Issue136

Contents

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. General Community News
    1. Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 Beta Released
    2. Newly Approved Ubuntu LoCo Teams
    3. Package Training Sessions
    4. Hug Day: April 9th
    5. Ubuntu Brainstorm: Call for Idea Reviewers
    6. New MOTU
    7. The Fourth Horseman
  4. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Jaunty
    3. Translation Stats Intrepid
    4. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week
  5. LoCo News
    1. New Ubuntu Mirror: Colombia
    2. Ubuntu Florida: Jaunty Release Parties!
    3. Ubuntu Pennsylvania: Jaunty Release Party
  6. Launchpad News
    1. Launchpad 2.2.3 Released: multiple PPAs and translation imports from Bazaar
    2. Launchpad: Official Bug Tags
  7. The Planet
    1. Checkbox 0.7.1 Released
    2. Ubuntu Podcast: Qimo Interview/Michael and Michelle Hall
  8. In The Press
    1. Ubuntu Server offers Amazon Cloud Capabilities
    2. Ubuntu Server's Ambitions no longer cloudy
    3. The latest Ubuntu 9.04 Beta comes with improved netbook support
    4. Ubuntu 9.04 Beta vs. Fedora 11 Beta Performance
    5. Moblin V2 vs. Ubuntu Netbook Remix vs. Ubuntu MID
    6. Xubuntu 9.0.4 ScreenShots Beta
    7. Ubuntu server adoption slow but steady in the data center
    8. Shuttleworth: Windows 7 an Opportunity for Linux
  9. In The Blogosphere
    1. Upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 Beta
    2. Managed Service Providers Embrace Ubuntu Server Edition
    3. Best of the Best: Hive Five Winners, January through March 2009
    4. New Ubuntu Linux server is for business
    5. Will Your Next Wireless Router Run Ubuntu?
  10. In Other News
    1. Ubuntu Podcast Episode #24 - Mark Shuttleworth Interview
    2. Ubuntu-UK Podcast: The Return
  11. Meeting Summaries
    1. Ubuntu Server Team Meeting: March 31st
  12. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Sunday, April 5, 2009
    2. Monday, April 6, 2009
    3. Tuesday, April 7, 2009
      1. Technical Board Meeting
      2. Server Team Meeting
      3. Desktop Team Meeting
      4. Kernel Team Meeting
      5. Community Council Meeting
    4. Wednesday, April 8, 2009
      1. Foundation Team Meeting
      2. QA Team Meeting
    5. Thursday, April 9, 2009
      1. Final translation export from LP
      2. KernelFreeze
      3. NonLanguagePackTranslationDeadline
      4. RebuildTest
      5. Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting
      6. Ubuntu Java Meeting
    6. Friday, April 10, 2009
      1. MC Meeting
      2. MOTU Council Meeting
      3. Jaunty Weekly Release Meeting
    7. Saturday, April 11, 2009
  13. 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
    6. Ubuntu 9.04 Updates
  14. Archives and RSS Feed
  15. Additional Ubuntu News
  16. Conclusion
  17. Credits
  18. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  19. Feedback

newspaper-icon3.jpg

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #136 for the week March 29th - April 4th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 Beta released, Newly Approved LoCo Teams, Package Training Sessions, Hug Day: April 9th, Ubuntu Brainstorm: Call for Idea Reviewers, New MOTU, The Fourth Horseman, New Ubuntu Mirror: Colombia, Ubuntu Florida and Pennsylvania Jaunty Release Parties, Launchpad 2.2.3 released, Launchpad: Official Bug Tags, Checkbox 0.7.1 released, Ubuntu Podcast: Qimo, Ubuntu Podcast #24: Mark Shuttleworth Interview, Ubuntu-UK Podcast: The Return, Ubuntu Server Team Minutes: March 31st, 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 Netbook Remix 9.04 Beta released

  • Newly Approved LoCo Teams

  • Package Training Sessions
  • Hug Day: April 9th
  • Ubuntu Brainstorm: Call for Idea Reviewers
  • New MOTU
  • The Fourth Horseman
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • New Ubuntu Mirror: Colombia

  • Ubuntu Release Parties: Florida & Pennsylvania

  • Launchpad 2.2.3 released
  • Launchpad: Official Bug Tags
  • The Planet

  • In the Press & Blogosphere

  • Ubuntu Podcast #24: Mark Shuttleworth Interview
  • Ubuntu-UK Podcast: The Return
  • Ubuntu Server Team Minutes: March 31st

  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

General Community News

Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 Beta Released

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the beta release of Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04. This is the first release of UNR to be fully integrated into the Ubuntu family, fully up to date with the latest applications and hardware support.

