Issue138

Contents

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. General Community News
    1. Announcing Ubuntu 9.04 Release Candidate
    2. Announcing Ubuntu 9.04 Release Candidate for ARM
    3. Packaging Training Session Update
    4. Announcing Ubuntu Open Week
    5. New Ubuntu Members
  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. Japanese Team: 9.04 Release Party in Tokyo
    2. Philippine Ubuntu Team Jaunty Release Party
  6. Launchpad News
    1. Launchpod #18: What's new in 2.2.3 and more
    2. Karma: Where did mine go?
  7. Ubuntu Forums News
    1. Ubuntu Forums Interview: Codename
  8. The Planet
    1. Jorge Castro: Support your LoCo economy...
    2. Sayak Banerjee: KDE Brainstorm - 30 days, 700 ideas!
  9. In The Press
    1. Shuttleworth: Oracle a Litmus test for Linux, Ubuntu
    2. Ubuntu 9.04 release candidate arrives
    3. The five best, new things in Ubuntu Linux 9.04
    4. Death of Linux on netbooks greatly exaggerated
    5. Ubuntu circus set to start again
    6. Why Dell Should Stay On Top of Ubuntu Releases
    7. Ubuntu 9.04 due April 23, includes native ARM port
  10. In The Blogosphere
    1. Ordering Ubuntu on a Dell Laptop
    2. Ubuntu 9.04 boots in 17.5 seconds!
    3. Notification Disappointment in Ubuntu Jaunty
    4. Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition: What to Expect
    5. Memo to Canonical: Follow Red Hat’s Partner Lead
    6. ZaReason Readies Ubuntu 9.04 PCs, Servers
  11. In Other News
    1. Ubuntu-UK podcast: The Waking Ally
    2. System76: Ubuntu PC Maker’s Revenue Up 61 Percent
    3. Open-source server distro builds on Ubuntu
  12. Meeting Summaries
    1. Server Team Meeting Minutes: April 14th
  13. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Sunday, April 20, 2009
      1. Arizona LoCo Team Meeting
    2. Monday, April 21, 2009
    3. Tuesday, April 22, 2009
      1. Community Council Meeting
      2. Technical Board Meeting
      3. Server Team Meeting
      4. Desktop Team Meeting
      5. Kernel Team Meeting
      6. Ubuntu Forums Beginners Team
    4. Wednesday, April 22, 2009
      1. USTeams Meeting
      2. Foundation Team Meeting
      3. QA Team Meeting
    5. Thursday, April 23, 2009
      1. Ubuntu 9.04
      2. Packging Training: Package Testing: piuparts and VMs
      3. Ubuntu Java Meeting
      4. MOTU Council Meeting
    6. Friday, April 24th, 2009
    7. Saturday, April 25, 2009
  14. Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.10, 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04
    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
  15. Archives and RSS Feed
  16. Additional Ubuntu News
  17. Conclusion
  18. Credits
  19. Glossary of Terms
  20. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  21. Feedback

newspaper-icon3.jpg

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #138 for the week April 12th - April 18th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Announcing Ubuntu 9.04 RC, Announcing Ubuntu 9.04 RC for ARM, Packaging Training Session Update, Announcing Ubuntu Open Week, New Ubuntu Members, Japanese Team release party, Philippine Ubuntu Release Party, Launchpod #18, Karma: Where did mine go, Ubuntu Forums Interview: Codename, Jorge Castro: Support your LoCo economy, Sayak Banerjee: KDE Brainstorm - 30 Days, 700 ideas, Ubuntu-UK podcast: The Waking Ally, Systerm76: Ubuntu PC Maker's revenue up 61 Percent, Open-source server distro that builds on Ubuntu, Server Meeting Minutes: April 14th, 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

  • Announcing Ubuntu 9.04 RC
  • Announcing Ubuntu 9.04 RC for ARM
  • Packaging Training Session Update
  • Announcing Ubuntu Open Week
  • New Ubuntu Members
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Japanese Team release party
  • Philippine Team release party
  • Launchpod #18: What's new in 2.2.3
  • Karma: Where did mine go?
  • Ubuntu Forums Interview: Codename

  • Jorge Castro: Support your LoCo economy...

