Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #88
Nick Ali
nali at ubuntu.com
Mon Apr 28 06:03:14 BST 2008
Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 88 for the weeks April
20th - April 26th, 2008. In this issue we cover: Hardy Heron Release
Parties, Ubuntu 8.04 press release translations, Open Week, Forum
Interviews & Tutorials, Preinstalled Ubuntu PCs for Russia, Ubuntu UK
Poadcast, Full Circle Magazine, Team Meeting Summaries, and much, much
more!
== In This Issue ==
* Ubuntu 8.04 Released!
* Hardy Heron Release Parties
* Ubuntu Open Week
* Ubuntu 8.04 Press Release Translations
* Northeast Louisiana Regional Ham RadioFest
* Full Circle Magazine Issue #12
* Ubuntu Stats & Bugs
* Ubuntu Forum News & Tutorials
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* In Other News
* Team Meeting Summaries
* Upcomoing Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
== General Community News ==
=== Ubuntu 8.04 Released! ===
Canonical, Ltd. annouces the release of it's newest operating system.
Ubuntu 8.04 Long Term Support (LTS) provides a stable platform for
software and hardware vendors, developers and users. With three years
of support and maintenance on the desktop, 8.04 LTS is a great choice
for large-scale deployment. A substantial and growing ecosystem of
free and commercial software built for Ubuntu provides a rich set of
choices for desktop users. This is the eighth desktop release of
Ubuntu. http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-8.04-lts-desktop
=== Hardy Heron Release Parties ===
Hardy Heron is official and the LoCo parties are now in full swing.
Don't miss out on the excitment, find the release party nearest to you
by clicking on the link. As long as you're going, fill your vehicle
with other folks, and let them in on the "Good Times".
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardyReleaseParties
=== Ubuntu Open Week Monday, 28 April to Saturday, 3 May ===
The always popular Ubuntu Open Week returns this month. We welcome
everyone from all walks of life, distros, skills, opinions and
curiosities to come along and get involved. The aim of the week is to
help grow the Ubuntu community, and we have an awesome set of topics
ready for you to attend. If you've considered getting involved in
Ubuntu and don't know where to start, thent his is a great opportunity
to jump in.
Sessions will cover main topics, including Reporting and Triaging
bugs, Building Upstream Kernels, Kubuntu Development (including
KDE4!), Bazaar, Packaging 101, Ubuntu Mobile, Merging Packages,
Launchpad Personal Packaging Archives, Ubuntu Server, Security,
Xubuntu, Community Q+A, Packaging Firefox Extensions, Artwork,
Producing Podcasts, Training, Preeseeding d-i/Ubiquity, the Future of
Ubuntu Desktop, Community support with the Forums, Python Packaging,
Ask Mark, Wubi, Unwinding Stacktraces, Documentation, and much more!
The schedule is located at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek.
=== Ubuntu 8.04 Press Release Translation ===
Follow the link to find translations of the press release for Ubuntu
Hardy Heron 8.04 LTS in many languages.
http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1409
== Ubuntu Stats ==
=== Bug Stats ===
* Open (43907) +697 # over last week
* Critical (28) -3 # over last week
* Unconfirmed (21670) +673 # over last week
* Unassigned (34665) +935 # over last week
* All bugs ever reported (176152) +2404 # over last week
As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started,
please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad
=== Translation Stats Hardy ===
This is the top 5, not specific languages, so the languages might
change week to week.
* Spanish (16164 )
* French (39682)
* English-UK (50139)
* Swedish (53028)
* Brazilian Portuguese (67946)
Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron," see more
at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/
=== Ubuntu Forums Interviews ===
* Vorian is the last Forums Admin to be interviewed. A father of 4,
deeply involved in the LoCo Team project (he started up the Ohio LoCo)
like many others he started up with computers in his kids years.
Please read more here:
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/an-interview-with-vorian/
* wieman01 is a recent addition to the mod team. From Germany, he's
been traveling all over the world, in particular in Asia where he has
lived. Another interesting interview!
