Ubuntu Weekly News #20

Corey Burger corey.burger at ubuntu.com
Wed Nov 1 05:22:57 GMT 2006


Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 20 for the week of Oct
22 - 28, 2006. In this issue we cover Ubuntu 6.10, Firefox 2.0, topics
chosen for Mountain View, last uploads to Edgy and much more.

You can always find older Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter issues at::
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter

== In This Issue ==

 * Ubuntu 6.10 released
 * Firefox 2.0 released, 6.10 first to ship with it
 * Topics chosen for Mountain View
 * Last Edgy changes
 * Launchpad news
 * In the press
 * Security updates
 * Bug stats

== General Community News ==

=== Ubuntu 6.10 released ===

It was with much fanfare that on the 26th of October, the new version
of Ubuntu, 6.10 "Edgy Eft" was released.

This new release includes fresh features like the much-discussed
Upstart init system, and for the less technical, the shiny new Gnome
2.16 and the new Firefox 2.0. More features and other changes are
documented at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EdgyReleaseNotes

The release announcement can be found at
http://www.ubuntu.com/news/610released. Want to update? Please see
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EdgyReleaseNotes#head-b07f8bdf28ae0444c03e1a61110c683c77e56cd0
for the recommended method via update-manager.

=== Firefox 2.0 released, 6.10 first to ship with it ===

As mentioned above, Firefox 2.0 has been released and is included in
the latest version of Ubuntu, 6.10. Ubuntu 6.10 is the first
distribution to ship with it, after negiotations with Mozilla that
allowed Ubuntu to keep using the offical name and logo.

Firefox 2.0 has a plethora of new features such as better tab
management, session saving, in-line spell checking and much, much
more. A full list can be seen at
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0/releasenotes/

=== Specs for Mountain View chosen ===

In advance of the meeting in Mountain View, Matt Zimmermann posted a
call for topics. Well, those topics have been chosen. They range from
the new techboard and Community Council to new accelerate and bullet
proof X lots of loco teams and more. You can see the full list at
https://features.launchpad.net/sprints/uds-mtv

Jono Bacon, Canonical's Community Manager has blogged about the
various community related specs, including better organization of loco
teams and more. Read more at http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=806

=== Ubuntu 5.04 reaches its end of life ===

Ubuntu 5.04, Ubuntu's 2nd release, has now reached its End of Life.
This means the Canonical-provided security support has ended. You can
read more about the Hoary EOL at
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-October/000418.html

Still running 5.04? No fear, there is an easy update path. There is a
good doc for that at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BreezyUpgrade

== Changes In Edgy ==

With the release of 6.10, so goes Edgy. Next week will bring you the
first Fiesty changes! But first, the last few uploads before release.

The last few artwork updates snuck in under the wire, uploaded by
Daniel Holbach with human-icon-theme 0.7 (new icons and other tweaks),
Oliver Grawert and edubuntu-artwork 0.1.0 (usplash update) and Tollef
Fog Heen with usplash-theme-ubuntu 0.5 (centering 640x480 theme).

Matt Zimmermann uploaded the new Firefox 2.0, with a whole slew of new
features. One noticable change is that Ubuntu now ships the official
logo, due to continuing work with Mozilla. This makes 6.10 the first
distribution to ship the new Firefox 2.0.

Two last Java apps were uploaded by Mattias Klose. Users of Eclipse
will be happy to see the 3.2.1 and the ever popular Azereus was
updated to 2.5.0.0.

Not satisfied that Xubuntu had enough edgy code in it, Jani Monoses
decided to update xfdesktop4 4.3.99.1svn+r23492, which apparently
fixes up a bunch of issues.

== Launchpad News ==

Christian Reis provided us with a nice, comprehensive Launchpad update.

This has been a great Launchpad rollout -- there are so many cool
changes that I'm going to have a hard time summarizing the highlights;
be sure to read the detailed changelog because it contains many
interesting tidbits that
won't make it here!

=== You can use Launchpad to track Specifications too ===
I'd like to start out by pointing out a Launchpad feature that users
may not be as familiar with. Most people already know that Launchpad
hosts a bug tracking system, and a web translation interface; did you
know we also offer a complete specification management system?

The Launchpad spec tracker lets you track metadata related to a
document: what product or distribution it's about, who is the drafter,
who's going to implement it, and what the current status is. The
document itself can live anywhere; for instance, an Ubuntu
specification that talks about Accelerated X, is housed in Launchpad
at:
   https://features.launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/accelerated-x

The Launchpad page has a summary of the spec, a dependency graph and a
breakout of the metadata. The actual specification text lives at:

   https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AcceleratedX

Note that the specification text can be kept anywhere -- it's just a
URL associated with the metadata. Any upstream product can register
specifications and manage them through Launchpad. This system can be
used to track any software-related text, ranging from implementation
proposals (like the Python PEP process) to hardcore technical
specifications.

