Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #120 for the week November 30th - December 6th, 2008. In this issue we cover: Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase, Jono Bacon on UDS, MOTU, Tamil Team - Intrepid introduced at Udhagamandalam, Ubuntu Zimbabwe, Launchpod #13, Meet Henning Eggers, Launchpad hiring bug tracker, Ubuntu Podcast #14, Vibuntu 1.0, Lazy Linux: 10 essential tricks for admins., Ilumina TV runs on Ubuntu, George Wright responds to backstage questions(Video), 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 Free Culture Showcase
• Jono Bacon on UDS
• MOTU
• Ubuntu Stats

• LoCo News

• Launchpod #13
• Meet Henning Eggers
• Launchpad hiring bug tracker

• In the Press & Blogosphere

• Ubuntu Podcast #14
• Vibuntu 1.0
• Lazy Linux: 10 essential tricks for admins.
• Ilumina TV runs on Ubuntu
• George Wright respons to backstage questions(Video)

• Upcoming Meeting & Events

• Updates & Security

General Community News

Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase

Would you like to have a chance to have your creative work in front of millions of people? Here's your chance: the Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase. Submit your audio, video or photo/graphics for an opportunity to have them included in the next release of Ubuntu

How it works is simple:

• Your submission must be no larger than 1MB for audio, 2.5MB for video and 0.5MB for photo/graphic.
• Upload your submission somewhere online (there are lots of free hosting solutions available such as archive.org). Please do not email any of the judges with your submissions.
• Add your entry to one of the tables below.
• When the deadline for submissions closes, our panel of judges (Cory Kontros, Luis de Bethencourt, Luke Yelavich, Lydia Pintscher and Tony Whitmore) will pick a shortlist, and the Community Council will then pick the final winners from the short-list.

The deadline for submissions is February 6th 2009.

Terms

• All submissions must be in by February 6th 2009.
• All decisions by the judges are final.
• Content that contains nudity, racism, sexism or other offensive content will be disqualified.

• All submissions must be licensed as Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFreeCultureShowcase

Jono Bacon on UDS

December 8th through the 12th, is the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS)[1]. This event, for 200 of Ubuntu's finest, and others who wish to attend, is for the purpose of designing, discussing and planning Jaunty Jackalope, Ubuntu 9.04. Five days of sessions spread across seven tracks, focusing on different elements of the Ubuntu platform and community. Also, as a part of UDS, Jono will be heading the Community Track that will include all sorts of issues, including governance, process, initiative, collaboration and participation and much, much more. Another aspect of UDS is community. Along with the hard work is the time to play - to greet old friends and make new ones, and come down off the physically draining aspect of the Summit. Jono invites everyone to attend.

• [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDSJaunty

  http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=1464

MOTU

Stefan Ebner has joined the MOTU team. He lives in Austria and has been using Linux for 2 years now. After trying several other distros, Stefan settled on Ubuntu. He has worked on merging and syncs for Audacious, gbrainy, monodevelop, wxwidgets 2.6, and xmoto. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~sebner Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StefanEbner

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

• Open (48265)-233 over last week
• Critical (16)-2 over last week
• Unconfirmed (18800)-778 over last week
• Unassigned (40149)-197 over last week
• All bugs ever reported (235465)+1343 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 (17640)-903 over last week
• French (61915)+2 over last week
• Swedish (74404)-1018 over last week
• English (UK) (81460)+1 over last week
• Brazilian Portuguese (81647)-68 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 (717)
• jibel (287)
• wolfger (82)
• charlie-tca (80)
• chrisccoulson (54)

Top 5 teams for the past 7 days

• dcteam (720)
• ubuntu-michigan (82)
• ubuntu-de-locoteam (36)
• ubuntu-berlin (35)
• ubuntu-au (19)

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

Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week

• Allow Renaming of USB Drives in Gnome
• Enable the ability to set the order of network connections
• Add a new button "I don't understand this idea"
• Time Machine line Suns "Time Slider+ZFS+Gnome"

• OnBoard Webcam support

Ubuntu Brainstorm is a community site geared toward letting you add your ideas for Ubuntu. You can submit your own idea, or vote for or against someone elses. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/

LoCo News

Tamil Team - Intrepid Introduced at Udhagamandalam

Udagamandalam, Nov 28. Computer World of Udagamandalam(1) (a.k.a Ooty), hosted Intrepid Ibex release event at Lawly Institute. Wide range of people ranging form School Teachers, Students, Computer Vendors, Government Officials took part in the event.

Variety of topics starting from different modes of Installing Ubuntu, Package Management, Administration, Tamil features were discussed & demonstrated.