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/an-interview-with-wieman01/
* hyper_ch is a community member from Switzerland. He also has
traveled, got involved with computers early on and spend a lot of time
helping on the forums.
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/an-interview-with-hyper_ch/
=== Tutorial of the Week ===
* Last week tutorial of note was the massive and detailed "How to
make a live CD/DVD from your hard disk installation" by capink. If
you've ever wanted a customized version of Ubuntu, or if you just want
a portable mimic of the system you use at home, this tutorial might be
of interest. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=688872
* For this week, the highlighted tutorial is Stormbringer's
voluminous "HOWTO: Setup Samba peer-to-peer with Windows". This one
has lots of step-by-step instructions, code boxes and sample
configuration files, and should give you a big boost if you need to
network machines with different operating systems. It also has a lot
of links, in case you need more information about Samba and how it
works. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202605
== LoCo News ==
=== Northeast Louisiana Regional Ham RadioFest ===
The Louisiana Lo''''''Co team had a booth at the Northeast Louisiana
Regional Ham Radio''''''Fest on Saturday April 26th. They passed out
cds, stickers, flyers and had a giveaway that included Ubuntu
t-shirts, and two complete computers running Ubuntu Hardy Heron.
There was a lot of interest in Ubuntu by the attendees and many people
were excited to try out the latest version. In addition to the booth,
the team also held a presentation followed by a Q&A session with good
attendance. Everyone was excited and receptive. At the end of the
day the team got a chance to relax at the release party and enjoy some
good food and fellowship. It was a very successful day. A special
thank you to all those team members who were able to attend and help
out with the booth, it wouldn't have been possible without you!
== In The Press ==
* Canonical seeks partners, certifications for Ubuntu 8.04 -
Canonical Ltd. is betting that its latest Ubuntu release, now
available, will attract more partner support and build credibility
with business accounts. This is the first Ubuntu release to really
focus on garnering third-party support from hardware and software
vendors. Mark Shuttleworth told SearchITChannel.com. "The essential
ingredient for us to migrate from being an exciting community
phenomenon to being a commercial phenomenon is certification.
Iintegrator and VAR partners can make real money selling and
implementing what many see as free software. 500 organizations have
registered as Ubuntu service providers, and ideally we want to work
with them in partnership. We provide some services -- escalation
support that gets you to the developers -- and we offer the channel
the opportunity to resell that. They can also offer their own direct
support." http://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid96_gci1310488,00.html
* Ubuntu 'reaping Linux dividend' - The public perception of open
source software is changing fast, says Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of
Ubuntu. "The success of the Asus Eee PC and the work of the One Laptop
Per Child program have driven up awareness of open source. We have
seen a real shift in the last six months from folks seeing open source
as being only for people who run data centers, or as an enthusiast
thing, to something which is energizing the straight commercial PC
industry. Most of the growth in users is from people buying a device
that comes with Ubuntu pre-installed, or wanting an alternative for a
second or older computer". He described the latest version of Ubuntu,
dubbed Hardy Heron, as "perhaps our most significant ever".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7358483.stm
* Ubuntu's Hardy Heron is here - With the April 24 release of Ubuntu
8.04 (code named Hardy Heron), Canonical will ship its second LTS,
(long term support) version. Hardy Heron comes in two builds, one with
packages oriented around server use (Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition)
and another around desktop applications (Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop
Edition). Ubuntu's release schedule is currently configured to have an
LTS release about every two years with non-LTS releases filling in the
gap about every six months. Certain releases are designated LTS to
give hardware and software manufacturers longer cycles for their
certification process. Both LTS and non-LTS releases can be downloaded
and distributed at no charge with the option for a support
subscription also available in both
cases.http://www.cnet.com/8301-13556_1-9925358-61.html
* Hardy Heron reflects Ubuntu Linux ambitions - Hardy Heron, is
Canonical's "proof-in-the-pudding" moment that will show whether the
company can grow beyond its subsidized roots into a self-sustaining
business. "Ubuntu will require continuing investment from me and from
others. We are on a trajectory that will make the company
sustainable," Shuttleworth said. What is a surprise to Shuttleworth,
is that the desktop version is financially more significant than the
version for servers. "The desktop contributes more to Canonical's
bottom line than the server. The server business is still Canonical's
primary focus for support revenue, but the company has been getting
paid for desktop and consumer-electronics work."
