Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #106 for the week of August 24th - August 30th, 2008. In this issue we cover: Second Ubuntu Developers Week, Intrepid feature freeze - Alpha 5 freeze ahead, Call for testing of 2.6.27 kernel(Intrepid), Xfce 4.6-beta now available for Intrepid users, Asia Oceania board, Using identi.ca for Ubuntu information, Ubucon El Salvador, This week in Launchpad's web API, Full Circle Magazine #16, Ubuntu Christian 4.0, Post your Xfce news on reddit, Server team meeting summary, and much, much more!
UWN Translations
- Note to translators and our readers: We are trying a new way of linking to our translations pages. Please follow the link below for the information you need.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Translations
In This Issue
- Second Ubuntu Developers Week!
- Intrepid feature freeze - Alpha 5 freeze ahead
- Call for testing of 2.6.27 kernel(Intrepid)
- Xfce 4.6-beta now available for Intrepid users
- Asia Oceania board
- MOTU News
- Using identi.ca for Ubuntu information
- Ubuntu Stats
- Ubucon El Salvador
- This week in Launchpad’s web API
In the Press & Blogosphere
- Full Circle Magazine #16
- Ubuntu Christian Edition 4.0
- Post your Xfce news on reddit
- Server team meeting
Upcoming Meetings & Events
Updates & Security
General Community News
Second Ubuntu Developer Week!
The second Ubuntu Developer Week will be held from Sept. 1st to Sept. 5th in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net. There are Wiki docs, MOTU Videos, MOTU Interviews, and the developers are seeing more and more contributors each day. This is all great, but there’s nothing like talking to real people, and asking real questions in a real-time environment. The Ubuntu Developer Week is designed to give you an overview of what’s going on in the Ubuntu Developer world. Speak to the developers, learn, ask questions and finally realize: “It’s true, I can make a difference by helping out here."
A partial listing of some of the fantastic sessions are: Packaging 101, Upstream bug linkages, Introduction to MOTU, How do I fix and Ubuntu bug, Using Launchpad web service API, Updating a package properly, Introduction to PPAs, Ask Matt Zimmerman, and many, many more!
Ubuntu Developer Week Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek
How to join in on the fun: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek/JoiningIn
Ubuntu Developer Guidelines: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek/Rules
Full details at: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1629
Intrepid Feature Freeze - Alpha 5 freeze ahead
The Feature Freeze is now in effect for Intrepid. From now until release, the focus is on polishing and bug fixing. If you do believe that a new package, a new upstream version of a package, or a new feature is needed for the release, and will not introduce more problems than it fixes, please follow the Freeze Exception Process by filing bugs and subscribing to ubuntu-release or motu-release as appropriate. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FreezeExceptionProcess
The next testing milestone, Intrepid Alpha 5, is scheduled for next Thursday, September 4th. Intrepid Alpha 5 will again use a "soft freeze" for main. This means that developers are asked to refrain from uploading packages between Tuesday and Thursday which don't bring us closer to releasing the alpha. These days can then be used for settling the archive and fixing any remaining show stoppers.
The list of bugs targeted for alpha-5 can be found at: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/intrepid/+bugs?field.milestone%3Alist=1323
More information can be found at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-August/000477.html
Call for testing of 2.6.27 kernel(Intrepid)
As you may have noticed, the kernel team moved to the 2.6.27 kernel in Intrepid this week. They would like to ask everyone to really give it a good testing to ensure they aren't introducing any major regressions from 2.6.26. If you have problems with this kernel, and the problem didn't exist in 2.6.26, please note that in any bug reports you file. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-August/000476.html
Xfce 4.6-beta is now available for Intrepid users
Ubuntu new Xubuntu developer, Michael Casadevall, has been working to package Xfce 4.6-beta (4.5.80) for Intrepid. He feels it has reached the point where its worth announcing an open beta test, both to find Xubuntu bugs, and any Xfce release issues. It has been a fairly massive rewrite of some major sections of Xfce, so now is a good time for a shakedown cruise to find any issues with this release, and work towards filing the bugs upstream. In addition, the team has used this opportunity to port some of the Xubuntu specific patches such as the unified logout screen.