  • Sayak Banerjee: KDE Brainstorm - 30 days, 700 ideas!

  • In the Press & Blogosphere

  • Ubuntu-UK podcast: The Waking Ally
  • System 76: Ubuntu PC Maker's Revenue up 61 percent
  • Open-source server distro builds on Ubuntu
  • Serve Team Meeting Minutes: April 14th

  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

General Community News

Announcing Ubuntu 9.04 Release Candidate

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the Release Candidate for Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop, Server editions and Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Versions are also available for Kubuntu and Xubuntu. 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 or Kubuntu 8.10 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

More information is available at the link.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2009-April/000121.html

Announcing Ubuntu 9.04 Release Candidate for ARM

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the Release Candidate for Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop edition for the ARM architecture. This first, community-supported ARM release of Ubuntu, targets the i.MX51 Babbage development board and is suitable for use by developers wishing to bring the same high-quality Ubuntu desktop to an even wider range of energy-efficient systems. Images for the NSLU2 "slug" (ixp4xx) are also provided.

Due to the particulars of the systems in question, the installation process is more complex and differs in several important ways from that of a standard Ubuntu desktop system. Further instructions on installing Ubuntu on Babbage boards can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BabbageJauntyRCInstall

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-April/000562.html

Packaging Training Session Update

There was another great Packaging Training Session this week about How-to update a package. Didier Roche did a terrific job of explaining the process of updating a package using a watch file. With the release of Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope, just around the corner, we will soon be faced with the task of updating many of the packages in the Ubuntu repositories to the latest version available upstream. If you are interested in helping out with this task, then you should read through the logs from Didier’s session.

The next Packaging Training Session will be about Package testing: piuparts and VMs, and it will be led by Daniel T Chen. It is scheduled for: 23rd April, 00:00 UTC, and it will take place in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net.

http://ubuntupackaging.wordpress.com/2009/04/17/packaging-training-session-update/

Announcing Ubuntu Open Week

Ubuntu Open Week[1] will be held the week after Ubuntu 9.04’s release, from 27 April to 1 May on #ubuntu-classroom on Freenode. The sessions take place from 1500UTC to 2100UTC (With a special session on Monday night after-hours). There will be the always popular “sabdfl Q+A” session (Thu 30 Apr @ 15.00UTC), in which you have two hours to ask Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, all your must know questions. Jono and Jorge will also be providing an Introduction and Community Q+A session (Mon 27 Apr @ 15.00UTC) in which you can ask your questions about the community, Ubuntu, Canonical. or anything else.

  1. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek

http://castrojo.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/announcing-ubuntu-open-week-2/

New Ubuntu Members

The approval results from last Americas Membership meeting are as follows:

  • Craig Huffstetler: Craig is active on Launchpad Answers, has helped with the US Teams project revitalization and is currently the head of the US South Carolina LoCo team, which they're working to get Approved this year. Current projects US-SC is working on include work with a local college to get a computer lab converted to Ubuntu. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~xq Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CraigHuffstetler

  • Michael Terry: Michael is a Canonical employee working on OEM customization projects (like Dell Mini), with a focus on install experience (ubiquity, oem-config), and GNOME. He's also been working on PPAs for backported/bleeding-edge duplicity and deja-dup packages. Moving forward he also intends to get involved with MOTU. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~mterry Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/mterry

  • Tim Sharitt: Tim is an active contributor on ubuntuforums.org, including being recently approved for the Unanswered Posts team, and in the past 6 months has begun getting involved with bug work. He is also a member of the Ubuntu Forums Beginners Team and is working on their Education Focus Group and is planning on helping with the development of Moodle courses for folks new to Ubuntu. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~tsharitt Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/tsharitt

  • Dan Trevino: Dan has been an Ubuntu user since Warty and has been a major contributor to the US Florida LoCo team since 2007. He's been involved with organizing and has attended and participated in many LoCo events, has worked with Canonical on the Ubuntu Certified Professional training and Ubuntu Server training courses and is a Mentor on the US Teams project. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~dantrevino Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DanTrevino

