Issue114

Contents

newspaper-icon.jpg

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #114 for the week October 19th - October 25th, 2008. In this issue we cover: Ubuntu 8.10 RC released, Intrepid Release Parties, Intrepid bug fixes, Pre-order Intrepid CDs, Spread Ubuntu Alpha 0.1, MOTU News, German UbuCon 2008, Ubuntu Maryland: New team website, BugJam Berlin, Interview with Dustin Kirkland, Ubuntu Podcast #10, Firefox removes license agreement from Ubuntu, Dell's Mini Issues Getting Bigger?, Interview with Jon Ramvi of the Ubuntu Eee project, Obama Ubuntu? Or a Hoax?, Team Meeting Summaries, Club-Ubuntu, 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

  • Ubuntu 8.10 RC released
  • Intrepid Release Parties
  • Intrepid bug fixes
  • Pre-order Intrepid CDs
  • Spread Ubuntu Alpha 0.1
  • MOTU News
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • LoCo News

  • Interview with Dustin Kirkland
  • In the Press & Blogosphere

  • Ubuntu Podcast #10
  • Dell's Mini Issues Getting Bigger?
  • Interview with Jon Ramvi of the Ubuntu Eee project
  • Obama Ubuntu? Or a hoax?
  • Team Meeting Summaries
  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Community Spotlight
  • Updates & Security

General Community News

Ubuntu 8.10 RC released

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the Release Candidate for Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop and Server. Codenamed "Intrepid Ibex", 8.10 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team considers this release candidate to be complete, stable, and suitable for testing by any user. The Ubuntu 8.10 family of variants, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, UbuntuStudio, and Mythbuntu, have also reach RC status.

Before installing or upgrading please read: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/810

The purpose of the Release Candidate is to solicit one last round of testing before the final release. Here are ways that you can help:

  • Upgrade from Ubuntu, Kubuntu, or Edubuntu 8.04 to the Release Candidate by following the instructions in the release notes referenced above.
  • Participate in installation testing using the Release Candidate CD images, by following the testing and reporting instructions at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/ISO

The final release of Ubuntu 8.10 is scheduled for October 30th, 2008, and will be supported for 18 months on both desktops and servers. Users requiring a longer support lifetime may choose to continue using Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, which provides security support until 2011 on the desktop and 2013 on the server. For more details, and links to the mirrors, please refer to the link.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2008-October/000115.html

Intrepid Release Parties

Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will be released on October 30th. LoCo teams should be hosting a party to help kick off the newest Ubuntu version. Many teams already have plans in place, but it's not too late to be included in the fun. To find out what you'll need:

If you have a release party already scheduled, be sure to:

  • Add it to this page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IntrepidReleaseParties

  • Blog about it, advertise it, tell all your friends, inform the local media, and generally inform and promote it.
  • Join the IRC channel #ubuntu-release-party on irc.freenode.net

More information can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IntrepidReleaseParties

Intrepid bug fixes: Help needed

This is the list of release-critical bugs (that *must* be fixed or deferred before release): https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/intrepid/+bugs?field.milestone=1326

The team is also paying a good deal of attention to the list that includes targets of opportunity as well: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/intrepid/+bugs

As the release approaches, care is especially important when managing these lists. Developers can help by making sure that they contain all the relevant bugs, and *only* the relevant bugs. Visit the link for some general guidelines for release-relevant bug management.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-October/000508.html

Pre-order Intrepid CDs

Shipit is now taking pre-orders for the newest Ubuntu release, Intrepid Ibex 8.10. Anyone can now put in their pre-order for an Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10 CD. Keep in mind that you are pre-ordering, and no CDs will be shipped until after the release. Ubuntu is available free of charge, and they will send you a CD of the latest version (8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)) at no extra cost. Delivery may take up to ten weeks, so you should consider downloading the CD image if you have a fast Internet connection. https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

Spread Ubuntu Alpha 0.1

What is SpreadUbuntu? Basically, it's an introductory site about Ubuntu, a Do-It-Yourself marketing material repository, and a marketing place for enthusiasts. The goal is to be a vital part of the global Ubuntu community serving the marketing interest of all LoCo teams in all languages. The next milestone is the rc0.1 and the 0.1 release one day later, synchronized with the release of Intrepid.

