Issue157
Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #157 for the week August 23rd - August 29th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Karmic: Feature Freeze in place - Alpha 5 freeze ahead, Ubuntu Pennsylvania Open Source Conference, Ubuntu Arizona Installfest, Ubuntu Mexico Podcast #1, Ubuntu Georgia UbuCon at Atlanta Linuxfest, Launchpad news, Ubuntu Forums news, Ubuntu at Parliament of Zimbabwe, Full Circle Magazine #28, Ubuntu UK podcast: Slipback, August 2009 Team Reports, 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
- Karmic: Feature Freeze in place - Alpha 5 freeze ahead
- Ubuntu Stats
LoCo News: Pennsylvania, Arizona, Mexico, & Georgia
- Launchpad: Wear your badge with pride
- Launchpad: New guides to translating your project
Ubuntu Forums news: Tutorial of the Week & Marking Threads as Solved
- Planet news from: Daniel, Ryan, Jorge, Laura, and Alan
In the Press & Blogosphere
- Ubuntu at Parliament of Zimbabwe
- Full Circle Magazine #28
- Ubuntu UK podcast - Slipback
- August 2009 Team Reports
Upcoming Meetings & Events
Updates & Security
General Community News
Karmic: Feature Freeze in place - Alpha 5 freeze ahead
The Feature Freeze is now in effect for Karmic. The focus from here until release is on fixing bugs and polishing.
If you believe that a new package, a new upstream version of a package, or a new feature is needed for the release and will not introduce more problems than it fixes, please follow the Freeze Exception Process by filing bugs and subscribing ubuntu-release or motu-release as appropriate, or by contacting a designated delegate. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2009-August/028794.html
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FreezeExceptionProcess
Please also make sure that specs assigned to you for Karmic are updated to their current status (which should be at least Beta Available if not Deferred, or unless granted a freeze exception).
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/
The next testing milestone, Karmic Alpha 5, is scheduled for next Thursday, September 3. Karmic Alpha 5 will again use a "soft freeze" for main. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-January/000363.html This means that developers are asked to refrain from uploading packages between Tuesday and Thursday which don't bring us closer to releasing the alpha, so that these days can be used for settling the archive and fixing any remaining showstoppers.
The list of bugs targeted for alpha-5 can be found at: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+bugs?field.milestone=12713
The Karmic release schedule is available here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicReleaseSchedule
See the link below for more developer information on this topic.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-August/000609.html
Ubuntu Stats
Bug Stats
- Open (61473) +233 over last week
- Critical (26) -7 over last week
- Unconfirmed (28516) -68 over last week
- Unassigned (53084) +240 over last week
- All bugs ever reported (307416) +2278 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 (11336) -1075 over last week
- French (38674) -806 over last week
- Brazilian Portuguese (48340) -183 over last week
- Swedish (53641) -167 over last week
- English (United Kingdom) (53841) -7 over last week
Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope," see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/jaunty/
Translation Stats Karmic
- Spanish (17468) -2125 over last week
- French (58694) -166 over last week
- Swedish (69248) +847 over last week
- Brazilian Portuguese (72125) +247 over last week
- English (Uk) (82759) +1909 over last week
1. Language (#) +/- # over last week Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala", see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/
Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week
Fix file size confusion - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/21184/
Optimize shutdown time - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/21170/
Allow parallel (de-)compression of archives - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/21158/
99% of users don't check the installation CD at the boot menu - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/21200/
Empathy doesn't show the number of available and/or online contacts - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/21173/
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
Ubuntu Pennsylvania at Pennsylvania Open Source Conference
The Pennsylvania team will be running a table at the upcoming Central Pennsylvania Open Source Conference (CPOSC) 2009. The Central Pennsylvania Open Source Conference (CPOSC) is a small, low-cost, one-day conference about all things Open Source. It will be held on Saturday, October 17, 2009. Ubuntu Pennsylvania team member Elizabeth Krumbach will also be presenting at this conference on “Contributing to Open Source Projects. You can find their wiki page about the event here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PennsylvaniaTeam/EventsTeam/CPOSC2009
http://ubuntupennsylvania.org/?p=48
Ubuntu Arizona Installfest
The Ubuntu Arizona Team just had another Jaunty Installfest, this time in Tucson. For this event we teamed up with the University of Arizona's Computer Science Department for a co-hosted installfest. The CS Dept. has just recently made the change over to an all "Ubuntu" Operating System Dept. w00t! We did dual boot, VMware, and parallel for MAC installs during the day.