  • Alex Launi: Alex has been an active member of the US Pennsylvania LoCo team since 2007 and is a developer for GNOME Do. Within the core Ubuntu community his contributions have been primarily to the LoCo as one of the mailing list admins and a launchpad admin, as well as contributing to development of the website and attending and participating in many events. He is also active on the forums giving support and does bug reporting and was recently involved with some testing with the Intel video drivers in Jaunty. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~alexlauni Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AlexLauni

  • David Siegel: David is the founder of the GNOME Do project, having gone from a part time user just a few years ago to fully-engaged use and development a year and a half ago with the founding of this project. He is currently working for Canonical in their User Experience team where he plans to work further with the community to improve the user experience through projects like GNOME Do and Ayatana. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~djsiegel Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DJSiegel

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-April/000513.html

The Asia Oceania Membership Board approved two new members after the meeting held on April 14th.

The next meeting of the Asia Oceanic Membership Board will take place on 28 Apr 2009, 10.00 UTC.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-April/000515.html

The Americas and Asia Oceanic Boards are very happy to welcome these great new members to the project!

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (52039) +777 over last week
  • Critical (16) +/-0 over last week
  • Unconfirmed (22709) +748 over last week
  • Unassigned (44314) +807 over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (272359) +2605 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 (15443) -363 over last week
  • French (43067) -322 over last week
  • Swedish (54421) -110 over last week
  • Brazilian Portuguese (55974) -964 over last week
  • English (Uk) (59034) +27 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) +/-0 over last week
  • French (59023) +/-0 over last week
  • Swedish (63241) +/-0 over last week
  • Brazilian Portuguese (63630) -1 over last week
  • English (UK) (78012) +/-0 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 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

Japanese Team: 9.04 Release Party in Tokyo

In celebration of Ubuntu 9.04, the team is planning an install party, and a number of seminar sessions. During the install party, beginners will be assisted by more experienced users.

Details of the event are as follows:

Further details can be found at https://wiki.ubuntulinux.jp/Offline200904

All are welcome to attend.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-April/000514.html

Philippine Ubuntu Team Jaunty Release Party

Announcing the Philippine Teams Jaunty Release Party. It will be held on April 25, 2009 at 6:00PM/1800H. They will be meeting at Strata 2000 F. Ortigas Jr. (Emerald) Ave., Ortigas Center, Pasig - 3 buildings away from Orient Square and walking distance from Megamall. This will be an informal event, a chance to meet the person behind the nick/username and discuss/plan activities for the coming months. If you're in the Philippines, and have plans of joining us, please add your name to the list here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PhilippineTeam/ReleaseParty

http://blog.knightlust.com/?p=118

Launchpad News

Launchpod #18: What's new in 2.2.3 and more

Launchpod: the Launchpad team podcast!

Hosts: Matthew Revell and Graham Binns. Theme: Obscurity by Barry Warsaw.

  • Launchpad 2.2.3 — official bug tags, new bug activity log and multiple PPAs per person/team.
  • Henning Eggers talks about Launchpad Translations’ new feature that automatically imports translation template files from your project series’ default Bazaar branches.
  • Launchpad Performance Week the sequel! A quick look at some of what the Launchpad team have been working on in our second Launchpad Performance Week.

Download ogg vorbis file here: https://help.launchpad.net/Podcast?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=launchpod-e18-20090414.ogg

Get the podcast feed here: http://news.launchpad.net/category/podcast/feed

http://blog.launchpad.net/podcast/launchpod-18-whats-new-in-223-and-more

Karma: Where did mine go?

If you imported translation files — PO and POT files — into Launchpad from an Ubuntu package, or a Bazaar branch, then you got vastly more karma than if you simply translated directly through Launchpad’s web interface or uploaded PO files as ‘user uploads’. Of course, that was unfair so Launchpad decided to adjust the inflated karma that they had awarded. The way Launchpad calculates karma is pretty complex, so the manual reduction they made to karma awarded for those translation imports has also affected karma given for other types of work — such as bugs, code, or blueprints — even for people who never did anything in Translations.

