Contents

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. General Community News
    1. Ubuntu Jaunty Alpha 4 released
    2. Rock The Docs: The Ubuntu LoCo Docs Day
    3. Hall of Fame interview: Christophe Sauthier
    4. Fridge Calendar Has Moved
    5. Ubuntu HugDay
    6. New Contributing Developer
  4. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Jaunty
    3. Translation Stats Intrepid
    4. 5-a-day bug stats
      1. Top 5 contributors for the past 7 days
      2. Top 5 teams for the past 7 days
    5. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week
  5. Launchpad News
    1. Launchpod Episode #16
    2. Launchpad performance weeks
  6. In The Press
    1. Canonical Survey Shows Ubuntu Server as Mission-Critical Enterprise Platform
    2. Survey Shows Ubuntu Not Just for Desktop Anymore
    3. Sibyl Systems to Distribute Ubuntu Linux Exclusively
    4. The case for Ubuntu on the server
  7. In The Blogosphere
    1. Ubuntu Server Linux is for business
    2. Ubuntu developers visiting Ubuntu Berlin and c-base, plus interview with Mark Shuttleworth
    3. HP releases custom Netbook version of Ubuntu Linux
    4. HP drops Linux netbooks in UK
  8. In Other News
    1. Full Circle Magazine #21
    2. Ubuntu podcast #19
    3. Toshiba Netbook with Ubuntu Remix
    4. First Ubuntu Event in Monastir Tunisia
  9. Meeting Summaries
    1. Server Team
    2. Florida US Team
    3. Georgia US Team
    4. Danish Team
    5. New Mexico USA Team
    6. Massachusetts US Team
    7. Belgian Team
    8. Tunisian Team
    9. Cypriot Team
    10. Catalan Team
  10. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Monday, February 9, 2009
      1. Ubuntu Wanted Meeting
    2. Tuesday, February 10, 2009
      1. Technical Board Meeting
      2. Server Team Meeting
      3. Desktop Team Meeting
      4. Kernel Team Meeting
    3. Wednesday, February 11, 2009
      1. Foundation Team Meeting
      2. QA Team Meeting
    4. Thursday, February 12, 2009
      1. Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting
      2. Ubuntu Java Meeting
    5. Friday, February 13, 2009
      1. MC Meeting
      2. Jaunty Weekly Release Meeting
  11. Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.10, 8.04, and 8.10
    1. Security Updates
    2. Ubuntu 6.06 Updates
    3. Ubuntu 7.10 Updates
    4. Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
    5. Ubuntu 8.10 Updates
  12. Archives and RSS Feed
  13. Additional Ubuntu News
  14. Conclusion
  15. Credits
  16. Glossary of Terms
  17. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  18. Feedback

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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #128 for the week February 1st - February 7th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Ubuntu Jaunty Alpha 4 released, Rock the Docs: Ubuntu LoCo Docs Day, Hall of Fame Interview: Christophe Sauthier, Fridge Calendar has moved, Ubuntu HugDay, New Contributing Developer, Launchpod Episode #16, Launchpad performance weeks, Full Circle Magazine #21, Ubuntu podcast #19, Toshiba Netbook with Ubuntu Remix, First Ubuntu Event in Monastir Tunisia, Team Meeting Summaries, and much, much more!

UWN Translations

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Translations

In This Issue

General Community News

Ubuntu Jaunty Alpha 4 released

Alpha 4 is the fourth in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Jaunty development cycle. The Alpha images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Jaunty. You can download it here:

See http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Mirrors for a list of mirrors.

Pre-releases of Jaunty are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-February/000530.html

Rock The Docs: The Ubuntu LoCo Docs Day

What exactly is LoCo Docs Day? In a nutshell, it is when the Ubuntu LoCo community comes together to refine, add to and otherwise improve our Online LoCo Documentation. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoTeams

We already have some excellent documentation, but much of it needs a new lick of paint and a good old fashioned refresh. As such, all the LoCo team are invited to come together on Feb. 12th to help make this happen. So, how do you get involved? Simple:

Come out, share the fun, and get involved in helping to bring the LoCo Wiki Documentation up to date!

http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/02/04/rock-the-docs/

Hall of Fame interview: Christophe Sauthier

Christophe Sauthier (huats) is involved in various aspects of Ubuntu. He started helping out in the team doing French translations and among other things he maintained the French LoCo web site. Now he is the French LoCo contact and the one they turn to in emergencies: affectionately referred to as "lé president". Christophe is a MOTU, and a driving force behind the MOTU Mentoring Reception. A YouTube video of Christophe speaking about himself is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTmXJ0_G2Gk

Read the entire interview: http://hall-of-fame.ubuntu.com/?feature=christophe-sauthier

Fridge Calendar Has Moved

The old Fridge calendar has been replaced with a Google Calendar.

