - Omar Khayyam 
**

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Ivan E. Moore II]

Quoting Bob Nielsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

>
> 
> I also was unable to get ppp or diald to work with a later 2.1.x kernel in
> a hamm system.
> 
> Documentation/Changes says the required version of ppp is 2.3.5 and hamm,
> slink and potato all have this version.
> 
> Bob


I have just performed 3 different setups.  HAMM, SLINK, and a hacked up Potato


all with the 2.2.0-final (pre-9) kernel.  This was the ONLY change I made to the
system.  All used ppp just fine including the ability for dial on demand and the
interworking relationship with ipfwadm and ipmasq allowing me to forward
connections from my internal ethernet network through my ppp interface and out
into the internet.

Ivan


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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http://www.tdyc.com  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: mark bug #31824 (html2ps: can't execute) as critical?

[Johnie Ingram]

"Martin" == Martin Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

Martin> I believe we should.  netgod will upload a new pkg, I hope.

netgod has uploaded a new pkg, I hear.

-  PGP  E4 70 6E 59 80 6A F5 78  63 32 BC FB 7A 08 53 4C
 
   __ _Debian GNU Johnie Ingram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  mm   mm
  / /(_)_ __  _   ___  __"netgod" irc.debian.org  mm mm
 / / | | '_ \| | | \ \/ / m m m
/ /__| | | | | |_| |>  <  Yes, I'm Linus, and I am your God. mm   mm
\/_|_| |_|\__,_/_/\_\   -- Linus, keynote address, Expo 98   GO BLUE

Re: the Great X Reorganization, package splits, and renaming

[Branden Robinson]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 03:18:51PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
> I have proposed a very simple solution, which, in addition to the
> empty xbase (I applaud that you accepted this idea), would make the X
> upgrades *completely* smooth.

I've tried to say this more delicately.  Obviously that's been the wrong
approach.

Your solution is uglier than hell.

I will implement it only at gunpoint.  There has got to be a better way.

One junk package I can live with due to the complexity of the issue.

Ten is intolerable.

Please followup to the list, or do not reply at all if you don't have any
alternative ideas.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson  |
Debian GNU/Linux |   The noble soul has reverence for itself.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   |   -- Friedrich Nietzsche
cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu/~branden/ |


pgpwaJvcmOBnh.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Marco d'Itri]

On Jan 22, Brian White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 >Since it is assured that some packages will have to be patched by a
 >user that wants to use the new kernel, making those users go through
 >a little bit more effort to get the new kernel is more than offset by
 >reducing the amount of problems encountered by other users.
Kernels are big. Even if you don't pay for download time, many people
do.

-- 
ciao,
Marco

Re: Unmet Deps revisted

[Steve McIntyre]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Santiago Vila wrote:

>On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Steve McIntyre wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Santiago Vila wrote:
>>
>> >I hope the pgp-i and pgp-us example will help you to see that surely 
>most
>> >of these conflicts are gratuituous).
>>
>> I guess so. Hmmm. I'm still not convinced it's a major thing to be 
>worried
>> about. [...]
>
>It depends on how much we value the userfriendliness of the system.
>
>I still remember somebody who some time ago loudly complained in
>debian-user-spanish about the great user-unfriendliness of the install
>system. The reason for this was exactly the great number of

OK, I stand (sit) corrected...

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Allstor Software [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.rpg-soc.ucam.org/curs/>CURS home page
"Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky, 
"Tongue-tied & twisted, Just an earth-bound misfit, I..."  

Re: Unsatisfied depends in slink main

[Jason Gunthorpe]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Dale Scheetz wrote:

> > > The script that I am working on unpacks all of the .deb files it finds and
> > > collects Package:, Provides:, Pre-Depends:, Depends:, Recommends:, and
> > > Suggests: field information and deterines several things.
> > 
> > You do realize that is why we have a 'Packages' file?
> 
> Yes, and the current packages file indicates that ppp is in base, but it
> isn't there. The whole reason for scanning the archives was to catch such
> errors.

saens{jgg}/org/ftp.debian.org/ftp/dists/slink/main/binary-i386#ls */ppp*
base/ppp_2.3.5-2.deb@ net/ppp-pam_2.3.5-2.deb@
base/pppconfig_1.1.deb@   net/pppupd_0.23-9.deb

Oh? The package file is 100% accurate anything else is a serious bug.

Jason

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Santiago Vila]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Brian White wrote:

> > > Including the source package I could be convinced of.  At least then
> > > people have to think about what they're doing before causing potential
> > > problems.
> > 
> > This "think about what they are doing" thing is precisely one of the
> > reasons the "extra" priority does exist.
> > 
> > According to this it should be fine to include it as an "extra" package.
> 
> Perhaps that is a reason for "extra", but it's really pointless.  If it
> can be installed, people will install it regardless of its priority.  I'd
> bet most people don't even think about a package's priority, largely
> because many don't know what the priorities mean.

In such case (even if the user install everything, including extra
packages) I think there should be no problem if the package is a
package containing just the kernel source (because source code, as such,
is always harmless).

-- 
 "83de1cfc5d2e83e0b4b5f7968bf5108a" (a truly random sig)

Re: Unmet Deps revisted

[Santiago Vila]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Steve McIntyre wrote:

> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Santiago Vila wrote:
> 
> >I hope the pgp-i and pgp-us example will help you to see that surely most
> >of these conflicts are gratuituous).
> 
> I guess so. Hmmm. I'm still not convinced it's a major thing to be worried
> about. [...]

It depends on how much we value the userfriendliness of the system.

I still remember somebody who some time ago loudly complained in
debian-user-spanish about the great user-unfriendliness of the install
system. The reason for this was exactly the great number of
conflicting optional packages.

So yes, this is something to worry about.

Whether this is major or not, it depends on the number of affected
packages, and I think there are too many.

-- 
 "48b8a78c634fe15d870b28921056e40f" (a truly random sig)

Re: Intent to package wmheadlines, wmglobe, and IglooFTP

[Rene Hojbjerg Larsen]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> IglooFTP is a promising new gtk1.1.x based ftp client.

IglooFTP has already been packaged for potato:

Package: iglooftp
Priority: optional
Section: net
Maintainer: Adrian Bridgett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Version: 0.3.1-2
Depends: libc6, libglib1.1.11 (>= 1.1.11-1), libgtk1.1.11 (>= 1.1.11-1),
xlib6g (>= 3.3-5)
Description: Graphical and user friendly FTP client.
-- 
   /'"`\  zzzZ  | My PGP Public Key is available at:
  ( - - )   | 
--oooO--(_)--Oooo-- 
 Don't ya just hate it when there's not enough room to fin 

Re: Intent to package rolldice, blackjack

[Federico Di Gregorio]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 03:22:58PM +, M.C. Vernon wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Joseph Carter wrote:
> 
> > > As well, my roommate and I were going to also make a character sheet
> > > program (hence the reason for making the rolldice stuff a library), so we
> > > could just enter the data, and either save it to a file or go ahead and
> > > print it out...  my roommate has been working on GTK+ for the occasion 
> > 
> > Why do I get the idea I should bring up once again my hope to gather a
> > sizable group of people to build a game system which is released under
> > free license and available to anyone with a web browser and the like?  =>

I am working at that. But I am writing it in italian... too bad
my english is very distant from perfection! Will be released under
something similar to Artistic. BTW the name is Aedon, and is a generic
set'o'rules. When we play (it's about 3 years we use it) we call it
Ab Infinito and is a mix between H.P.Lovcraft and the Rork comics
by Andreas.

Slightly off topic this one!!!

Ciao,
Federico
-- 

 Federico Di Gregorio   |  /  mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]  
  Debian developer! | / -1http://pcamb6.irfmn.mnegri.it/~fog 
*-=$< ;-P TeX Winzard?  |/http://www.debian.org  

Re: Unmet Deps revisted

[Jules Bean]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Steve McIntyre wrote:

> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Santiago Vila wrote:
> 
> >Please note that a suboptimal packaging does not legitimate the conflict.
> >For example, my unzip and unzip-crypt packages do conflict at each other,
> >and they are optional, so I should probably make them compatible, like
> >pgp-i and pgp-us, for example. [ And of course, I will not mind that
> >unzip-crypt is demoted to extra until I repackage them ].
> >
> >(Yeah, I put my own packages as examples of suboptimal packaging!
> >I hope the pgp-i and pgp-us example will help you to see that surely most
> >of these conflicts are gratuituous).
> 
> I guess so. Hmmm. I'm still not convinced it's a major thing to be worried
> about. I presume nobody's going to argue that "extra" packages can't
> conflict with each other...?

Of course not.  That's the *whole* point.  Extra is precisely the priority
for packages with conflict with other packages (in any priority, including
extra).

Jules
 
/+---+-\
|  Jelibean aka  | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |  6 Evelyn Rd|
|  Jules aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED]  |  Richmond, Surrey   |
|  Julian Bean   | [EMAIL PROTECTED]|  TW9 2TF *UK*   |
++---+-+
|  War doesn't demonstrate who's right... just who's left. |
|  When privacy is outlawed... only the outlaws have privacy.  |
\--/

Re: Unmet Deps revisted

[Steve McIntyre]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Santiago Vila wrote:

>Please note that a suboptimal packaging does not legitimate the conflict.
>For example, my unzip and unzip-crypt packages do conflict at each other,
>and they are optional, so I should probably make them compatible, like
>pgp-i and pgp-us, for example. [ And of course, I will not mind that
>unzip-crypt is demoted to extra until I repackage them ].
>
>(Yeah, I put my own packages as examples of suboptimal packaging!
>I hope the pgp-i and pgp-us example will help you to see that surely most
>of these conflicts are gratuituous).