http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9924912-39.html?tag=newsmap
* Ubuntu Linux takes on enterprise server market with new OS - Linux
vendor Ubuntu is firmly aiming its long-awaited, enterprise-ready
server operating system at the world of business computing. This isn't
Ubuntu's first server release, but this is the first one that is truly
enterprise-ready. It has a full specification sheet of features needed
in complex business IT shops, including support for virtualization,
enhanced performance and certification on an assortment of hardware
from Sun Microsystems Inc. Ubuntu Linux founder Mark Shuttleworth said
he knows there's a lot of competition in the enterprise marketplace.
"We're modest about where we stand," Shuttleworth said. "We know we're
a new entrant in that game and that we have a long way to go still.
Ubuntu's focus will continue to be on the operating system, and will
continue to work with partner ISVs that are the true creators of
application innovations."http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=linux_and_unix&articleId=9079020&taxonomyId=122&intsrc=kc_top
== In The Blogosphere ==
* Is it lift off for Linux? - Darren Waters had a very interesting
conversation with Mr Ubuntu, aka Mark Shuttleworth, at the end of last
week. His main point was that Linux, and use of Ubuntu, was on the
rise. According the Shuttleworth, " We are seeing a lot of innovation
in the consumer electronics area - all driven by Linux. It suggests
that Linux enables anyone to innovate. If you look at all the
innovation in internet itself, which is largely powered by free
software, and then if you look at the innovation placed on top of that
- everything from YouTube to Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Google - these
extraordinarily innovative technology companies are really powered by
free software. Now, we are seeing innovation happening on things that
every day consumers use, like
Firefox."http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/04/is_it_lift_off_for_linux.html
* Nokia Internet Tablets get Ubuntu and Qt - Nokia is actively
sponsoring an Ubuntu ARM port that will bring the popular Linux
distribution to Nokia's Internet Tablet devices. The ARM Ubuntu
builds, which are being developed by Ubuntu's Handheld Mojo team, can
be tested in QEMU or run from an SD card in an actual Internet Tablet
device.http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/04/23/nokia-internet-tablets-get-ubuntu-and-qt
* An Apple User Tries Ubuntu - As James Maguire sat down to Ubuntu,
he was curious about the dreaded command line. Would it suck him into
the dark swirling abyss of Geeksterism? In a word, no. It turns out
the command line is completely optional. If you don't want to mess
with it, Ubuntu lets you use point and click for everything. Major
relief. He found the Ubuntu interface to be intuitive and straight
forward. After checking out Open Office, he realized something pretty
shocking: there's no appreciable difference between Word, which costs
serious cash, and Open Office, which is totally free. Firing up
Firefox he was, again, seriously impressed. "I have never seen the
Internet run so fast. Ubuntu makes the grade. A good laptop running
Ubuntu is a fast, fully productive machine that works for home or
office. Because it does everything that Windows does – and does it for
free – I assume that in the long run it will encroach on (or devour?)
the Windows market share."
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3742066_2
== In Other News ==
=== Linux Ubuntu PCs set for sale in Russia ===
Within a month, several Russian companies will start installing the
popular Linux Ubuntu OS on PCs, according to Vladimir Kryukov,
Canonical representative in EMEA. Strictly speaking, Canonical
partners in Saratov, Samara, Taganrog, Biysk and Nizhny Novgorod are
already selling PCs with Ubuntu preinstalled, while other rather large
companies are going to join them in the near future. A contract has
been signed with Excimer, and negotiations are being held with NT
Computer. According to Mr. Kryukov, several companies are likely to
join in. Slightly less than 50 thousand computers with Ubuntu
preinstalled were sold in Russia over the past year. According to Mr.