The alpha 0.1, and later releases are geared to announce simultaneously in different languages the appropriate, alpha, RC, or final release of new Ubuntu versions. In this case Intrepid Ibex 8.10. You can help by visiting the above links and getting involved in the "SpreadUbuntu" project.

http://huayra.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/announcement-spreadubuntu-alpha01/

MOTU

New MOTU

The MOTU team is pleased to announce the Guillaume Martres has joined the ranks of MOTU. This announcement comes after lots of great work in the KDE community by Guillaume. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~smarter Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GuillaumeMartres

New Core Developer

Lots of folks within Dell are committed to Linux initiatives. Ubuntu is a good example. Now, Dell's own Mario Limonciello has been named to the Ubuntu Core Development Team. Core-Dev members have the ability to update packages in the Ubuntu 'main' and 'restricted' repos. Mario joins this elite team of developers based on the strength of his long-standing contributions as as Master of the Universe (MOTU), development of the Mythbuntu distribution, and the excellent work insuring Ubuntu on Dell desktops and notebooks "just works". Because 'main' packages are on every install CD, his work will benefit all Ubuntu users, not just Dell owners. http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/10/23/mario-joins-ubuntu-core-dev-team.aspx

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (47430) +412 # over last week
  • Critical (20) -4 # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (20128) -231 # over last week
  • Unassigned (39303) +437 # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (223582) +2716 # 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 Intrepid

  • Spanish (21894) -1081 # over last week
  • French (64125) -1192 # over last week
  • Swedish (78432) -177 # over last week
  • English-UK (82914) -6708 # over last week
  • Brazilian Portuguese (85642) -1418 # over last week

Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex," see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/intrepid/

5-a-day bug stats

Top 5 contributors for the past 7 days

  • crimsun (308)
  • apachelogger (140)
  • chrisccoulson (85)
  • dholbach (31)
  • txwikinger (26)

Top 5 teams for the past 7 days

  • dcteam (311)
  • kubuntu-de.org (166)
  • ubuntu-de-locoteam (47)
  • ubuntu-berlin (35)
  • ubuntu-uk (27)

5-A-Day stats provided by Daniel Holbach. See http://daniel.holba.ch/5-a-day-stats/

LoCo News

German UbuCon 2008

Conducted from October 17th to October 19th, 2008, the second Ubuntu User Conference in the German-speaking realm was held. This year the Ubuntu Users Conference (Ubucon) was held in Göttingen, and hosted by the Georg-August-University. The Ubuntu-DE team was an active participant in the conference. Please visit the link for pictures of the event, or if you can read German, see: http://www.ubucon.de/

http://ubucon.juliux.de/main.php

Ubuntu Maryland: New team Website

Up until recently the Ubuntu Maryland Loco Team has been using the Ubuntu Wiki for our home page. Craig Younkins took some time to design the new pages at Goggle Sites. Now when you visit http://www.ubuntu-maryland.org you’ll see his concept. The team will still maintain information on the wiki, but the new site definitely has more to look at, and a more attractive interface. http://www.chuckfrain.net/2008/10/21/new-website-for-ubuntu-maryland-team

BugJam Berlin

It was another Bug Jam day in Berlin. The team targeted 10 bugs from a couple of different lists, and is working their way through them. Remember that the Berlin bug jams are on the second Tuesday and the 4th Thursday of the month from 17:00 to 20:00 local Berlin time. If you have any suggestions, please let Daniel Holbach know.

http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/?p=266

Interview with Dustin Kirkland

A more technical interview with Dustin Kirkland can be found at http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1701.

> - Who are you? Where do you live? What do you do for a living?

My name is Dustin Kirkland, I live in Austin, Texas, and I am a developer on Canonical's Ubuntu Server Team. You can get an idea of some of the past, present, and future things I work on at:

> - Where did you work before Canonical? How did you get into Linux?