I guess so. Hmmm. I'm still not convinced it's a major thing to be worried
about. I presume nobody's going to argue that "extra" packages can't
conflict with each other...?

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Allstor Software [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Also available from [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky, 
"Tongue-tied & twisted, Just an earth-bound misfit, I..."  

Re: bzip2 compressed files

[Russell Coker]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Josip Rodin wrote:
>On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 01:22:56PM +, Russell Coker wrote:
>> Would it be possible to have files such as Contents*.gz also provided in 
>> bzip2
>> format to reduce download times when using slow links?
>
>Good idea. And Packages files too.
>
>But that would need implementation in dselect, and will only work
>if bzip2 is already installed. Bzip2 package is not in base IIRC,
>and that would require a bit more changing, like adding another
>180.6k to base_2.2.tgz. I'm sure that there are more problems...

I believe that eventually bzip2 support should be added to dselect and dpkg (I
would like to have packages such as xbooks compressed by bzip2).
I doubt that 180K would be added if it became base_2.2.tbz2, in fact it would
probably be smaller.

>Is there a way to manually download the Packages.bz2, unpack
>it somewhere and make dselect use it? I remember something like
>/var/lib/dpkg/methods/ftp/packages_something but I'm not sure.

htget ftp://ftp.debian.org/.../Packages.bz2 | bzip2 -d >
/var/state/apt/lists/ftp.debian.org.whatever

Then you have to get apt to recognise the files, once APT is happy then
everything will be fine.  But the real solution is to change dselect and dpkg.

--
I am in London and would like to meet any Linux users here.
I plan to work in London for 3 - 6 months...

Re: Intent to package rolldice, blackjack

[M.C. Vernon]

> > Why do I get the idea I should bring up once again my hope to gather a
> > sizable group of people to build a game system which is released under
> > free license and available to anyone with a web browser and the like?  =>
> 
> I'm all for it!  How about it, anyone else interested? :)

Me too We could call it gnuice :-)

Matthew

-- 
Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo

Steward of the Cambridge Tolkien Society
Selwyn College Computer Support
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/8841/
http://www.cam.ac.uk/CambUniv/Societies/tolkien/
http://pick.sel.cam.ac.uk/

Re: Intent to package rolldice, blackjack

[M.C. Vernon]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Joseph Carter wrote:

> > As well, my roommate and I were going to also make a character sheet
> > program (hence the reason for making the rolldice stuff a library), so we
> > could just enter the data, and either save it to a file or go ahead and
> > print it out...  my roommate has been working on GTK+ for the occasion 
> 
> Why do I get the idea I should bring up once again my hope to gather a
> sizable group of people to build a game system which is released under
> free license and available to anyone with a web browser and the like?  =>

IMHO a RMSS character auto-gen would be a Good Thing(TM). It's a pain in
the  to do by hand (usually with lots of math errors), and there are
plenty of 'doze things around. I'll do the maths if someone will do the UI
(and docs :) )

Matthew
(developer application being processed)
-- 
Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo

Steward of the Cambridge Tolkien Society
Selwyn College Computer Support
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/8841/
http://www.cam.ac.uk/CambUniv/Societies/tolkien/
http://pick.sel.cam.ac.uk/

Re: Intent to package rolldice, blackjack

[Stevie Strickland]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-

> > > if you're interested, i'll dig up the files (i still have them on tape
> > > somewhere...i think. dusty old code from the early 90s :-) and mail them
> > > to you. i'll GPL them first, so you can do what you want with them.
> > 
> > Cool!  I'd always be glad to look at them (especially since I need a much
> > better parser)... anyway, eventually I want to make a librolldice so that
> > anyone can actually make the front end... and your code could definitely
> > help, because I'm no good at parsers, and that would be one of the most
> > important part of the library...  :p
> 
> I'm not certain why this should be a lib actually, even if you build a
> bigger program.  But hey, if you wanna build a lib, build a lib, we won't
> complain much..  =>

I'm bored, and I know how to package a "single binary" using dh_make...
time to test out a shared library... :)

> > As well, my roommate and I were going to also make a character sheet
> > program (hence the reason for making the rolldice stuff a library), so we
> > could just enter the data, and either save it to a file or go ahead and
> > print it out...  my roommate has been working on GTK+ for the occasion 
> 
> Why do I get the idea I should bring up once again my hope to gather a
> sizable group of people to build a game system which is released under
> free license and available to anyone with a web browser and the like?  =>

I'm all for it!  How about it, anyone else interested? :)

Stevie

- -- 
Stevie Strickland (PGP ID = 23A6D909)   325912 Georgia Tech Station
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   Georgia Institute of Technology
http://computersprache.net/~sstricklAtlanta, GA 30332
PGP Key fingerprint = 84 52 C7 EA E6 DB A1 C5  6A C9 D6 B9 88 26 74 FC

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: 2.6.3a
Charset: noconv

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PvJcT6/Up/LtlbbdySHrygjVDhpG+gwwrC1lBw9nZgJqzqOUH5UPvOW8YDbPwgat
cKz0jvJMAxg=
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Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Brian White]

> > Including the source package I could be convinced of.  At least then
> > people have to think about what they're doing before causing potential
> > problems.
> 
> This "think about what they are doing" thing is precisely one of the
> reasons the "extra" priority does exist.
> 
> According to this it should be fine to include it as an "extra" package.

Perhaps that is a reason for "extra", but it's really pointless.  If it
can be installed, people will install it regardless of its priority.  I'd
bet most people don't even think about a package's priority, largely
because many don't know what the priorities mean.

  Brian
  ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] )

---
  80% of people surveyed think they are above average drivers

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Brian White]

> > > There is precedent for this as there is a 2.1.125 package in slink now.
> > > I think it's not a big deal if there are big disclaimers attached that
> > > slink is not a 2.2 targetted dist.
> >
> > Disclamers are of marginal use.  It will appear as installable and tell
> > people to "install me" just as an elevator buttun tells people "push me".
> > Adding a disclaimer is like taking a door with a big, "pull me" handle
> > and putting a "push" sign above it.  The "affordance" of the handle
> > talks far more loudly than the sign.
> >
> > There is good reason to have new kernels in "unstable", but we're
> > talking "stable", here.
> 
> Perhaps the 2.1.125 kernel source should be removed from archs which
> don't use it then?

The more I think about it, the less objection I have to a source package.
They're nice to have, require thought before installing, and give some
extra "bragging rights", as someone put it.

  Brian
  ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] )

---
In theory, theory and practice are the same.  In practice, they're not.

Re: Intent to package rolldice, blackjack

[Joseph Carter]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 01:22:32AM -0500, Stevie Strickland wrote:
> > that's the good news. the bad news is that it was all done in turbo
> > pascal. however, the algorithms were clean and readable, so easily
> > ported to C.
> > 
> > if you're interested, i'll dig up the files (i still have them on tape
> > somewhere...i think. dusty old code from the early 90s :-) and mail them
> > to you. i'll GPL them first, so you can do what you want with them.
> 
> Cool!  I'd always be glad to look at them (especially since I need a much
> better parser)... anyway, eventually I want to make a librolldice so that
> anyone can actually make the front end... and your code could definitely
> help, because I'm no good at parsers, and that would be one of the most
> important part of the library...  :p

I'm not certain why this should be a lib actually, even if you build a
bigger program.  But hey, if you wanna build a lib, build a lib, we won't
complain much..  =>


> As well, my roommate and I were going to also make a character sheet
> program (hence the reason for making the rolldice stuff a library), so we
> could just enter the data, and either save it to a file or go ahead and
> print it out...  my roommate has been working on GTK+ for the occasion 

Why do I get the idea I should bring up once again my hope to gather a
sizable group of people to build a game system which is released under
free license and available to anyone with a web browser and the like?  =>

-- 
"I'm working in the dark here."  "Yeah well rumor has it you do your best
work in the dark."
   -- Earth: Final Conflict

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Santiago Vila]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Brian White wrote:

> Including the source package I could be convinced of.  At least then
> people have to think about what they're doing before causing potential
> problems.

This "think about what they are doing" thing is precisely one of the
reasons the "extra" priority does exist.

According to this it should be fine to include it as an "extra" package.

Thanks.

-- 
 "217e87fb4c104713e650fd2423353a7a" (a truly random sig)

anybody from Dortmund / Germany or around?

[Thomas Adams]

Is anybody from Dortmund / Germany or around here? I'd like to become a 
maintainer and need somebody to sign my PGP key.

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[thomas lakofski]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Brian White wrote:

> I'll share that fantasy.  As linux becomes more and more mainstream, it's
> going to be even more difficult to dream.  Of course, the reality is that
> most users don't need the 2.2 kernel anyway.

unfortunately (maybe) for Debian, very few inexperienced users choose it
(since they don't know about it), and instead choose Red Hat or another
commercial vendor in the limelight.

