Issue147

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Contents

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. General Community News
  4. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Infamous Bugs
    3. Translation Stats Jaunty
    4. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week
  5. LoCo News
  6. New in Karmic Koala
  7. Launchpad News
  8. Ubuntu Forums News
  9. In The Press
    1. Fit-PC2: Ubuntu Desktop In A Tiny Box
    2. Canonical to boost Ubuntu usability by tackling "papercuts"
    3. Canonical to Certify Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition on HP Pro``Liant G6
    4. Karmic Koala To Offer More Diverse Wallpaper Selection
    5. One Hundred Papercuts: The Most Exciting Thing Since the Last Thing Canonical Did
    6. Ubuntu's First Ten Paper Cuts Spotted
    7. ZaReason Ion Breeze 3770
    8. Ubuntu 8.04 update: Happy to be back in a Linux environment
    9. Ubuntu a minor player? Not outside the States
    10. 1/10th of 100 Papercuts Selected
  10. In The Blogosphere
    1. Reconstructor - Version 3.0 Tech Preview
    2. 13 things to get excited for in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
    3. HP is business Linux friendly
    4. HP Servers and Ubuntu: Reading Between the Lines
    5. IBM’s Cloud Will Feature Ubuntu
    6. Microsoft, Ubuntu and Social Networking
    7. Dropbox vs Ubuntu-One
    8. Ubuntu Improves User Experience Via “Paper Cut” Campaign
    9. Using Ubuntu as your sole operating system in academia
  11. In Other News
  12. Meeting Summaries
  13. Upcoming Meetings and Events
  14. Community Spotlight
  15. 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
  16. UWN #: A sneak peek
  17. Archives and RSS Feed
  18. Additional Ubuntu News
  19. Conclusion
  20. Credits
  21. Glossary of Terms
  22. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  23. Feedback

newspaper-icon3.jpg

WORK IN PROGRESS

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 147 for the week June 15th - June 21st, 2009. In this issue we cover ...

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

General Community News

Another https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFreeCultureShowcase

3 new members added to America RMB: Greg Grossmeier, Martin Albisetti, Nick Ali

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-mobile/2009-June/002527.html

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1154769&page=11#post7467226

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1869

Important for teams that might be using Mibbit to let allow users to communicate with IRC: http://blog.freenode.net/2009/06/new-freenode-webchat-and-why-to-use-it/

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (57720) +363 over last week
  • Critical (19) +/-0 over last week
  • Unconfirmed (27019) +285 over last week
  • Unassigned (49819) +325 over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (289630) +1623 over last week

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

Infamous Bugs

Translation Stats Jaunty

  • Spanish (13555) -35 over last week
  • French (42457) -242 over last week
  • Brazilian Portuguese (52991) -414 over last week
  • Swedish (54416) -1 over last week
  • English (United Kingdom) (59005) -1 over last week

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

New in Karmic Koala

Launchpad News

Ubuntu Forums News

In The Press

Fit-PC2: Ubuntu Desktop In A Tiny Box

Rob Reilly of Linux.com tells us that he has been working with the Plug Computer for a while now and has first hand experience with the diminutive size of the current crop of nano Linux machines. The latest Compulab Fit-PC2 offering carries on that fine tradition of micro-miniaturization. The Fit-PC2 has an Intel Atom Z530 processor running at 1.6 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, an Intel GMA500 graphics chipset with hardware acceleration and a 160 GB SATA drive. It also sports Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11g wifi, 6 USB 2.0 ports, and runs on 12 volts at 1.5 amps. Since this machine has a full Ubuntu desktop installation, thumbing through the menus was easy, Reilly found all the usual productivity tools. Version 3.0.8 Firefox and Thunderbird (v. 2.0.0.21) were there. OpenOffice.org Writer, Calc, Impress, and Draw were available. It is an innovative product with a good combination of size, horsepower, and cost, and Reilly says he's anxious to see where Compulab takes this market. http://www.linux.com/news/hardware/desktops/18899-fit-pc2-ubuntu-desktop-in-a-tiny-box

Canonical to boost Ubuntu usability by tackling "papercuts"

ARS Technica's Ryan Paul reports that Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, is launching a new project to improve the usability of the platform. The developers aim to identify and resolve 100 minor bugs that negatively impact the Ubuntu user experience before the release of the next major version in October. The initiative, which is called One Hundred Paper Cuts, will be implemented by Canonical's new design and user experience team in collaboration with the Ubuntu community. David Siegel, developer of the popular GNOME-Do launcher who recently joined Canonical as part of the user experience and design team commented in his blog, "If some small usability detail has been bothering you release after release, now is your chance to step up and get it the attention it deserves. If we can find and heal one hundred paper cuts, Ubuntu 9.10 will surely be the most usable release of Ubuntu yet." http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/06/canonical-to-boost-ubuntu-usability-by-tackling-papercuts.ars