Before Canonical, I worked at IBM, in several roles, including Tivoli(Software Group), Global Technical Services (Services Group), and the Linux Technology Center (HW/Systems Group).

I started using Linux as a server when I was a sophomore in college, in 1998. I bought my first block of web hosting, which included a shell account and used Red Hat 5.2. About that same time, I bought a programming book (PHP maybe?) that included a Red Hat CD in the back flap and I installed it on a local system to learn a bit more. When I started an internship with IBM Tivoli in the Summer of 2000, my team leader provided me a development box with Red Hat 6.2 installed, and he thought he had thrown me a curveball. He was quite pleasantly surprised to learn that I was already a Linux user.

I dumped Windows entirely in the Summer of 2001 and never looked back. I jumped on the first opportunity to move from IBM's Tivoli group to IBM's Linux Technology Center, in March of 2003, and worked several years on Linux security. This was a key shift for me--from being a Linux user to being a Linux developer. I worked quite a bit on both RHEL and SLES, while running Fedora.

I spent most of 2005 as an IBM employee on-site at Red Hat, in Westford, Massachusetts, helping with some IBM POWER issues on RHEL and learning the Fedora development process. This was a really incredible assignment. I met and worked with some outstanding people in the Red Hat community, and discovered my love of working on Linux at the distribution level.

In 2006, my wife got a job as a teacher, and while helping her move into her new classroom, I noticed a pair of disused Mac G3's in the corner. Her school's IT staff had long since given up on them, with the MacOS9 installation being broken, and the paltry 256MB of RAM rendering the systems unusable. I had read about Edubuntu and decided to give it a try. I was really impressed with the interface and the outstanding documentation, and I discovered Launchpad in the process of reporting a fixing a couple of bugs. Her kids loved the games, and with Edubuntu, we were able to make those computers usable again. I instantly became an Ubuntu user, moving each of my development machines and MythTV front ends to Ubuntu.

After a short stint in IBM's Global Technical Services, I decided to pursue my dream and work on Linux again at the distribution level. Fortunately, I got that opportunity with Canonical's Ubuntu Server Team.

> - What are the challenges of a project where everyone works remotely?

Communication. It is so entirely, and critically important to develop personal relationships with the people you work with. Fortunately, Canonical understands this, and we have the opportunity to meet one another in person a couple of times per year, at the Developer Summits and at sprints. I worked with many people around the world at IBM, but unfortunately, I never met most of them face to face. It's so much harder to know when someone is serious or joking when you've never seen and heard them in person. Emoticons have so much more meaning when you can associate them with real facial expressions on the individual who's typing them. "LoL" means so much more when you know what someone's out-loud laugh sounds like.

> - What was the motivation for the Ubuntu manpage repository? Is anyone > extending its use or functionality?

The motivation was really to flesh out the design I had for a comprehensive Ubuntu Developer Documentation Search:

This search is intended to index all of Ubuntu's:

  • Official Documentation
  • Wiki Documentation
  • Man pages
  • Launchpad Blueprints
  • Launchpad Answers
  • Ubuntu Forums
  • Ubuntu Mailing Lists
  • IRC Logs
  • Ubuntu Packages
  • Launchpad Bugs
  • Open Source Code
  • Changelogs

Of that list, an Ubuntu-specific repository of man pages was conspicuously missing. There were similar repositories of Debian and Red Hat man pages, but none for Ubuntu. I thought it was important to create:

A couple of community members have created an IRC bot, which is really cool! I blogged about it here:

> - One of the big features for Ubuntu 8.10 is the private encrypted > directory? What is it and how does it differ from using something like > TrueCrypt?

Ubuntu supports full disk encryption on LVM volumes. That's really comprehensive, and cool, and I use it on my laptop. However, it has a couple of drawbacks. For one thing, a passphrase is required to decrypt the disk and boot. That's unacceptable for servers in a data center that must boot unattended. Also, you can't really make incremental backups of the encrypted data to remote storage. There can also be a performance and footprint penalty for encrypting absolutely everything in the system (who cares if someone can read your /usr/bin or /lib?). Finally, a single key is used for the entire system.