Netbook Remix features:

  • Built-for-purpose interface: that means that favourite applications and websites are just a click away, Ubuntu Netbook Remix makes a great choice for netbook users.
  • Faster boot times: improvements to Ubuntu's start-up process mean you can spend less time waiting and more time being productive with your Ubuntu Netbook desktop.
  • Models known to work well:
  • Asus Eee PC 900
  • Asus Eee PC 1000
  • Acer Aspire One
  • Samsung NC10
  • Dell Mini9

Please see http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/jaunty/beta for details.

The Beta can be downloaded from: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/9.04/beta/

Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help turn this Beta into the best release of Ubuntu ever. Please note that, where possible, we prefer that bugs be reported using the tools provided, rather than by visiting Launchpad directly. Please add the tag ubuntu-unr to any bug reports so we can quickly find any bugs specific to Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Instructions can be found at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2009-April/000120.html

Newly Approved Ubuntu LoCo Teams

On Tuesday, March 31st the Ubuntu LoCo Council met to consider team applications. The results are as follows:

The LoCo Council and the Ubuntu Community congratulate these newly approved Ubuntu LoCo Teams.

http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2009/03/31/%23ubuntu-meeting.html

Package Training Sessions

The Ubuntu Developer Community is proud to announce the following new initiative to help YOU find your way into developing Ubuntu.

Starting now, Thursday is Packaging Training day. The team will have regular one-hour sessions in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net. The team will have speakers who present a packaging technique, with time for any packaging related questions you might have. The team will also provide translators for non English speakers in #ubuntu-classroom-[de, es, ...], who will help to translate your questions.

The team will rotate session times to make sure the sessions work for all time zones. They'll follow a 1st Thursday 6:00 UTC, 2nd Thursday 12:00 UTC, 3rd Thursday 18:00 UTC, 4th Thursday 0:00 UTC (5th Thursday 6:00 UTC) pattern. For April, the following sessions are scheduled:

  • 9th April, 12:00 UTC: James Westby, bzr builddeb –in-15-minutes
  • 16th April, 18:00 UTC: Didier Roche, How-to update a package

  • 23rd April, 00:00 UTC: <Tutor>, TBA

  • 30th April, 06:00 UTC: Daniel Holbach, Getting Started with Ubuntu Development

If you want to give a session, request a session, help out as a translator, share your comments, help with the organization, or anything else, please head over to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Packaging/Training and let us know.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-March/000559.html

Hug Day: April 9th

Time to get involved in making Ubuntu even better by participating in Hug Day!

Get involved in helping to squash those pesky bugs!

Ubuntu Brainstorm: Call for Idea Reviewers

After observing the current trends and workload, the QA Team felt that there was a need for more idea reviewers. Therefore, they are looking for Brainstorm users who would be willing to volunteer for doing the reviews.

Who are Idea Reviewers? Brainstorm idea reviewers' group is a part of the Ubuntu Brainstorm Moderator[1] team. They are responsible for performing an initial screening of ideas inside the Idea Sandbox[2] before they are sent to the Popular Ideas[3] section. Idea Reviewers participate in all activities on the team mailing list[4] and at our IRC channel #ubuntu-brainstorm (freenode).

