Posted on by alteholz

My Debian Activities in September 2023

FTP master

This month I accepted 437 and rejected 36 packages. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 437.

Debian LTS

This was my hundred-eleventh month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian. 

During my allocated time I uploaded:

  • [DLA 3579-1] elfutils security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 3594-1] cups security update for two CVEs
  • [1052361]bookworm-pu: cups/2.4.2-3+deb12u2
  • [1052363]bullseye-pu: cups/2.3.3op2-3+deb11u4

I also started to work on bind9.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties and took part in the LTS meeting.

Debian ELTS

This month was the sixty-second ELTS month. During my allocated time I uploaded:

  • [ELA-956-1]libssh2 update in Jessie and Stretch for one CVE
  • [ELA-962-1]elfutils update in Jessie and Stretch for one CVE
  • [ELA-966-1]openssl1.0 update in Stretch for two CVEs

I also prepared updates for cups but problems with the buildd delayed the release a few days until October. I also started to work on bind9.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties .

debian-astro

Finally I managed to upload a new upstream version of openvlbi.

debian-iot

I uploaded a new upstream version (1.16.0) of libjwt to experimental. Unfortunately one test failed and upstream is trying to fix this now. So you can try to build your packages with the version in experimental, but only the next release of libjwt will make it to unstable.

debian-printing

This month I uploaded new upstream versions or bug fixing versions of:

In an email to debian-devel I asked whether anybody is still using lpr/lpd. Oddly enough, these old packages are still useful:

  • Within a small network it is easier to distribute a printcap file, than to properly config cups clients.
  • One of the biggest manufacturers of WLAN router and DSL boxes only supports raw queues when attaching an USB printer to their hardware. Admittedly the CPDB still has problems with such raw queues.
  • The Pharos printing system at MIT is still lpd based.

As a result, the lpr/lpd stuff is not yet ready to be abandoned and I will adopt the relevant packages and move them under the umbrella of the debian-printing team. Though it is not planned to develop new features, those packages should at least have a maintainer. The first adopted package has been rlpr, an utility for lpd printing without using /etc/printcap. The next one in October will be lprng, a lpr/lpd printer spooling system. If you know of any other package that is also needed and still maintained by the QA team, please tell me.

This work is generously funded by Freexian!