Canonical to Certify Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition on HP Pro``Liant G6

Darryl K. Taft of eWeek.com tells us that Canonical is expected to announce a collaboration with Hewlett-Packard to deliver an additional high-performance server configuration for Ubuntu users. Canonical will announce on June 17 the certification of Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition on HP's new ProLiant G6 servers. This move will extend Canonical's support of Ubuntu Server Edition on the HP ProLiant servers to 17 configurations. HP officials said the HP ProLiant G6 servers deliver a combination of high performance and energy efficiency. "We are committed to certifying Ubuntu Server Edition on the hardware platforms that our users choose to run," Steve George, director of commercial services at Canonical, said in a statement. "HP ProLiant servers are easily one of the most popular of those platforms, so it is heartening to have HP's participation in this certification program along with its recognition and verification of our work. Users who are looking for an open platform or thinking about building a cloud-based infrastructure on Ubuntu need the reassurance of strong, compatibility-tested hardware. This certification offers peace of mind along with a great hardware base on which users can start to build their new data centers." http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Canonical-to-Certify-Ubuntu-904-Server-Edition-on-HP-ProLiant-G6-191072/

Karmic Koala To Offer More Diverse Wallpaper Selection

The Linux Loops says that the tradition in Ubuntu seems to be to include one or two versions of the default wallpaper and call it done. Meanwhile, Windows 7 has a vast array of wallpapers of every type: abstract, landscape, animals, flowers, green hills with a blue sky, etc. In Karmic Koala (9.10), though, Ubuntu seems to be shifting more towards the Windows 7 style. A page has been setup on the Wiki for people to contribute artwork in three categories: default wallpaper, abstract extras, and photographic extras. The plan is apparently to offer, in addition to the default wallpaper, a selection of more diverse alternative wallpapers, including photographs, which is a first for Ubuntu. This change is quite exciting, since it makes it really simple for Ubuntu users to find a wallpaper they like. It’s almost impossible to find one wallpaper everyone likes, but finding a wallpaper for everyone in a selection of 20 might be possible. http://www.linuxloop.com/news/2009/06/16/karmic-koala-to-offer-more-diverse-wallpaper-selection/

One Hundred Papercuts: The Most Exciting Thing Since the Last Thing Canonical Did

The Linux Loop asks if we remember when Mark Shuttleworth announced Canonical was putting together a usability and design team? That team has announced their first major project, called One Hundred Papercuts. The idea, as described by David Siegel is to select one hundred easily fixable bugs that are day to day minor annoyances to the user and fix them for the next release. Not big changes, just small things like how a file is named by default or where the cursor’s focus is put. That might not sound like a big deal, but fixing one hundred little things is far more important than introducing a big new feature at this stage of Ubuntu’s development. Every release fixes some bugs, but Ubuntu will be the first distribution that the Linux Loop knows of to make fixing usability related bugs a major priority, and they certainly hope this will become a trend. http://www.linuxloop.com/news/2009/06/16/one-hundred-papercuts-the-most-exciting-thing-since-the-last-thing-canonical-did/

Ubuntu's First Ten Paper Cuts Spotted

Phoronix's Michael Larabel reports that with the release of Ubuntu 9.10, which is due out this October, Canonical and the Ubuntu developers hope to fix at least 100 "paper cuts" on the Ubuntu Linux desktop. The first ten of the one hundred paper cuts for Ubuntu 9.10 have now been determined and are shared on the Ubuntu development list. Making up this list of ten small Linux desktop imperfections are dimming file icons when you "cut" them for "pasting" later on, changing the "move to trash" text string in the Nautilus CD burner to "remove from disc", icons for XDG user directories, consistent volume "safe to remove" notifications, and other small action items. Besides addressing these small usability gaps in Ubuntu 9.10, the Karmic Koala will also feature the Linux 2.6.31 kernel, will finally switch to using kernel mode-setting (where available) for graphics support, GRUB2 is being used by default, EXT4 is now the default file-system choice, and there are many other improvements too. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzMzNg

ZaReason Ion Breeze 3770

Michael Larabel of Phoronix tells us that last week they published an in-depth article looking at the NVIDIA ION Linux Performance using a nettop device that contained this chipset with GeForce 9400M graphics rather than the usual Intel 945 graphics. From video playback to 2D to 3D, the graphics performance with the NVIDIA ION was wonderful. For that testing, the nettop they were using came courtesy of ZaReason and it was their new Ion Breeze 3770. The ZaReason Ion Breeze 3770 consists of an Intel Atom 230 processor, a NVIDIA ION chipset, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, and it can also ship with Ubuntu 9.04, Kubuntu 9.04, Edubuntu 9.04, Ubuntu Studio 9.04. While this is the first NVIDIA ION nettop that Phoronix has tested under Linux, they were left being quite pleased with the Ion Breeze 3770. When using the proprietary Linux driver from NVIDIA, the GeForce 9400M GPU works great with an Intel Atom processor, delivers excellent video playback capabilities and is able to even run some games. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=zareason_ion_breeze&num=1