It should be stressed that these packages are still extremely experimental, and are not recommended for day-to-day use yet, or by non-developers. If you are running Intrepid, you can install Xfce 4.6-beta by adding the following line to your sources.list: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xubuntu-dev/ubuntu intrepid main
You can learn more about how to help on this new project by visiting the link. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/xubuntu-devel/2008-August/006494.html
New Ubuntu Member
Asia Oceania Board
Aanjhan from Chennai, India has been a regular contributor for Ubuntu India Team and has conducted various awareness sessions across Universities/Events, the notable being Ubuntu/Debian Day at foss in 2007. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~aanjhan Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Aanjhan
The Asia Oceania board is happy to welcome this new Ubuntu Member!
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2008-August/000165.html
MOTU News
Iain Lane has been involved in bug triage for the past six months, and active in development for the past two. He has been helping out with all sorts of MOTU work, and MOTU Council has determined he meets the requirements for Contributing Developer. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~laney Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IainLane
MOTU application: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/motu-council/2008-August/001400.html
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2008-August/000167.html
Using identi.ca for Ubuntu information
Jorge Castro has written about the possibility of using identi.ca for Ubuntu related things. First, in discussion with Mike Basinger, then with Nick Ali, Jorge has created the first of many to come identi.ca accounts at http://identi.ca/ubuntunews. He has managed to include, by RSS feeds: The Fridge, QA/Brainstorm Blog, the Canonical Blog, Ubuntu website news, Ubuntu Screen casts, the Ubuntu-UK, and Fresh Ubuntu podcast feeds. He would like your feedback on how useful the idea is. http://stompbox.typepad.com/blog/2008/08/using-identica.html
Ubuntu Stats
Bug Stats
- Open (46433) +63 # over last week
- Critical (28) +/-0 # over last week
- Unconfirmed (21342) -79 # over last week
- Unassigned (37909) +92 # over last week
- All bugs ever reported (206030) +1488 # 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
- Spanish (11889) -3 # over last week
- English-UK (30836) +/-0 # over last week
- French (39040) -2 # over last week
- Brazilian Portuguese (50047) -49 # over last week
- Swedish (52880) +/-0 # over last week
Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron," see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/
5-a-day bug stats
Top 5 contributors for the past 7 days
- crimsun (146)
- maco.m (113)
- dholbach (97)
- chrisccoulson (57)
- bdrung (55)
Top 5 teams for the past 7 days
- ubuntu-berlin (152)
- dcteam (113)
- kubuntu-de.org (37)
- ubuntu-michigan (29)
- ubuntu-chicago (29)
5-A-Day stats provided by Daniel Holbach. See http://daniel.holba.ch/5-a-day-stats/
LoCo News
Ubucon El Salvador
Saturday September 6th the Ubuntu El Salvador LoCo team will be hosting an Ubucon at Universidad Evangelica de El Salvador from 9:00 AM to 2:15 PM local time. Ubucon is a community driven, community organized event that is all about Ubuntu. These events often include a number of speakers, BOF sessions, demos, social events and more, and they are excellent ways to grow the Ubuntu community in your area, and to build an interesting and fun event. Ubucons are different from large Linux expos and conferences. They are uniquely community focused and driven, and uniquely Ubuntu. http://www.fabianrodriguez.com/blog/archives/2008/08/27/ubucon-san-salvador-on-saturday-sept-6th-save-the-date/
Launchpad News
This week in Launchpad’s web API
Last week the Launchpad web service didn’t change because the source tree was frozen pending a Launchpad release. This week however, Launchpad landed the branches they wrote last week, as well as some new ones. Edwin Grubbs continued his work on publishing the Launchpad registry, and launchpad.projects is now open for business. You can now get basic information about Launchpad projects, their milestones and branches. Finally, launchpadlib has some new code that uses the client-side cache to avoid the “lost update problem.” This happens when two people modify the same object without coordinating, and the second one unknowingly overwrites the first person’s changes.
Next week there will be more of the Launchpad registry exposed, and some long-awaited aspects of Launchpad’s bug tracker. Then on Tuesday, Barry Warsaw and Leonard Richardson will be talking about Launchpad’s web service API as part of Ubuntu Developer Week. That’s at 1900 UTC, in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net.