So, what does this mean? After Launchpad fixed bug #286359 to send import notifications to Ubuntu packagers, they also started giving out translation import karma for them. A large amount of karma was given out compared to other items in Translations, and that caused the total pool of Translations karma to grow, so X started growing for all applications. People noticed that their Translations karma was getting bigger and bigger. Suddenly (or not that suddenly, the scaling factor increased over time), people had about 2–3 times more karma then they were supposed to.

Finally, 6 weeks after Launchpad introduced the problem, they’ve normalized translations karma so uploaders do not have an unfair advantage over actual translators. However that meant that the total pool of Translations karma went down, and with it, X went down and everybody’s karma across the system went down, regardless of the application. The ratio however stayed the same. If you had more karma points than John Doe a week ago, you still have more than him today. So, what actually happened is: karma that was never meant to exist disappeared.

http://blog.launchpad.net/general/karma-where-did-mine-go

Ubuntu Forums News

Ubuntu Forums Interview: Codename

Please meet codename, a future network administrator. He's been around computers since he was a kid, and is involved on ubuntuforums, always helpful and nice, just one of the people making UF a better place. He enjoys helping people, after being helped himself with his own issues when he moved to Ubuntu. Another great interview from a great personality!

http://matthewhelmke.net/2009/04/15/an-interview-with-codename/

The Planet

Jorge Castro: Support your LoCo economy...

Some things just don’t scale. Like say … #ubuntu. It can be frustrating for people who are looking for help during release as everyone floods this channel, everyone is overworked, there are more people that need help that can provide help, it’s a huge channel so you get a bunch of the bad things that come along with that. Jorge would prefer the more personal approach, like the tighter knit communities of our Local Teams. Release time always has a bunch of buzz, and always an opportunity to reach out to new users, even if it’s the person who tried Ubuntu once in a while and then goes away.

Jorge thinks we should look at using release time as a way for Local Teams to reach out to new users. Instead of piles upon piles of people in #ubuntu maybe we should encourage people to split off into more manageable groups by have people stop by their IRC LoCo booth instead. Maybe we as Local Teams should also strive to take more responsibility for our local users and reach out to them actively to get involved in our channels?

http://castrojo.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/support-your-locol-economy/

Sayak Banerjee: KDE Brainstorm - 30 days, 700 ideas!

KDE Brainstorm has been up and running for almost a month, and has already reaching its 700th idea (excluding invalid submissions). KDE Brainstorm is aimed towards narrowing developer work at bko(KDE Bug Tracking System) and making an organized collection of popular ideas that are easily accessible. It now has it’s own dedicated subdomain at brainstorm.forum.kde.org. The brainstorm also has a group of subforums, “Invalid”, “Duplicate”, etc. containing the idea submissions belonging to that particular category.

http://blog.sayakbanerjee.com/?p=247

In The Press

Shuttleworth: Oracle a Litmus test for Linux, Ubuntu

Sean Michael Kerner of InternerNews.com notes that when Ubuntu Linux 9.04 is released for both the server and the desktop on April 23rd it will be lacking at least one key item - Oracle certification. Kerner asked Mark Shuttleworth founder of Ubuntu about the lack of Oracle certification for 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope and he didn't seem too concerned, though he did admit Oracle holds a special place in the application landscape. "Oracle is a litmus test for enterprise readiness. So, Oracle certification is far more important to us as a public testament to the reliability and ruggedness of Ubuntu than it is in terms of sheer volume." Shuttleworth added that he expects that Oracle will eventually certify on Ubuntu, in his view it's just a matter of time as Ubuntu gains momentum. http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2009/04/shuttleworth-oracle-a-litmus-t.html

Ubuntu 9.04 release candidate arrives

ARS Technica's Ryan Paul notes a new version of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution is scheduled for release next week. A release candidate was made available for download on Thursday to facilitate a final round of testing before the official launch. The new version—9.04, codenamed Jaunty Jackalope—includes some useful improvements and delivers higher reliability than the last few Ubuntu releases. ARS Technica looked at the beta release last month, and the changes since then have mostly been subtle refinements that improve the user experience. Several of the bugs that Paul identified in his beta review, such as the lack of dual-head support in the notification system, have been fixed. The server edition, netbook remix, KDE-based Kubuntu (which will ship with KDE 4.2), and several other variants are also in the release candidate stage. The server edition gained support for Eucalyptus—a cloud computing framework. http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/04/ubuntu-904-release-candidate-arrives.ars