The folks seemed enthusiastic about Ubuntu, and we've already had several folks in our team channel who got Ubuntu installs at the event!! A big thank you to the CS Dept of the U of A for co-hosting this event. Also to team members: lenards, azmike, todd, soldats, hutchnate. Great work team.
Wiki with summary and pics here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArizonaTeam/Installfest/Jaunty-Tucson
Ubuntu-Mexico: Podcast #1
The Ubuntu Mexico team has release their first podcast. The podcast is available in ogg format and available at the link below. If you are a Spanish speaker, will want to be sure and check it out. Congrats to the ubuntu-mx team for adding this new podcast to their growing accomplishments.
http://podcast.ubuntumexico.org/index.php?id=3
Ubuntu US Georgia: UbuCon at Atlanta Linux Fest 2009
Atlanta Linux Fest 2009 will be Saturday, September 19th 2009, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The event is being organized by the Ubuntu Georgia US Team.
UbuCon Atlanta 2009 will be held with Atlanta Linux Fest. UbuCon will cover what is going on within the Ubuntu community and how to improve the Ubuntu community. Part unconference, part scheduled sessions, the Ubuntu Kernel Team will be on hand to test laptops for the upcoming Karmic Koala release. The Kernel Team will also teach the basics of hacking drivers. Presentations on audio in Ubuntu, Ubuntu server, and Ubuntu in the cloud will be discussed. Sessions talking about burnout, triaging bugs, and LoCo leadership are already planned. Attendees are encouraged to sign up to discuss any aspect of the community they are interested in.
Registration is free for the event (required to use WiFi).
To find out more about Atlanta Linux Fest 2009, visit http://atlantalinuxfest.org.
http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1898
Launchpad News
Wear your badge with pride
Want an easy way to direct people to your pages in Launchpad? Whether it’s for yourself or your project, you can pop one of the new badges from Launchpad on your website. You can choose badges from 160px wide to 250px and they even host the badge for you, so all you need is to copy and paste the image URL. Take a look at their badge kit page for the legal details and also to see the image URLs at: https://help.launchpad.net/BadgeKit
http://blog.launchpad.net/general/wear-your-badge-with-pride
New guides to translating your project
Matthew Revell has revamped the Launchpad guides to translating your project with help from Jeroen and Danilo. You can find them here: https://help.launchpad.net/Translations/YourProject
Please let Matthew know if you think there’s anything missing or that could be better explained.
http://blog.launchpad.net/translations/new-guides-to-translating-your-project
Ubuntu Forums News
Tutorial of the Week
This week we will explore some basic networking skills, and how to block IP lists from the GUI. uljanow (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=335776) has written a very popular "HOWTO: Graphical IP Blocker" which he's been actively supporting for two years now. The thread is huge and uljanow made it easy for beginners. Please stop by!
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=530183
Marking Threads as Solved
The feature is available again, from the Thread Tools menu. The plugin had been deactivated due to databases corruption issues, and was reactivated after rewriting of the code by the developers. Hopefully, we'll be able to keep it.
The Planet
Daniel Holbach: New week = Ubuntu Developer Week
Ubuntu Developer Week will happen for the fourth time and we’re still not running out of exciting topics. We’ll have twenty-four action-packed sessions where you can
- learn more,
- get involved,
- ask questions,
- have fun,
- meet new friends!
If you can’t make it to the session, there will be logs available on the UDW wiki page afterwards. Also if you are not fluent in English enough, we will have IRC channels where you can ask questions that will be translated and relayed to the speakers. Also check out if you need to prepare for a session. Check out the brochure for more information on the sessions and speakers.