The idea behind my work with the Encrypted Private Directory is to provide each user with a secure location to store their most sensitive data. In Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, if you choose to setup an encrypted private directory (see: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/intrepid/en/man1/ecryptfs-setup-private.html), you will have two directories... ~/.Private will contain your encrypted data, which is written to disk. And ~/Private is a mount point, established when you login to your system. Using your login pass phrase, a separate "mount pass phrase" is decrypted, and used to mount ~/.Private on top of ~/Private. Once this mount is active, you can read/write data transparently to ~/Private, and the kernel encrypts/decrypts the data written/read to/from disk. When you want to incrementally back up your data, you can simply and safely rsync your ~/.Private directory to untrusted remote storage.

There are a number of alternative implementations of files and file system encryption, each with their own merits and challenges. I believe that eCryptfs provides a few advantages in that it's a stacked file system within the Linux kernel, using in-kernel encryption algorithms. This can theoretically provide some performance benefits from a context-switching perspective. Also, since the encrypted data is actually stored on the lower file system, you don't have to pre-allocate some amount of space for ~/Private--you have as much space available as you do on the lower file system.

Upstream eCryptfs is an active project, and there's a few new features coming down the pipe. We're working on filename encryption and integration with Mandatory Access Control systems, like SELinux and AppArmor.

I'm not terribly interested in debating the pros/cons of eCryptfs against other cryptographic\ files ystem solutions here. However, I will say that other solutions are welcome to model an automatic mount/umount implementation for ~/Private on the work I did for eCryptfs, and I think it would be beneficial for Ubuntu users to be able to choose the crypto file system used for ~/Private.

> - What does Ubuntu Server have to do to take the next big step? And > what is the next big step? > - Is there a plan for differentiating Ubuntu Server from all the other > server products out there?

Great questions.

There are some that contend that the Ubuntu Server's command-line-only interface is a barrier to adoption. I can see that point. We have some efforts underway that are developing web-based administration utilities. That might help us attain some of the GUI-server market. But really, what I think we need is some documentation, education, and some meta packages or task selections to help turn your Ubuntu desktop installation into a server. I mean, it's trivial to just install the apache2 package on an Ubuntu desktop, and *boom* you're running a server. Some of the people asking for a graphical Ubuntu server do not realize that.

However, I don't think that's the "big step". I think the "big step" would be for the Ubuntu Server to address other architectures. From my IBM background, I have a soft spot for the "big iron" architectures like POWER and System 390. We will need to support those eventually, I'm afraid.

Those are not really within Ubuntu's market right now. I would like to see us leverage some of the work from Ubuntu Mobile team on micro architectures, like arm and lpia. Rather than scaling the Ubuntu server "up", let's scale it "down" and look at the Ubuntu Server on smaller and lower-power embedded devices. I can think of some pretty cool stuff you could do with an Ubuntu server in your pocket, or an Ubuntu server running on various appliances around your house...

> - Since Ubuntu Server has Canonical and community representation, how > could both sides work better together?

Every Ubuntu development cycle starts with an Ubuntu Developer Summit. The Jaunty Jackalope developer summit will be in Mountain View, California in December of 2008. All of the Canonical Ubuntu Server Team will be there, and we should have healthy representation of the active Server Community sponsored by Canonical in attendance. For those who are not in attendance, we will have web casts and IRC channels open. Beyond the summit, we absolutely invite participation in the Server team in our IRC channel (#ubuntu-server), on the mailing lists, and through Launchpad. I think the more active participation we have in those various forums, the bigger and better the total community will become. The democratic processes of the Ubuntu community never cease to amaze me.

> - What do you think of Wikipedia's move from Red Hat/CentOS/Fedora to Ubuntu?

I think it's a huge win for us that they've stated it publicly. There are plenty of Ubuntu server deployments out there that do not appear on Canonical's books, and are not publicly announced. It would be really cool if more corporations would "stand up and be counted"

I have it on good authority that Google's Custom Search Appliance runs Ubuntu, although it's not explicitly stated here:

If the Ubuntu Server is good enough for Wikipedia and Google, I think we're doing something right. I hope Canonical's partners and the various Ubuntu proponents out there can use this point in your own organizations when fighting for adoption of Ubuntu on the server.