The five best, new things in Ubuntu Linux 9.04

Computerworld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols says he's been using Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope, for the last few weeks, and he recently upgraded to the release candidate. He says he's impressed, and he thinks that you will be too when you download it yourself. X.Org server 1.6 gives you peppier video performance, while GNOME 2.26 gives you a really nice, integrated desktop. Evolution has been upgraded to version 2.26.1, and is now a complete and total Linux replacement for Outlook. Boot times are significantly faster. Ext4 file system support also improved system speed, which is helped further by the Linux kernel 2.6.28-11.37. Overall, Vaughan-Nichols says he's sold on this new Ubuntu. Good solid features and better performance makes for a winning package. http://blogs.computerworld.com/the_five_best_new_things_in_ubuntu_linux_9_04

Death of Linux on netbooks greatly exaggerated

Ryan Paul of ARS Technica reports that netbooks are growing in popularity because they are attracting budget minded consumers who are looking for better value and mobility. This trend offers a unique chance for the open source Linux platform, which is well-suited for netbooks and doesn't add any licensing costs. The folks at Microsoft, however, contend that they have already won the netbook OS war. In a triumphant blog entry posted earlier this month, Microsoft blogger Brandon LeBlanc asserted that Redmond has dominated the netbook space. Microsoft's message doesn't entirely reflect reality though. Chris Kenyon, Canonical's OEM services head, took issue with points made by LeBlanc when he wrote a response in the official Canonical blog. He says that LeBlanc's characterization of Linux as unpopular on netbooks is an "oversimplification" and he criticizes Microsoft for erroneously contending that Canonical has confirmed MSI's return rate statistics. "Continually repeating that we 'confirmed' a 4x return over XP when we did nothing of the sort is really not worthy of a great company like Microsoft. If we are going to compete, let's do it on real facts and actual statements." http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/04/death-of-linux-on-netbooks-greatly-exaggerated.ars

Ubuntu circus set to start again

ITWire's Sam Varghese says that on April 23rd the Ubuntu circus will start all over again. Canonical releases of version 9.04 that day, and lots of bandwidth will be consumed as people upgrade or download the distribution for the first time. Are the new features in Ubuntu 9.04 enough to justify a release though? Varghese is pretty sure that few will agree with him on this, but when he sees releases like this he tends to think that there is something dishonest about them. Why create a whole new release if there is nothing worth releasing? Why not wait for something major before releasing? The retention factor should be due to usability and productivity. When Mark Shuttleworth set out on this grand adventure, Varghese has no doubt that he visualized the day when Ubuntu would be the leading Linux distribution and one that was able to pay its own bills. This rat race to release every six months will, in Varghese's humble opinion, prove the undoing of what was once a noble endeavour. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/24486/1231/1/1/

Why Dell Should Stay On Top of Ubuntu Releases

Linux Loop comments on an article on Phoronix in which author Michael Larabel argued that Dell should start shipping a newer version of Ubuntu than the 8.04 LTS edition they are shipping now. Larabel justified this on the basis of performance, which has apparently improved dramatically, but there is another reason to stay up to date. As with any operating system, the critical piece is the user experience. In Ubuntu 8.10 tabbed browsing was introduced in Nautilus, a new user-switch applet was added, and a much-improved Network Manager were introduced. Then, in the upcoming Ubuntu 9.04, improved multi-screen support, the ability to import Outlook files easily in to Evolution, improved hibernate and suspend, and faster boot times were introduced. These features may seem trivial, but each adds a little bit to the user experience and is, thus, a worthy update. By sticking with Ubuntu 8.04, Dell is passing up these improvements that have been made and giving their customers a slightly worse experience. http://www.linuxloop.com/news/2009/04/16/why-dell-should-stay-on-top-of-ubuntu-releases/ and http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_netbook_performance&num=11