-tl

..
please forgive my abrupt ending hre - but my conection is  
xtrememleyyhiclmelyey  BAD hiccuppy etc must sign off - 
EF D8 33 68 B3 E3 E9 D2  C1 3E 51 22 8A AA 7B 98

Re: Unmet Deps revisted

[Santiago Vila]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Steve McIntyre wrote:

> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Santiago Vila wrote:
> 
> >On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> >
> >> >If there are optional packages that conflict with each other, we should
> >> >choose one to stay in optional and move the others to extra. (Or change/
> >> >clarify the definition on the policy manual).
> >>
> >> The manual should be fixed IMHO - there are lots of places where this is
> >> bogus. Consider the xserver packages, for example...
> >
> >This is not a good example.
> >The xserver packages do not conflict at each other.
> >You can install all of them.
> 
> Hmmm, guess so. My mistake. But surely there are some optional packages
> that can legitimately conflict...?

Please define "legitimately".

The way I read the definition of optional and extra, a conflict
between two optional packages is never "legitimate".

Please note that a suboptimal packaging does not legitimate the conflict. 
For example, my unzip and unzip-crypt packages do conflict at each other,
and they are optional, so I should probably make them compatible, like
pgp-i and pgp-us, for example. [ And of course, I will not mind that
unzip-crypt is demoted to extra until I repackage them ].

(Yeah, I put my own packages as examples of suboptimal packaging!
I hope the pgp-i and pgp-us example will help you to see that surely most 
of these conflicts are gratuituous).

-- 
 "de678b3c48777bfcbc98fe1bb004351d" (a truly random sig)

Re: Debian booth at LinuxTag '99?

[Christoph Baumann]

On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 03:45:46PM +0100, Philipp Frauenfelder wrote:
> Btw, how much is a "stone throw"?
According to the map I used it's 62.5 km (if you go by plane). By train it
will take 1.5 h .

Christoph

-- 
* Christoph Baumann  *
* [EMAIL PROTECTED]  *
* www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~cbauman1/welcome.html*
* "External Error : INTELLIGENCE not found !"*




pgpkMBE9N0Qh9.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: the Great X Reorganization, package splits, and renaming

[Santiago Vila]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Branden Robinson wrote:

> Just thought I would bring this up one more time and run it by everyone.
> This can be considered a draft of what I'd like to put in the release
> notes.

[...]

> Furthermore, the X font and static library packages have been renamed.  The
> following list summarizes these changes:
> 
> xfntbase->xfonts-base
> xfnt75  ->xfonts-75dpi
> xfnt100 ->xfonts-100dpi
> xfntscl ->xfonts-scalable
> xfntbig ->xfonts-cjk
> xfntcyr ->xfonts-cyrillic
> xfntpex ->xfonts-pex
> xslib   ->xlib6-static
> xslibg  ->xlib6g-static
> 
> I believe the new names are less cryptic.  Note, however, that the old
> packages may not necessarily be automatically upgraded to the new versions.
> This is because their names have changed, and as yet there is no easy way
> to tell the packaging system that a package has changed its name.

I agree that we don't have an *elegant* way of telling the package system
that a package has changed its name.

But we have a very simple way, without adding new features to the
packaging system, to avoid the problem that X packages are not upgraded
automatically, namely, just make xfntbase an empty package which depends
on xfonts-base (and so on for the other packages).

I can't believe that this is not easy to do. It would be just a matter of
making some empty packages, they could be generated from the same source
package, and of course the source package would not have to be the same
source package which is used for all the other X real packages (I'm sure
the X source package is already quite complex).

If the problem is that you don't have enough time for both the X packages
and the dummy ones required for smoothly upgrading the font packages, no
problem. We are more than 300 developers and I'm sure that there will be
someone who would help you in this if you need help.

[ If nobody is interested in this, I would volunteer ].

> However, there are no serious consequences of leaving the old X fonts
> and static libraries around.

Debian would be failing to the (documented everywhere) promise of smooth
upgrades if we decide not to make the X upgrade smooth, being it such a
popular set of packages. I think failing to this fundamental promise
would be indeed a serious consequence.

>  The contents of these packages have not changed.  The X
> font server, for instance, formerly in xbase but now in its own package,
> works just as well with xfntbase as with xfonts-base.
> 
> Still, it is advisable to install the renamed versions of these packages as
> soon as is convenient, in the event that their contents do change in the
> future.

This would just postpone the problem until there is a real difference
between the old packages and the new ones, but would not make the
problem to disappear. It would be just a clock bomb. Imagine the following
scenario:

--Oh, I upgraded from Debian 2.1 to Debian 2.2 and now my font packages
do not work.

--Did you read the release notes for the X packages in Debian 2.1.

--What for? Debian claims to have smooth upgrades. Why it should be so
important to read the release notes?



I have proposed a very simple solution, which, in addition to the
empty xbase (I applaud that you accepted this idea), would make the X
upgrades *completely* smooth.

I think this solution would be very easy to implement, it will avoid
problems in the future, and I have not heard yet a good reason *not* to
implement it.

I really hope you reconsider about these few extra dummy packages.

Thanks.

-- 
 "7149ffdc7f830ccf71b4766c69ac4bf4" (a truly random sig)

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Joseph Carter]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 09:25:14AM -0500, Brian White wrote:
> > There is precedent for this as there is a 2.1.125 package in slink now.
> > I think it's not a big deal if there are big disclaimers attached that
> > slink is not a 2.2 targetted dist.
> 
> Disclamers are of marginal use.  It will appear as installable and tell
> people to "install me" just as an elevator buttun tells people "push me".
> Adding a disclaimer is like taking a door with a big, "pull me" handle
> and putting a "push" sign above it.  The "affordance" of the handle
> talks far more loudly than the sign.
> 
> There is good reason to have new kernels in "unstable", but we're
> talking "stable", here.

Perhaps the 2.1.125 kernel source should be removed from archs which
don't use it then?

-- 
"I'm working in the dark here."  "Yeah well rumor has it you do your best
work in the dark."
   -- Earth: Final Conflict

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Brian White]

> Brian> make any difference.  Both will show up in dselect and it would
> Brian> be trivial for someone to install the new kernel... and then
> 
> Heh, thats the idea.  :-)
> 
> Brian> wonder why things don't work.
> 
> Little things that few notice, apparently -- I would've sworn slink
> and 2.2.0-final work perfectly until someone pointed out that
> /usr/sbin/procinfo complains.   Been running 2.1.1xx in production
> with frozen for months.

People swore to me that 2.0.36 would "drop in" without a problem.  They
were wrong.


> I'd say at least include a source package for whatever 2.2.0 is
> available at the moment of release, so we get the bragging rights.
> :-)   A deb would be even more impressive.

Including the source package I could be convinced of.  At least then
people have to think about what they're doing before causing potential
problems.


> Brian> Since it is assured that some packages will have to be patched
> Brian> by a user that wants to use the new kernel, making those users
> Brian> go through a little bit more effort to get the new kernel is
> Brian> more than offset by reducing the amount of problems encountered
> Brian> by other users.
> 
> It may be hopeless fantasy, but I'd like to believe our users aren't
> this helpless.

I'll share that fantasy.  As linux becomes more and more mainstream, it's
going to be even more difficult to dream.  Of course, the reality is that
most users don't need the 2.2 kernel anyway.

  Brian
  ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] )

---
   He who laughs last usually make a backup.

Re: mark bug #31824 (html2ps: can't execute) as critical?

[Santiago Vila]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Thomas Gebhardt wrote:

> shouldn't we mark #31824 (html2ps: can't execute) as critical?
> html2ps does not work at all with this bug.

Not "critical" but "grave", since it "makes the package in question
unuseable or mostly so".

> Fortunately the bug
> can be fixed by deleting an erroneous character in the script.

I hope Brian will accept the fix, then.

-- 
 "e39e05de54d08bad06d9dbf728bff73d" (a truly random sig)

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Brian White]

> > Would anyone object if kernel 2.2 were packaged up at least as a
> > kernel-source package for slink? 2.0.3x would remain slink's default kernel,
> > would be used on the boot disks, etc, but this would let people get ahold of
> > kernel 2.2 easily on a debian cdrom, and it would let us say that debian
> > supports 2.2. (I was at a LUG meeting the other day, and I was asked about
> > this very thing a couple of times; people obviously care about it.)
> >
> > Brian, would this be too grave a violation of your "no new code" rule?
> >
> > (For those not yet in the know -- kernel 2.2 will probably be released next
> > week.)
> 
> There is precedent for this as there is a 2.1.125 package in slink now.
> I think it's not a big deal if there are big disclaimers attached that
> slink is not a 2.2 targetted dist.

Disclamers are of marginal use.  It will appear as installable and tell
people to "install me" just as an elevator buttun tells people "push me".
Adding a disclaimer is like taking a door with a big, "pull me" handle
and putting a "push" sign above it.  The "affordance" of the handle
talks far more loudly than the sign.

There is good reason to have new kernels in "unstable", but we're
talking "stable", here.

  Brian
  ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] )

---
   Only half the people in the world are above average intelligence.

Re: mark bug #31824 (html2ps: can't execute) as critical?

[Martin Schulze]

severity 31824 important
thanks

Thomas Gebhardt wrote:
> shouldn't we mark #31824 (html2ps: can't execute) as critical?
> html2ps does not work at all with this bug. Fortunately the bug
> can be fixed by deleting an erroneous character in the script.

I believe we should.  netgod will upload a new pkg, I hope.

Regards,

Joey

-- 
*** Fatal Error: Found [MS-Windows], repartitioning Disk for Linux ...

Please always Cc to me when replying to me on the lists.