Kryukov's optimistic forecasts that number might expand to 300
thousand by the end of 2008.
http://eng.cnews.ru/news/top/indexEn.shtml?2008/04/23/298333
=== Ubuntu UK Podcast episode four: Such An Easy Question ===
Ciemon Dunville, Alan Pope, Dave Walker and Tony Whitmore present the
fourth episode of the Ubuntu UK Podcast.
* Unix/Linux Malware & Security precautions.
* Interview with Ian Ozsvald from Showmedo.
* A short phone call from Mark Shuttleworth.
* Red Hat Skips Consumer Linux Desktop
* MySQL/Sun Add proprietary code to MySQL
* Trivia competition - we have coupons for the Canonical Store to give away!
http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2008/04/23/s01e04-such-an-easy-question/
=== Full Circle Magazine Issue #12 ===
Full Circle - the Independent Magazine for the Ubuntu Linux Community
are proud to
announce the release of our twelfth issue.
This month:
* Flavour of the Year - How Ubuntu and Kubuntu have matured in twelve months.
* How-To : Creating & Distributing Deb files, Ubuntu Disk Usage,
Backup with Partimage, Using GIMP Part 1 and Create Your Own Server
Part 4.
* Review of Wiki on a Stick.
* Letters, Q&A, MyDesktop, Top5 and more!
Get It While It's Hot:
http://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-12
== Meeting Summaries ==
=== Community Council ===
* Meeting: April 15th:
* Fixed Meeting times: Daniel Holbach is going to ask all CC members
to agree on 1st Tuesday of the month 11:00 UTC and 3rd Tuesday of the
month 20:00 UTC
* Move-On date for Regional Membership Boards April 18th. Daniel to
solicit outstanding feedback.
* Updating CommunityCouncil/TeamReport now is a fixed agenda item.
Daniel Holbach to get in touch with Team Councils to participate in
TeamReports.
* LoCo Council was agreed on. Loco Council members are to meet, set
up meeting times, wiki pages, etc. and report back with that.
=== MOTU ===
* Scott Ritchie patiently worked on Wine in Ubuntu for a long time.
He has demonstrated he has all it takes to become a MOTU and joined
the team.
* In just 6 short months of being involved in the MOTU process,
Andrea has displayed what it takes to be an outstanding member of the
MOTU community. With an interest in games and science, Andrea wasn't
fulfilled and has since then taken a liking to the QA process,
spending countless amount of hours fixing FTBFS, unmetdeps, as well as
library transitions, stuff you typically see seasoned MOTUs go after.
It is this dedication that makes Andrea Colangelo a member of the MOTU
community.
* Having worked on Xubuntu quite a lot, we're happy to welcome Cody
Somerville to the MOTU team.
* After outstanding feedback from all people Morten Kjeldgaard worked
with, he was deemed ready for MOTU membership.
==== Mentoring ====
* warp10 is now a MOTU and offered himself as a Mentor. He has now
been assigned two contributors, congratulations and thanks Andrea!
* pitti is now mentoring mattismyname, thanks Martin, you ROCK!
* dktrkrantz now mentors dudus, way to go Luca!
* We have received six new requests for a mentor since the last
report; we have now 11 contributors on our waiting list.
=== Mobile and Embedded ===
The full report is here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MobileAndEmbedded/ReportingPage
* Visual improvements this month with work on:
1. A Moko Finger Scroller
2. rdesktop panning support
3. cairo + xcompmgr
4. interface integration for treb
* Linked into this UI work is easier access for the backgrounds
applet. If there are 10 or more photos in the backgrounds applet a
slider to the right of the dialog allows the user to quickly move
through them all. It also has a button on top that jumps to the first
photo and a button on bottom that jumps to the last photo. Background
images now load much faster.
