Contents

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. General Community News
    1. Personal Package Archives(PPAs) session
    2. Monthly BugSquad Meeting: May 12th
  4. MOTU Council News
  5. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Jaunty
    3. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week
  6. LoCo News
    1. Chișinău Jaunty Release Party
    2. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia Release Party Photos
    3. Ubuntu-ZA LoCo discs have arrived
    4. The way to a new party for Jaunty Jackalope
  7. Launchpad News
    1. What's a build score then?
  8. The Planet
    1. Michael Rooney: Counting the number of Ubuntu users
    2. Dustin Kirkland: byobu 2.0 released
  9. In The Press
    1. The 14 best Linux Distros
    2. ARM11 MIDs run Ubuntu
    3. Running Ubuntu 9.04 With Older Hardware
    4. Review: ASUS EeePC 1000 HE
    5. The Ubuntu and ATI Blues
    6. There's Way More to Linux than Ubuntu: 8 Distros Compared
    7. Ubuntu 9.04 UNR on Asus Eee PC 901: good and fast
  10. In The Blogosphere
    1. Five Must Try Linux Distros
    2. Is Ubuntu elitist?
    3. Ubuntu 9.04 on an 8510P Compaq Laptop
    4. 10 Reasons Ubuntu is a big failure in India
    5. Why Ubuntu should embrace Wine
  11. In Other News
    1. Ubuntu Podcast #27
    2. Portable Ubuntu, Windows live together in Perfect Harmony
  12. Meeting Summaries
    1. Technical Board Meeting: May 5th
      1. Attendees
      2. Topics covered in the Minutes
    2. Ubuntu Server Team Meeting: May 5th
      1. Topics covered in the Minutes
  13. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Sunday, May 10, 2009
      1. Ubuntu-us-az LoCo Team Meeting
    2. Monday, May 11, 2009
    3. Tuesday, May 12, 2009
      1. Kernel Team Bug Day
      2. Server Team Meeting
      3. Bug Squad Meeting
      4. Desktop Team Meeting
      5. Kernel Team Meeting
      6. EMEA Membership
    4. Wednesday, May 13, 2009
      1. Foundation Team Meeting
      2. QA Team Meeting
    5. Thursday, May 14, 2009
      1. Karmic Alpha 1
      2. Packaging Training: Personal Package
      3. Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting
      4. Ubuntu Java Meeting
    6. Friday, May 15, 2009
    7. Saturday, May 16, 2009
  14. Updates and Security for 6.06, 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04
    1. Security Updates
    2. Ubuntu 6.06 Updates
    3. Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
    4. Ubuntu 8.10 Updates
    5. 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

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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 141 for the weeks May 3rd - May 9th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Monthly BugSquad Meeting: May 12th, Jaunty Jackalope Release parties, What's a build score, then?, byobu 2.0 released, In The Press and Blogosphere, Ubuntu Podcast #27, Meeting Summaries of Technical Board and Ubuntu Server Teams, and much, much more!

UWN Translations

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

In This Issue

General Community News

Personal Package Archives(PPAs) session

Dustin Kirkland (kirkland) led a session on Personal Package Archives (PPAs) on Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 06:00 UTC in IRC channel #ubuntu-classroom. This session was about how to share the packages that you create with other users. http://ubuntupackaging.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/personal-package-archives-ppas/

Monthly BugSquad Meeting: May 12th

The BugSquad will hold it's first monthly meeting this Tuesday, May 12, 2009, at 16:00 UTC in IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting. The proposed agenda for the meeting can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad/Meeting . Everyone is invited to discuss how to improve the Team and actions. Topics that you feel important can be added to the agenda. Due to time factors, some topics may not be addressed at this meeting. It is also possible that, if the meeting runs over, it may be moved to #ubuntu-bugs. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-May/000541.html

MOTU Council News

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/

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

Chișinău Jaunty Release Party

The Ubuntu Moldavian community held an Ubuntu Party at Chișinău, Moldova. The party was driven by LMZ, with presentations about Ubuntu, OpenStreetMap, and Ubuntu Romania ( and it's path to a LoCo ). Stas Sushkov informs us about the local interest in Ubuntu, and looks forward to forming an Ubuntu LoCo in the near future. Get some pics here Read the full article here

http://stas.nerd.ro/index.php/read/490

Pittsburgh and Philadelphia Release Party Photos

Both the Pittsburgh Jaunty Release Party (held on April 23rd) and the Philadelphia Jaunty Release Party (held of May 2nd) were successes! Both events had around 20 attendees in total. Galleries of both events: http://gallery.ubuntupennsylvania.org/main.php?g2_itemId=724