Special Thanks to Terrance S Rajesh of Computer World for making arrangements for event despite heavy rains across the week. Sri Ramadoss & Padmanathan of Ubuntu Tamil Team conducted the event.

Ubuntu Zimbabwe

Below is a report submitted from the ICT Director of the Parliament of Zimbabwe on his presentation given at the e-Parliament Conference in Brussels. The Parliament of Zimbabwe has chosen to use Ubuntu on their desktops, and possibly on their servers too. The ICT Director is also a member of the Ubuntu Zimbabwe LoCo Team.

The Global Centre for ICT in Parliament already knew that the Parliament of Zimbabwe was advocating Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in automating its processes. As a result they requested that I do a presentation outlining the business case for the migration to FOSS. Two other parliaments have also opted to use FOSS for their operations, namely Italy and France, and my presentation followed immediately after that of France.

The final PowerPoint presentation is available on request.

A number of African parliaments showed interests in the presentation including Ghana, South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania.

The following questions were asked among other issues that were discussed:

1. Challenges in migrating calendars (MS Outlook as well as those created using other proprietary software). Parliament of Zimbabwe argued that migrating in general is not a major constraint since there were no shared calendars in use. Parliament will have to use the calendaring system built into the FOSS.
2. Challenges importing documents done by very old versions of MS Word and MS Excel especially those with nested tables and multiple formulae. Most documents in Parliament are not complex and can be easily and comfortably migrated.
3. Italy presented that cost cutting should not necessarily be the biggest motivation for migration because major savings cannot be realised in the short term but probably in the long term. This raised the question of affordability in that those countries with good budgets can afford the licensing and purchase of proprietary software where as those with skinny budgets (such as most African countries) tend to have other priorities (hunger relief, HIV/AIDS interventions, Health, etc) and the purchase and licensing of software is usually sidelined. Parliaments in such countries, therefore, will pirate software. The Parliament of Zimbabwe weighed the risk of pirating against the few issues that could be raised against FOSS and decided to go the FOSS route.

4. Challenges relating to training/re-training Officers of Parliament and Members of Parliament in the use of the FOSS. Parliament submitted that there is a huge difference in the appearance of Office 2007 and earlier versions of Office in such that Parliaments that opt to migrate to Office 2007 will certainly have to re-train. By comparison, the appearance of OpenOffice is not too different from earlier versions of Office to the extent that it might be easier training for OpenOffice than for Office 2007. Having said that, Parliament of Zimbabwe has the added advantage of having just come out of general elections meaning most of the Members of Parliament are new and will require training. Their training will, therefore, include ICT training. The Officers will also be trained along with the Members of Parliament.

In the end, it was realized that FOSS is the way to go for Parliaments in countries that operate on thin budgets. Given that there is a lot of community support and certainly a FOSS equivalent for most desktop applications, most African countries should consider FOSS for their desktops.

Pictures at: http://amachu.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/udhagmandalam-ubuntu/

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2008-December/000303.html

Launchpad News

Launchpod #13

Matthew Revell and Graham Binns host the latest episode of Launchpod, the Launchpad podcast. Included in this episode are:

• 01.00: Some of the Launchpad team will be at the Ubuntu Developer Summit starting the 8th December. Graham talks a little about what he’ll be doing.
• 03.42: Announcing the Launchpad bug tracker plugins API! Create your own plugin to enable the bug tracker of your choice to communicate directly with Launchpad. Read more.
• 11.48: Welcome to Michael Nelson, who is the latest member of Launchpad’s Soyuz team. The Soyuz chaps look after PPAs and other packaging in Launchpad.

http://news.launchpad.net/podcast/launchpod-episode-13-bug-tracker-plugin-api

Meet Henning Eggers

Launchpad News interviewed Henning Eggers, the most recent addition to the Launchpad Translation Team. He is a software developer for the team, involved in the importing and approval of code and, most recently, the Team's QA contact. His work, so far, has been involved with the rosetta-experts team (Launchpad Translations (codenamed "Rosetta") is a platform for open source application translation on the internet). His office, on the fifth or sixth floor of a building in Pinneberg, Germany, not too far from the North Sea. http://news.launchpad.net/meet-the-devs/meet-henning-eggers

Launchpad hiring bug tracker

Launchpad is looking for developers with Python experience to help with developing better ways to track bugs. The successful candidate should live and breath Python, love free software, have strong experience hacking on bug trackers and have a string of successful projects behind him or her. A full job description is available[1].