> - You have blogged about your trek through Scotland. Any other fun > trips planned for the future?

Ah yes, that was a great trip! Scotland is an incredible place.

I'll be in Paris in November, and in Mountain View in December, though both of those trips are bit "urban" for my adventurous nature.

I'm planning another long distance hike between Christmas and New Years. Perhaps the Grand Canyon, which I've hiked before but in July. Or Big Bend, Texas, which is really remote and beautiful. I'll make sure I blog about it in retrospect.

In The Press

  • Everything you Need to Know about Ubuntu 8.10: Intrepid Ibex - The biggest changes to Ibex over Heron are the addition of the latest version of GNOME, X.Org, the Linux kernel. However, Ubuntu developers also add a fair amount of their own secret sauce to each Ubuntu release, and Ibex is no different. The new Network Manager is a great improvement over the previous release. It allows your Ubuntu machine to connect to the network before a user logs in, supports 3G connections, multiple simultaneous connections, and PPPoE. Ibex also adds a default Guest account with limited write support, and no access to user files stored in the home directory. Ubuntu now supports the high-quality setting in YouTube, and you can also view programming by the BBC. Ecryptfs and Config-less X.org are among the many other new features in Ibex. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/feature/everything_you_need_know_about_ubuntu_810_intrepid_ibex

  • Bangladesh wins 6 Manthan awards - The Manthan Awards are the first of its kind initiative in India to recognize the best practices in e-content and creativity. It has expanded over the years, and now includes all of the SAARC countries, namely India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan and Afghanistan. One of the honors went to Hoimonti. Hoimonti is a first of its kind technical endeavor in Bangladesh, where a Linux based free operating system called Ubuntu is being used. http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2008/10/22/news0810.htm

  • Ubuntu's Live USB Disk Creator - In this article, Michael Larabel of Phoronix, provides a quick look at this utility to easily spin your own USB disk images. The focus of this USB start-up disk creator, is to take a Linux CD or ISO image, and convert it to run off a USB disk drive. This application is also able to setup the USB drive to offer persistent storage capabilities, and will show USB disks that have been mounted. Lastly, there is the option to reserve additional space so that when booting the Ubuntu USB disk you can archive files such as documents and settings -- essentially making it a persistent OS environment. The amount of space for this extra storage can also be allocated. The Ubuntu USB creator should be especially handy for those with netbooks (such as the ASUS Eee PC), where there is no CD/DVD drive. There are not yet any advanced customization features for usb-creator, but it's a nice start by Canonical. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_usb_creator&num=1

  • Indian political party turns to FOSS - Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is India's largest political party, with around 20 million Ordinary Members and about 4 million Active Members. In June, BJP announced its goal to become one of the most high-tech political parties in the next two years, and free and open source software (FOSS) will play an essential role in this project. BJP plans to implement Wi-Fi connectivity in all its headquarters, plus nationwide IP video telephony, and unified messaging networks. How will all this happen? Prodyut Bora, of BJP information technology cell, says they have found that it is possible to create an entire enterprise IT ecosystem using only FOSS. He states that BJP plans to use CentOS as its server operating system, and Ubuntu on desktops. Currently, BJP has only five Ubuntu desktops, which are part of a three-month pilot project that is almost over, after which, Ubuntu will become the standard BJP desktop. http://www.linux.com/feature/150549

In The Blogosphere

  • It’s official: My wife likes Ubuntu - Blogger Christopher Dawson tells us how his wife hates computers in general and change in particular. He's set up Fedora and OpenSUSE for her, but she didn't like either of them. He didn't have a lot of hope for Ubuntu, which works like a champ on her finicky laptop. To Dawson's surprise, she really liked Ubuntu. She found it very intuitive, was able to do everything she wanted, plus it was faster than what she was used to. Dawson notes that Ubuntu is a snappy performer featuring incredible driver support. His children think it is faster than Microsoft's Vista on their systems. If you want a free, accessible, handy, and well-polished operating system, Ubuntu is the choice for your school, students, and parents. http://education.zdnet.com/?p=1919