Ubuntu 8.04 update: Happy to be back in a Linux environment

InsideSoCal.com's Steven Rosenberg says he's been bringing more data into his main Ubuntu 8.04 LTS installation on one of his two Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 laptops, and he continues to be satisfied with the performance of what by most accounts is the world's most popular desktop Linux distribution. Rosenberg says that all in all, he's pretty happy to be back using Linux after my six months with OpenBSD. While he enjoyed using OpenBSD very much, returning to the easier-to-use and much-easier-to-update Ubuntu/Debian environment has been a very good thing. http://www.insidesocal.com/click/2009/06/ubuntu-804-update-running-surp.html

Ubuntu a minor player? Not outside the States

Christopher Dawson of ZDNet Education says he just finished reading Dana Blankenhorn’s post, “Will Ubuntu remain a minor player” on a break between interviews and meetings. Interestingly, just before he read Blankenhorn’s post, Dawson met with the President of Metasys, a Brazilian company that has Linux-based servers, desktops, and software in thousands of schools, businesses, and homes throughout Latin America, Africa, and Europe. Metasys is running on 350,000 desktops in Brazil alone. And guess what? People pay for it because it’s good; it has a great ecosystem of server, software, and management products; and because it’s still drastically cheaper than Windows. Worldwide, there are 13 million active Ubuntu users with use growing faster than any other distribution. In China, Ubuntu is gaining traction quickly since, due to rampant piracy, Windows is essentially free in that country. New users are choosing operating systems based on merit rather than price, since price is largely irrelevant in that market. As companies like HP and Dell continue to legitimize Ubuntu through high-quality offerings on their netbooks, Dawson thinks we’ll see a shift here in the States. http://education.zdnet.com/?p=2709

1/10th of 100 Papercuts Selected

The Linux Loops reports that Ubuntu’s One Hundred Papercuts project is aiming to solve 10 papercuts per week in order to accomplish the goal of resolving 100 before the next release. The first ten bugs to be tackled have been set. In follow-up discussion on the mailinglist, however, some of the selected bugs were removed, since they didn’t fit the definition of a papercut. In accordance with the definition of a papercut, none of these bugs are going to change anyone’s life. Any Ubuntu user will, however, notice these improvements. For example, when you cut a file or folder, the file/folder will be greyed out to indicate that it has been cut. You’ll also see improvements to the Open With… menu and changes to the size of notifications. Alone, none of these fixes would be note-worthy, but together they may be the most significant feature of the next release. Keep in mind that most of these bugs have not been fixed, but if everything goes according to plan, they will be in the next week. http://www.linuxloop.com/news/2009/06/19/110th-of-100-papercuts-selected/

In The Blogosphere

Reconstructor - Version 3.0 Tech Preview

http://reconstructor.aperantis.com/ (reference http://aperantis.com/news/article/3/ for what reconstructor is)

13 things to get excited for in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

http://pinstack.blogspot.com/2009/06/13-things-to-get-excited-for-in-ubuntu.html

HP is business Linux friendly

http://blogs.computerworld.com/hp_is_business_linux_friendly

HP Servers and Ubuntu: Reading Between the Lines

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/06/17/hp-servers-and-ubuntu-reading-between-the-lines/

IBM’s Cloud Will Feature Ubuntu

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/06/15/ibms-cloud-will-feature-ubuntu/

Microsoft, Ubuntu and Social Networking

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/06/19/microsoft-ubuntu-and-social-networking/

Dropbox vs Ubuntu-One

http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2009/06/dropbox-vs-ubuntu-one.html

Ubuntu Improves User Experience Via “Paper Cut” Campaign

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/06/20/ubuntu-improves-user-experience-via-paper-cut-campaign/

Using Ubuntu as your sole operating system in academia

http://edtechdev.blogspot.com/2009/06/using-ubuntu-as-your-sole-operating.html

In Other News

Meeting Summaries

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Community Spotlight

Updates and Security for 6.06, 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04

Security Updates

  • None Reported

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

Ubuntu 8.10 Updates

Ubuntu 9.04 Updates

UWN #: A sneak peek

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:

  • Dave Bush
  • Sayak Banerjee
  • Your Name Here
  • Liraz Siri
  • And many others

Glossary of Terms

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.

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