  1. https://launchpad.net/~brainstorm-moderators

  2. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ideas_in_preparation/

  3. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/latest_ideas/

  4. https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/brainstorm-moderators

What can you do as a reviewer? Mainly, you would need to check whether an idea follows the posting guidelines, that it isn't a bug or a packaging request, and that it hasn't been posted before. You would be having a number of moderator tools to help you with the job. You can find more guidelines at the wiki page. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Brainstorm/BrainstormModerators#Approving%20ideas%20in%20the%20Idea%20Sandbox

How can you apply for joining the team? Drop in a mail at our mailing list: brainstorm-moderators [AT] lists.ubuntu.com Make sure you include your Brainstorm user name so that the QA Team can take a quick look at your activity so far. The team would be mainly looking for users who know how brainstorm works, and how things are done (you can always choose to have a mentor who can help you with everything). Once the team is happy, you will be assimilated. "Resistance is futile."

http://blog.qa.ubuntu.com/node/44

New MOTU

Brian has joined the MOTU team. He plans to resume work get more bug fixes sponsored from the BugSquad. We're very happy to have him aboard. Brian works for Canonical as a Quality Assurance Engineer. His areas of responsibility include managing the Ubuntu Bug Squad and Bug Control teams, keeping an eye out for high profile bugs and creating systems for triaging and reporting bugs more effectively. He also helps out doing some Stable Release Update verification. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~brian-murray Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BrianMurray

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-motu/2009-April/005623.html

The Fourth Horseman

Ladies and Gents, I am tickled pink to announce the latest horseman to join my team at Canonical. His name is David Planella and he will be our new Ubuntu Translations Coordinator. He will join Daniel Holbach and Jorge Castro on the team.

David has a strong background in translations and development. He is an Ubuntu Catalan Team administrator and translator, a GNOME translator, Debian translator and had performed translation and coordination of several other projects through Softcatalà, a non-profit volunteer organization for the promotion of the Catalan language in IT, and the other technologies. Oh, and for kicks he is a core developer on the Linux acx100 wireless driver. Rock and roll!

David joins the crew on the 6th April and our friends in the translations community will be seeing David more and more. Folks, give him a warm welcome!

http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/03/30/the-fourth-horseman-steps-forward/

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (50356) +1087 over last week
  • Critical (18) -4 over last week
  • Unconfirmed (21077) +830 over last week
  • Unassigned (42623) +964 over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (266735) +3316 over last week
  • Open (50356) +1087 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 Jaunty

  • Spanish (16756) -7190 over last week
  • French (44296) -6187 over last week
  • Swedish (55274) +457 over last week
  • Brazilian Portuguese (57823) +175 over last week
  • English (Uk) (85492) -1066 over last week
  • Spanish (16756) -7190 over last week

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

Translation Stats Intrepid

  • Spanish (15230) -23 over last week
  • French (59023) -1 over last week
  • Swedish (63241) +/-0 over last week
  • Brazilian Portuguese (63729) +/-0 over last week
  • English (UK) (78012) +/-0 over last week
  • Spanish (15230) -23 over last week

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

Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week

  • Ubuntu is unusable after Windows installation
  • Focus an attention of user on shutdown confirmation dialog
  • Improve the wallpaper part of Ubuntu
  • Synaptic quick search uses OR operator, making it hard to narrow down a search.
  • Prevent accidental closing of multiple tabs in a Nautilus window

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/

LoCo News

New Ubuntu Mirror: Colombia

The Ubuntu Colombian Team in conjunction with The Universidad of Colombia now has added their mirror to the official Ubuntu Mirrors List. You local Colombians can now open your Synaptic Packaging Manager application and choose Repositories and enable the Colombia Mirror. If your team is interested in setting up an official Ubuntu mirror, check: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/mirror Thanks to Sarmacid of the Colombian LoCo Team for translating the announcement from their mailing list.

http://www.fabianrodriguez.com/blog/2009/04/04/new-ubuntu-mirror-in-colombia-now-available/

Ubuntu Florida: Jaunty Release Parties!

The Ubuntu Florida Local Community team is gearing up for a big Jaunty release!

So far we have 5 6 confirmed party locations, with another 2 1 locations that are is very probable. Details are still being worked out, but here is our current schedule. If you're in Florida and would like to host your own local release party outside these areas, please do contact us and we'll help you get started!

