Ubuntu Backports Project / News: Recent posts

To better integrate the Ubuntu Backports project with the rest of the Ubuntu community, I've decided to move the announcements and community support to the Ubuntu Forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=47

From now on, news will be posted on that forum, and so will backport announcements, etc.

User support and backport discussion will be moved here, too.

Title says all!

Community-requested.

/warty-backports-staging/universe/binary-i386/blender_2.35-1-4.10ubp1_i386.deb

Ubuntu Backports Weekly News, Issue #2
12/18/2004

Project Description:
The Ubuntu Backports project's goal is to provide a stable AND up-to-date Ubuntu Linux system by backporting desktop applications from Ubuntu's Development branches and Debian Sid to the latest stable release.

This week's recap:
Major backporting progress has been made this week -- the most notable backports are:
* XFCE 4.2 RC2 -- Great support for older hardware that cant handle GNOME, but are too good for Fluxbox.
* Hotplug and Grepmap -- On one of my systems, it cut Hotplug down from 11 seconds to 3 seconds! No more long hotplug times.
* Mono 1.0.5 -- Bug fixes and improvements from the current version of mono.... read more

Well, I really couldn't resist. I installed Ubuntu on a 733MHz system, and Hotplug was SIMPLY TOO FRIGGING SLOW. Hoary's hotplug supports a new tool called 'grepmap', which is a C-implementation of a huge chunk of Hotplug (previously shellscripted).

--A quick comparison on time to restart Hotplug--
Before Backport:

real: 11.6s
user: 6.64s
sys: 0.51s

After backport:
real: 3.77s
user: 1.22s
sys: 0.51s... read more

This was a community request.

The following packages are in warty-backports-staging/universe:
spamassassin_3.0.1-1-4.10ubp1_all.deb
spamc_3.0.1-1-4.10ubp1_i386.deb

I'm pleased to announce that I went through the XFCE 4.2 RC2 APT repository with a fine-tooth comb and got all the packages backported... BOY was that a fun 6 hours!

NOTES:
1. xfld-desktop is a metapackage that'll install ALL the xfce 4.2 goodies!
2. xnetcardconfig insists on removing dhclient and installing pump. I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF YOU DO THIS!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Here are the remaining few packages that have just been uploaded:
xfce4-fsguard-plugin_0.2.0-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-genmon-plugin_1.1-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-wavelan-plugin_0.4.1-1-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-weather-plugin_0.3.9.1-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-windowlist-plugin_0.1.0.xfld-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-xkb-plugin_0.3.2-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfld-desktop_0.1.3+cvs.20041211-1-4.10ubp1_all.deb
xfmedia_0.5.0-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xnetcardconfig_0.1.1-6-4.10ubp1_all.deb
xterminal_0.2.0-4-4.10ubp1_i386.deb

Ack, guess what? I left out even more XFCE stuff! LOL. I got the following taken care of:

xffm4_4.1.1099.2+cvs.20041211-1-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-trigger-launcher_4.1.99.2+cvs.20041211-1-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-systemload-plugin_0.3.4-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-showdesktop-plugin_0.4.0-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-notes-plugin_0.9.7.xfld-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-netload-plugin_0.2.3-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-minicmd-plugin_0.3.0-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-diskperf-plugin_1.5-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-datetime-plugin_0.3.1-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-clipman-plugin_0.12.0.xfld-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb
xfce4-battery-plugin_0.2.0.xfld-2-4.10ubp1_i386.deb... read more

These two are option components for XFCE 4.2 RC2 (related to file browser).

I overlooked them! OOPS!

Thanks , Ubuntu Forums Community, for pointing this out.

This new version of java package supports Sun Java 1.5.0.
For those who don't know, this package contains the command make-jpkg, which allows you to make .debs out of Sun's java .bin packages (and other java packages, too!)

NOTE: Though this is in multiverse, I uploaded this in Universe for my repository, because this is under an open source license. It was in contrib under Debian, which is probably why it's auto-filed under multiverse. Again -- java-package is FREE SOFTWARE.... read more

XFCE is a very very nice desktop environment for older systems. The Warty and Hoary versions are both too old, and I think it's time we get a 4.2...

These debs were built from the Debian package link on the XFCE website -- I took the source and built them on Warty libs.

WARNING:
libdbh had to be backported from the XFCE repository... xfcalendar requires this newer version! It shouldn't conflict anything in Warty, though.... read more

While I'm working on the XFCE4.2 RC2 backport, only parts of XFCE4 will be uploaded into the -staging tree (duh).

If you have XFCE4, or are trying to install it, having the -staging tree around could cause APT to bomb out resolving dependencies.

Solution: Take off the staging area from your sources.list, or just wait a day or two.

A standard TESTING Backport announcement will be made upon the finish of the backports.

A beta version of d4x was included in Warty Universe. Now that a final version is out, it's UNACCEPTABLE for a beta-quality package to be in Universe.

The following package was uploaded to warty-backports-staging/main:
d4x_2.5.0rel-1-4.10ubp1_i386.deb

Yes, it's already in the tseng Mono repository, but I want it in backports!! ARG

The following packages have been uploaded to warty-backports-staging/universe:
monodevelop_0.5.1-3-4.10ubp1_i386.deb

The latest stable version of Mono 1.0.5 contains various bugfixes and new features that are crucial to mono users. Hoary doesn't have this version, either, so the sources were pulled off mono-project.com, and Hoary .diff.gz's were applied. All patched cleanly and built without a hitch.

Most of these packages are named with a -0- , signalling that an official Debian/Ubuntu package doesn't exist.

NOTE: xsp and monodevelop packages will be coming soon. They need for this change to be committed first!!... read more

I plan to do some publishing, and decided that a final version of Scribus would be helpful for me. How about you? ;)

A lot of the requested backports require newer versions of the debian build tools. I've been forced to backport this one... it's used for building .deb's, plus it's backwards compatible, so there shouldn't be any big issues here.

If you really object to these being backported, please contact me.

I'm migrating to reiser4 over the weekend, and I noticed only version 0.53 of reiser4progs is in Warty. I thought you guys might want a non-beta reiser4progs!

Ubuntu Backports Weekly News, Issue #1
12/11/2004

Project Description:
The Ubuntu Backports project's goal is to provide a stable AND up-to-date Ubuntu Linux system by backporting desktop applications from Ubuntu's Development branches and Debian Sid to the latest stable release.

This week's recap:
The Ubuntu Backports project just launched this week, and received a whopping 867 page views, skyrocketing the project to the 83rd percentile.
A new versioning scheme is now in effect, after Firefox taught me a harsh lesson about making fun of Debian/Ubuntu's long version names. Read about it: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=429461... read more

Come on, it's a VERY VERY important package. I swear!

I got the sources from winehq.

The Warty wine was getting too old!

This new gtklp has an improved interface, and is a very very handy replacement for kprinter!

Test your hearts out.

Hey guys, after firefox thoroughly punished me for making fun of Debian/Ubuntu's long version names (and after I started getting tired of the names), I've decided to change the version strings.

The new format:

packagename-originalversion-UBUNTUVERSIONubpREVISION

i.e., mozilla-firefox_1.0-2ubuntu3-4.10ubp1 would be the version number for a Warty backport of Firefox.'

Let's see how well this one works.

I think the new synaptic's interface rocks, so I backported it. Let's give it a test.

After testing, abiword version 2.2.1-1-warty+backportedfrom-ubuntu-hoary1 has been deemed stable, and thus is in the stable branch.

xchat 2.4.1 has been backported from Hoary, as requested by the community.

Please give it a spin!