http://ubuntupennsylvania.org/?p=41

Ubuntu-ZA LoCo discs have arrived

With the increasing number of requests for Jaunty CDs, Ubuntu-ZA's Johnathan Carter informs us that; "This time round we allocated all of the CD’s to our members via our wiki, initially I thought that 250 discs wouldn’t be enough, but there’s enough so that every one who requested CD’s could get, we just had to trim down a few requests here and there. Allocating the discs before hand works quite well, next time we’ll have even more structure, perhaps our own little shipit-like web application where people can choose their region and a contact person who it can be sent to..." http://ubuntu-za.org/Jaunty_CD%27s

http://jonathancarter.co.za/2009/05/07/ubuntu-za-loco-discs-have-arrived/

The way to a new party for Jaunty Jackalope

Nicolas ( kalon33 ) announces the new party which is cooking at Bordeaux on May 23rd. For the fifth edition, this time helped by the ABUL[1], The Giroll lug [2] perpetuates the tradition of cheerfulness which has made the reputation of its parties. It's also the time to be a little bit more ambitious, a little bit more one year before the Software Libre Meeting (a.k.a. RMLL) 2010 which will be held in our nice town of Bordeaux. In fact, this time we hope doing more stuff like Ubuntu discovery, Gaming using Linux... But keeping our webradio (see previous posts), our Free lunch (free as "Libre", as we also share cooking recipes of the meals we share at this lunch) and our Install Party. Starting around 10am at the ECM Saint-Pierre [3] and the event will go late ( last years event finished around 2am ).
The extended program can be seen here: http://kalon33.blogspot.com/2009/05/way-to-new-ubuntu-party-for-jaunty.html

  1. http://www.abul.org/

  2. http://www.giroll.org/

  3. http://www.giroll.org/spip.php?page=carte

http://kalon33.blogspot.com/2009/05/way-to-new-ubuntu-party-for-jaunty.html

Launchpad News

What's a build score then?

Matthew Revell has posted the definition as well as links to further information. His definition is that the build score is the priority that Launchpad assigns to a particular build job. When you upload a source package, Launchpad looks at:

A further explanation can be seen at https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/BuildScores , and supporting links are to be found in his posting. http://blog.launchpad.net/ppa/whats-a-build-score-then

The Planet

Michael Rooney: Counting the number of Ubuntu users

Michael Rooney suggests storing hashes of IP addresses that hit Canonical's update site, and looking at the number of unique ones each month/year in order to estimate the number of Ubuntu users.

He states that this method will be inaccurate due to people using mirrors, multiple Ubuntu machines under the same IP, and computers that are infrequently updated. However, he feels that this is a small percent to lose to at least get something in the right magnitude.

Alternatively, if Google would release their numbers for browsers hitting google.com, we would probably have a solid idea as well.

http://mrooney.blogspot.com/2009/05/counting-number-of-ubuntu-users.html

Dustin Kirkland: byobu 2.0 released

After 54 mini-releases, Dustin Kirkland is finally releasing version 2.0. This new version brings more stability, new features, and better performance than previous versions. It is also now ready for general usage.

This release also renames the project from 'screen-profiles' to 'byobu', a Japanese term for decorative, multi-panel screens that serve as folding room dividers.

His goal for Byobu is to enhance the experience and usability of screen, and the command line in general.

Some goals for the byobu 2.x series are:

All important links have been updated:

Updated packages will appear in the repositories shortly.

http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2009/05/byobu-20-released-project-formerly.html

In The Press

The 14 best Linux Distros

Neil Bothwick of TechRadar reviews the fourteen best Linux distributions. Bothwick lists Ubuntu as "The most popular distro of all time... So far", and he says what appeals about Ubuntu so much is that it 'just works'. "You click the installer icon, answer a couple of questions and it takes care of the rest for you." He further notes that hardware detection is good, and it handled everything on the test laptop including the webcam that googling had indicated didn't work with Linux. Bothwick's list of reasons to use Ubuntu includes Ubunutu's simple, straightforward interface, Ubuntu's frequent and easy updates, and Ubuntu's strong developer and user community. http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/the-14-best-linux-distros-465771?artc_pg=3

ARM11 MIDs run Ubuntu

Chinese portable media player vendor SmartDevices is selling an ARM11-based mobile Internet device and larger 7-inch screen tablet device. Both the SmartQ 5 ($150) and SmartQ 7 ($190) devices run Ubuntu Linux, and offer WiFi and Bluetooth according to Chinese retailer EWorld. SmartDevices has formally announced the SmartQ 5 on its website, but has yet to tip the similar, but larger 7-inch SmartQ 7, which is being sold along with the 5-inch version at EWorld. Like the recently announced Routon P730 and P760 mobile internet devices from Chinese manufacturer Routon Electronic Co., the SmartQ devices are built around an ARM11-based Samsung S3C6410 system-on-chip clocked to 677MHz. http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7369824937.html?kc=rss