* It should now be fairly easy to create a lpia VM image; as a next
step we fill it with moblin-image-creator's output and add some fset's
for vmware and/or qemu support
* Merged Firefox beta5 RC code into Midbrowser.
* Some debate about the choice of Java runtime. We should use openjdk
but the web plugin will still be gcj's and this is not feature
complete
* And, of course lots of bugfixing particularly on the now
stabilized Moblin kernel
== Upcoming Meetings and Events ==
=== Wednesday, April 30, 2008 ===
==== Launchpad users meeting ====
* Start: 09:00 UTC
* End: 10:00 UTC
* Location: IRC channel #launchpad-meeting
* Agenda: https://help.launchpad.net/UsersMeeting
==== Server Team Meeting ====
* Start: 21:00 UTC
* End: 22:00 UTC
* Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
* Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam/Meeting
== Updates and Security for 6.06, 6.10, 7.04, 7.10, and 8.04 ==
=== Security Updates ===
* None Reported
=== Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates ===
* gnumeric_1.6.3-0ubuntu4.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2008-April/012679.html
* firefox 1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.15 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2008-April/012680.html
* ca-certificates 20050804-0ubuntu0.6.06.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2008-April/012681.html
* xorg-server 1:1.0.2-0ubuntu10.11 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2008-April/012682.html
=== Ubuntu 6.10 Updates ===
'''This will be the last report for this release.'''
* gnumeric_1.7.0-1ubuntu4.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2008-April/008547.html
* firefox 2.0.0.14+0nobinonly-0ubuntu0.6.10 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2008-April/008548.html
=== Ubuntu 7.04 Updates ===
* gnumeric_1.7.8-0ubuntu1.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/feisty-changes/2008-April/008906.html
* firefox 2.0.0.14+1nobinonly-0ubuntu0.7.4 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/feisty-changes/2008-April/008907.html
* ca-certificates 20061027-0ubuntu0.2 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/feisty-changes/2008-April/008908.html
=== Ubuntu 7.10 Updates ===
* gnumeric_1.7.11-1ubuntu3.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/gutsy-changes/2008-April/010202.html
* firefox 2.0.0.14+2nobinonly-0ubuntu0.7.10 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/gutsy-changes/2008-April/010203.html
* ca-certificates 20070303-0ubuntu0.7.10.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/gutsy-changes/2008-April/010204.html
=== Ubuntu 8.04 Updates ===
'''Beginning April 24, 2008'''
* libitpp 4.0.1-3ubuntu0.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-April/011395.html
* compiz-fusion-plugins-main 0.7.4-0ubuntu5 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-April/011396.html
* gvfs 0.2.3-0ubuntu5 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-April/011397.html
* foomatic-filters 3.0.2-20071204-0ubuntu2.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-April/011398.html
* virtinst 0.300.2-0ubuntu6 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-April/011399.html
* xmms-crossfade 0.3.14-1build1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-April/011400.html
== Archives and RSS Feed ==
You can always find older Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter issues at:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter
You can subscribe to the Ubuntu Weekly News via RSS at:
http://fridge.ubuntu.com/uwn/feed
== Additional Ubuntu News ==
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 ==
The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:
* Nick Ali
* John Crawford
* Craig A. Eddy
* And many others
== Glossary of Terms ==
* SD card - Secure Digital memory Card.
* FTBFS - Fails To Build From Source.
* RC - Release Candidate
== Feedback ==
If you would like to submit an idea or story you think is worth
appearing on the UWN, please send them to
ubuntu-marketing-submissions at lists.ubuntu.com.
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 Ubuntu Marketing Team Contact Information
Page (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam). If you'd like to
contribute to a future issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, please
feel free to edit the appropriate wiki page. If you have any technical
support questions, please send then ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com.
More information about the ubuntu-news
mailing list