Ubuntu 9.04 due April 23, includes native ARM port

Rick Hodgin of geek.com says that while the April 23rd release of Ubuntu 9.04 may be desirable for its feature set alone, it will also spice things up with an additional ISA added to the mix. In addition to the previously supported i386 and AMD64 ISAs, Ubuntu 9.04 will now natively include an ARM installation for ARM-based MIDs and low-end netbooks operating on the ARMv5EL and ARMv6EL-VFP architectures. Why ARM? There is currently a battle taking place at the low-end, and that battle is in performance and battery life, with a heavy bent on battery life. With ARM, the technology is so pervasive that it has seen a tremendous amount of optimization. ARM-based products often provide commensurate levels of performance, when compared to VIA C7M or Nano CPUs, or Intel’s Atom, and often times with greater battery life. If you’ve ever considered giving an alternate OS a try, even on your ARM-based MID or netbook, now may be the time. http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/ubuntu-904-due-april-23-include-native-arm-port-20090414/

In The Blogosphere

Ordering Ubuntu on a Dell Laptop

A blogger from Red Gecko tells us about his experience with his new Dell XPS 1530 with Ubuntu pre-installed. When the blogger first started it up after receiving it in the mail, he was unable to get wireless to work. After plugging in a cat5 cable and running the updates he still had no luck. After going through several Dell support sites trying to get it to work he called up Dell support. After he told them his problem they told him to call up Canonical for help. When he called them, he was told to call up Dell's Linux support line. He spent several hours checking the same things over and over, before he was told to reinstall with the disk that was provided. After he did that, the wireless worked but he still didn't have the fingerprint reader or the webcam working. In conclusion this blogger recommends to companies like Dell, to make their computers work right away with different operating systems. http://red-gecko.blogspot.com/2009/04/ordering-ubuntu-on-dell-laptop.html

Ubuntu 9.04 boots in 17.5 seconds!

Blogger Matt Cutts tests out the boot speed of Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope. He got an Intel X25-E Extreme solid-state drive (SSD) and wanted to test it out. He was very impressed with the boot time that he had. From pressing the power button to having firefox loaded was 22.5 seconds. That's with 5 seconds for the BIOS display. He achieved this by changing the GRUB timeout from 3 seconds to 0, setup to automatically log himself in, and set firefox as a startup program. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ubuntu-904-boots-in-175-seconds/

Notification Disappointment in Ubuntu Jaunty

Blogger Glyph tells us of his frustrations with the new notification function that is included with Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope. Glyph is writing applications which he is trying to make cross-platform compatible. with the original notification-daemon, most of the functionality that he wanted was able to be implemented in one way or another. With the new Notify-OSD that is being used in Jaunty he noticed that most of this functionality was no longer available. He goes over specifics in his blog on what is missing, and the frustrations that he has had finding documentation on Notify-OSD. At the end he gives some recommendations to help lessen the blow of some of these issues that he has run into. He would like to see that instead of completely getting rid of something like notify-daemon, to upgrade it or at least leave it in till Notify-OSD has had some more polish. Glyph also continues with letting us know that Notify-OSD has it's good parts, and has much potential. http://glyph.twistedmatrix.com/2009/04/notification-disappointment-in-ubuntu.html

Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition: What to Expect

WorksWithU's Christopher Tozzi tells us that the next version of Ubuntu, ‘Jaunty Jackalope’, offers several new features in the server edition. Jaunty server edition’s most noticeable new feature is support for cloud computing via Eucalyptus, which makes it easy to deploy private clouds on Ubuntu servers. Jaunty server edition also includes the dovecot-postfix package for easy installation of mail servers. Ubuntu server 9.04 also ships with Linux kernel 2.6.28 which includes innovations such as support for the ext4 file system, memory-management improvements, and updates to the rapidly maturing KVM virtualization hypervisor, making virtualization via free, integrated tools on Linux more efficient and reliable. Those who opt to put Jaunty into production on their servers will benefit from incremental improvements and new features that, although not yet completely stable, offer cutting-edge functionality. http://www.workswithu.com/2009/04/13/ubuntu-904-server-edition-what-to-expect/