Running Ubuntu 9.04 With Older Hardware

Michael Larabel of Phoronix tells us that Phoronix has tested out Ubuntu 9.04 quite extensively with a variety of different hardware and have delivered numerous benchmarks, but they had not looked closely at running the Jaunty Jackalope with older hardware. For testing they used a VIA Nehemiah processor clocked at 1GHz, a VIA VT8605-based motherboard, 512MB of system memory was installed, a 30GB Fujitsu MHT2030A IDE HDD was in use, and an integrated S3 86C380 ProSavageDDR K4M266 graphics adapter. Ubuntu 9.04 had booted significantly faster than Ubuntu 8.10, but when it came to the desktop performance with this VIA Nehemiah system with 512MB of system memory, the performance was close between the two most recent Ubuntu releases. In several tests Ubuntu 8.10 was faster than Ubuntu 9.04, but the leads were very small and would likely go unnoticed by the desktop user. The Ubuntu 9.04 desktop does remain usable when using this antiquated hardware. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_904_old&num=1

Review: ASUS EeePC 1000 HE

Jordan Spencer Cunningham of OS News decided it was time to get a new netbook, and he chose the Asus EeePC 1000 HE. One of the things he wanted to try out was the latest and greatest Ubuntu distribution in comparison with his last Ubuntu netbook experience. He was happy to find that the problems that he had on his old Acer Aspire One with 8.10 were completely non-existent. The system was speedy with little wait, even with full graphics enabled and using OpenOffice.org and Firefox. The system worked flawlessly, and he was very pleased with the apparent improvements over 8.10. Jordan says, "If the desktop version works this well on the 1000 HE, then I can't wait to use the netbook remix." http://www.osnews.com/story/21433/Review_Asus_EeePC_1000_HE

The Ubuntu and ATI Blues

Computerworld resident cyber cynic Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols tells us that he likes Ubuntu 9.04 a lot, but ATI graphic drivers don't work and play well with it. This is especially annoying since, for a while there, ATI was working hand-in-glove with Linux and even ATI's proprietary drivers worked well with Linux. ATI has stopped keeping up with Linux though and the result is mediocre graphics performance. Canonical has been made aware of the problem, and hopefully they'll come up with a fix. Vaughan-Nichols says he's not holding his breath though. AMD/ATI is shrinking after years of losing money, and he doubts very much that Canonical, or all the Linux vendors together, will convince them that they need to support older chips and fix up their drivers. In Vaughan-Nichols' opinion, the moral of the story is that all drivers should be open-sourced. http://blogs.computerworld.com/the_ubuntu_and_ati_blues

There's Way More to Linux than Ubuntu: 8 Distros Compared

Maximum PC's Will Kraft tells us that yes, there is more to Linux than Ubuntu. There are many different types of Linux to choose from, and he has written a guide to shed more light on some of the more common distributions in use today. Kraft includes Ubuntu in his guide, and he notes that when most people think of Linux, Ubuntu comes to mind first and foremost. Ubuntu Linux has been specifically designed for beginners and advanced Linux users alike, and it has always been easy to install thanks to the “Ubiquity” installation tool. Ubuntu offers a very comprehensive library of software for a wide variety of purposes, and the level of support and assistance for Ubuntu is excellent. The bottom line is Ubuntu is an excellent distro and definitely deserves its good reputation. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/theres_way_more_linux_ubuntu_8_distros_compared?page=0,4

Ubuntu 9.04 UNR on Asus Eee PC 901: good and fast

IT Wire's Hamish Taylor downloaded the Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix (UNR) and installed it on his Asus Eee PC 901. The entire install process took about 30 minutes and then he rebooted into the new system. UNR booted very quickly and was quite responsive. Considering the system requirements for Windows 7, Taylor was interested to find out what the disk and RAM usage of UNR was. The results are rather interesting. /home (where user related files are) used 153 MB, while / (root – where the system files are) used 2.34 GB. Positively miserly when compared to Windows 7 minimum requirements for a 16 GB disk! Hamish then checked memory stats and then started a number of programs before he gave up. "When you have 10 applications open at the same time and you're still using less than 50% of the available RAM, you know something is going well." The final result is a fast booting, good looking Netbook. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/24861/1162/

In The Blogosphere

Five Must Try Linux Distros

Blogger Stun from blog pirate gives a list of 5 of the linux operating systems that he knows of. He first talks about Ubuntu, "also one of the best Linux desktop operating systems." Stun talks about the features of Ubuntu, the release cycle, dual booting, and even the system requirements. http://www.blogpirate.org/2009/05/04/5-must-try-linux-distros/

Is Ubuntu elitist?