Sessions schedule: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek/Sessions
UDW brochure: http://people.canonical.com/~dholbach/Ubuntu_Developer_Week4.pdf
http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/?p=481
Ryan Troy: VMware cookbook - preview
Ryan and co-author Matthew Helmke recently completed their VMware Cookbook which is being published by O’Reilly and will be on the shelved October 22, 2009. Their editor Andy Oram posted a quick blurb with a couple of examples from the book. Check it out if you dig VMware ESX and virtualization..http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/08/a-peek-at-vmware-cookbook-reci.html
order your pre-release here: http://www.amazon.com/VMware-Cookbook-Real-World-Guide-Effective/dp/0596157258/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251512058&sr=8-1
http://moxiefoxtrot.com/2009/08/28/vmware-cookbook-preview/
Jorge Castro: Linking bugs to upstream trackers podcast
Behold, Jorge's first screencast, and it’s about linking bugs to upstream trackers. He is having a hard time figuring out how to do the <video> tag in wordpress (it keeps removing(!) it when he tries to publish), so if you know how please post a comment so can add it to the docs. Jorge freely admits that he speaks way too fast in this first podcast, but says he just sort of got "on a roll". We look forward to more podcasts from Jorge.
Link to podcast: http://blip.tv/file/2527267
http://castrojo.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/linking-bugs-to-upstream-trackers/
Laura Czajkowski: Global Jam time again
The Ubuntu Global jam is nearly here and hopefully will be even better than last year as we’ve a few new editions. Global Jam takes place from Friday 2nd October to Sunday 4th October, instead of just focusing on bugs this year it’s going to encompass more. From Translations, to documentation, to packaging for those who are up for it. I’ve even heard of some teams spring cleaning their wiki’s and getting rid of obsolete pages or pages with typos.
Ubuntu Bug Jam wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam
Translations: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Jams/Translations
Packaging: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Jams/Packaging
So what is a bug jam and why should you do it? A world-wide online and face-to-face event to get people together to fix Ubuntu bugs – the idea is to get as many people online fixing bugs, having a great time doing so, and putting their brick in the wall for free software. This is not only a great opportunity to really help Ubuntu, but to also get together with other Ubuntu fans to make a difference together, either via your LoCo team, your LUG, other free software group, or just getting people together in your house/apartment to fix bugs and have a great time.
How do you do it, how do you take part ? You need a place to meet, with a decent internet connection, as you’re going to be online most of the day! Either bring your laptops, or some live CD’s so you can work on Ubuntu, and great people to share the work. I find the best place not only for net connection and also to get people involved is a University/College. It’s also helpful as many of them have language departments if you are looking to work on translations.
So when you have the venue sorted, what next? This is where you need to sit down a couple of weeks before hand and work out the areas you and your team would like to work on. You do not have to work on all of the areas! Work on the ones you can. If it’s your first jam session, perhaps working on bugs and bug triaging would be a good start, next up some translations and take it from there. Another suggestion would be to have some talks that day, have someone explain how to log into Launchpad, how to find bugs, triage them and work on them. Try and cater for everyone, encourage people to get involved. Remember people may never have done this before and may be nervous doing it.
http://www.lczajkowski.com/2009/08/27/global-jam-time-again/
Alan Pope: Ubuntu Repositories podcast
Alan has added a short introduction to the Ubuntu Repositories to Ubuntu screencasts. It outlines the various options in the "Software Sources" application. Comments/feedback/requests are welcome!
ogg format: http://static.screencasts.ubuntu.com/2009/08/27/Ubuntu_Repositories.ogv
M4V format: http://blip.tv/file/get/Ubuntuscreencasts-Ubuntu_Repositories532.m4v
FLV format: http://blip.tv/file/get/Ubuntuscreencasts-Ubuntu_Repositories796.flv
You can find all of the Ubuntu screencast by visiting this link: http://screencasts.ubuntu.com/
In The Press
5 Annoying “Papercuts” to be Fixed in Ubuntu 9.10
The Linux Loop reminds us that Ubuntu 9.10 is coming in October, and, in addition to some new features, it will also feature 100 fewer “papercuts”. Papercuts are minor bugs that cause a usability issue. Five of these paper cuts include:
- Renaming "Auto eth0" to something more easily understood by new users
- Modifying how scrolling works on a touchpad so that workspaces don't fly by
- Adding icons for the various file systems on a user's computer
- Having icons that clearly tell a user when they should and should not remove USB and other drives