  1. Gainesville - April 25, 5:30pm, at Fiber Optics Plus. Food and demos.
  2. Jacksonville/St. Augustine - April 25, 3pm at City Coffee Company. Food, installs, demos.
  3. Melbourne/Rockledge - Installs and demos.
  4. Orlando - Tentative May 9. Social.
  5. Tampa - Tentative May 2.
  6. Tallahassee - May 2, 12pm - 4pm, at the Leroy Collins Public Library. Installs and demos.

Stay tuned for more information on Miami and Jacksonville! Further details can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FloridaTeam/Projects/JauntyReleaseParties

http://www.ubuntu-fl.org/index.php/news/1-ubuntu/138-jaunty-release-parties.html

Ubuntu Pennsylvania: Jaunty Release Party

The Pittsburgh team will be celebrating the Jaunty release with a party at Fox and Hound in Pittsburgh! Thanks to Tim Bosse (who as it turns out, may not be able to attend, but is handling organizing) and Scott Sweeny for pulling things together.

  • Date: Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
  • Location: The Fox and Hound
  • Time: 7:00 PM

Ask at The Fox and Hound where the Ubuntu party is if you can’t find it. Check out the wiki for more details: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PennsylvaniaTeam/EventsTeam/PittsburghJauntyRelease

http://ubuntupennsylvania.org/?p=38

Launchpad News

Launchpad 2.2.3 Released: multiple PPAs and translation imports from Bazaar

The Launchpad team is proud to announce the release of Launchpad 2.2.3!

Here are the highlights of what’s new in this release:

  • Additional Personal Package Archives for yourself and your teams
  • Translation template imports directly from your project’s Bazaar branches

Additional Personal Package Archives: You can now create multiple PPAs both for yourself and your teams. This is ideal if you’re publishing different versions of the same application to different audiences. For example: you may have one archive for alpha versions and another that’s used by your beta testers. Visit your profile page — or that of one of your teams — to add more PPAs. See Julian’s blog post for further details. http://blog.launchpad.net/?p=658

Translation template imports from Bazaar branches: Host your project’s code using Launchpad and Bazaar? Also translate your software using Launchpad? Launchpad can now automatically find and import your translation templates from your project’s Bazaar branches. Once you’ve activated automatic imports, Launchpad will monitor the official branch for each of your series and pull in any new template versions that you commit. Read Henning’s blog post to get the full story. http://blog.launchpad.net/?p=639

There’s more to Launchpad 2.2.3, including:

  • teams can now have +junk branches

  • releases are now directly linked to milestones http://blog.launchpad.net/?p=627

  • project owners and bug supervisors can now set official bug tags
  • uploading packages to Launchpad, whether directly for Ubuntu or to a PPA, now earns you karma!

For full details of the bugs and blueprints that make up Launchpad 2.2.3 visit its milestone page. https://launchpad.net/launchpad-project/+milestone/2.2.3

If you come across a bug, please report it! https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad

http://blog.launchpad.net/releases/launchpad-223-multiple-ppas-and-translation-imports-from-bazaar

Launchpad: Official Bug Tags

In the latest release of the Launchpad bug tracker, the Launchpad Team has introduced a new feature: official bug tags. Tags blessed by the project team as official display using a darker colour on the bug page, and are placed prominently at the top of the tags list on project pages. Users can still add tags that are not endorsed by the project as official, but they are encouraged to use official tags where possible.

Tags are a great way to group bugs together, and their free-form nature allows all users participating in bug tracking to invent new and interesting ways to categorize bugs. Visit the link below to learn more about the Launchpad Teams new way of tagging bugs.

http://blog.launchpad.net/cool-new-stuff/official-bug-tags

The Planet

Checkbox 0.7.1 Released

The QA Team has released version 0.7.1 of their test runner Checkbox[1]. This is a bugfix release to tackle a couple of major bugs that people have been encountering while upgrading to Jaunty or trying to run Checkbox in Jaunty. You can grab the source[2], tarball[3], or use our PPA[4] while we're waiting for it to be uploaded into Jaunty.