The new Fridge calendar is at http://fridge.ubuntu.com/calendar. Please update your RSS feeds.

Teams needing to add meeting or events to the calendar can now do so themselves. Please refer to: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Fridge/Calendar there is a section on adding your meeting or event to the new calendar.

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1825

Ubuntu HugDay

HugDay is a special day where the Ubuntu Community comes together with a shared goal of triaging a specific package or set of packages. Working together allows the team to share knowledge and give some much needed assistance to the Ubuntu Developers.

Anyone can help out reguardless of their skill level. This is a community effort to help the developers and make Ubuntu even better. Now is the time to get involved in terminating those pesky bugs.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-February/000405.html

New Contributing Developer

Nick Ellery (nellery) is now a Contributing Developer. Although Nick was an Ubuntu Members already, it was decided to add him to the "universe-contributors" based on his good work in the MOTU team. Give Nick a warm welcome and congrats next time you speak to him. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~nick.ellery Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NickEllery

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2009-February/027331.html

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

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

Translation Stats Jaunty

Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope," see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/jaunty/

Translation Stats Intrepid

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

Top 5 teams for the past 7 days

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

Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week

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 another idea. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/

Launchpad News

Launchpod Episode #16

In this episode:

ogg vorbis download: http://www.archive.org/download/LaunchpodEpisode16/launchpod-e16-20090202.ogg

podcast feed: http://news.launchpad.net/category/podcast/feed

http://blog.launchpad.net/podcast/launchpoad-16-talking-about-launchpad-221

Launchpad performance weeks

The purpose of Launchpad performance weeks is to improve the loading of Launchpad pages that currently take too much time to load or time out instead of loading. By reducing the soft and hard timeout times each month, the Launchpad team will be able to focus on those pages that need to be improved. What it means to you is that you will see improved performance on the Launchpad site each month.

The first performance week took place last week. The next Launchpad Performance Week will be the week starting April 6th, with another starting June 1st. These dates may move depending on future schedules. Check the Launchpad News blog for corrections to the dates. http://blog.launchpad.net/

http://blog.launchpad.net/launchpad-performance-week/introducing-launchpad-performance-weeks

In The Press

Canonical Survey Shows Ubuntu Server as Mission-Critical Enterprise Platform

Darryl K. Taft of eWeek reports that Canonical and analyst firm RedMonk have released the findings of a survey of thousands of Ubuntu users that show usage patterns for the Ubuntu server product. The survey, completed by nearly 7,000 respondents, shows that Ubuntu is being used in most common workloads, such as Web, file, database and mail server, and is considered "mission-critical" by most respondents. Steve George, director of support and services for Canonical, said the survey indicates not only that users are primarily using Ubuntu for such common workloads, but also that the security, backup and firewall areas are important workloads being run on Ubuntu. Users strongly indicated their intent to add Ubuntu servers to their data centers in the immediate and long term. "Clearly, we have businesses of all sizes using Ubuntu to run what they consider to be mission-critical applications," George said.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Canonical-Survey-Shows-Ubuntu-Server-as-Mission-Critical-Enterprise-Platform/

Survey Shows Ubuntu Not Just for Desktop Anymore

Elizabeth Montalbano of PC World tell us that Ubuntu should not be considered merely the desktop Linux distribution of choice anymore if a new survey conducted by Canonical and open-source analyst firm RedMonk is an indicator. The majority of nearly 7,000 businesses surveyed that are using Ubuntu Linux said they use it for a range of mission-critical workloads that are typically run on servers, such as proxy/caching, routing, mail security, clustering, virtualization, data backup and databases. Stephen O'Grady, analyst with RedMonk, said the range of applications for which companies are using Ubuntu will surprise some people. "The workload distribution is all over the map." He also said that while the survey covered more small businesses than enterprises, the size mix of companies surveyed was broad, and companies in all ranges reported using Ubuntu beyond the desktop. Link to the results: http://www.canonical.com/campaign/serversurvey/survey

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/158948/survey_shows_ubuntu_not_just_for_desktop_anymore.html