Re: Unmet Deps revisted

[Steve McIntyre]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Santiago Vila wrote:

>On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Steve McIntyre wrote:
>
>> >If there are optional packages that conflict with each other, we should
>> >choose one to stay in optional and move the others to extra. (Or change/
>> >clarify the definition on the policy manual).
>>
>> The manual should be fixed IMHO - there are lots of places where this is
>> bogus. Consider the xserver packages, for example...
>
>This is not a good example.
>The xserver packages do not conflict at each other.
>You can install all of them.

Hmmm, guess so. My mistake. But surely there are some optional packages
that can legitimately conflict...? And I'm still not convinced this is a
major issue...

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Allstor Software [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Oh My God! They Killed init! You Bastards!
"Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky, 
"Tongue-tied & twisted, Just an earth-bound misfit, I..."  

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Michael Lea]

At 11:32 PM 1/21/99 -0700, you wrote:
>On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Brent Fulgham wrote:
>
>> > 2.2. diald/ppp in slink does not work with 2.2.0-pre7 (on my box, at
>> > least).  I am sure that there are other things as well.
>> 
>> I'm sure you were aware that you have to upgrade your pppd to work with any
>> of the higher-order 2.1.X kernels?  You might want to check the kernel
>> source's Documents/CHANGES file.
>
>I also was unable to get ppp or diald to work with a later 2.1.x kernel in
>a hamm system.
>
>Documentation/Changes says the required version of ppp is 2.3.5 and hamm,
>slink and potato all have this version.
>
>Bob

I've had trouble with dhcpd working with the 2.1.xxx kernels, haven't done
much
troubleshooting but it may be cause for concern.

The days of mSQL are counted

[Martin Schulze]

WHO

needs the mSQL database?

For quite a while I'm very unhappy with it.  For half a year I have
worked actively in moving to a different db.  Yesterday I ported the
last remaining program at home which was based on mSQL to PostgreSQL
though a general SQL API.

There are however some programs left at work but the decision has
already been made to move them to a better database.  So, at the
day I ported the last program I use at the office, I will drop
maintenance of mSQL and request its removal - unless somebody
steps in and takes over the package.

Regards,

Joey

-- 
*** Fatal Error: Found [MS-Windows], repartitioning Disk for Linux ...

Please always Cc to me when replying to me on the lists.

Re: bzip2 compressed files

[Josip Rodin]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 01:22:56PM +, Russell Coker wrote:
> Would it be possible to have files such as Contents*.gz also provided in bzip2
> format to reduce download times when using slow links?

Good idea. And Packages files too.

But that would need implementation in dselect, and will only work
if bzip2 is already installed. Bzip2 package is not in base IIRC,
and that would require a bit more changing, like adding another
180.6k to base_2.2.tgz. I'm sure that there are more problems...

Is there a way to manually download the Packages.bz2, unpack
it somewhere and make dselect use it? I remember something like
/var/lib/dpkg/methods/ftp/packages_something but I'm not sure.

--
enJoy -*/\*- http://jagor.srce.hr/~jrodin/

Re: Unmet Deps revisted

[Santiago Vila]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Steve McIntyre wrote:

> >If there are optional packages that conflict with each other, we should
> >choose one to stay in optional and move the others to extra. (Or change/
> >clarify the definition on the policy manual).
> 
> The manual should be fixed IMHO - there are lots of places where this is
> bogus. Consider the xserver packages, for example...

This is not a good example.
The xserver packages do not conflict at each other.
You can install all of them.

-- 
 "ab1fe6591d2b31988b4d95c5752b8fe7" (a truly random sig)

Re: Debian goes big business?

[Ben Pfaff]

Craig Sanders <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

   On Wed, Jan 20, 1999 at 06:12:14PM -0500, Ben Pfaff wrote:
   > They should have `a word to say', and they do--they can subscribe to
   > Debian lists and give their feedback and advice, which developers are
   > free to follow or ignore.  But they do not, and should not, IMO, have
   > the privilege of voting or otherwise setting policy.  Users are not
   > developers and shouldn't presume to be.

   i mostly agree but wouldn't put it anywhere near that strongly.

   users are not developers, but they might be one day. one of the good
   things about debian is that users who are willing to put in some work
   CAN join up as developers.

I guess that that's the corollary to what I'm saying.  If users want
to have a stronger in say in whether their advice is followed, they
should be become developers.  It's not that hard, and doesn't take
that long.
-- 
"...In the UNIX world, people tend to interpret `non-technical user'
 as meaning someone who's only ever written one device driver."
--Daniel Pead

bzip2 compressed files

[Russell Coker]

Would it be possible to have files such as Contents*.gz also provided in bzip2
format to reduce download times when using slow links?

Re: Unsatisfied depends in slink main

[Dale Scheetz]

On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:

> 
> On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> 
> > Since the recent discussion with Richard Stallman about the unsatisfied
> > suggests message, I have undertaken the examination of the main archives.
> > 
> > The script that I am working on unpacks all of the .deb files it finds and
> > collects Package:, Provides:, Pre-Depends:, Depends:, Recommends:, and
> > Suggests: field information and deterines several things.
> 
> You do realize that is why we have a 'Packages' file?

Yes, and the current packages file indicates that ppp is in base, but it
isn't there. The whole reason for scanning the archives was to catch such
errors.

> 
> In any event your script is not handling virtual pacakges, ppp is a
> virtual package.
> 
I add all Provides: to the list of "available" packages that I use. So if
some package provides ppp it isn't indicating that fact.

> Here is a list of all unmet deps in main:
> 
> Package chameleon version 1.0-2 has an unmet dep:
>  Depends: libglib1.1.12 (>= 1.1.12-1)
>  Depends: libgtk1.1.12 (>= 1.1.12-1)
> 
> (Ehm? This one is new, someone should fix it)
> 
> A list of unmet suggests/recommends in main is too long to include here.
> 
Actually my lists are not much worse than the depends. If I get a chance
to work on this today, I'll put the other lists together.

Thanks, 

Dwarf
--
_-_-_-_-_-   Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide"  _-_-_-_-_-_-

aka   Dale Scheetz   Phone:   1 (850) 656-9769
  Flexible Software  11000 McCrackin Road
  e-mail:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tallahassee, FL  32308

_-_-_-_-_-_- If you don't see what you want, just ask _-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Re: Debian goes big business?

[Russell Coker]

On Wed, 20 Jan 1999, Laurent Martelli wrote:
>> "ChL" == Christian Lavoie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>ChL> Bottom line: Debian should remain developer controlled.
>
>What about non-developper users ? Shouldn't they have a word to say,
>even if they can't or do not have the time to contribute with code ? 

Their input is best appreciated in the bug tracking system.  ;)

--
I am in London and would like to meet any Linux users here.
I plan to work in London for 3 - 6 months...

Re: Unmet deps again

[Hamish Moffatt]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 10:45:42AM +0100, Paolo Molaro wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 07:32:27PM -0700, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > Package stunnel version 2.1-2 has an unmet dep:
> >  Depends: libssl09
> 
> Stunnel is in potato, libssl09 in slink: I guess this is the
> CSOBNS again (continuing saga of broken non-us).

Some stuff happens with it; the other day, a whole lot of slink stuff
was replaced in one hit. A few days earlier, all of /slink was moved
to /dists/slink for no obvious reason. Unfortunately we pay for bandwidth
in Australia and these big mirror hits were costing me a lot, so I had to
kill it.

Hamish
-- 
Hamish Moffatt VK3TYD  [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Latest Debian packages at ftp://ftp.rising.com.au/pub/hamish. PGP#EFA6B9D5
CCs of replies from mailing lists are welcome.   http://hamish.home.ml.org

Re: Dpkg Update Proposal

[Jules Bean]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Craig Sanders wrote:
> the libgtk* versions are compatible with each other. the libgtk*-dev
> versions, are not (it would be possible to make it so by installing
> header files in /usr/include/gtk-VERSION, but you'd still have to modify
> every source file that #included it. in other words, it could be done
> but probably isn't worth the effort unless it's done upstream as well).
> 
> fortunately, the -dev packages conflict with earlier versions, so it's
> not a problem.
> 
> debian's way of handling this allows for all versions of libgtk to be
> installed simultaneously, allowing progress AND backwards compatibility
> without conflict.

Actually, we could acheive concurrent dev packages with use of the
alternatives mechanism and the (upstream) gtk-config programs.

> BTW, this is only a "problem" because the upstream libgtk1.1.x changes
> the programming interface without changing the .so number. they've got
> valid reasons for doing so (and they do advertise that fact), so there's
> really no need to come up with a general solution to a specific problem
> with one or two unstable/rapid development upstream packages.

There's no law (AFAIK) that it has to be the major number that changes to
signify API changes.  It's simply the way you choose to organise your
symlinks.

And it's consistent to name the package after the API version.

Jules

/+---+-\
|  Jelibean aka  | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |  6 Evelyn Rd|
|  Jules aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED]  |  Richmond, Surrey   |
|  Julian Bean   | [EMAIL PROTECTED]|  TW9 2TF *UK*   |
++---+-+
|  War doesn't demonstrate who's right... just who's left. |
|  When privacy is outlawed... only the outlaws have privacy.  |
\--/

Re: Debian goes big business?