  1. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/Automation/Checkbox

  2. https://code.launchpad.net/~checkbox-dev/checkbox/0.7

  3. https://launchpad.net/checkbox/0.7/0.7.1

  4. https://launchpad.net/~checkbox-dev/+archive/ppa

http://blog.qa.ubuntu.com/node/46

Ubuntu Podcast: Qimo Interview/Michael and Michelle Hall

At the Florida Linux Show, the Ubuntu Podcast Team interviewed Michael and Michelle Hall, of Qimo. From their website: Qimo is a desktop operating system designed for kids. Based on the open source Ubuntu Linux desktop, Qimo comes pre-installed with educational games for children aged 3 and up. http://www.qimo4kids.com/ Visit the link below to view the podcast in its entirety.

http://ubuntupodcast.net/2009/03/30/ubuntu-podcast-michael-michelle-hall-qimo/

In The Press

Ubuntu Server offers Amazon Cloud Capabilities

The next iteration of Ubuntu Linux will really help companies lift up into the clouds. The April 30 release of Ubuntu Server will have the ability to migrate KVM-based virtual machines from one physical server to another, similar to VMware's ability to use VMotion to migrate virtual machines, said Steve George, director of the enterprise group at Linux supplier Canonical. In addition, Canonical is adding clustering software that will manage a set of x86 Ubuntu servers as if they were a combined cloud resource. The development team wants Ubuntu Server users to be able to put Ubuntu on a set of x86 servers and then build inside the company an Amazon-compatible cloud.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/linux/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216402773&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_ALL

Ubuntu Server's Ambitions no longer cloudy

A big feature for 9.04 is cloud compatibility, in the form of a) being able to run instances of 9.04 directly on Amazon EC2 clouds and b) being able to provision cloud-computing infrastructures with local servers (Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud). There's a whole raft of other goodies, too, most of them built around making servers that much easier to provision and manage, but the cloud features made Serdar Yegulalp sit up and pay attention. According to Serdar, "I don't know of a single harried administrator who wouldn't want to be able to, say, provision twenty servers without having to manually pull the levers on each one." If Canonical can make this into the draw for Ubuntu Server, they'll be able to carve out that much more of a niche for themselves.

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/04/ubuntu_servers.html

The latest Ubuntu 9.04 Beta comes with improved netbook support

It Runs On Linux reports that the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu has released a beta of it's latest version, 9.04. This Beta is reported to be running fine on several Netbooks. Brad Linder from Liliputing loaded it onto a 1GB USB flash drive using UNetbootin & did test it on his Eee PC 1000HE & noticed "all of the hardware just worked". Even the keyboard shortcuts for adjusting the volume and screen brightness worked fine on his Eee PC 1000HE. Ubuntu Mini reports: "The Beta does not require any extra fixes or patches for the Dell Mini 9. Audio works out of the box and there is no longer a drive mounting problem after a LiveUSB install. Installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix doesn't require adding any extra repositories or adding items to your start-up programs." http://eeepc.itrunsonlinux.com/the-news/290-the-latest-ubuntu-904-beta-comes-with-improved-netbook-support

Ubuntu 9.04 Beta vs. Fedora 11 Beta Performance

Michael Larabel or phoronix tells us that last week marked the release of the Ubuntu 9.04 Beta and this week there is the planned release of the Fedora 11 Beta. Both distributions are similar in the respect they will be upgrading several common packages like GNOME 2.26, but in Fedora 11 there are more upstream (and experimental) bits like kernel mode-setting, the EXT4 file-system by default, and various other features. phoronix set out to run a few performance tests comparing the Ubuntu 9.04 Beta to the latest Rawhide packages that will make up today's Fedora 11 Beta release. Of the 15 tests, the Ubuntu 9.04 Beta won 10 of these Linux tests -- in a few of the tests though, the performance was close. This is a bit surprising considering Fedora 11 Beta uses the newer Linux 2.6.29 kernel and the phoronix internal benchmarks have shown this kernel to perform better overall than its predecessor. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_fedora_q209&num=1