• [1] http://webapps.ubuntu.com/employment/canonical_LBAE/

http://news.launchpad.net/were-hiring/passionate-about-bug-tracking-were-hiring

In The Press

• IBM pushes "Microsoft alternative" desktop - Based on Ubuntu Linux, virtualization technology from Virtual Bridges and its own Lotus Applications IBM created a desktop that should become an alternative to Microsoft. Usage of Virtual Bridge's VERDE (Virtual Enterprise Remote Desktop Environment) is said to make this solution more cost-efficient than Using Microsoft Office on Microsoft Windows Desktops. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3460383523.html

• IBM, Ubuntu Unveil Microsoft-Free 'PC' - This is a combination of an Ubuntu desktop combined with IBM Lotus applications delivered through a Linux virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) from Virtual Bridges. The applications, themselves, come from the Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS) software. Rather than purely open source, this is an open standards solution. It is a paradigm solution, rather than a direct product to product competition, because IBM is challenging the perception that a desktop is a machine on your desk running Windows. http://www.internetnews.com/software/article.php/3788981/IBM+Ubuntu+Unveil+MicrosoftFree+PC.htm

• Ubuntu Remains Best Linux Distribution for Desktops - Jason Brooks examined Ubuntu 8.10 as a desktop and felt that, even though Red Hat and Fedora may have more users, Ubuntu is the better desktop due to its concentration on usability. He defines usability as being Ubuntu's large selection of ready-to-install software, large community of users and contributors and its broad support of hardware components. He does feel, however, that Ubuntu lacks the latest security features in the server department that are the hallmark of such as Red Hat and Fedora. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Ubuntu-Remains-Best-Linux-Distribution-for-Desktops/

• Microsoft Should Worry Less About Live, More About Linux - It is Ed Moltzen's opinion that, with its concentration on search and advertising space, Microsoft has left the field open for Ubuntu to take over the desktop. He feels that the improvements to Vista have largely been surpassed by Ubuntu and, in this economic climate of recession in the U.S., Ubuntu has been given a chance to make a dent in Microsoft's desktop OS business. Ubuntu is free to download, easy to install, has high performance numbers, and is easy enough for kids to use. http://www.crn.com/software/212201323

• Why Ubuntu Now Beats Vista - ChannelWeb literally looks at both Vista and Ubuntu with a series of slides and descriptions of critical comparisons. This comparison clearly points out how Ubuntu has caught up to or, in many cases, surpassed Vista. Some of the points they emphasized are wifi connection, the guest session, multimedia support, lower hardware requirements and cost. http://www.crn.com/software/212201252;jsessionid=T4YWJV4HS24WSQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?pgno=1

• StudioDave Does A Hardware Review And Meets Ubuntu 8.10 - Dave Phillips was faced with the deterioration of his HP Omnibook due to age, and set out to replace it with a laptop that would be able to handle his audio needs. This meant getting a machine that could handle his specific needs, like AVSynthesis, Csound 5.09, Ardour 3, JACK, and the latest Java SDK. This is not the sort of installation that the ordinary user would face, but he was satisfied with the results that Ubuntu gave him. In particular, the apt system that make it easy to update the system to the real time kernel and the full-featured development environment. http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/studiodave-does-hardware-review-and-meets-ubuntu-810

In The Blogosphere

• IBM launches Ubuntu-based VDI solution - Brian Madden acknowledges, in this post, that he's not really familiar with or comfortable with Linux. With that as a basis, and the apparent lack of information on the virtualization that IBM is using, he sees no point in the offering. It is his opinion that regardless of the platform, it will still have to run Windows applications. In his words, "Maybe in another five or ten years when we're all running Rich Internet Apps in the cloud, but for now, we live in a Windows world". http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2008/12/05/ibm-launches-ubuntu-based-vdi-solution.aspx

• IBM, Canonical Declare Ubuntu Linux War Against Windows, Office - Joe Panettieri makes the prediction that "the Windows-Office duopoly will fall within the next three to five years." This statement is based on the cooperation of IBM, Virtual Bridges and Canonical in their latest offering. He quotes the IBM press release with saying, "This solution runs open standards-based email, word processing, spreadsheets, unified communication, social networking and other software to any laptop, browser, or mobile device from a virtual desktop login on a Linux-based server configuration." http://www.workswithu.com/2008/12/04/ibm-canonical-declair-ubuntu-war-against-windows-office/

In Other News

Ubuntu Podcast #14

Josh Chase and Nick Ali from the Georgia US LoCo released episode #14. Some topics covered:

• Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase II
• UDS Jaunty
• More Phoronix performance testing
• Flash and Handbrake