[Russell Coker]

On Wed, 20 Jan 1999, Christian Lavoie wrote:
>DISCLAIMER: These are notes, and can have technical impossibilites 
>(especially concerning '.deb'ianizing of StarOffice)
>
>- Provide single user free of charge support through internet. 
>(email/newsgroups/knowledge base/whatever)
>- Provide corporate support, at a cost (cause they think it's better 
>to pay it anyway), with the usual things sucha thing includes 
>(on-site, 24 hours a day, programmation capable team to adapt a 
>product)

Also have the corporate support subsidise any expenses that may be incurred
providing user support.

>- Work head-to-head against RedHat/Caldera/SuSE for publicity on 
>Debian and promoting .deb packaging of things like 
>StarOffice/WordPerfect

No!  We don't want to compete with Rad Hat, Caldera, or SuSE.  We want to
co-operate with them and share the market to put the squeeze on closed-source
companies that sell low quality software that they don't support (I'm sure you
know who I'm thinking of).

Also different users have different requirements.  If someone finds that Debian
doesn't satisfy them then we want them to go try Red Hat, we don't want them to
give up on Linux!

--
I am in London and would like to meet any Linux users here.
I plan to work in London for 3 - 6 months...

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Alexander N. Benner]

hi

Ship's Log, Lt. Ivan E. Moore II, Stardate 210199.1558:
> > 
> > Brian, would this be too grave a violation of your "no new code" rule?
> 
> probably... :(

I'd say this should only apply to a not-more-then-a-month-freeze :)
until potato get's out debian would get kinda out-of-date. On the other hand,
when slink will get out somewhen in the next 2 weeks including 2.2 it'll be
very up2date.

So, I'll encurrage this li'll break-of-rools
Geetings
-- 
Alexander N. Benner  -  1st year grad. physicsstudent and creationist - 
| >  The great unification theory reduces matter to two particles T & V  < |
| >  That stands for the Hebrew words Tohu and Vohu - formless and void. < |
GEN 1:2  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  

mark bug #31824 (html2ps: can't execute) as critical?

[Thomas Gebhardt]

Hi,

shouldn't we mark #31824 (html2ps: can't execute) as critical?
html2ps does not work at all with this bug. Fortunately the bug
can be fixed by deleting an erroneous character in the script.

Cheers, Thomas

Re: Unmet deps again

[Paolo Molaro]

On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 07:32:27PM -0700, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> Package stunnel version 2.1-2 has an unmet dep:
>  Depends: libssl09

Stunnel is in potato, libssl09 in slink: I guess this is the
CSOBNS again (continuing saga of broken non-us).

lupus

-- 
"The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected."
- _The UNIX Programmer's Manual_, Second Edition, June, 1972.

Re: Debian goes big business?

[J.H.M. Dassen]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 20:26:12 +1100, Craig Sanders wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 20, 1999 at 06:12:14PM -0500, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> > Laurent Martelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >What about non-developper users ? Shouldn't they have a word to say,
> >even if they can't or do not have the time to contribute with code ? 
> > 
> > They should have `a word to say', and they do--they can subscribe to
> > Debian lists and give their feedback and advice, which developers are
> > free to follow or ignore.  But they do not, and should not, IMO, have
> > the privilege of voting or otherwise setting policy.  Users are not
> > developers and shouldn't presume to be.
> 
> i mostly agree but wouldn't put it anywhere near that strongly.

I would. Ben's phrasing strongly reminds me of Robert A. Heinlein;
especially of the concept of TANSTAAFL and the political system he describes
in "Starship Troopers", where the right to vote must be earned through a
tour of duty of public (not necessary military) service.

In the case of Debian, users do not have the right of vote, but can earn it
by becoming developers (i.e. by maintaining packages, but also by writing
documentation, maintaining the website etc.).

Ray
-- 
POPULATION EXPLOSION  Unique in human experience, an event which happened 
yesterday but which everyone swears won't happen until tomorrow.  
- The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan 

Re: Debian goes big business?

[Craig Sanders]

On Wed, Jan 20, 1999 at 06:12:14PM -0500, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> Laurent Martelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
>> "ChL" == Christian Lavoie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
>ChL> Bottom line: Debian should remain developer controlled.
> 
>What about non-developper users ? Shouldn't they have a word to say,
>even if they can't or do not have the time to contribute with code ? 
> 
> They should have `a word to say', and they do--they can subscribe to
> Debian lists and give their feedback and advice, which developers are
> free to follow or ignore.  But they do not, and should not, IMO, have
> the privilege of voting or otherwise setting policy.  Users are not
> developers and shouldn't presume to be.

i mostly agree but wouldn't put it anywhere near that strongly.

users are not developers, but they might be one day. one of the good
things about debian is that users who are willing to put in some work
CAN join up as developers.

i started that way a few years ago, and i'll bet that most debian
developers did too.

craig

--
craig sanders

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[M.C. Vernon]

On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, David Welton wrote:

> The kernel is stable, but is the kernel + debian stable?  No one
> knows.  

Well, assuming it's an improvement on the pre-release ones, we can make a
pretty good guess :)
 
> I think we should include it, as a service to people who don't want to
> download the whole thing, but attach a note saying "As 2.2 was
> released just before we released slink, we are including it, but there
> may be problems, it might eat your computer... we are not responsible
> for anything at all..."

But we say that anyway! I don't think there's any need to FUD 2.2, but we
could perhaps include the fact that it is relatively untested on debian at
the time of release, and to check bugs.debian.org

Matthew

-- 
Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo

Steward of the Cambridge Tolkien Society
Selwyn College Computer Support
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/8841/
http://www.cam.ac.uk/CambUniv/Societies/tolkien/
http://pick.sel.cam.ac.uk/

the Great X Reorganization, package splits, and renaming

[Branden Robinson]

Just thought I would bring this up one more time and run it by everyone.
This can be considered a draft of what I'd like to put in the release
notes.  The person managing that document has my permission to edit this
down a little bit.

***

The Great X Reorganization happened at version 3.3.2.3a-2, which was a
Debian 2.1 ("slink") release.

xbase used to be a catch-all package, containing all kinds of miscellaneous
data, programs, and documentation.  That is no longer the case.  Its
contents have been redistributed among other packages, and in many cases,
completely new packages have been created.

New packages were created for a variety of reasons:
  1) In some cases, there were undeclared dependencies on other programs.
 For instance, the rstart and rstartd programs depend on rsh.
  2) There are several programs which are daemons and should be split out
 for easier management.  This includes xdm and xfs.  I believe the
 programs provided in xproxy (new package) would also work well this
 way, but they are not yet handled like other daemons in Debian.
  3) Some of the X clients provided in the former xbase package, like twm,
 xmh, and xterm, have very popular replacements, and may just be a
 waste of disk space for some people.  (It's worth keeping in mind that
 all of the X source code, even the libraries, was originally intended
 to be only a "sample implementation" of various standards.)
  4) It is desirable to have a common foundation for both systems designed
 to be X terminals (which run all their X clients from a remote
 machine) and for application servers which may not need to run X
 servers on their own display hardware.  That is the purpose of the new
 xfree86-common package.  It also simplifies the task of dealing with
 any large changes in the X directory namespace that may arise in the
 future (e.g., X11R7, or simply putting all of X in /usr).

The new packages in the Debian XFree86 distribution are rstart, rstartd, twm,
xbase-clients, xdm, xfree86-common, xfs, xmh, xproxy, xserver-common, xsm,
and xterm.  Some files from the old xbase package were also placed in
xlib6g (XKB and locale data) and xlib6g-dev (development tools).

xbase is now an effectively empty package that exists only to have the
package management system automatically "pull in" the new packages (and the
latest versions of the X libraries).  Once it has been upgraded, it may be
safely removed.

Furthermore, the X font and static library packages have been renamed.  The
following list summarizes these changes:

xfntbase->xfonts-base
xfnt75  ->xfonts-75dpi
xfnt100 ->xfonts-100dpi
xfntscl ->xfonts-scalable
xfntbig ->xfonts-cjk
xfntcyr ->xfonts-cyrillic
xfntpex ->xfonts-pex
xslib   ->xlib6-static
xslibg  ->xlib6g-static

I believe the new names are less cryptic.  Note, however, that the old
packages may not necessarily be automatically upgraded to the new versions.
This is because their names have changed, and as yet there is no easy way
to tell the packaging system that a package has changed its name.  However,
there are no serious consequences of leaving the old X fonts and static
libraries around.  The contents of these packages have not changed.  The X
font server, for instance, formerly in xbase but now in its own package,
works just as well with xfntbase as with xfonts-base.

Still, it is advisable to install the renamed versions of these packages as
soon as is convenient, in the event that their contents do change in the
future.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson  |I have a truly elegant proof of the
Debian GNU/Linux |above, but it is too long to fit into
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   |this .signature file.
cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu/~branden/ |


pgpUOwUrQMK6I.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Dpkg Update Proposal

[Craig Sanders]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 12:02:55AM -0800, Joey Hess wrote:
> Craig Sanders wrote:
> > i agree. in fact, it's more like a solution searching for a problem than
> > even a superficial problem.
> 
> It's a problem that is only evident to people who haven't lived with it for
> years. That doesn't mean it's not a problem.

took me a minute to figure out what you meant. ok, i'll sort-of agree
with that. i don't think it's a problem in itself, but it points out a
documentation problem.