Moblin V2 vs. Ubuntu Netbook Remix vs. Ubuntu MID

Last week Intel pushed out a second alpha release of Moblin V2. Moblin is certainly turning into an interesting Intel creation, but how does its performance compare to other mobile-focused Linux distributions? phoronix benchmarked Moblin V2 Alpha 2, and compared it against what is likely their biggest competitor in the mobile space, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and the LPIA-based Ubuntu MID edition. Which of these mobile operating systems is the fastest? The LPIA-based Ubuntu MID was the fastest in three of the seven tests, while Ubuntu Netbook Remix was the fastest in three of the others. When it came to SQLite where there is the bug phoronix exposed in the 2.6.26 - 2.6.28 kernels, Moblin V2 came out ahead. However, in some of these tests, the results between the three distributions were very close. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=moblin_ubuntu_mobile&num=1

Xubuntu 9.0.4 ScreenShots Beta

For those that enjoy seeing how a new distribution looks, Allen Sanabria of Linux Dynasty has released his second set of screen shorts and this time it is Xubuntu 9.0.4 Beta based on the New Jaunty Jackalope Beta Release of Ubuntu 9.0.4. Allen says, "I absolutely love Xubuntu since it uses the very light and efficient Xfce 4.6. Granted usually I am praising the fancier Ubuntu based distros, but I do love the simpleness and the fast loading of Applications in Xubuntu." http://www.linuxdynasty.org/xubuntu-904-screenshots-beta.html

Ubuntu server adoption slow but steady in the data center

Pam Derringer of SearchDataCenter says that although the Ubuntu desktop has won wide popularity, Ubuntu's fairly sophisticated server OS has yet to establish significant inroads in U.S. data centers. In a recent Ubuntu global user survey, nearly a third of the respondents worked for companies with 10 or fewer employees and only 28% worked in the U.S. And the overwhelming majority are using it for basic functions like Web, print and file, database and backup servers, with only a small minority using it for advanced tasks like virtualization or cluster computing. The most prevalent Ubuntu industry sectors, unsurprisingly, were technology and education. Most of the respondents said they are entrusting mission critical functions to Ubuntu and will be adding more Ubuntu servers in the future. http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid80_gci1352654,00.html

Shuttleworth: Windows 7 an Opportunity for Linux

Sean Michael Kerner of InternetNews.com reports that Microsoft might be betting big on Windows 7, but to Ubuntu Linux founder Mark Shuttleworth, the upcoming release is really an opportunity for Linux to shine. Granted, Linux on the desktop has not made as much of a dent against Windows as it has in the datacenter. But Shuttleworth figures the desktop itself and the applications that people are using are changing in ways that make the coming desktop battle different than it has ever been before. "The principals of diversity in the desktop space are well established," Shuttleworth told InternetNews.com. "The benefits to consumers and industry of having an alternative are very substantial. Any change in the status quo is an opportunity." http://www.internetnews.com/mobility/article.php/3813456/Shuttleworth+Windows+7+Is+an+Opportunity+for+Linux.htm

In The Blogosphere

Upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 Beta

Tom of Tombuntu reports that on March 26 Ubuntu 9.04 Beta was released. He installed it on his main desktop system as soon as it was available, and has been running it for a few days. Tom reports many improvements in the Jaunty beta that he likes such as the Transmission Bittorrent client’s interface has been tweaked in a few places so it’s now easier to select which individual files to download and set their priority. Also, the default version of Compiz now recognizes GIMP’s toolbox windows and keeps them floated above the image window like Metacity. If you’ve tried the beta, how’s it been for you? Any new features in particular you like? http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2009/03/30/upgrading-to-ubuntu-904-beta/