- The printing notification will give the document name instead of the print job number
http://www.linuxloop.com/2009/08/26/5-annoying-papercuts-to-be-fixed-in-ubuntu-9-10/
Coming Soon: Ubuntu App Centre – Replacing Add/Remove, Synaptic, Gdebi, Update Manager…
Ubuntu is currently developing a centralized “App Store” to simplify the adding/removing/updating/configuring of software within Ubuntu. The plan is to completely replace Synaptic, Software Sources, Gdebi, and (if appropriate) Update Manager with a centralised ‘App Centre’. This ‘App Centre’ aims to combine the ”human-readable” approach of Add/Remove, the power of Synaptic and the ease of Update manager all within one single interface. It’s hoped this “one stop” approach will make handling software easier, improve visibility and prominence of applications, potentially free space on the Ubuntu CD and, above all else, be better for end users. The team behind it have set out a preliminary road map for the development of an Ubuntu ‘App Centre’ that stretch over the next four releases. (9.10 –> 11.04 ) with the full replacement the current Package Management tools by App Centre being introduced during 10.04 and refinement/new features being added to it after that. The Ubuntu ‘App Centre’ has the makings of being the single greatest evolution for the Ubuntu Desktop so far. http://d0od.blogspot.com/2009/08/ubuntu-appcentre.html
Canonical Unveils The Ubuntu Software Store
Michael Larabel of Phoronix notes that beyond pushing out a new graphical boot screen just before the feature freeze went into effect for Ubuntu 9.10, Canonical released the first public version of their own app store, previously codenamed AppCenter, but now known as the Ubuntu Software Store (or software-store as its package is called). With the Ubuntu Software Store, Canonical is hoping to unify all of the different package management needs into a single, unified interface. While this will not be achieved in Ubuntu 9.10, Canonical is hoping that all of the capabilities of the update-manager, Synaptic, the computer janitor application, gdebi, and other package management-related programs will be merged into Ubuntu Software Store. When this has occurred, it will be easier on the new end-user having to just deal with a single program to provide all of this functionality. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_software_store&num=1
Checking In On Ubuntu Karmic's Boot Time
Phoronix's Michael Larabel tells us that by the time Ubuntu 10.04 LTS rolls around next April, Canonical is interested in seeing Ubuntu boot on an Intel Atom netbook (specifically the Dell Mini 9) in less than ten seconds. Phoronix installed Ubuntu 8.10, 9.04, and a 9.10 development snapshot on two netbooks and one laptop to see how Ubuntu's boot time is changing. Under Ubuntu 8.10 it took 33 seconds to boot, just 14 seconds to boot Ubuntu 9.04, and the Ubuntu 9.10 development snapshot took 14 seconds too. Also worth noting from the Bootchart graphs is the maximum disk throughput, which peaked at 58MB/s in Ubuntu 8.10, but for Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 was at 72 MB/s. 14 seconds for a boot time is nice, but still not the 10 seconds or less that we will be looking for on this Mini 9 within the next eight months or so when Ubuntu 10.04 LTS rolls out. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_910_boot&num=1
Early Ubuntu 9.10, OpenSuSE 11.2, Mandriva 2010 Benchmarks
Michael Larabel of Phoronix did some benchmarks of Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 4 last week, but Ubuntu is not the only Linux distribution preparing for a major update in the coming months. Also released in the past few days were OpenSuSE 11.2 Milestone 6 and Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Beta 1. To see how these three popular distributions compare, Phoronix set out to do their usual Linux benchmarking dance. Depending upon the test scenario, different leaders came out on top. For the most part, all three distributions performed roughly the same, which is not that surprising since all of the core packages are the same between Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 4, OpenSuSE 11.2 Milestone 6, and Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Beta 1. Once these distributions are officially released, Phoronix will be out with new numbers and will throw Fedora and others into the mix. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_aug_09&num=1
Ubuntu 9.10 Gets A New Splash Screen, Not Plymouth
Phoronix's Michael Larabel recalls that Plymouth, a project to replace the aging Red Hat Graphical Boot (RHGB) software, was introduced last year with Fedora 10. Canonical then decided it would look at integrating Plymouth into Ubuntu 9.10, but at the most recent Ubuntu Developer Summit it was decided that no Plymouth would be coming to Ubuntu. There is now actually a new splash screen for Ubuntu 9.10 and it's not Plymouth. Just in time for the Ubuntu Karmic feature freeze there is Xsplash, which is a splash screen that uses the X Server. Stay tuned as the boot splash screen for Ubuntu 9.10 is likely to receive more refinements before the final release of the Karmic Koala comes in late October. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzQ4Mw
