Ubuntu Weekly News #14

[Corey Burger]

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #14, for the week of
Sept, 10 - 16, 2006. In this issue we cover the release of Edgy Eft
Knot 3, the passing of Rob Levin of Freenode, announcement of the next
development summit for Ubuntu, changes in Edgy, Ubuntu in the news and
much more.

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

== General News ==
=== The Edgy Eft Knot 3 CD Released ===

Tollef Fog Heen announced the release of Knot 3 this week. Third in
the 'Knot' alpha releases, Knot 3 brings a host of new features (and
bugs!), including upstart by default, GNOME 2.16 and much more. You
can read more at the [http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/knot3 Knot3
release notes].

=== Rob Levin (lilo) of Freenode passes away ===

It is with great sadness that we at the Ubuntu Weekly News note the
passing of Rob Levin, founder and the main driving force behind
Freenode and its umbrella organization, the Peer Directed Projects
Center. Freenode has hosted Ubuntu's IRC channels since the beginning
of the project. Rob was killed after being hit by a car while riding
his bicycle and had been in a coma since the 12th. Condolences can be
sent to condolences at freenode.net and an official statement from the
Freenode Network Staff can be found at http://freenode.net/news.shtml.

=== Ubuntu Developer Summit Announced ===

Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon has announced the next Ubuntu
Developer Summit (UDS) is to be held at Google headquarters in
Mountain View, California on November 5th through 10th, 2006. The
summit is open to the public, but it is an intense developer-oriented
event, and participants should be prepared for hard-core low-level
discussions. If you are ready for the challenge, the summit provides a
great place to talk to core Ubuntu developers. The summit is not a
conference, exhibition or other audience-oriented event, but an
opportunity for Ubuntu developers -- who usually collaborate online --
to work together in person on specific tasks. For more details about
the summit, check out
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperSummitMountainView

=== Get your (Ubuntu) trivia today! ===

Alexandre Vassaloti has recently opened up #ubuntu-trivia on Freenode.
Currently, a themed Ubuntu quiz is scheduled once a week - the next
one is on Friday, so be sure to come along and flex your
Ubuntu-powered-brain-muscle. The quizzes are written up by quiz
masters and a bot takes care of score charting the results. Read more
at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuTrivia.

=== Behind Ubuntu interviews Daniel Holbach ===

Behind Ubuntu has interviewed Daniel Holbach, one half of the
Seb/Daniel GNOME uploading team and a member of the Ubuntu Desktop
Team. One of the first of Canonical's hires out of the community,
Daniel has also been very active in the MOTU. You can read more about
Daniel, his dog and much more at
http://behindubuntu.org/interviews/DanielHolbach/

=== Ubuntu Surveys ===

Following in tune from the Ubuntu Counter's quest to gather
information about Ubuntu Users, there are now a collection of surveys
aiming to do similar -- and more. The Ubuntu surveys are being run on
behalf of the Ubuntu Marketing Team by Melissa Draper, the creator of
the counter. You can read more about the surveys at
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam/UbuntuSurveys.

=== Shipit plans announced ===

Canonical COO Jane Silber has announced the plan for ShipIt, once Edgy
has been released. The current plan is to continue to ship Ubuntu 6.06
LTS, due to it being a long supported release, while Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy
Eft) will be available for download only. Approved LoCo teams can
request 6.10, however, and will be sent out a large bundle of CDs to
distribute, as well as distributors that can further spread the Ubuntu
message. Also, in order to help keep ShipIt running, Jane has
announced that anyone wanting to purchase large numbers from ShipIt
may do so, at EUR 1.50/CD in a minimum order size of about 100. If you
or your company would like to help distribute large quantities of
Ubuntu CDs, contact Christina.Armstrong at canonical.com directly.

== Changes in Edgy ==
This last week saw many uploads in Edgy, mostly small changes, rather
than the sweeping uploads of such things as GNOME that characterized
last week. Some of those changes included:

The recommends support mentioned last week made it to the
Kubuntu-meta, Edubuntu-meta and Xubuntu-meta packages this week. Other
changes to the meta packages, which define the standard desktop and
server for each version of Ubuntu, include the addition of the
hardware database client, hwdb-client-kde, to the kubuntu-desktop and
of the student-control-panel to the edubuntu-desktop.

Chuck Short has uploaded a new development snapshot of Xen, with a lot
of bugfixes and support for a large number of network cards, including
via ndiswrapper. Chuck has also been working on installation
instructions, which can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenOnEdgy.

