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During August, we branched pkgsrc for the upcoming NetBSD 1.6 release. This is a break with tradition - in the past we've tagged the tree. However, we have found that a tag is not flexible - in particular, if there are any fixes for slower-building architectures, or security fixes, we haven't been able to apply them to the tagged source, since we can't move any tags once they have been applied (we don't want different versions out there). This time we've branched pkgsrc, to give us more flexibility. Eagle-eyed readers of the pkgsrc-changes mailing list will already have seen a number of pullups to the netbsd-1-6 branch.

We must also recognise the contribution of Matthias Scheler, who allowed us to exit from the freeze, and branch pkgsrc for 1.6. My whole family thanks him from the bottom of our stomachs, erm, hearts, for providing the chocolate.

Once we had branched pkgsrc for 1.6, Johnny Lam merged his buildlink2 branch onto the trunk. This is a refinement of the older buildlink functionality, which is much easier for people creating the pkgsrc entries for the first time to use. Another benefit is that buildlink2 is much more friendly to users of pkgsrc on platforms other than NetBSD. Many thanks to Johnny for designing and implementing all of this.

Notable additions to the Packages Collection include: acroread5, acunia-jam, apr-devel, asnap, aspell-gaeilge, aspell-slovak, avcheck, bbappconf, chicken, compat14-crypto, cyberbase-ttf, cyberbit-ttf, gap, geoslab703-ttf, gp-grape, ispell-catalan, ispell-romanian, ispell-slovak, jamjar, libsndfile, linda, mailman, matchbox, mMosaic, mrstat, msudir, nam, neon, neXtaw, nprobe, ns, opencm, osh, p5-Audio-CD, p5-Audio-Wav, p5-Graph, p5-GraphViz, p5-Heap, p5-IPC-Run, p5-Math-Bezier, p5-XML-Simple, peace, postgresql-autodoc, pscan, psi, py-FourSuite, rdesktop, scsiinfo, spamassassin, squidGuard, ssh2, st, subversion, suse_slang, tcl-otcl, tcl-snack, tcl-tclcl, trplayer, tspc, unace22, wavesurfer, wistumbler, xpdf-chinese-simplified, xpdf-chinese-traditional, xpdf-cyrillic, xpdf-greek, xpdf-japanese, xpdf-korean, xpdf-latin2, xpdf-thai, xpdf-turkish, xvattr.

Notable updates to packages in the Packages Collection include: aalib-x11, amavis-perl, analog, antiword, apache2, arla, arpwatch, arts, atk, autoconf-devel, baekmuk-ttf, balsa, bind9-current, bins, bozohttpd, cabextract, cheesetracker, cilk, citrix_ica, ClanLib, compat14, cpuflags, cross-i386-netbsdpe, cvsps, disc-cover, docbook, docbook-xml, drscheme, easytag, esound, ethereal, expat, festvox-aec, fvwm2, g-wrap, gaim, gaim-gnome, gdb, gentoo, gif2png, gindent, glib, glib2, gmake, gmp, gmplayer, gnome-print, gnucash, gqmpeg, graphviz, gsmlib, gtexinfo, gtk+, gtk2, gtkballs, guile, hylafax, icebreaker, icewm, icewm-gnome, id3lib, ImageMagick, isakmpd, isect, ispell-gaeilge, ispell-slovak, jhead, kannel, kde3 (thanks, Nick) ko-baekmuk, liba52, libao, libgtop, libiconv, libmpeg3, libogg, libusb, libvorbis, libwww, libxml, libxml2, libxslt, lmme, lynx, lyx, mcalc, mencoder, mhonarc, mmix, mng, mozilla, mplayer, mplayer-share, mserv, msu, msudir, mtr, mtr-gtk, mzscheme, nedit, netatalk, netbsd32_compat14, nhc98, nmap, nocol, ns-flash, nsd, nxtvepg, ocaml, ogle, ogle_gui, openldap, openssl, opera6, p5-Convert-ASN1, p5-Convert-UUlib, p5-DBI, p5-DBIx-SearchBuilder, p5-HTML-Template, p5-MailTools, p5-Net-SSLeay, p5-PerlMagick, p5-Text-Substitute, p5-Text-Template, p5-Unix-Syslog, p5-URI, p5-XML-Parser, pango, pkgdiff, pkglint, pkg_install, pngcrush, pth, pyxml, qiv, qt3, qt3-docs, qt3-libs, qt3-tools, ripe-whois, ruby-openssl, sane-backends, sane-frontends, scmxx, SDL, simh, sitecopy, sketch, spamassassin, squidGuard, sylpheed, sylpheed-claws, tavrasm, tmda, unixodbc, unrar, uudeview, uulib, uvscan, verilog-current, vice, vorbis-tools, vsftpd, w32api, windowmaker, wine, wistumbler, wwwoffle, xchat, xchat-gnome, xdeview, xfstt, xlockmore, xmms, xmms-crossfade, xmms-mad, xmms-neato, xpmroot, xsane, xscorch, zebra, zsh, and zsnes.

I was saddened this month to learn that David Browlee was unwell. At least that's the only explanation I can give to the fact that there was only one update to the cpuflags package this month.

The Package of the Month award goes to root-tail, a useful utility which monitors the contents of (a number of) files, displaying the results on the root window of your X11 display. I must admit that I've taken to watching the authlog and /var/log/messages files on my log host like so:

 root-tail -g 200x60+50+50 /var/log/authlog,green /var/log/messages,yellow

RELATED INFO
Changes to the NetBSD Packages Collection in July 2002
Changes to the NetBSD Packages Collection in June 2002
Changes to the NetBSD Packages Collection in May 2002

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