> > from the descriptions that have been posted of how rpm handles
> > installing multiple versions of a package, i am *very* glad that
> > debian doesn't do anything even remotely similar. that way lies
> > madness (and a broken system).
>
> Just because rpm does it wrong doesn't mean dpkg couldn't do it right.

true. but i think that the right way of doing it is pretty much the way
we are doing it, by putting the soname or version number in the package
name to distinguish it from other versions.

>>ii  libgtk1.1.12-de 1.1.12-1 Development files for the GIMP Toolkit, unst
>>ii  libgtk1.1.12-do 1.1.12-1 Documentation for the GIMP Toolkit, unstable
> ^^^
> By the way, this also illistrates another facet of the problem. Dpkg wasn't
> even designed with package names this long in mind.

yes, that's a bug in dpkg's output routines. it's hard-coded for 80
column displays. it doesn't affect debian's handling of long package
names, just the output of 'dpkg -l'.

i think i reported this as a bug a long time ago.

> > debian's way of handling this allows for all versions of libgtk
> > to be installed simultaneously, allowing progress AND backwards
> > compatibility without conflict.
>
> And there's no reason installing multiple versions of a package and
> using versioned dependancies and conflicts wouldn't allow the same
> things.

why risk adding complication when what we have works?

i think dpkg's existing problems should be fixed before features of
doubtful merit are added.


> This isn't just something that affects a few developmental packages. It
> affects packages like these:
> 
> libc5 libc6
> procmeter procmeter3
> ncftp ncftp2
> gimp  gimp1
> communicator-base-406 communicator-base-407 communicator-base-45

[ above list edited slightly from original to minimise line-count ]

libc5 and libc6 ARE different packages.

ncftp and ncftp2 appear to be a mainline and a forked version. gimp is
the stable release, gimp1 is the unstable beta. the various versions of
communicator and navigator conflict with each other.

don't know about procmeter/procmeter3.

> By my crude count there are over 300 packages like these in the distribution
> that have to mangle their names to differentiate versions.

300 sounds like a lot...are you including all shared libs and -dev and
-altdev packages?

in any case, i don't see it as a problem.  IMO, the fact that they have
different package names is USEFUL information. it tells me that there's
something possibly weird or dangerous going on and i should be extra
careful before i select it in dselect...maybe even switch to another
shell and investigate further by unpacking the package in /tmp and
reading the changelog or readme.Debian before installing it.


craig

--
craig sanders

Re: Debian booth at LinuxTag '99?

[Russell Coker]

On Wed, 20 Jan 1999, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>Federico Di Gregorio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> I am thinking about being there (I'll come from italy). If you
>> find something, Wichert, can you please let me know... I CAN'T
>> read german (hope conference language will be english, at least in
>> part).
>
>The conference language will be German. In particular, all presentations
>will be in German. Sorry. I'm not entirely happy with this, but the bulk
>of the target audience are unsophisticated users who would be
>discouraged by English (even if they wouldn't admit it). It's a
>trade-off; we would probably not be able to attract more people from
>throughout Europe than we would lose from the nearby 100km radius.
>Feedback to the contrary will be given due consideration for LinuxTag
>2000. ;-)
>
>Of course you can talk to the various exhibitors in English, and the
>mentioned Debian BOF/developers meeting could be done in English, too.

I am considering flying over from London to visit the conference, if only to
hang out with other people from outside Germany.  More support for non-German
speakers would ensure that I would be there.


--
I am in London and would like to meet any Linux users here.
I plan to work in London for 3 - 6 months...

Re: Dpkg Update Proposal

[Joey Hess]

Craig Sanders wrote:
> i agree. in fact, it's more like a solution searching for a problem than
> even a superficial problem.

It's a problem that is only evident to people who haven't lived with it for
years. That doesn't mean it's not a problem.

> from the descriptions that have been posted of how rpm handles
> installing multiple versions of a package, i am *very* glad that debian
> doesn't do anything even remotely similar. that way lies madness (and a
> broken system).

Just because rpm does it wrong doesn't mean dpkg couldn't do it right.

> the following are currently installed on my workstation.  
> 
> ii  libgtk1 1.0.6-2The GIMP Toolkit set of widgets for X
> ii  libgtk1.1   1.1.2-2The GIMP Toolkit set of widgets for X, 
> unsta
> ii  libgtk1.1.111.1.11-1   The GIMP Toolkit set of widgets for X, 
> unsta
> ii  libgtk1.1.121.1.12-1   The GIMP Toolkit set of widgets for X, 
> unsta
> ii  libgtk1.1.12-de 1.1.12-1   Development files for the GIMP Toolkit, 
> unst
> ii  libgtk1.1.12-do 1.1.12-1   Documentation for the GIMP Toolkit, 
> unstable
  ^^^
By the way, this also illistrates another facet of the problem. Dpkg wasn't
even designed with package names this long in mind.

> debian's way of handling this allows for all versions of libgtk to be
> installed simultaneously, allowing progress AND backwards compatibility
> without conflict.

And there's no reason installing multiple versions of a package and using
versioned dependancies and conflicts wouldn't allow the same things.

> BTW, this is only a "problem" because the upstream libgtk1.1.x changes
> the programming interface without changing the .so number. they've got
> valid reasons for doing so (and they do advertise that fact), so there's
> really no need to come up with a general solution to a specific problem
> with one or two unstable/rapid development upstream packages.
> 
> as soon as libgtk stabilises, the problem will go away of it's own
> accord. in the meantime, we can live with a few extra packages in our
> unstable dist.

This isn't just something that affects a few developmental packages. It
affects packages like these:

libc5
libc6
procmeter
procmeter3
ncftp
ncftp2
gimp
gimp1
communicator-base-406
communicator-base-407
communicator-base-45

By my crude count there are over 300 packages like these in the distribution
that have to mangle their names to differentiate versions.

-- 
see shy jo

Re: xxgdb should get pulled

[J.H.M. Dassen]

On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 11:28:29 -0500, Daniel Martin wrote:
> Is my only other choice for a graphical debugger the "lesstif-induced
> segfault" ddd?

Glad to see my work is appreciated. Perhaps this is where I need to point
you to the power of having the source? You could e.g. try fixing LessTif
and/or DDD rather than bitch about it, fix xxgdb, package up UPS, gdbtk,
tgdb, or deet; or (if you're not fully on the straight and narrow) use
Motif-linked DDD binaries, or buy Motif and build a Motif-linked DDD for
Debian, or package up KDbg, or Code Medic.

Ray
-- 
POPULATION EXPLOSION  Unique in human experience, an event which happened 
yesterday but which everyone swears won't happen until tomorrow.  
- The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan 

Re: Unmet Deps revisted

[Steve McIntyre]

Enrique Zanardi writes:
>On Wed, Jan 20, 1999 at 10:22:39AM +, Steve McIntyre wrote:
>> Am I missing something here? Where does it say that users should be able
>> to install _all_ optional packages?
>
>The policy manual suggests that:
>
>"2.2 Priorities
>[...]
>   optional
>  (In a sense everything is optional that isn't required, but
>  that's not what is meant here.) This is all the software that
>  you might reasonably want to install if you didn't know what it
>  was or don't have specialised requirements. This is a much
>  larger system and includes X11, a full TeX distribution, and
>  lots of applications.
>  
>   extra
>  This contains packages that conflict with others with higher
>  priorities, or are only likely to be useful if you already know
>  what they are or have specialised requirements.
>"
>
>By the definition of optional, a user may install all optional packages
>if she doesn't know what they are (!) or don't have specialised
>requirements.
>
>If there are optional packages that conflict with each other, we should
>choose one to stay in optional and move the others to extra. (Or change/
>clarify the definition on the policy manual).

The manual should be fixed IMHO - there are lots of places where this is
bogus. Consider the xserver packages, for example...

-- 
Steve McIntyre, CURS CCE, Cambridge, UK. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Getting a SCSI chain working is perfectly simple if you remember that there
  must be exactly three terminations: one on one end of the cable, one on the
  far end, and the goat, terminated over the SCSI chain with a silver-handled
  knife whilst burning *black* candles. --- Anthony DeBoer

intent to package: sattrack

[Hamish Moffatt]

I am about to upload sattrack. I have previously announced this on
debian-hams ... It is a sattelite tracking program. It is quite non-free
(section non-free/hamradio) but I have obtained permission from the
author to create a package, and have included that email in the copyright
file.


73,
Hamish

-- 
Hamish Moffatt VK3TYD  [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Latest Debian packages at ftp://ftp.rising.com.au/pub/hamish. PGP#EFA6B9D5
CCs of replies from mailing lists are welcome.   http://hamish.home.ml.org

Re: Dpkg Update Proposal

[Joey Hess]

Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> case) incompatible? This is where RH and Debian seem to differ: for RH
> they become the same package, and you need multiple versions of the same
> package to support all applications. This is probably why they need
> hacks like dependencies on files to get this working.

No, this is why both deb _and_ rpm have versioned dependancies.