In preparation for Knot 3, Rodrigo Para Novo uploaded a number of X
driver fixes, including xserver-xorg-video-ati 6.6.2,
xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse 12.4.0, xserver-xorg-video-amd
2.7.6.5~20060905, and xserver-xorg-video-unichrome 0.2.6.

Stephan Hermann uploaded the latest WINE release, wine 0.9.21, to edgy
this week. This new releases brings better OpenGL support, code
cleanup and much more. You can read more at
http://winehq.org/?announce=1.125.

Users of Adobe's Flash plugin will be pleased to note that it has been
updated to flashplugin-nonfree 7.0.68, the latest upstream release,
which fixes a number of security bugs.

Another of Adobe's closed source products, Adobe Acrobat Reader, was
also updated this week, to version 7.0.8. Users of the Reader are
reminded of the security risk of using it. You can read more about it
at http://lwn.net/Articles/129729/.

Brandon Holtsclaw uploaded MythTV 0.20, the latest version of MythTV,
to the Ubuntu repos this week. This version of MythTV adds a huge
number of features, including menus drawn via OpenGL, new codec
support and much more. You can read more about the 0.20 release at
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Release_Notes_-_0.20

The printing subsystem got an update this week, with Martin Pitt
uploading the latest CUPS release, 1.2.3 and Till Kamppeter syncing
the latest gutenprint, 5.0.0 from Debian. Both upgrades should
increase the stability and driver coverage of printers in Ubuntu. You
can read more about the 1.2.3 release of cups at
http://www.cups.org/articles.php?L407 and of the gutenprint 5.0.0
release at http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=596232

A major update to the command-not-found spec landed this week, with
command-not-found 0.1.0, which incorporates major work from Zygmunt
Krynicki and Michael Vogt. The command-not-found spec can be read on
Launchpad at https://features.launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/command-not-found-magic

William Grant has uploaded the 9 separate packages for GNU EDA, an
electronics design software, updating it to the 20060906 release. The
release notes for the 20060903 release can be read at
http://geda.seul.org/devel/20060906/gaf-20060906-relnotes.html

In the mono world, both monodevelop and beagle were updated this week,
to versions 0.12 and 0.2.9 respectively. xsp 1.1.17 also found it was
into the repositories. New features of monodeveop 0.12 can be read
about at http://www.monodevelop.org/Release_notes_for_MonoDevelop_0.12
and for beagle 0.2.9, you can read
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/beagle/0.2/beagle-0.2.9.news

The latest Python 2.5, release candidate 2, was uploaded this week by
Michael Vogt. This is hopefully the last release candidate for 2.5,
but Edgy is going to remain with 2.4 by default, due to it being so
late in the release cycle. People interested in what is new in 2.5 can
see the release notes at
http://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/whatsnew25.html

=== Ubuntu ===

The latest version of gnome-app-install features better integration of
the popularity contest data (http://popcon.ubuntu.com/). It can sort
this information and it will also take it into account when
calculating the ranking for searches. To help make it really
efficient, please enable it on your system! (Go to
System->Administration->Software Properties and click on the
"Statistics" tab)

Another new feature is the support for translated packages
descriptions in apt and its various frontends (aptitude, synaptic,
gnome-app-install, update-manager, adept, etc). If there is a
translation available for the package description it will be
automatically picked up and used. See
https://launchpad.net/products/ddtp-ubuntu/+translations for the
current translation status. A special thanks to our friends from
http://ddtp.debian.net/ for their hard work. There are still many
untranslated descriptions, so help is very appreciated!

Daniel Holbach has created a new team for the uploading of Telepathy,
a common framework for communicating with IM, IRC, SIP and other
communication methods, and they have gotten off to a quick start.
Daniel Holbach uploaded libtelepathy 0.0.37 and telepathy-gabble 0.3.5
(Jabber implementation) and Rodrigo Para Novo upload
telepathy-inspector 0.3. The Launchpad team can be found at
https://launchpad.net/people/telepathy. You can read more about
telepathy at http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/ and see what needs
to be done for Telepathy in Ubuntu at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Telepathy/TODO

Ubuntu's artist in chief, Frank Schoep, updated the artwork in
edgy-gdm-themes 0.3 and edgy-wallpapers 0.3.

The latest Firefox 2 beta arrived this week, with Firefox 1.99+2.0b2,
uploaded by Ian Jackson. Release notes of the second beta can be found
on Mozilla at  http://www.mozilla.org/projects/bonecho/

=== Kubuntu ===

The KDE4 packages mentioned last week began arriving in the archive
this week. Jonathon Riddell uploaded kdebase 3.80.1, kdepimlibs 3.80.1
and kdelibs 3.80.1, the basis for the rest of KDE4, which is expected
over the next few weeks.