=== Bazaar branching ===
James Henstridge delivers in this rollout a cool feature that I've
always been wanting to announce: it's now possible to use
launchpad.net URLs to check out software using bzr! To fetch the
latest version of Bazaar itself, for instance, just issue:

   bzr branch http://launchpad.net/products/bzr

This works for any product in Launchpad that has a bzr branch
associated to it, including upstream SVN or CVS imports. So to fetch a
Bazaar branch for Gaim, the instant messaging software:
   bzr branch http://launchpad.net/products/gaim

Is that cool or what? James blogged about how this was done at:

   http://blogs.gnome.org/view/jamesh/2006/10/10/0

I shouldn't tell you (but I will anyway) that these URLs will get even
shorter and simpler Real Soon Now -- so stay tuned.

=== Bug Tracking Enhancements ===

On the Malone front, Bjorn landed a first change to the process of
adding upstream bugwatches that will make a lot of users smile: you
now register bug watches entering URLs instead of picking from a list
of trackers and adding a bug id. This should make it a lot faster to
register watches, and this is just a first step, because the next
rollout will include more extensive bug forwarding improvements.

Brad fixed a long-standing bogosity in our subscription system: people
implicitly subscribed (those that appear as Also Notified: in the
subscriptions portlet) to duplicates are no longer implicitly
subscribed to the main bug, and if you are receiving bugmail because
of a duplicate subscription, you can unsubcribe anyway and Malone will
just Do the Right Thing.

=== Other Improvements ===
Other work worth noting: for the first time we enabled build failure
notifications for Soyuz, which means that uploaders now get emailed
when packages they sent off fail to build. A Soyuz sprint was held out
in Brazil and both cleanups and PPA work were furthered.

Matthew Thomas had an ingenious solution to the problem of those
meta-characters in Rosetta to indicate whitespace (those dots and
carriage return symbols), using images that conveniently behave as
expected when cutting-and-pasting in the browser.

Guilherme Salgado implemented a feature that allows us to track why a
person was first registered in Launchpad when it is done via an
automatic process (such as a Rosetta translation import); this
rationale is now recorded and displayed when visiting the person's
page. Activating that page into a Launchpad account is now easier than
ever, too.

The full set of Launchpad changes for this rollout is detailed at
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/launchpad-users/2006-October/000747.html

== Please register your Ubuntu Mirror! ==

Guilherme Salgado put a lot of hard work into getting the Launchpad
mirror prober in shape, and this last rollout includes FTP support and
some reliability enhancements, which were the last items necessary to
allow us to start using the mirror management system in production.

If you are a mirror administrator, please help us out by registering
your Ubuntu mirror in Launchpad:

   https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+newmirror

The currently registered mirrors are at the following URLs:

   https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+cdmirrors
   https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+archivemirrors

Once registered, we'll include your mirror in our official listings,
and it will be regularly probed for content and freshness. You'll also
be automatically notified if something goes wrong with your mirror.
With good listings, Ubuntu users will be properly directed to the
nearest, fastest and most current mirror, improving accessibility
throughout.

== In The Press ==

The Ubuntu 6.10 was in the press a great deal this week, being
released and all. Due to time constraints this week, next week will
have a full accounting of all various blogs post and the usual.

The BBC interviewed Mark, with a title "Space tourist promotes open
source", Mark talks about briding the digial divide, how Ubuntu can
help do that, the Shuttleworth Foundation (which the article
incorrectly says funds Ubuntu) and more. You can listen to the whole
interview at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6080048.stm

== Security Updates ==

USN 369-1 postgresql-8.1 vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-369-1
USN 368-1 qt-x11-free vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-368-1

== Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates ==

There were no updates to 6.06 this week. Next week this section will
be split to include 6.10, as it is now stable as well.

== Bug Stats ==

# Open  (17976) - 1041 extra bugs since UWN #19
# Critical (16) - 1 extra bug since UWN #19
# Unconfirmed (9259) - 647 extra bugs since UWN #19
# Unassigned (13236) - 905 extra bugs since UWN #19
# All bugs ever reported (62564) - 1591 extra bugs since UWN #19

As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started,
please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpingWithBugs

Check out the bug statistics: http://people.ubuntu-in.org/~carthik/bugstats/

== Additional Ubuntu News ==

You can subscribe to the Ubuntu Weekly News via RSS at:
http://fridge.ubuntu.com/uwn/feed

As always you can find more news and announcements at:

 http://www.ubuntu.com/news

and

 http://fridge.ubuntu.com/

== Conclusion ==

Thank you for reading the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. See you next week!

== Credits ==

This weeks Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

 * Corey Burger
 * Christian Reis
 * Mellisa Draper
 * Eldo Varghese
 * And many others

== Feedback ==

This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Marketing Team. Please feel
free to contact us regarding any concerns or suggestions by either
sending an email to ubuntu-marketing at lists.ubuntu.com or by using any
of the other methods on the [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam
Ubuntu Marketing Team Contact Information Page].



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