Memo to Canonical: Follow Red Hat’s Partner Lead

Joe Panettieri of WorksWithU notes that a landmark event occurred recently when the Open Source Channel Alliance launched. Although far from perfect, the alliance shows that Linux and open source applications are gaining momentum with mid-market resellers and solutions providers. Working together, alliance members will promote open source solutions to roughly 15,000 Synnex resellers. Those resellers, in turn, target mid-size business customers across North America. The problem: Red Hat is a driving force in the alliance, and Canonical isn’t involved. It’s a compelling strategy, and in Panettieri's opinion Canonical needs something similar. http://www.workswithu.com/2009/04/14/memo-to-canonical-follow-red-hats-partner-lead/

ZaReason Readies Ubuntu 9.04 PCs, Servers

Joe Panettieri of WorksWithU reports that after a business trip to China the ZaReason team is back in the US preparing to offer Ubuntu 9.04 on PCs and laptops the day Canonical’s latest Linux distribution launches. But that’s not all: ZaReason is preparing to expand its Ubuntu server lineup. ZaReason launched its first rack-mount Ubuntu servers in March, and ZaReason CTO Earl Malmrose says ZaReason will be growing that product line throughout 2009. Malmrose also noted that customers are using ZaReason’s UntangleBox as a server. http://www.workswithu.com/2009/04/18/zareason-readies-ubuntu-904-pcs-servers/

In Other News

Ubuntu-UK podcast: The Waking Ally

Ciemon Dunville, Alan Pope, Tony Whitmore and Producer Laura Cowen present episode two of season two of the Ubuntu Podcast from the UK Local Community Support Team.

In this episode:

  • A short discussion about some obsessive-compulsive behaviours the team (and our listeners) seem to have
  • An interview with Robbie Ferguson from Category5 Technology TV about his show, and how he helps the Ubuntu community
  • A new segment - ‘Ubuntu Ecosphere’ where we highlight what’s going on in the Ubuntu world. This includes blog posts, mailing list entries, forum posts and so on. If there’s a discussion somewhere you think we should highlight, let us know, contact details below
    • New Ubuntu Tweak Release
    • Ubunchu - Ubuntu Manga now in English

    • LoCo Support Tool

    • Ubuntu Install Guide for Karmic (9.10)
    • Free tools only discussion
    • Jorge finds Jackalopes Fast!
    • Rhythmbox Dying?
  • The News
  • We remind you of some upcoming events and a new one:-
    • April 23rd - Worldwide, Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope releases. Join #ubuntu-release-party on the day to celebrate online.
    • April 23rd - London, Southern England Jaunty Release Party
    • April 24th - Manchester, North-West England Jaunty Release Party
    • 25th April 2009 - Welsh Ubuntu Jaunty Release Party - Starbucks, Cardiff CF10 2BJ until 7pm - after 7pm The Central Bar Cardiff CF10 3BW
    • June 13th - Clemson, South Carolina, South East Linux Fest
  • An interview with the motivational Emma Jane Hogbin, Drupal and documentation expert
  • We announce the winner of last week’s competition to win some Ubuntu goodies.
  • And finally we cover your emails, tweets and dents since our last show

Comments and suggestions are welcomed to: podcast@ubuntu-uk.org

http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2009/04/15/s02e02-the-waking-ally/

System76: Ubuntu PC Maker’s Revenue Up 61 Percent

Even before Ubuntu 9.04 arrives April 23, System76 has reason to celebrate. The PC maker — which specializes in Ubuntu systems — grew its first quarter 2009 revenue more than 60 percent compared to 1Q 2008, according to System76 President Carl Richell. But Richell isn’t resting on his laurels. He’s making sure System76 is ready to catch the Ubuntu 9.04 wave — from servers to netbooks. While most major PC makers don’t yet pre-load Ubuntu on servers, Richell sees significant ongoing opportunity for System76 in the Ubuntu server sector. Any other surprises on the way from System76? You bet. Richell says the company is developing its own System76 Netbook with Ubuntu Netbook Remix Edition.