  • K/Ubuntu 8.10 RC Tour - jonathanhotono takes us on a tour of the release candidates of Ubuntu and Kubuntu 8.10, known as Intrepid Ibex. His first impressions of the release candidates are that they are very much like Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy Heron, with more features added. You may mount archives with a simple right-click, allowing you to see into archives without extracting them. Kubuntu brings us KDE 4, Network Manager now includes 3G wireless support, and more. http://allforlinux.blogspot.com/2008/10/ubuntu-810-rc-tour.html

  • Manjoo on Ubuntu – Razib on the Gene Expression blog comments that he is having trouble with a dual-boot installation of Ubuntu. When using a USB wireless card guaranteed to work with Ubuntu, his computer keeps dropping the connection every 30 minutes with a re-boot often being the only solution. Due to this issue, Ubuntu is installed only to run Linux specific programs, but is not found to be functional for other tasks. http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2008/10/manjoo_on_ubuntu.php

  • Canonical Expanding Online Store to Drive Ubuntu Linux Deployments – The VAR Guy tells us that Canonical is slowly expanding their Ubuntu online store to include application offerings from Cyberlink, IBM, Parallels, and Fluendo. Finding the offerings light, the VAR Guy contacted Gerry Carr, Canonical’s Marketing Manager. Gerry commented that products will be added when the applications have been tested, packaged, and when it’s beneficial for both the manufacturer and Canonical. Inquiries were made about Alfresco and Openbravo specifically, and in both cases the feeling was that it would take time for these applications to become available. http://www.thevarguy.com/2008/10/20/canonical-expanding-online-store-to-drive-ubuntu-linux-deployments/

  • Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibix” feels more like a service pack than a new release – Adrian Kingsley-Hughes details the latest release of Ubuntu on the ZDnet Hardware 2.0 blog. Adrian felt that while the increase in features was nice there is no unification, or reorganization of the user interface. Feeling that the user interface is still a work in progress, Adrian references Mark Shuttleworth who stated in his blog: “…the free software desktop is often patchy and inconsistent. But I see the lack of consistency as both a weakness (GNOME, OpenOffice and Firefox all have different UI toolkits, and it’s very difficult to make them seamless), and as a strength - people are free to innovate, and the results are world-leading”. http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2788

In Other News

Ubuntu Podcast: Episode #10

Josh Chase and Nick Ali, members of the Ubuntu Georgia US LoCo have been publishing a videocast.

The current episode includes:

  • 8.10 frozen
  • Opinions on the new Ibex Wallpaper
  • New Ubuntu US Store
  • No OpenOffice 3.0 in 8.10

  • Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.0 released
  • Free "Powered by Ubuntu" stickers
  • AUV using Ubuntu Server 8.04
  • Dell Mini 9 reviews
  • Dell newspaper ads for Mini 9
  • Possible Dell Inspiron Mini 12
  • New ATI drivers for 8.10
  • Ubuntu 7.04 EOL

Check it out here: http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/10/23/ubuntu-podcast-episode-10/

Firefox removes License Agreement from Ubuntu

Mozilla received a lot of criticism from the OS community for bundling EULA with Firefox builds. Even though they decided to remove EULA, earlier Ubuntu Ibex alpha builds still had the old EULA on. The last update has removed this much talked about EULA and in to something perhaps more acceptable to the OS community: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3229/2971338728_27b7a16210_o.png

http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2008/10/25/firefox-removes-its-license-agreement-from-ubuntu/

Dell's Mini Issues Getting Bigger?