-- 
see shy jo

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Hamish Moffatt]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 04:00:50AM +0100, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> Previously Ben Pfaff wrote:
> > You do know that the OSS modules in 2.1.x are drastically changed,
> > right?
> 
> Sure, I browse linux-kernel on occasion.
> 
> > You need to provide them with the IRQs and ports that they need on the
> > command-line, for instance.
> 
> I noticed, otherwise you get some weird resource busy-error. Didn't help
> though. My hardware isn't evil special.. (standard sb16 clone)

2.2.0-pre6 works fine here, on my genuine SB16C (pnp).

options sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 mpu_io=0x330 dma16=5
options opl3 io=0x388


Hamish
-- 
Hamish Moffatt VK3TYD  [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Latest Debian packages at ftp://ftp.rising.com.au/pub/hamish. PGP#EFA6B9D5
CCs of replies from mailing lists are welcome.   http://hamish.home.ml.org


pgpJkR4oOUBCM.pgp
Description: PGP signature

pppd 2.3.5 (was RE: getting kernel 2.2 into slink)

[Ed Boraas]

On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Brent Fulgham wrote:

>> The issue being that there IS a problem - e.g. are we going to provide
>> ppp1 and ppp2?  That sounds like trouble to me.
>>
>Real Question (not a snipe):  Is there any reason everyone couldn't use a
>current pppd that would be compatible with the new kernel image?  Why have
>two packages?

I don't see a problem at all: slink includes pppd version 3.3.5, which is
fully compatible with the 2.2 series of kernels. This being the case, the
kernel-2.2.0 package would simply need to depend on slink's pppd. Not a
big deal in the least... anyone running slink would have the required pppd
anyway!

-ed

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Bob Nielsen]

On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Brent Fulgham wrote:

> > 2.2. diald/ppp in slink does not work with 2.2.0-pre7 (on my box, at
> > least).  I am sure that there are other things as well.
> 
> I'm sure you were aware that you have to upgrade your pppd to work with any
> of the higher-order 2.1.X kernels?  You might want to check the kernel
> source's Documents/CHANGES file.

I also was unable to get ppp or diald to work with a later 2.1.x kernel in
a hamm system.

Documentation/Changes says the required version of ppp is 2.3.5 and hamm,
slink and potato all have this version.

Bob


Bob Nielsen Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tucson, AZ  AMPRnet:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
DM42nh  http://www.primenet.com/~nielsen

Re: Intent to package rolldice, blackjack

[Stevie Strickland]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Craig Sanders wrote:

> that's the good news. the bad news is that it was all done in turbo
> pascal. however, the algorithms were clean and readable, so easily
> ported to C.
> 
> if you're interested, i'll dig up the files (i still have them on tape
> somewhere...i think. dusty old code from the early 90s :-) and mail them
> to you. i'll GPL them first, so you can do what you want with them.

Cool!  I'd always be glad to look at them (especially since I need a much
better parser)... anyway, eventually I want to make a librolldice so that
anyone can actually make the front end... and your code could definitely
help, because I'm no good at parsers, and that would be one of the most
important part of the library...  :p

As well, my roommate and I were going to also make a character sheet
program (hence the reason for making the rolldice stuff a library), so we
could just enter the data, and either save it to a file or go ahead and
print it out...  my roommate has been working on GTK+ for the occasion 

Stevie

- -- 
Stevie Strickland (PGP ID = 23A6D909)   325912 Georgia Tech Station
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   Georgia Institute of Technology
http://computersprache.net/~sstricklAtlanta, GA 30332
PGP Key fingerprint = 84 52 C7 EA E6 DB A1 C5  6A C9 D6 B9 88 26 74 FC

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Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Rob Tillotson]

Joey Hess <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> > I noticed, otherwise you get some weird resource busy-error. Didn't help
> > though. My hardware isn't evil special.. (standard sb16 clone)
> 
> Unfortunatly, this is as evil as it gets. According to the current kernel
> docs, there is no such thing as a SB 16 clone.

That part of the documentation is inaccurate, and has been for quite
some time.  There are SB16 clones, based on the ALS007 and ALS100
chips by Avance Logic.  The proof is in drivers/sound/sb_common.c and
Documentation/sound/ALS007.  The ALS007 is apparently a SB16-alike
except for the mixer, and the ALS100 is even closer (it uses the SB16
code unchanged).  My /proc/sound reads, in part:

  Audio Devices:
  0: Sound Blaster 16 (ALS-100) (4.2) (DUPLEX)

and I get 16-bit input and output without difficulty.  I've been
successfully using this card with Linux since the summer of 1997; the
card itself was purchased in November 1996.

Admittedly, these cards are probably nowhere near as common as the
average cheap WSS card, and it's likely that the previous poster
doesn't have one, but they DO exist...

--Rob

-- 
Rob Tillotson  N9MTB  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Ivan E. Moore II]

On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 08:24:37PM -0500, Allan M. Wind wrote:
> Most ppl. need a printer and /dev/lp changed radically betewen 2.0 and
> 2.2. diald/ppp in slink does not work with 2.2.0-pre7 (on my box, at
> least).  I am sure that there are other things as well.
---end quoted text---

I think it's your system..(or very few..) I have had no problems on 6
systems I run (ranging from personal home workstation to laptop to
work server's running anywhere from plain samba to web servers to
print servers.  

But you are right that there may be issues we haven't seen.  That's 
why it should be an *added* bonus and not the main image.

IMHO

Ivan

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ivan E. Moore II  Rev. Krusty
http://www.tdyc.com  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 Imagination is more important than knowledge  - Albert Einstien
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
GPG KeyID=0E1A75E3
GPG Fingerprint=3291 F65F 01C9 A4EC DD46 C6AB FBBC D7FF 0E1A 75E3
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Re: Intent to package rolldice, blackjack

[Stevie Strickland]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-

> Joseph Carter wrote:
> > Or if you're really crazy, you could allow optional + or - to affect the
> > total, if that were -d12 above the total would be 21 for example..  If it
> > doesn't do EVERYTHING by that point, what more can be said?  =>
> 
> Yes, I think it needs to include a calculator things like "3d6 + 1" and
> "10d6/d4" work. ;-)

 Well, 3d6+1 *does* work!  Just the latter that's the problem, but
you can always roll both and do the division yourself :) 

Stevie

- -- 
Stevie Strickland (PGP ID = 23A6D909)   325912 Georgia Tech Station
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   Georgia Institute of Technology
http://computersprache.net/~sstricklAtlanta, GA 30332
PGP Key fingerprint = 84 52 C7 EA E6 DB A1 C5  6A C9 D6 B9 88 26 74 FC

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Re: Intent to package rolldice, blackjack

[Stevie Strickland]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-

> > Just total, decided that was the important part (if you ask for 3d6,
> > you're only interested in the result, unless you're doing something
> > like method IV of rolling characters in AD&D (I believe), in which you
> > roll 4d6 and take the highest three, in which case do 4x1d6 :)
> > 
> > No, only handles the first string, I think... let me try it:
> > midkemia:~$ rolldice 2d8 1d12 3d6
> > 13 
> 
> In that case, may I suggest output like (goes digging to unbury his dice):
> 
> $ rolldice 2d8 d12 3d6
> 2d8:  5  6  (11)
> d12:  2
> 3d6:  6  4  2  (12)
> 
> You could optionally have a line giving a total if more than one set of
> dice are rolled, in this case something like:
> 
> Total:  25
> 
> Or if you're really crazy, you could allow optional + or - to affect the
> total, if that were -d12 above the total would be 21 for example..  If it
> doesn't do EVERYTHING by that point, what more can be said?  =>

Ummm... I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the last part... first part
I understand perfectly, and will start working on tomorrow (gotta still
study for German :p), but I already have constant modifiers, and what
games ask you for variable modifiers (that you couldn't just roll on the
next line and subtract? :)

> > Nope, only first string, but I could just have it loop through the
> > non-option arguments, as well :)
> 
> I'll go away before I scare you off from writing a dice roller, much less
> anything more important..  =>

You'll never do that... too much interest has been shown already for me to
dump this... and if I can't do this, how can I ever do anything like help
with the kernel? 

> > For your final question... no, I'm always glad to answer them, especially
> > since they usually give me things to think about as to new features :)
> 
> Well I'm sure you have that by now..  =>

Sehr richtig!  And trust me, I plan to use these ideas to the utmost...
thanks! :)

Stevie

- -- 
Stevie Strickland (PGP ID = 23A6D909)   325912 Georgia Tech Station
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   Georgia Institute of Technology
http://computersprache.net/~sstricklAtlanta, GA 30332
PGP Key fingerprint = 84 52 C7 EA E6 DB A1 C5  6A C9 D6 B9 88 26 74 FC

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Re: Bug#27050 (fdutils): A cause for security concern?

[Joey Hess]

Ben Collins wrote:
> Any program that is suid or sgid for no reason what-so-ever is always a
> reason for a bug report, especially if it's suid root...we need some
> automatic catch for new packages that have suid or sgid binaries in
> them, or call suidregister.

Lintian can serve as a check for the former case. See
http://master.debian.org/~dark/lintian/reports/Tsetuid-binary.html

I don't think it handles suidmanager yet.

-- 
see shy jo

Re: Bug#27050 (fdutils): A cause for security concern?

[Mikolaj J. Habryn]

> "AF" == Anthony Fok <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

AF> if (geteuid()!=0) die("Must run with EUID=root");

AF> I am a little bit tempted to comment that line out, but it's
AF> probably there for a reason, and I am definitely not qualified
AF> to hack fdmount.c, so for now I should probably add a
AF> /usr/sbin/fdutilsconfig as Thomas has suggested.

  This sort of thing should be shot on sight. It will need to be
removed one way or another when we move to a capability based
system. The downside is that the reason things like this exist is the
complete lack of any error handling in the rest of the code.

  If you need something to do, dike it out. If it's run as root, it
will work as expected. If not, then it can't do any real damage,
right? ;)

m.