You can find the complete summary at: http://news.launchpad.net/cool-new-stuff/this-week-in-launchpads-web-api
In The Press
Dell's new low-end strategy for emerging markets includes Linux - Jacqueline Emigh of BetaNews reports that emerging markets are about to get some help. Dell has come up with 2 new desktops and 2 new laptops, loaded with Ubuntu, to meet the needs of governmental and educational organizations, and small businesses. These products will be available world-wide. According to Kirk Schell of Dell's commercial products division, Dell's new Vostros for emerging markets have been specifically designed in accordance with customer requests for low cost, and easy of operation. http://www.betanews.com/article/Dells_new_lowend_strategy_for_emerging_markets_includes_Linux/1219962684
Really free Linux takes hold - Bill Snyder, of InfoWorld, describes how a German television and radio station have switched to a community driven Linux distribution, rather than a commercially supported one for its servers. Cutting costs was one factor, but a rise in internal expertise was just as important. Distributions like Ubuntu are gaining ground on the desktop, and could gain an edge in the server market soon. Snyder feels that this could be the beginning of a move toward community supported distributions. http://weblog.infoworld.com/tech-bottom-line/archives/2008/08/really_free_lin.html
In The Blogosphere
Making Intrepid Solid - James Westby discusses how everyone can get involved and help prepare the next release of Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex) for the October release. Those with the technical skills to troubleshoot problems that could result in a system not booting properly are encouraged to install Intrepid now, and report any bugs that they may experience. Triaging bugs is extremely helpful because it helps the developers focus their efforts on the more release-critical items. Everyone is encouraged to participate so that Intrepid Ibex is the best release of Ubuntu yet! http://jameswestby.net/weblog/ubuntu/02-making-intrepid-solid.html
New Low-Cost Ubuntu Linux equipped Dell PCs and Laptops Arriving - On August 27th Dell announced the Vostro A100 and A180 desktop PCs, as well as the Vostro A840 and A860 laptops, which will come pre-installed with Ubuntu Hardy Heron. These systems are targeted for small business users in countries that until recently haven't had many PCs of these specs available. Customers in these countries are demanding affordable systems that are high-quality, and highly reliable. To deliver that affordable, high-quality, and highly reliable system, Dell turned to Ubuntu. Pricing has not yet been announced, but all of these computers will be available by early November. http://practical-tech.com/operating-system/new-low-cost-ubuntu-linux-equipped-dell-pcs-and-laptops-arriving
Boosting the translation process - Blogger Syntux (aka Jad) has been involved with translations in Arabic. He offers some opinions concerning why people would help out with translation, such as if they have passion for it, if they need it, if it’s fun doing it, or if they are making some money out of it. His reasons for analyzing the process is to find a way to increase the number of translators by making the process something that people would want to do. His analysis of the situation, and conclusion, can be seen at http://syntux.net/blog/2008/08/28/boosting-the-translation-process/
Calling All Ubuntu Linux Users and Administrators – Works With U is offering an on-line survey in order to track the following: Does Ubuntu have an increasing and faithful installation base, momentum on both servers and desktops worldwide, VAR’s, integrators, and solution providers who could greatly increase deployments, and finally the fact that Ubuntu can be used for mission critical applications. Organizations who complete the survey will be included in the Works With U 1000 list and a report with be provided to all at no cost showing how Ubuntu is seeing increased use in specific markets, regions, etc. http://www.workswithu.com/2008/08/27/calling-all-ubuntu-linux-users-and-administrators/
5 Factors Making Ubuntu Server Business Ready – Works With U shows that Canonical is becoming increasingly serious about the server market by developing essential core OS services and collaborating with 3rd providers for server applications. Listed in this article are five specific items that which demonstrate Canonical’s increased focus. First is the highly available and fault tolerant technology through backups, OS clustering, disk replication, data integrity, etc. Second are the central administration tools which include patch deployment, systems warnings, instance start-stop, etc. The third encompasses Ubuntu’s large community of experts. Fourth highlights green technology and the fact that Ubuntu can be run on a server without a GUI saving energy in large server farms deployments. Finally, Ubuntu server is becoming application-friendly given simple installation, comprehensive documentation, fanatical support and solid benchmark results. http://www.workswithu.com/2008/08/25/5-factors-making-ubuntu-server-business-ready/#more-222
In Other News
Full Circle Magazine Issue #16
Full Circle Magazine Issue #16 is now available from their web site. Articles include:
- Command and Conquer - Creating And Moving Files.