The Round Rock, Texas-based company got to market with its own, branded netbook(Dell Mini 9), after rivals including HP, Asus and Acer, but it's still having trouble. John Hull, Dell's manager of Linux OS engineering, writes in a blog that the launch of its Ubuntu version of the Insprion Mini has hit a rough patch. Several customers, and tech websites have pointed out that 8GB and 16GB drives on the Inspiron Mini 9 running Ubuntu are not fully formatted. The manufacturing facility has only been partitioning the hard drives up to 4GB, leaving the extra space on the hard drive unformatted. This essentially leaves that space unusable by customers until it is partitioned and formatted by the operating system. For Dell's fix, see: http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/10/24/resolution-for-inspiron-mini-ubuntu-linux-partitioning-issue.aspx

http://www.crn.com/hardware/211300223

Interview with Jon Ramvi of the Ubuntu Eee Project

While Josh Bancroft was trying different OS options on the Eee PC 901, he spent some time with Ubuntu Eee. It's not an official Ubuntu/Canonical project, but rather a community driven custom distribution with some Eee-specific features and tweaks. It's quite nice, and very functional. While he was testing it, Jon Ramvi, Ubuntu Eee's maintainer/organizer, noticed a few of his notes on Twitter, and contacted him. Josh persuaded Jon to do an email interview and you can read it at the link. http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2008/10/24/world-of-netbooks-interview-with-jon-ramvi-of-the-ubuntu-eee-project/

Obama Ubuntu? Or a hoax?

People from the Obama campaign have said that they use Ubuntu 8.04. Screen shots of Ubuntu being used is available on Nick Ali's blog. Since FLOSS knows no boundaries, the screen shots garnered a comment from a Fox News employee, who says: "I work for fox news and most people here use ubuntu, there are some exceptions on a mac, but there are very few windows computers around here. Ubuntu is the most popular by far. When I was meeting with some McCain campaigners, they were running Ubuntu as well, so at the very least, on the other side of the ticket, they support Ubuntu. Hell, Fox News even uses Ubuntu on its web servers." If anyone knows any more about the use of Ubuntu in the Obama campaign, please contact nali@ubuntu.com. http://boredandblogging.com/2008/10/21/obama-ubuntu/

Meeting Summaries

Ubuntu Community Council

  • Meeting 2008-10-21:
    • No quorum (only James Troup and Daniel Holbach)
    • Is there a need to coin a new phrase for an "Ubuntero"? https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/272826/

      • Daniel Holbach to ping all CC members to express their opinion on the bug itself.
    • James Westby asked how best to deal with problematic people in Launchpad.
      • Daniel Holbach asked to mail CC about it first, so we can get in touch with that person. Only talking to the Launchpad Admins will not necessarily help.
    • Rafik Ouerchefani asked for advice on ideas he has and decided to mail the CC about it out of band.

MOTU Council

  • MC Meeting, 2008-10-01:
    • Open Applications: smarter (motu), asomething (universe-contributors), apachelogger (core-dev).
    • Discussion of the MC application processes.
  • MC Meeting, 2008-10-15:
    • Open Applications: smarter (motu), asomething (universe-contributors).
    • Sharing thoughts about Archive Reorganization and connected application processes.
    • Discussion of the MC application processes.
  • We're pleased to announce that after lots of great work in the KDE community, https://launchpad.net/~smarter|Guillaume Martres just joined the ranks of MOTU.

Sugar Team

Wine Team

  • Wine 1.0.1 is in Intrepid, and releasing it for Hardy as an SRU is underway
  • Wine-gecko is in Intrepid; Wine no longer needs to connect to the internet to download the gecko rendering engine once an application needs a fake internet explorer.
  • I (Scott Ritchie) am considering locking the Wine Team on launchpad and removing all members who don't need to upload to the PPA, similar to the move done by the 5-a-day team. From what I can tell, I'm the only active member of the team anyway despite over 60 members on launchpad for over a year.
  • I want to make an instructional Wine YouTube video, demonstrating how much better it is these days. I'm still actively seeking ideas for applications to include, especially ones that don't work on Vista itself (eg 16 bit apps).

  • Wineconf has left me with a large todo list of user interface improvements
  • Wine 1.2 will likely be in Jaunty's timetable provided someone can implement USB support within the next four months. Otherwise, Alexandre won't start the stabilization process for a new release.

