[conspire] upgrade and grub

[Rick Moen]

I wrote:

> By the way, p.d.o. claims that OpenSCAD _is_ available in Debian 9 'stretch':
> https://packages.debian.org/stretch/openscad

Augh, misread what you said.  You said it was in stretch but not in
_buster_.  (Confirmed.)

You are probably aware of this, but the unavailability of OpenSCAD
packaged for buster (current Testing branch) should not be a problem for
you at the _moment_, given that you've converged back to the Stable branch
(currently Debian 9 'stretch').  So, it should install just fine, right?


It's often enlightening to visit the developer page for a Debian
package.  In this case:
https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/openscad  (this link findable from any of
the related d.p.o. results pages).

Under 'news' the latest chronological item shown is its removal from the
Testing archive on January 15th, detailed in this linked notice:
https://tracker.debian.org/news/901524/openscad-removed-from-testing/

The notice refers viewers to further detail at a software system called
'britney', and gives the link for the 'britney hint files', saying these
would be hints #883986,884509
https://release.debian.org/britney/hints/auto-removals

Checking that file, I get a short ASCII snippet with just the _latest_
hints, and as it happens not about the openscad package.  However, those
seemed like Debian bug numbers, so I checked them at http://bugs.debian.org/ , 
and my guess was correct.


1 of 2:  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=883986
Basically, the version intended for buster (testing) and sid (unstable) 
failed compilation on one architecture (mips/mipsel), the compiler
running the build host out of memory.

2 of 2:  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=884509
Again, relevant to the version of OpenSCAD intended for buster and sid, 
required package (dependency) ttf-marvosym is explained to be planned
for removal, and two bugs against that package are cited.  There's a
suggestion that 'ttf-marovsym' is 'abandoned upstream.  The latter was
apparently a 'Symbol font for school and office'.  A comment on a
related bug says, about the font package, 'it hasn't been maintained
upstream since about 2015'.  There's a link to something about that, auf
Deutsch:
https://martinvogel.de/blog/index.php?/archives/131-Marvosym.ttf.html

What the package maintainer for OpenSCAD (Christian M. Amsüss) ought to
do is drop the dependency for package ttf-marvosym and switch to a
different font.  I really have no clue offhand why he hasn't done so,
yet.  I notice on the developer page that a new upstream version is
available, so maybe if he eventually gets around to dealing with that,
the font issue will get resolved easily.  Looks like the maintainer
hasn't done anything on this package since 27 Nov 2016, when he uploaded
new upstream source code.  So, maybe he just needs to wake up.