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/04/15/system76-ubuntu-pc-makers-revenue-up-61-percent/

Open-source server distro builds on Ubuntu

Zaragoza, Spain-based eBox Technologies announced the availability of version 1.0 of its Ubuntu Linux-based eBox server distribution.The open source eBox 1.0 features LDAP, DHCP, NTP, DNS, and email servers, among other features, and provides a new development framework for building add-on modules. Most of eBox's code works to manage the internal communication among otherwise-independent network services. As a result, administrators can more easily manage IT infrastructure as a single unit. For example, the object-based network management system is said to enable high-level management of IP addresses, easing the administration of the firewalls and other tools.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3601094260.html

Meeting Summaries

Server Team Meeting Minutes: April 14th

Here are the minutes of the meeting. They can also be found online with the irc logs here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/Server/20090414

  • Release critical bugs: mathiaz mentioned two bugs he ran into during his testing. Launchpad bug 360832 (unable to boot from the second disk of a RAID1 array - error 21) and bug 360825 (kvm 0.84 doesn’t create three drives in the guest). There was some discussion with kirkland about reproducing them so that their importance for jaunty can be set. ScottK highlighted bug 360689 (Default Ubuntu configuration is backscatter source in Jaunty). He asked ivoks for a quick review and may fix the problem between RC and release.
  • ISO testing: mathiaz reminded that 9.04 RC is scheduled for Thursday. ubuntu-server isos are currently being rolled out. Testing coordination happens on the Iso testing tracker. There are 15 test cases for each iso and each testcase has a detailed description of what needs to be done. Any help in this area is welcome.
  • Ideas for Karmic: mathiaz announced that while the last push for Jaunty is done ideas for the next release cycle can already be gathered. The Server team Idea pool wiki page is the place to add new ideas.
  • Clamav in Jaunty: ScottK mentioned that the latest version of clamav had been uploaded to Jaunty. Packages for the backports repository have also been prepared.
  • Agree on next meeting date and time: Next meeting will be on Tuesday, April 21st at 15:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting.

http://ubuntuserver.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/server-team-20090414-meeting-minutes/

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Sunday, April 20, 2009

Arizona LoCo Team Meeting

  • Start: 04:00 UTC
  • End: 04:30 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-us-az
  • Agenda: None at time of publication

Monday, April 21, 2009

  • No events as of the time of publication

Tuesday, April 22, 2009

Community Council Meeting

Technical Board Meeting

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

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

Ubuntu Forums Beginners Team

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

USTeams Meeting

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 23, 2009

Ubuntu 9.04

* https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FinalRelease

Packging Training: Package Testing: piuparts and VMs

Ubuntu Java Meeting

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

MOTU Council Meeting

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

Friday, April 24th, 2009

  • No events as of the time of publication

Saturday, April 25, 2009

  • No events as of the time of publication

Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.10, 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

Ubuntu 7.10 Updates

  • None Reported

This is the last time that Ubuntu 7.10 will be mentioned in this section. Ubuntu 7.10 has reached its End Of Life, and no further updates will be done. The recommendation is that those still using it should upgrade to one of the newer release versions. Note that upgrades to version 8.10 and beyond are only supported in multiple steps, via an upgrade first to 8.04 LTS, then to 8.10, and beyond. Instructions and caveats for the upgrading may be found at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardyUpgrades. Thank you for using Ubuntu 7.10.

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
  • Sayak Banerjee
  • Isabelle Duchatelle
  • Liraz Siri

  • Kenny McHenry

  • Jeff Martin
  • And many others

Glossary of Terms

  1. DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.
  2. DNS - Domain Name System.
  3. LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.
  4. NTP - Network Time Protocol.
  5. OEM - Original Equipment Manufacturer.
  6. sabdfl - Self Appointed Benevolent Dictator For Life, aka Mark Shuttleworth.
  7. VM - Virtual Machine.

Other acronyms can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/glossary

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/Issue138 (last edited 2009-04-19 21:47:43 by cm-24-121-46-215)