Blogger Christopher Tozzi from works with u goes over the perception that Linux users are elitists. Unlike proprietary systems like Apple and Microsoft, Linux Operating systems like Ubuntu don't have a public relations department to mold its' image. Christopher Tozzi says that the most troubling of stereotypes that is associated with Linux is elitism. That the unwillingness of the free-software community to deal with non-expert users is rampant. He then goes on point out that, "this elitism isn't representative of a majority of Linux users, especially those of mainstream distributions like Ubuntu." He points out that in his experience most Ubuntu users are humble and inclusive. He then presents a solution to fix this negative image of elitism. This is to review documentation, and make sure that it's accessible to all users regardless of experience. Also stricter policing of the Ubuntu forums to prevent belittling of Linux "neophytes". http://www.workswithu.com/2009/05/06/is-ubuntu-elitist/

Ubuntu 9.04 on an 8510P Compaq Laptop

Blogger Tony Hughes from Geek Zone tells us of the state that his work computer had achieved using Windows. He then installed 9.04 on it, and everything worked out of the box. He's planning on timing the boot from grub, which Tony Hughes believes was about 10 seconds. He is also planning on trying it on an older computer that he has at home. http://www.geekzone.co.nz/tonyhughes/6476

10 Reasons Ubuntu is a big failure in India

Blogger Bharat Balegere fromg AgniPulse.com covers why Ubuntu is a failure in India. These are: GRUB Boot loader does not have an aesthetic appeal, Login screen-users are required to type in their username, Desktop-the refresh option is missing, default login sound, default wallpaper, default audio driver is weak, totem movie player sucks, right click send to options are missing, silverlight-moonlight, safely remove USB drive or Unmount Volume. Bharat Balegere gives details about each of these 10 reasons, and hopes that developers will read and use his suggestions, so that he will have more success spreading Ubuntu to his friends. http://agnipulse.com/2009/05/10-reasons-why-ubuntu-is-a-big-failure-in-india/

Why Ubuntu should embrace Wine

Blogger Christopher Tozzi from works with u covers why Ubuntu should embrace wine. He believes that wine helps smooth over the transition from Windows to Ubuntu. This is due to making it so that users can use their windows programs and games in Ubuntu. Christopher Tozzi also sees this as a way to help more software vendors port their programs to Linux without having to go through too much extra work, and without having to make their source open. He doesn't see too many companies being willing to make their source public. Mr. Tozzi thinks that Ubuntu should continue to encourage the development and use of free, open-source, native applications for Linux. But to also not be reluctant to work with developers who want to make their products available through Wine. http://www.workswithu.com/2009/05/07/why-ubuntu-should-embrace-wine/

In Other News

Ubuntu Podcast #27

Nick and Josh bring us another Ubuntu Podcast. In this episode:

http://ubuntupodcast.net/2009/05/06/ubuntu-podcast-episode-27/

Portable Ubuntu, Windows live together in Perfect Harmony

Jack M. Germain from Linux Insider gives a review on Portable Ubuntu. He first gives an introduction of Portable Ubuntu, which gives you Ubuntu as a process inside of Windows. He points out that it is faster than a Live CD and uses less resources than a virtual machine. Jack Germain also tells us about how easy it is to setup. We are also told about how secure Portable Ubuntu is even within Windows. Mr. Germain summarises by pointing out that it works with Windows XP and windows Vista, and in theory works in Windows 7. He informs us that Tejeda plans to update Portable Ubuntu on the same six-month development cycle used by the Ubuntu community. http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/67016.html

Meeting Summaries

Technical Board Meeting: May 5th

Attendees

Topics covered in the Minutes

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-May/000536.html

Ubuntu Server Team Meeting: May 5th

Topics covered in the Minutes

http://ubuntuserver.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/server-team-20090505-meeting-minutes/

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Ubuntu-us-az LoCo Team Meeting

Monday, May 11, 2009

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Kernel Team Bug Day

Server Team Meeting

Bug Squad Meeting

Desktop Team Meeting

Kernel Team Meeting

EMEA Membership

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Foundation Team Meeting

QA Team Meeting

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Karmic Alpha 1

Packaging Training: Personal Package

Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting

Ubuntu Java Meeting

Friday, May 15, 2009

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Updates and Security for 6.06, 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

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:

Glossary of Terms

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/Issue141 (last edited 2009-05-12 05:58:56 by 76-14-27-0)