Sibyl Systems to Distribute Ubuntu Linux Exclusively

Sibyl Systems, a Central New York based IT solutions provider and subcontracting firm has announced that it will exclusively distribute Ubuntu for all its future linux deployments. Ubuntu was selected in large part because of the company's technical savvy and business acumen. The partnership will provide Canonical Ltd a local point of presence on the sales side, as well as hardware and software installation, service and support.John J Rice, president and lead engineer for Sibyl Systems states: "Canonical is a wonderful partner for us. This is a highly capable company with great integrity. They are dedicated, hardworking and they know their products inside and out. We look forward to exclusively working with them and to help them grow in the Syracuse area and north east US marketplace. Linux is the future of the desktop and server."

http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=165989&Itemid=96

The case for Ubuntu on the server

In this article Leigh Dyer of PC Authority weighs the pros and cons of whether Ubuntu has a future in server deployments. Dyer installed an Intrepid server to play with and is so far quite impressed. The installer is a nicely streamlined version of the Debian text-mode installer, and it lets you enable a number of specific profiles, like ‘Visualization host' or ‘PostgreSQL server', that install extra functionality on top of the base packages. It's definitely still designed for experienced admins., there are no GUI packages on the CD, so regardless of what options you select, you'll be staring at a plain text login screen once your system boots.

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/136027,the-case-for-ubuntu-on-the-server.aspx

In The Blogosphere

Ubuntu Server Linux is for business

Blogger Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols talks to us about a survey that was conducted by Canonical and the research company RedMonk. According to the survey, Ubuntu Server Edition is being used for all the usual infrastructure and edge services you expect from a first class server operating system: Web, database, file, print, back-up and mail serving. He was suprised that larger companies with more than 1,000 employees were using Ubuntu in roles that he usually sees Red Hat and Novell SUSE. He even points out that Ubuntu is now powering Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation recently announced that it was standardizing on Ubuntu across its farm of several hundred servers. According to Vaughan-Nichols Canonical has been working towards making Ubuntu a top server for some time, and that Canonical is quite serious about getting its share of the server market. He believes that with the results of the survey it should serve as a "notice" to all the other server systems out there that Ubuntu server is "here and it's ready to compete." http://blogs.computerworld.com/ubuntu_server_linux_is_for_business

Ubuntu developers visiting Ubuntu Berlin and c-base, plus interview with Mark Shuttleworth

Taking the opportunity brought about by the Jaunty Ubuntu Developer Sprint taking place in Berlin, the Ubuntu Berlin LoCo invited the developers and Mark Shuttleworth to a "night out". Taking place at c-base, a mythical crashed extra-terrestrial vehicle that serves as the home for Ubuntu Berlin as well as a meeting place for other groups, it turned out to be a night to remember. Members of Ubuntu Berlin got to meet the developers in a relaxed atmosphere of smalltalk about space, canoing the c-base project “OpenMoon” (trying to send a rocket to the moon), and more. They also had an opportunity to interview Mark Shuttleworth and get his opinions on why he started Ubuntu, and how it compares to other methods of delivering software. The video interview of Mark is at the link. http://www.screenage.de/blog/2009/02/06/ubuntu-developers-visiting-ubuntu-berlin-and-c-base-with-interview-with-mark-shuttleworth/

HP releases custom Netbook version of Ubuntu Linux

Blogger Andrew Nusca tells us about the HP mini 1000 Mi Edition which has a custom version of Ubuntu Linux installed on it. It's based off of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron, and has most of the normal preloaded software installed, including: OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin and more. It doesn't come preloaded with GIMP though. The GUI is where most of the changes come in. "When you first boot up the custom OS, you are greeted with a screen with a web search engine, a list of favorite web sites and shortcuts to your music and photos." Also included is a custom media player called HP Media Style which the blogger points out that it resembles Apple's FrontRow. Experienced Linux users can still get to the terminal window by hitting Alt+F2 and entering 'gnome-terminal'. He also points out that HP is has plans to post a utility on its website to allow users to create a system restore USB flash disk from Windows. It can already be done in Linux, and it can be used to turn an HP Mini 1000 running Windows XP into a Mi Edition device. http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=1221

HP drops Linux netbooks in UK

Claudine Beaumont of the Telegraph points out that the UK will not have the privilege of using the HP version of Ubuntu on the HP Mini 1000. Hewlett Packard has pulled it from the UK. This was a surprise to many in technology, since the lighter-weight Linux works better on the Atom processor and smaller storage available on such machines. Also, ". . . as many technology websites have pointed out, the biggest-selling netbook in the UK is the Acer Aspire One – which runs a version of the Linux operating system." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/4528830/HP-drops-Linux-netbooks-in-UK.html

In Other News

Full Circle Magazine #21

Featured in this issue:

*Get it while it’s hot! http://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-21/

Ubuntu podcast #19

In this episode:

The podcast are announced on dent and tweet when they are about to stream live. If you want to know when that happens, follow http://twitter.com/ubuntupodcast or http://identi.ca/ubuntupodcast.

http://ubuntupodcast.net/2009/02/05/ubuntu-podcast-episode-19/

Toshiba Netbook with Ubuntu Remix

Toshiba now has a netbook offering the Ubuntu Netbook Remix OS. The Toshiba NB100-11R comes with an Intel® Atom processor N270 (1.6), Linux Ubuntu 8.04, 512 MB DDR RAM (667MHz), and a 8.9" Widescreen TruBrite® VGA (1024 x 600) High Brightness display. Available in Cosmic Black, it come equiped with a lithium-ion battery that sports a max up-time of 3 hours 50 mins.

http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/product/Toshiba-NB100-11R/1058543/toshibaShop/true/

First Ubuntu Event in Monastir Tunisia

Rafik reports on the personal initiative install fest held in Monastir, Tunisia on February 4 at the High Institute of Computer Sciences and Mathematics (ISIMM). The dean of the school assisted them by making an amphitheater available for the event, and a banner was created, saying, "It's time to forget about Windows". Rafik was assisted in this event by Badii Mriga and Sabri Ben Dhaou. Some students were unable to attend due to courses, and some were impatient and installed Ubuntu prior to the event. Regardless, they had fun and look forward to holding a Jaunty Jackalop Release Party and install fest.

http://rafiiik.blogspot.com/2009/02/first-ubuntu-event-in-monastir.html

Meeting Summaries

Server Team

A full report can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam/ReportingPage/2009-01#long

Florida US Team

Georgia US Team

Danish Team

It's been a quiet month with a lot of people having exams and such, so the danish team didn't achieve a great deal, most energy was put in planning future events. A few minor things did happen though. Also worth to note is the increased Nordic collaboration, between the Scandinavian countries, here's the highlights.

New Mexico USA Team

Massachusetts US Team

Belgian Team

Tunisian Team

In the continuation of the ENIS event 8.12, abstract: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TunisianTeam/TeamReporting#ENIS%20Event%208.12, the members of the loco redo a second trip of 3 days to the National Engineering School of Sfax (ENIS). The program of these days is visible at this address: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TunisianTeam/EventENIS9.01. During these days the LoCo members assured general presentations (Ubuntu, FOSS, etc.) and targeted presentations (C programming, visualization, etc.) for public present composed mainly by students and teachers. Also workshops concerning various subjects (daily use of Ubuntu, C programming, visualization, etc.) were assured by the LoCo members.

Half a day was reserved for an Ubuntu 8.10 install party where approximately hundred persons were present. Another half day was reserved for the continuation of the migration project of the ENIS Computing Center. The last two classrooms (30 PC) have been migrated to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. This makes a total of 12 classrooms of 180 PCs that have migrated from windows to Ubuntu. A group of our LoCo has assured the installation and configuration of an authentication server (OpenLDAP) to centralize the management of students accounts and assure that their data and documents will be accessible from all computing center classrooms. The photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/ubuntu.tunisia/ENISEvent901

Cypriot Team

Latest News:

Upcoming Events:

Detailed reports can be obtained at:

  1. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CypriotTeam/TeamReports/200901?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=ubuntu-cy_report.odt

  2. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CypriotTeam/TeamReports/200901?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=ubuntu-cy_report.pdf

Catalan Team

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TeamReports/January2009

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Monday, February 9, 2009

Ubuntu Wanted Meeting

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Technical Board Meeting

Server Team Meeting

Desktop Team Meeting

Kernel Team Meeting

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Foundation Team Meeting

QA Team Meeting

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting

Ubuntu Java Meeting

Friday, February 13, 2009

MC Meeting

Jaunty Weekly Release Meeting

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

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 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:

Glossary of Terms

  1. GUI - Graphicical User Interface
  2. MOTU - Master Of The Universe - Developers responsible for the Universe and Multiverse repositories.
  3. PPA - Personal Project Archive

Ubuntu - Get Involved

The Ubuntu community consists of individuals and teams, working on different aspects of the distribution, giving advice and technical support, and helping to promote Ubuntu to a wider audience. No contribution is too small, and anyone can help. It's your chance to get in on all the community fun associated with developing and promoting Ubuntu. http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate

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.

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License CCL.png Creative Commons License 3.0 BY SA

UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue128 (last edited 2009-02-11 12:37:04 by 91)