- How-To : Create Your Own Ubuntu, Create Your Own Server Part 8, Using GIMP Part 5 and GNOME-Look Guide.
- My Story - Out With The New, In With The Old
- My Opinion - GNOME And KDE Themes
- MOTU Interview - Jamie Strandboge
- Top 5 - Twitter Clients
Get it while it's hot: http://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-16/
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2008-August/000172.html
Ubuntu Christian Edition 4.0
Ubuntu Christian Edition is back, with BibleTime and a bunch of resources for BibleTime and GnomeSword. Also, it's replaced OpenOffice.org with GNOME Office to keep the ISO size down. A new, cleaner website has also been created. The distribution can be downloaded from http://mirror.oc.edu/lfc/Ubuntu_8.04_i386_Christian_Edition_v4.0.iso. More information can be found at http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=05053
Post your Xfce news on reddit
While there are many sites devoted to news about Gnome and KDE, there's almost no way to get news about Xfce short of subscribing to the mailing list. The Xubuntu Blog hasn't posted a new article in a month. The Xfce Dev Blog hasn't posted in five months. And there's no Planet Xfce like there is a Planet Gnome or Planet KDE. At least, there wasn't. Now, however, there's an Xfce Reddit devoted to all news Xfce/Xubuntu. Of course, aggregators like Xfce Reddit only work if users submit news to them. So start submitting! http://www.reddit.com/r/xfce/
Meeting Summaries
Server Team meeting
The Server Team held a meeting on August 26, 2008. The log of the meeting can be viewed at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/Server/20080826. Highlights of the meeting are:
- Ubuntu VM builder
Review ServerGuide for Intrepid
- Tomcat6 server stack support
- UFW Package Integration
- Rails and Rubygems
The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 2, at 15:00 UTC in the #ubuntu-meeting channel.
http://ubuntuserver.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/server-team-20080826-meeting-minutes/
Upcoming Meetings and Events
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Server Team Meeting
- Start: 15:00 UTC
- End: 16:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
Community Council Meeting
- Start: 21:00 - UTC
- End: 23:00 - UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
QA Team Meeting
- Start: 17:00 UTC
- End: 18:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
Platform Team Meeting
- Start: 22:00 UTC
- End: 23:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
- Agenda: None listed as of publication
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Maryland LoCo IRC Meeting
- Start: 00:00 - UTC
- End: 01:00 - UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-us-md
- Agenda: Not listed as of publication
Desktop Team Meeting
- Start: 13:00 UTC
- End: 14:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
Friday, September 05, 2008
MOTU Meeting
- Start: 20:00 - UTC
- End: 21:00 - UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
- Agenda: Not listed as of publication
Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.04, 7.10, and 8.04
Security Updates
[USN-637-1] Linux kernel vulnerabilities - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2008-August/000742.html
[USN-638-1] Yelp vulnerability - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2008-August/000743.html
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates
linux-source-2.6.15 2.6.15-52.71 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2008-August/012743.html
Ubuntu 7.04 Updates
linux-source-2.6.20 2.6.20-17.39 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/feisty-changes/2008-August/008991.html
Ubuntu 7.10 Updates
linux-source-2.6.22 2.6.22-15.58 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/gutsy-changes/2008-August/010296.html
yelp_2.20.0-0ubuntu3.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/gutsy-changes/2008-August/010297.html
Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
linux 2.6.24-21.42 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-August/011971.html
linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24 2.6.24-21.32 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-August/011972.html
linux 2.6.24-19.41 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-August/011973.html
virtualbox-ose-modules 24.0.6 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-August/011974.html
kio-umountwrapper 0.2-0ubuntu6.2 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-August/011975.html
yelp_2.22.1-0ubuntu2.8.04.3 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-August/011976.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:
and
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
- Dave Bush
- Arlan Vennefron
- And many others
Glossary of Terms
- API - Application Programming Interface
- GUI - Graphic User Interface
- ISO - Disk image archive. The name is from the ISO 9660 file system standard
- MOTU - Master Of The Universe
- OS - Operating System
- PPA - Personal Package Archive
- SSH - Secure SHell
UFW - Ubuntu FireWall
Feedback
This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Weekly News Team. If you have a story idea or suggestions for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list at https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/Ubuntu-news-team and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Ideas. 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 them to ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com.