• CrunchBang Linux

• Vibuntu, customized Ubuntu for the visually impaired
• Potential games coming to Linux

  http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/12/06/ubuntu-podcast-episode-14/

Vibuntu 1.0

Vibuntu is another Ubuntu derivative that is based on Ubuntu 8.10 and targeted for visually impaired users. Therefore it logs on automatically and has Orca enabled by default. Applications that are not or rarely used by blind and otherwise visually impaired people, such as GIMP or F-Spot, have been removed. http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Adaptive-Technologies/Vibuntu-43337.shtml

Lazy Linux: 10 essential tricks for admins

Ever got your DVD-Rom locked by someone else? Harassed your console? Or even forgot the root password (Well, maybe not on Ubuntu)? IBM DeveloperWorks has some tricks for you to deal which such annoyances next time. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-10sysadtips/index.html

Ilumina TV runs on Ubuntu

Jerome Gotangco took a look at Ilumina TV, a prototype unveiled by a local start-up in the Philippines called Inovent Inc. One thing he noticed is that it's supposed to be running on a stripped down version of Ubuntu. Other than that, it looks like any other Personal Video Recorder (PVR), such as MythTV or Elisa, with a different front end. He hasn't had the ability to actually see the prototype in action, yet, only some pictures and slides on the company blog site. He hopes to get a sneak peak in the near future. http://engage.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/ilumina-tv-runs-on-ubuntu/

George Wright responds to backstage questions(Video)

Backstage Blog asked George Wright, Portfolio Manager at Research and Innovation, some questions about the efforts of the BBC, and Ubuntu 8.10, to make a range of non-DRM protected content available. Mr. Wright's answers appear to be somewhat terse, and aimed mainly at individuals, but they go a long way to explain where the plugin is now developmentally, and where it is headed. One of the biggest problems that the BBC has is negotiating the rights to offer content outside the United Kingdom. Added to this problem is the necessity of individualizing the release of content per the location in which it is viewed. He will also be blogging about this and other things they're working on for the BBC Internet Blog. Video links to the interview are available at the link. http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2008/11/george_wright_r.html

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Server Team Meeting

• Start: 16:00 UTC
• End: 17:00 UTC
• Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting

• Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam/Meeting

Kernel Team Meeting

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

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Foundation Team Meeting

• Start: 16:00 UTC
• End: 17:00 UTC
• Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
• Agenda: None listed as of publication

QA Team Meeting

• Start: 17:00 UTC
• End: 18:00 UTC
• Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting

• Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/Meetings/

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting

• Start: 12:00 UTC
• End: 13:00 UTC
• Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
• Agenda: None listed as of publication

Desktop Team Meeting

• Start: 13:00 UTC
• End: 14:00 UTC
• Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting

• Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Meeting

Ubuntu Java Meeting

• Start: 14:00 UTC
• End: 15:00 UTC
• Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
• Agenda: None listed as of publication

Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.10, 8.04, and 8.10

Security Updates

• USN-675-1: Pidgin vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-675-1

• USN-675-2: Gaim vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-675-2

• USN-676-1: WebKit vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-676-1

• USN-677-1: OpenOffice.org vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-677-1

• USN-668-1: Thunderbird vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-668-1

• USN-678-1: GnuTLS vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-678-1

• USN-680-1: Samba vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-680-1

• USN-679-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-679-1

• USN-681-1: ImageMagick vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-681-1

• USN-682-1: libvorbis vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-682-1

• USN-683-1: Imlib2 vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-683-1

• USN-684-1: ClamAV vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-684-1

• USN-685-1: Net-SNMP vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-685-1

• USN-686-1: AWStats vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-686-1

• USN-687-1: nfs-utils vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-687-1

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

• None Reported

Ubuntu 7.10 Updates

• None Reported

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

• jockey 0.3.3-0ubuntu8.2 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-December/012133.html

• linux-restricted-modules-2.6.24 2.6.24.14-23.54 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-December/012134.html

• linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24 2.6.24-23.36 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-December/012135.html

• linux-backports-modules-2.6.24 2.6.24-23.30 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-December/012136.html

Ubuntu 8.10 Updates

• ubufox 0.6-0ubuntu1.8.10.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/intrepid-changes/2008-December/009535.html

• network-manager-applet 0.7~~svn20081020t000444-0ubuntu1.8.10.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/intrepid-changes/2008-December/009536.html

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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

• Kenny McHenry

• Dave Bush
• And many others

Glossary of Terms

1. ICT - Information and Communitcation Technology

Feedback

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