Anthony Mercatante uploaded a SVN snapshot of Guidance, kde-guidance
0.6.7svn20060914, which includes new power-management improvements

The latest Amarok, amarok 1.4.3, also landed this week, courtesy of
Brandon Holtsclaw, who also became a newly-minted core developer this
week. The new version of Amarok also brings libnjb support, which, for
the human beings reading this, means support for Creative Nomad
devices. Support for the install-mp3 script, which installs the mp3
codec upon demand, was also fixed to work on Edgy and later releases.

Sarah Hobbs has uploaded parts of the 0.82 release of digikam:
digikam-doc 0.8.2-r1 and digikamimageplugins-doc 0.8.2-r1

The Kubuntu theme was in flux again this week, with an updated boot
splash screen, and a login splash screen update. The desktop wallpaper
has been changed and the purple color scheme has been darkened a bit.

=== Edubuntu ===

Edubuntu's sole essential spec, creation of a default lts.conf has
landed this week, with edubuntu-artwork 0.1.0-33. This enables sound,
local devices, network swapping and 16 bit color by default.

=== Xubuntu ===

Not to be outdone by KDE, Jani Monoses, lead Xubuntu developer,
uploaded the latest XFCE 4.4, release candidate 1. xfce-mcs-manager
4.3.99.1,  xfce-mcs-plugins 4.3.99.1, libxfce4util 4.3.99.1,
libxfce4mcs 4.3.99.1, libxfcegui4 4.3.99.1, xfwm4 4.3.99.1svn+r23137
and xfce4-panel 4.3.99.1 all found their way into the archives this
week.

== In The Press ==

Reuters takes a very high profile look at Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu:

''"Ultimately open source is the platform of the future," Shuttleworth
told Reuters. "It's one of those enormous waves that is taking over
everything -- like the Internet."''

''Shuttleworth's "Ubuntu" family of software programmes is based on
the Linux open source operating system, which works on the principle
that software is free and can be modified at no cost by anyone to suit
local and specific needs -- unlike rival Microsoft's proprietary
software.''

''With quirky names for its programmes like 'Hoary Hedgehog' and
'Warty Warthog', Ubuntu -- an African word that means caring for your
community and humanity for others -- is meant to be simpler to use
than other Linux systems.''

''PC World magazine last year named Ubuntu as the 26th best product of
the year -- ranking it above Apple's iTunes media player which was in
34th spot.''
Upcoming
Read the whole piece at: http://tinyurl.com/oytwh (Reuters.co.uk)

James Derk took Ubuntu for a spin and thinks it might be time to give
Linux another shot:

''Yes, I know, you expect Linux, the free operating system developed
by volunteers all over the world, to be nerdy and hard to use.''

''And, when compared to Windows, it used to be. But several new
distributions of Linux make it painfully easy to get up and running on
Linux without spending a dime.''

''My new favorite of these is Ubuntu, a great product with a catchy
name. However, it is an appropriate name for what it is. "Ubuntu" is
an African word meaning "humanity to others" and this is one software
company that follows that word.''

You can find the rest of the article at http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/12964

Budi Putra's CNET Asia blog takes a look at Ubuntu and the challenges
faced by the Indonesian Ubuntu community:

''Due to expensive Internet access, the Indonesian Ubuntu community
has had quite a unique approach to distribute the whole Ubuntu
software package in DVDs. So far, free Ubuntu software packages are
delivered in CDs globally.''

''According to Harry Sufehmi, one of Indonesia's Ubuntu activists, the
DVDs help people access gigabytes of free software for Ubuntu without
the need for Internet access.''

''Several people have also organized two conferences on Edubuntu (a
version of Ubuntu specially made for schools), to the interest of many
Indonesian schools.''