Managed Service Providers Embrace Ubuntu Server Edition

Blogger Joe Panettieri from Works With U gives us the scoop about Ubuntu Server Edition's suprise appearance at the Autotask Community Live conference. He found 2 companies that are building their business on top of Ubuntu Server Edition. These companies are Rezitech and Network Depot. Rezietech has Ubuntu sitting at the foundation of their data center. On top of that, they run virtualized Windows services such as: Kayseya, Active Directory and VoIP. This took Joe Panettieri completely by surprise. Network Depot on the other hand, is using Ubuntu Server Edition for its Network Attached Storage or NAS platform. They will Use Ubuntu in conjunction with Kaseya BUDR services as a centralized, low cost, easy to manage NAS device. The platform will be based upon the Shuttle K45 platform allowing Network Depot to create a 1TB ethernet NAS solution that is anticipated to cost under $350. He finishes off by saying that, "during the Autotask conference we didn't go looking for Ubuntu news. But it definitely found us." http://www.workswithu.com/2009/04/02/managed-service-providers-embrace-ubuntu-server-edition/

Best of the Best: Hive Five Winners, January through March 2009

Blogger Jason Fitzpatrick from lifehacker goes over the Hive Five winners through January and March of 2009. This is based on polls that were on lifehacker.com between January and March this year. Through these polls Ubuntu won twice in the categories of "Best Home Server Software," and "Best Linux Distribution." Jason Fitzpatrick gives a general description of who the winner is and what it does. http://lifehacker.com/5194859/best-of-the-best-hive-five-winners-january-through-march-2009

New Ubuntu Linux server is for business

Blogger Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols from Computerworld discusses the new release of Ubuntu Server Edition, and what that will bring. He first covers the improved virtualization with the new version of Kernel-based Virtual machine or KVM, and it's easier integration with Microsoft Active Directory (AD). This will be made possible with the incorporation of Likewise Open and Samba 3.3 support. With the better virtualization the server will be available to users on Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud). He also lets us know that users can not only join the Amazon cloud, but also create their own EC-2 cloud on their servers. As far as Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols knows, this is the first operating system to support cloud computing out of the box. Ubuntu Server Edition will also include Advanced Message Queuing Protocol or AMQP support. AMQP is an important set of middleware and SOA (service-oriented architecture) protocols. Red Hat is the only other Linux distribution to support it till now. Baughan-Nichols doesn't know if Ubuntu is ready to go head to head with Red Hat this year, but he does say that, "that's exactly what Canonical is planning to do by next year." http://blogs.computerworld.com/new_ubuntu_linux_server_is_for_business

Will Your Next Wireless Router Run Ubuntu?

Blogger Christopher Tozzi from Works With U discusses some of the wireless development in Ubuntu, that hasn't been discussed as much as other topics. Although Ubuntu’s rather conservative approach to the new wireless stack leaves many users still having to install drivers manually in Intrepid, the era is at least on the horizon when wireless networking will work out-of-the-box for everyone. He then moves on to talk about "Master Mode" which is a new feature that has the ability to turn an Ubuntu computer into a wireless router. Right now it requires familiarity with commands like iwconfig and the hostap utility, thus limiting it to experienced Linux Geeks. Christopher Tozzi looks forward to the day when users will be able to take advantage of this functionality with a push of a button in network manager. http://www.workswithu.com/2009/04/02/will-your-next-wireless-router-run-ubuntu/

In Other News

Ubuntu Podcast Episode #24 - Mark Shuttleworth Interview

In this edition of the Ubuntu Podcast, Mark Shuttleworth joined Nick and Josh for a video podcast to discuss the upcoming 9.04 release, Ubuntu history, Linux on the desktop, impacts of cloud computing, Ayatana, the community and Ubuntu, Ubuntu and Canonical, Google Summer of Code, Ubunet, and much more!

Follow the Ubuntu Podcasts at http://twitter.com/ubuntupodcast and http://identi.ca/ubuntupodcast.

Join them for the live stream recording of episode #25 at 8pm EST 2 April (00:00 UTC 3 April)

http://ubuntupodcast.net/2009/04/02/ubuntu-podcast-episode-24-mark-shuttleworth/

Ubuntu-UK Podcast: The Return

Ciemon Dunville, Alan Pope, Tony Whitmore, Dave Walker and Producer Laura Cowen bring you a new episode of the Ubuntu Podcast from the UK Local Community Support Team.