Sharp's 5-inch PC-Z1 NetWalker honors Zaurus legacy with touchscreen Ubuntu
Engadget's Thomas Ricker says that fanboys have been running Ubuntu on Sharp's deceased Zaurus lineup of PDAs for years. Now Sharp makes it official with the launch of this 5-inch, 1024 x600 TFT LCD touchscreen NetWalker smartbook, aka the PC-Z1. It's not a Zaurus per se, but the compact 161.4 x 108.7 x 19.7 ~ 24.8mm / 409g device certainly resurrects its ghost. Underpinning the device is an 800MHz Freescale i.MX515 CPU built around the ARM Cortex-A8 architecture, 512MB of memory, 4GB of on-board flash storage (with microSDHC expansion for another 16GB), 802.11b/g WiFi, 2x USB, and QWERTY keyboard going 68 percent of full-size. The PC-Z1 features a 3-second quick launch, it isn't quite a smartphone and it isn't quite a laptop. http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/27/sharps-5-inch-pc-z1-netwalker-honors-the-zaurus-legacy/
Top 15 Linux Distributions for Netbooks
Bablotech states that as all of us know a netbook has very limited resources, so running Windows Vista or Windows 7 on a netbook is not really a great idea. Although Windows XP can run much better on a netbook, if we compare the Linux distributions available for netbooks (e.g. Ubuntu netbook remix) then Linux surely beats windows. Bablotech goes on to say that Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix is the most feature-rich open platform for netbooks, and it is a simple download for most popular netbook models. Ubuntu Netbook Remix includes a new consumer-friendly interface that allows users to quickly and easily get on-line and use their favorite applications. http://www.bablotech.com/2009/08/25/top-15-linux-distributions-for-netbooks/
In The Blogosphere
Likewise Software: Ubuntu Meets Microsoft Active Directory
Joe Panettieri, of Works With U, has posted information on an upcoming webinar hosted by Likewise Software[1] and specifically designed for Ubuntu users and administrators. He feels that Likewise is making news by specifically reaching out to the Ubuntu community — and to Windows administrators who may need to manage Ubuntu systems. The webinar will be held in September of 2009.
http://www.workswithu.com/2009/08/24/likewise-software-ubuntu-meets-microsoft-active-directory/
Rethinking Empathy in Ubuntu 9.10
Christopher Tozzi, writing for Works With U, explains why the question of Empathy versus Pidgin has come up again, and this late in the development cycle of Karmic Koala - in the middle of a feature freeze. Pidgin has recently added video chat, which had been one reason to go to Empathy. However, Empathy has the Telepathy framework, which offers a rich infrastructure for desktop collaboration that Pidgin will likely never implement. Christopher doesn't feel that Empathy will be switched back out of being the default instant messaging application at this time, simply because Karmic is so deep in feature freeze. See his reasons at: http://www.workswithu.com/2009/08/24/rethinking-empathy-in-ubuntu-910/
Ubuntu 9.10 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7
Jun Auza, in his blog "Tech Source From Bohol", takes a look at some of the features of three operating systems being released to the public in October of 2009: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard); Windows 7; and Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala). His comparison of the same areas of each - User Interface, System Enhancements, and Additional Features - is only a small example of what each can do, and links are provided for more information on each of them. He also states, "I've noticed that Windows and Mac OS X is trying to be like Linux right now --fast and resource efficient." View the rest of his comments and critique at: http://www.junauza.com/2009/08/ubuntu-910-vs-mac-os-x-snow-leopard-vs.html
The Ubuntu Server: Slowly Gaining Acceptance
The BeginLinux blog notes that, though the server edition of Ubuntu hasn't reached the acceptance level of the desktop, the server edition is gaining ground. One reason for the increased interest in Ubuntu Server Edition is the adoption of cloud computing. Lack of hardware certification is still a factor that is slowing down the growth, however. "The largest growth is seen in small and medium-sized businesses, which could benefit from the cost savings of cloud deployment." Read the blog for more details: http://beginlinux.com/blog/2009/08/the-ubuntu-server-slowly-gaining-acceptance/
In Other News
Ubuntu at Parliament of Zimbabwe
In 2008 Parliament had about 180 personal computers and 50 laptop computers running various versions of the Windows operating system. Most of the operating systems were not fully patched due to limited connectivity to the Microsoft repositories internationally located. Both the servers and the desktops were prone to regular attacks by viruses and Trojans as budgets to license our anti-virus solution were limited, released too late for the upgrades to be purchased or were not available at all. The mail and web server were on a machine running RedHat Linux which was compromised several times.
