Welcome to this year's 11th issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian
community.
Some of the topics covered in this issue include:

Release update
Luk Claes reported
on the progress regarding the release of the new stable release
Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 Lenny. While there are still a lot of release critical
bugs to be fixed, Lenny is in good enough shape to call for upgrade tests and
work on the release notes. Regarding the upgrade tests, he especially asks to
test the Linux 2.6.26 kernel. Regarding the release notes, he asks that any
issues that should be documented should be reported as bug against the release-notes pseudo package.
Further discussion will happen on the
debian-doc mailing list.

Should Security Enhanced Linux be standard?
Martin Michlmayr
wondered
if the packages needed for security enhanced Linux should still be priority
standard or if they should be lowered to optional. Martin noticed, that
the installation of these packages takes at least half an hour on popular
devices like the Linksys NSLU2. Frans Pop
noted that
the packages where far from being usable without major tweaks, but were made
standard to gain more testing by being installed but not activated by
default. Russell Coker
reported
on the improvements during the last month. Several people
argued,
that SELinux should either not be installed by default or activated, maybe by
offering an option or task during the installation.

Lenny Upgrade advisor
Franklin Piat
started to
write a script that warns users of potential problems when upgrading their
system from Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 Etch to the upcoming version 5.0 Lenny.
The intention of his script is to notice potential problems (for instance
obsoleted or discontinued package) and point out relevant documentation and
solutions. He asked for further ideas, comments and patches. Christian Perrier
asked
if the messages could be internationalized allowing them to be translated.

Status of translations in the debian-installer
When the development of the current Debian installation system
reached a
state where changing output strings was discouraged (string freeze), Christian
Perrier started coordinated translation efforts and reported daily about the
progress. In the two weeks between his
first and
his
latest report,
the number of translations ready for inclusion with the next
Debian release has been trippeled.

Bits from the Debian GNU/Hurd porters
Michael Banck
sent
bits from the Debian GNU/Hurd porters. Since the last bits had been posted, a
lot of development took place, including the release of several snapshot
releases. Michael also reports, that the base packages and the basic toolchain
are in pretty good shape and most toolchain packages from Debian's repository
can be used without any changes. He also refers to the possibility of testing
Debian GNU/Hurd using XEN and ongoing work to make a Debian GNU/Hurd box
available to all Debian Developers. He closes with a call for help, since
Debian GNU/Hurd still misses an installer.

FAI / Emdebian work session in Extremadura
Holger Levsen
wrote
a report on the recent work session in Extremadura, Spain. 18 Debian
contributors met and worked to get the fully automated install (FAI) in shape
for the upcoming release of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 Lenny and to work on the
infrastructure for using Debian on embeded architectures. Beside that Holger
reports, that 30GB of DebConf7 videos (as ntsc and pal mpeg1 file formats)
where uploaded, so that DVDs can be created soon. He closed with thanks to
Junta de Extremadura for sponsoring yet another successful work session.

Brazilian government-owned IT enterprise SERPRO selects Debian GNU/Linux for its servers and wishes to collaborate
The Servico Federal de Processamento de Dados (SERPRO), a US$ 1 billion
annual revenue Brazilian government-owned IT enterprise, announced during the
Debian Day Brasil 2008 in Porto Alegre that it
has selected
Debian GNU/Linux as the preferred distribution for its hundreds of
GNU/Linux development and production servers.

Other news
The 10th issue of the

miscellaneous news for developers has been released and covers the
following topics:

New Developers
5 applicants have been
accepted
as Debian Developers since the prior issue of the Debian Project News. Please
welcome Laurent Bigonville, Gregory Colpart, Timo Jyrinki, Adriaan Peeters and
Soeren Sonnenburg in our project!

Important Debian Security Advisories
Debian's Security Team recently released advisories for these packages (among others):
freetype and
linux-2.6.24.
Please read them carefully and take the proper measures.

New and noteworthy packages
mythtv and
mrxvt where presented by Debian Package of the Day.

Work-needing packages
Currently 452 packages are orphaned and 125 packages are up for adoption. Please take a look
at the recent
reports to see if there are packages
you are interested in or view the complete list of
packages which need your help.

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