Mobile Team

  • A dummy ISO was prepared which allows booting ubuntu-mobile and -mid USB images as hdb in kvm/qemu/etc.. The bochs BIOS CMOS params don't allow to boot of disk 2, so it's convenient to boot from the ISO.
  • Lots of work on xorg, especially around psb like:
    • - Making sure xorg selects vesa on poulsbo ('psb') devices for now (which can be overriden when xorg-psb is installed) - Fixed -psb packaging to have proper ABI provides in hardy ubuntu-mobile ppa - Requested deletion of psb in intrepid; drop from video-all; proper conflict etc. - Move from Driver psb to Driver vesa on upgrades - Pulled new xorg-server and xorg (meta) from Debian - Tweaked video-all, resynced with i386, installable again - Enabled geode and openchrome for lpia; pending Pas
  • Added ACPI and grub to the mobile seeds.
  • lots of testing on install and on the images
  • Initial work towards not hardcoding "ubuntu" as the user
  • A lot os work on touch..primarily with the evtouch driver
  • Bluetooth testing.
  • Resolved the remaining outstanding issue with grub-installer not being included in ubiquity for lpia
  • Initial work towards allowing install with an empty password string
  • Prepared casper branch to force --automatic for -mid installs, pending the previous landing.

Ubuntu Technical Board Meeting October 7th, 2008

  • Members present: Matt Zimmerman, Scott James Remnant
  • Ubuntu-core-dev application from Mario Limonciello
  • Ubuntu-core-dev application from Harald Sitter
  • Limited upload rights from Romain Francoise
    • The Technical Board is considering to grant upload privileges to Romain Francoise for emacs-snapshot. The decision wass deferred due to time constraints, and it was agreed to continue this conversation in email or at the next meeting.
  • cdrtools update
    • We are expecting to receive a summary from Eben Moglen regarding his interpretation of the licensing terms for cdrtools, and will take next steps based on that.

Server Team Meeting October 21st, 2008

The server team met on Oct. 21st and the following are the topics that were discussed at the meeting. Details of can be found at the link below:

  • python-vm-builder
  • iscsi support for interpid
  • iso testing
  • ubuntu-server-devel channel
  • UDS topics
  • Replacing Frozen Bubble in Jaunty

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-server/2008-October/002354.html

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Asia Ocenania Membership Board Meeting

  • Start: 11:00 - UTC
  • End: 12:00 - UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not listed as of publication

Server Team Meeting

Kernel Team Meeting

  • Start: 17:00 - UTC
  • End: 18:00 - UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not listed as of publication

EMEA Membership Board Meeting

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

QA Team Meeting

Platform Team Meeting

  • Start: 22:00 - UTC
  • End: 23:00 - UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not listed as of publication

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting

  • Start: 12:00 - UTC
  • End: 13:00 - UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not listed as of publication ==== Desktop Team Meeting ====
  • Start: 13:00 - UTC
  • End: 14:00 - UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Meeting

Ubuntu Java Meeting

  • Start: 14:00 - UTC
  • End: 15:00 - UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not listed as of publication

Community Spotlight

Club-Ubuntu

Club Ubuntu is a social/advocacy IRC channel. Since its start, it has grown to over 100 members, and now has a very active IRC channel, #club-ubuntu. It is also doing a bang up job acting as a bridge for people outside of our Ubuntu community. They come to see what the hype is all about and end up joining in on the fun.

The team has been very active considering the short amount of time it's been in existence. They were the #1 team, among all teams, that participated in Global Bug Jam 2008. Additionally, they have also developed an IRC bot that interfaces with the Ubuntu man page project at: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/ The bot accepts two very simple commands: @man and @manurl followed by your request of man page. i.e. @man apt-get which would return the man page of apt-get.

If you haven't visited the #club-ubuntu channel, be sure to drop in and say hello. You'll be glad you did.

Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.10, 8.04 and 8.10

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates

Ubuntu 7.10 Updates

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

Ubuntu 8.10 Updates

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 Eddy
  • Dave Bush
  • Arlan Vennefron

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.

UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue114 (last edited 2008-10-27 05:47:21 by c-24-126-137-73)