In line with its vision "To champion the integrity of Parliament regionally", Parliament decisively agreed to champion the use of Free and Open Source Software within Government and in Parliaments both regionally and internationally. In 2008 The ICT Director, Ganyani Khosa, started looking for the best and most reliable free and open source product for desktops and servers. He decided on Ubuntu and joined a group of ICT professionals who are equally driven by the passion for having software freely accessible – the Ubuntu Zimbabwe Loco Team. In his own words, Ganyani says, "I never regret having made this decision. Parliamentary business will never be done the same way as this technology enables us to do more work, deliver more information to more people as we work smarter and with near zero percent down time."
Parliament decided to install Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop on one hundred Personal computers and two laptop computers. The Mail & Proxy server, the Information & Document Management server and the Library System Server were installed with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server. The fourth Server to be installed with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS is running as a Parliament Ubuntu Repository Server providing local mirroring of the Local Repository hosted by Yo!Africa. The rest of the laptops and desktops are being gradually installed with Ubuntu 8.10 desktop.
Teresa Kamvura (Parliament ICT Manager) sums up what happened at the Parliament of Zimbabwe by saying "With the main advantage of being free and legal software, Ubuntu proves unaffected by viruses and very stable. In our administration of the Parliament ICT environment where movement of files from person to person and computer to computer is high, Ubuntu manages to rise to the challenge. Since we operate on a streamline budget, this has been the best cost effective measure that we have achieved. Our network is 95% on hardware running free and open source software. The cost of software did not hold us back from delivering a world class ICT experience to Parliament of Zimbabwe users and Legislators, thanks to open source and free software."
Please note that the link below opens very slowly so we have tried to include the majority of the article for you here. http://www.ubuntu.org.zw/node/22
Full Circle Magazine #28
Full Circle - the independent magazine for the Ubuntu Linux community are proud to announce the release of our twenty-eighth issue.
This month:
- Command and Conquer
- How-To : Program in Python - Part 2, LAMP Server - Part 1, Networking with SSHFS and Fast Internet With Squid.
- My Story - My Linux Experience I and II.
My Opinion - AllMyApps
- Review - Tellico.
- MOTU Interview - Stephane Graber.
- Top 5 - SIP Clients.
- Ubuntu Women Interview, Ubuntu Games and all the usual goodness!
Get it while it's hot! - http://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-28/
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-August/000680.html
Ubuntu UK podcast: Slipback
Ciemon Dunville, Alan Pope, Tony Whitmore, Dave Walker and the snoozing producer Laura Cowen are back once more with a monster episode of the Ubuntu Podcast from the UK Local Community Support Team.
At over 1.5 hours this is our longest episodes ever. Sorry to those of you who prefer short shows. We’ll try and curb our babbling in future. In our defence we have a fantastic interview that we just couldn’t cut up. Enjoy. As ever, your feedback is always welcome, details at the end of this post.
Details of this show at the link.
Meeting Summaries: August 2009
Ubuntu Governance
Forum Council
Ubuntu Forums Council August 2009
- August was a busy month for several of us outside of the forums and we were unable to have a FC IRC meeting. We will attempt to resolve pending agenda items via mailing list.
- The Ubuntu Forums Unanswered team is organizing it's leadership and has organizational meetings scheduled.
The Testimonial Team (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Forum/Spec/TestimonialTeam) has started to improve user experience in Forums Help and Feedback.
MOTU Council
- MC Meeting 2009-08-14,
- We are very happy to have Julien Lavergne (gilir) join the MOTU team. His great work in Ubuntu and great passion for collaborating with Debian made the decision very easy.
Yulia Novozhilova was recommended for upload privileges for netbeans (and related packages). We're very happy to have somebody new being very active with Java-related packages!
Andy Whitcroft was recommended for upload privileges for the Kernel. His great work clearly spoke for himself.
Technical Board
- Technical Board meeting, 2009-08-11
- Review of outstanding actions; actions carried over:
- Action: Scott to implement Developer Membership Board proposal (LP, mailing list, documentation, etc.)