You can read the whole story at
http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/blog/toekangit/0,39056105,61953558,00.htm

Keep up with the happenings in Indonesia via Planet Ubuntu Indonesia:
http://planet.ubuntu-id.org/

=== Adobe uses Ubuntu to test new version of Flash ===

Adobe has been working on Flash 9 for Linux, and one of the developers
has been posting regular updates at his blog at
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/. A few days ago, sharp eyed
observers noticed a familiar colour of brown in a screenshot demoing
the new Flash player at
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/09/flashforward_linux_demo.html.
The next day, the secrets of how to take an Ubuntu 6.06.1 CD and add
Flash were revealed at
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/09/customizing_ubuntu_live_cd_606_1.html

=== Wireless in Ubuntu ===
Linux.com and Newsforge ran an excerpt from The Official Ubuntu Book,
which mostly covered configuring wireless in Ubuntu. The brief
introduction to the excerpt states:
	"One of the greatest new features for laptop users in Ubuntu is
network-manager. With this shiny new application it is finally easy to
connect your Ubuntu system to any wireless network. Where previously
you had to jump through hoops to do WPA or 802.1x authentication,
network manager makes this completely transparent.
This article is excerpted from the newly published book The Official
Ubuntu Book.'
Read the excerpt at
http://enterprise.linux.com/enterprise/06/09/05/2055232.shtml

== Meetings and other similar events ==

IRC Meetings in #ubuntu-meeting on irc.freenode.net this coming week include:
  * Local Community Teams Meeting on Mon, Sept. 18, 14:00 UTC
  * Community Council Meeting on Tue, Sept. 19, 12:00 UTC
  * Edubuntu Meeting, on Wed, Sept. 20, 12:00 UTC
  * Ubuntu Development Team Meeting on Thu, Sept. 21, 15:00 UTC

=== Ubuntu Chicago Meeting ===

The group over in Chicago, Illinois, USA, known as Ubuntu Chicago, a
local community (LoCo) team, has announced a meeting and informal
release party (release party for Edgy). The event is scheduled to take
place on October 28, 2006 from 11am to 8pm. The event will be held in
the meeting room at the Best Western in Des Plaines, Illinois. Meeting
will include presentations, demonstrations, and workshops over a
variety of topics. Current team leader and event coordinator, Richard
Johnson can be contacted for further details either by email at
nixternal at ubuntu.com, or IRC (#ubuntu-chicago). More information about
the event can be found at http://chi.ubuntu-us.org/?q=node/30 as well.
Hope to see you there!

== Upcoming Events ==

Aside from the already covered Developer Summit in November, there
were a few other upcoming events worth noting:

Jordan Mantha has announced a REVU review day on Sept 18th. REVU is a
web-based tool used by the MOTU to evaluate new packages for upload to
Ubuntu by non-developers. You can read more about the when and where
on https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-motu/2006-September/000813.html

Both the GNOME and KDE projects have events happening within the
month, so we though we would mention them as well. KDE has Akademy
2006, the annual meeting of KDE developers. This year it is happening
in Dublin, Ireland between September 23rd and the 30th. You can read
more about Akademy 2006 at http://conference2006.kde.org/. On the
GNOME side, the annual Boston GNOME summit is happening this year on
October 7th through the 9th. You can read more about the Boston summit
at http://live.gnome.org/Boston2006

== Additional News Resources ==

As always you can find more news and announcements at:

  http://www.ubuntu.com/news

and

  http://fridge.ubuntu.com/

== Security Updates ==

 * USN-346-2: Fixed linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15 for previous Linux
kernel update
 * USN-346-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities
 * USN-345-1: mailman vulnerabilities
 * USN-344-1: X.org vulnerabilities

== Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates ==

The only updates to 6.06 were backports this week.

=== Backports ===

  * gftp 2.0.18-14ubuntu1~dapper1
  * darcs 1.0.8-1~dapper1
  * clamav 0.88.4-1ubuntu1~dapper1
  * libtorrent 0.9.3-1~dapper1
  * knetworkmanager 0.1~svn-r575138-0ubuntu2~dapper1
  * nmap 4.10-1~dapper1
  * rtorrent 0.5.3-1~dapper1

== Bug Stats ==

 * Open  (15318) (+299 over last week)
 * Unconfirmed (8111)
 * Unassigned (10576)
 * All bugs ever reported (54286)

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

=== Infamous Bugs ===

This week's funny bug award goes to Bug #60472, in which Paul Sladen
reported that "Spacebardoesnotworkafterupgradetoedgy". You can read
more about Paul's slightly humourous predicament at
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/metacity/+bug/60472.

=== Shiny new graphs ===

Carthik Sharma of the Bug Squad has been working on some new graphs to
show bug numbers over time. This week he finally went live with his
final version, which you can see at
http://people.ubuntu-in.org/~carthik/bugstats/

== Conclusion ==

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

== Credits ==

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

 * Corey Burger
 * John Little
  * Jerome S. Gotangco
  * Jenda Vancura
 * Joey Stanford
 * Richard Johnson
  * Matthew Walster
 * anyone else that contributes
 * 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].