In this the first episode of the second season the Ubuntu UK podcast team returns with a slightly changed format. They’re trying to reduce their workload by recording more ‘live’ and doing less editing and post processing. They're’re hoping this won’t reduce the quality that you’ve come to know and love in their little podcast.

In addition they’ve opened channels of communication by taking comments via twitter and identi.ca whilst they record the show. They think this will improve the immediacy of the show by helping people to get involved. Of course they welcome your feedback on these changes.

In this weeks show:

Comments and suggestions are welcomed to: podcast@ubuntu-uk.org Up to 30 seconds of voicemail can be left at +44 (0) 845 508 1986 Follow our twitter feed http://twitter.com/uupc Follow us on Identi.ca http://identi.ca/uupc Discuss this episode in the Forums: http://uk.ubuntuforums.org/

http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2009/04/01/s02e01-the-return/

Meeting Summaries

Ubuntu Server Team Meeting: March 31st

Minutes of the meeting. They can also be found online with the irc logs here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/Server/20090331

  • Ubuntu Server Guide: sommer reported that he received some feedback on a few sections from the Ubuntu Server Guide. However some sections still need to be reviewed: they’re listed in the wiki page. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JauntyServerGuide Help in reviewing them is welcomed.

  • NUMA support for 64bit -server kernel: cooloney brought up the question of whether NUMA should be enabled on 64bit -server kernel. No objections were raised except that it may be too late for the Jaunty release cycle. This topic should be discussed for the Karmic cycle at the next UDS with the Kernel team.

  • Ubuntu on EC2: zul gave a report on the state of Ubuntu on EC2. The next beta image based on Intrepid is being worked on. Next in the pipeline is an image based on Hardy and the 2.6.24 kernel. An image based on Jaunty and the 2.6.28 kernel is also being planned. Each new release will be announced on the ec2-beta mailing list. https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ec2-beta

  • Bugs from Jaunty Beta: mathiaz reminded that with the release of Jaunty Beta last Thursday the number of new bugs filed had raised. Any help in triaging them is welcomed. The list of new bugs related to the Ubuntu Server team is a good place to start any triaging effort. http://ubuntuservernewbugs.notlong.com/

  • Bacula testing: ivoks asked for more testing and bug triaging on the bacula package. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bacula/

  • RHCS support: ivoks raised the question of whether Red Hat Cluster Suite should be kept in main in Karmic. Fabio M. Di Nitto, the current maintainer, mentioned he had less and less time to maintain the package and was looking for some help. mathiaz suggested to discuss this topic at the next UDS. Meanwhile ivoks will make sure rhcs is in good shape for Jaunty.
  • Agree on next meeting date and time: Next meeting will be on Tuesday, April 7th at 15:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting.

http://ubuntuserver.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/server-team-20090331-meeting-minutes/

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Sunday, April 5, 2009

  • None listed as of publication

Monday, April 6, 2009

  • None listed as of publication

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Technical Board Meeting

  • Start: 14:00 UTC
  • End: 15:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting

Server Team Meeting

Desktop Team Meeting

Kernel Team Meeting

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

Community Council Meeting

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

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

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Final translation export from LP

KernelFreeze

NonLanguagePackTranslationDeadline

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NonLanguagePackTranslationDeadline

RebuildTest

Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting

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

Ubuntu Java Meeting

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

Friday, April 10, 2009

MC Meeting

  • Start: 06:00 UTC
  • End: 07:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting

MOTU Council Meeting

  • Start: 06:00 UTC
  • End: 07:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting

Jaunty Weekly Release Meeting

Saturday, April 11, 2009

  • None listed as of publication

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

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

Ubuntu 7.10 Updates

  • None Reported

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

Ubuntu 8.10 Updates

Ubuntu 9.04 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:

  • John Crawford
  • Craig A. Eddy
  • Dave Bush
  • Jeff Martin
  • Liraz Siri

  • Kenny McHenry

  • And many others

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 Creative Commons License 3.0 BY SA

UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue136 (last edited 2009-04-05 23:25:30 by ip-118-90-131-251)