Re: Bug#27050 (fdutils): A cause for security concern?

[Anthony Fok]

Hello Ben, Avery and Wichert!

On Wed, Jan 20, 1999 at 12:50:59AM +0100, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> Previously Anthony Fok wrote:
> > As the Slink deep freeze and release are impending, I would like to ask your
> > advice: Should I follow the suggestion given by the bug reporter Thomas
> > Roessler?
> 
> I think so. For people who want to mount floppies without being root
> you can also use a line in /etc/fstab like this:
> 
> /dev/fd0 /floppyauto  noauto,noexec,nodev,user   0  0

Yes, I already have something similar in my /etc/fstab.  The problem is
that fdmount is independent of mount.  It doesn't even touch
/etc/fstab.

Unfortunately, the suggestion "chown root.floppy" and "chmod [12]754"
won't work either because fdmount.c has this check in it:

if (geteuid()!=0)
die("Must run with EUID=root");

I am a little bit tempted to comment that line out, but it's probably
there for a reason, and I am definitely not qualified to hack
fdmount.c, so for now I should probably add a /usr/sbin/fdutilsconfig
as Thomas has suggested.

> fdmount should probably be audited so we really know if it's secure. You
> could submit it to the security-auditing list
> ([EMAIL PROTECTED]).

Thanks for the info!  

> > If so, should I fix this bug before Slink is out?
> 
> Yes. I would hate to discover a vulnerability and release an advisory
> days after we release slink..

Okay, I will try to do it soon then.  Hopefully I will have my school
assignments finished before the end of the weekend.  :-)

Thanks a lot for all your advice and suggestions!

Anthony

-- 
Anthony Fok Tung-LingCivil and Environmental Engineering
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]University of Alberta, Canada
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Keep smiling!  *^_^*
Come visit Our Lady of Victory Camp -- http://www.olvc.ddns.org/
or http://www.ualberta.ca/~foka/OLVC/

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Johnie Ingram]

"Brian" == Brian White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

Brian> make any difference.  Both will show up in dselect and it would
Brian> be trivial for someone to install the new kernel... and then

Heh, thats the idea.  :-)

Brian> wonder why things don't work.

Little things that few notice, apparently -- I would've sworn slink
and 2.2.0-final work perfectly until someone pointed out that
/usr/sbin/procinfo complains.   Been running 2.1.1xx in production
with frozen for months.

I'd say at least include a source package for whatever 2.2.0 is
available at the moment of release, so we get the bragging rights.
:-)   A deb would be even more impressive.

Brian> Since it is assured that some packages will have to be patched
Brian> by a user that wants to use the new kernel, making those users
Brian> go through a little bit more effort to get the new kernel is
Brian> more than offset by reducing the amount of problems encountered
Brian> by other users.

It may be hopeless fantasy, but I'd like to believe our users aren't
this helpless.

-  PGP  E4 70 6E 59 80 6A F5 78  63 32 BC FB 7A 08 53 4C
 
   __ _Debian GNU Johnie Ingram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  mm   mm
  / /(_)_ __  _   ___  __"netgod" irc.debian.org  mm mm
 / / | | '_ \| | | \ \/ / m m m
/ /__| | | | | |_| |>  <  Yes, I'm Linus, and I am your God. mm   mm
\/_|_| |_|\__,_/_/\_\   -- Linus, keynote address, Expo 98   GO BLUE

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Ionutz Borcoman]

Joseph Carter wrote:
(B> 
(B> On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 12:34:57PM -0800, Joey Hess wrote:
(B> > Would anyone object if kernel 2.2 were packaged up at least as a
(B> > kernel-source package for slink? 2.0.3x would remain slink's default kernel,
(B> > would be used on the boot disks, etc, but this would let people get ahold of
(B> > kernel 2.2 easily on a debian cdrom, and it would let us say that debian
(B> > supports 2.2. (I was at a LUG meeting the other day, and I was asked about
(B> > this very thing a couple of times; people obviously care about it.)
(B> >
(B> > Brian, would this be too grave a violation of your "no new code" rule?
(B> >
(B> > (For those not yet in the know -- kernel 2.2 will probably be released next
(B> > week.)
(B> 
(B> There is precedent for this as there is a 2.1.125 package in slink now.
(B> I think it's not a big deal if there are big disclaimers attached that
(B> slink is not a 2.2 targetted dist.
(B> 
(BCan you put 2.2 at least in potato ? I am using here 2.1.131 but didn't
(Btry to upgrade to 2.2.preX as I have understood that there were some
(Bproblems. Are the problems solved ? Can I safely grab the kernel, build
(Bit with kernel-package and install the result ?
(BAre there many system configuration changes to be done to get 2.2.pre
(Bkernels working ? 
(B
(BTIA,
(B
(BIonutz

Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Joseph Carter]

On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 12:34:57PM -0800, Joey Hess wrote:
> Would anyone object if kernel 2.2 were packaged up at least as a
> kernel-source package for slink? 2.0.3x would remain slink's default kernel,
> would be used on the boot disks, etc, but this would let people get ahold of
> kernel 2.2 easily on a debian cdrom, and it would let us say that debian
> supports 2.2. (I was at a LUG meeting the other day, and I was asked about
> this very thing a couple of times; people obviously care about it.)
> 
> Brian, would this be too grave a violation of your "no new code" rule?
> 
> (For those not yet in the know -- kernel 2.2 will probably be released next
> week.)

There is precedent for this as there is a 2.1.125 package in slink now. 
I think it's not a big deal if there are big disclaimers attached that
slink is not a 2.2 targetted dist.

-- 
"I'm working in the dark here."  "Yeah well rumor has it you do your best
work in the dark."
   -- Earth: Final Conflict

Re: KDE status?

[Joseph Carter]

On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 09:18:50PM +, Jules Bean wrote:
> > Sure no problem.  I had no intention of doing so.  I was just curious as
> > to the status.  There will be no argument from me, especially since I
> > agreed with Debian's stance on the matter.  :)
> 
> Brief summary, then:
> 
> KDE will not be in slink.
> KDE will be in potato if
> 
> a) KDE change their license (in which case it can go into contrib)
> b) Qt change their license (in which case they may both be able to go into
> free)
> 
> b) is the likely outcome, since troll are designing a new Qt license,
> which Joseph Carter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]) is looking at with a view to
> making it both DFSG-free (which it almost certainly will be) and
> GPL-compatible (trickier).

Seems most likely we'll get c. Both of them change licenses and the net
result goes into main.

-- 
"I'm working in the dark here."  "Yeah well rumor has it you do your best
work in the dark."
   -- Earth: Final Conflict

Re: Intent to package rolldice, blackjack

[Joseph Carter]

On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 07:37:18PM -0800, Joey Hess wrote:
> > Or if you're really crazy, you could allow optional + or - to affect the
> > total, if that were -d12 above the total would be 21 for example..  If it
> > doesn't do EVERYTHING by that point, what more can be said?  =>
> 
> Yes, I think it needs to include a calculator things like "3d6 + 1" and
> "10d6/d4" work. ;-)

Oh how evil!  =>

-- 
"I'm working in the dark here."  "Yeah well rumor has it you do your best
work in the dark."
   -- Earth: Final Conflict

Re: Bug#27050 (fdutils): A cause for security concern?

[John Hasler]

Wichert Akkerman writes:
> It might be much easier to just replace them with snprintf's.

That is what I meant when I said I know how to fix them. 
 
> Also check for things like strcpy()...

I'd rather trace out the input string handling than just grep for dangerous
functions.  There isn't that much of it.  The few strcpy's I found look
safe, but I can think of ways to overrun a buffer without using any
functions known to be dangerous.

> insecure handling of files, etc.

No files.  What there is, however, is a password being sent in a udp
packet.  I haven't finished figuring out how he handles it, but it looks
sniffable to me.
-- 
John Hasler
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Hasler)
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI

Re: Intent to package rolldice, blackjack

[Rafael Kitover]

On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 02:37:47PM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote:
> that's the good news. the bad news is that it was all done in turbo
> pascal. however, the algorithms were clean and readable, so easily
> ported to C.

Hehe, you know there's a GNU Pascal? (package gpc) I haven't looked into
it but it says it supports some Turbo Pascal stuff, haven't done anything
with pascal in years *grin*.


-- 
Rafael Kitover
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: getting kernel 2.2 into slink

[Ben Collins]

On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 10:43:23PM -0500, Allan M. Wind wrote:
> On 1999-01-21 17:36, Brent Fulgham wrote:
>
> > > 2.2. diald/ppp in slink does not work with 2.2.0-pre7 (on my box, at
> > > least).  I am sure that there are other things as well.
> >
> > I'm sure you were aware that you have to upgrade your pppd to work with any
> > of the higher-order 2.1.X kernels?  You might want to check the kernel
> > source's Documents/CHANGES file.
>
> It's "Changes" and yes I have read it:
>
>   master:/home/wind# pppd -v
>   pppd: unrecognized option '-v'
>   pppd version 2.3 patch level 5
>
> The issue being that there IS a problem - e.g. are we going to provide
> ppp1 and ppp2?  That sounds like trouble to me.

The current ppp in slink works with the latest kernels.

--
--- -  -   ---  -  - - ---   
Ben Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  Debian GNU/Linux
UnixGroup Admin - Jordan Systems Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- -- - - - ---   --- -- The Choice of the GNU Generation