- Action: Jono to see that documentation is updated to reflect the Developer Membership Board (blocked on above)
Action: Colin to update http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/techboard
- Action: Jono to draft text to communicate the TB's willingness to review key topics submitted by the community
- Debian TC liaison
- Brief discussion of the role of a Debian representative on the TB, in order to follow up to Bdale; Colin will take it back to e-mail.
Technical Board nominations (MattZimmerman)
All nominees have agreed, but there is a Launchpad-related hitch: m-of-n votes are not supported. As a fallback, the board agreed to use the Condorcet Internet Voting Service (http://www.cs.cornell.edu/andru/civs.html).
- The vote will run from the 17th to the 31st of August, and will elect board members for a two-year term.
- Action: Mark to create and announce TB vote
Ubuntu security policies (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/Policies) (KeesCook)
- The board approved all the non-draft items in revision 15 of this wiki page.
Action: Jamie Strandboge to add a reference to the previously-approved mDNS policy (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ZeroConfPolicySpec)
- Discussion on the execute bit policy will continue by e-mail; there are obvious difficulties around WINE and Java, and disagreement on the proper semantics for .desktop files.
Handling community problems (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingCommunityProblems) (JonoBacon)
- No objections to Jono proceeding with this; the TB will add a standing agenda item to review the bug list.
Investigate alternative to Google CSE (305905, 402767) (PaulSladen)
The multisearch experiment in Firefox has ended (https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/karmic-changes/2009-August/006000.html), so this is no longer of immediate concern, although the desktop team still needs to decide on and implement the final experience for 9.10.
- It appears that the desktop team is not wedded to the implementation tried out in Alpha 3, and is aware of the issues, so it does not appear that the TB needs to intervene at this time.
- There is likely to be further discussion on search options at UDS in November.
Statistics gathering policy (PaulSladen)
- Paul proposed a draft policy with best practices for developers in the field of active statistics gathering.
- Mark indicated that he would not be happy with a policy that required Canonical to share all the statistics it gathers; although that was not the intent of Paul's draft.
- The members of the Technical Board are not domain experts in statistics. There is some overlap with usability testing, for which there is certainly expertise in the Ubuntu community, although active statistics gathering is a more precise art.
- We asked Paul to bring his proposal to the attention of a wider audience, in order to attract attention from people with direct experience with this kind of problem; it may come back to the board later.
- Chair for next meeting to be discussed by mail.
- Review of outstanding actions; actions carried over:
- Technical Board meeting, 2009-08-25
- Yulia Novozhilova was approved for per-package upload privileges to netbeans
- Action: cjwatson to implement
- Andy Whitcroft was approved for per-package upload privileges to the kernel
- Action: cjwatson to implement
- Review of outstanding actions; actions carried over:
- Action: TB to review Jono's draft text to communicate the TB's willingness to review key topics submitted by the community
Action: Colin to update http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/techboard
- Done, with further text to be applied
Action: Colin to apply further updates to http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/techboard based on his new text
- Action: Colin to discuss role of a Debian representative on the TB by e-mail.
- No reply from Debian TC, Colin to chase and continue discussions
Action: Jamie Strandboge to add a reference to the previously-approved mDNS policy (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ZeroConfPolicySpec)
- Done.
- Action: Mark to create and announce TB vote
- Done, the vote in is in progress. 78 votes have been cast out of 130 voters.
Developer Membership Board (ScottJamesRemnant)
- LP changes have been implemented
- RT tickets filed (#35428, #35429) for mailing list changes
- Action: Scott to complete implementation of Developer Membership Board proposal
- Action: Jono to see that documentation is updated to reflect the Developer Membership Board (blocked on above)
Archive reorganisation (ColinWatson)
- The majority of MOTUs have responded to the initial feelers about their final privileges, most want to be generalists
- Action: cjwatson to do a final check with the Soyuz team on the details, and start pushing initial sets into LP
- After that, the next step is to start talking with the release teams about unifying processes there
- Check up on community bugs
- Zarro boogs.
Drivers for Ubuntu (MattZimmerman, Curtis Hovey)
- We received an authorative explanation from the LP team about what the driver teams can currently do, and they are now looking for us to tell them what they *should* be able to do
- cjwatson to draft proposed ubuntu drivers scheme for consensus
Base-2 prefix names (BenjaminDrung)
- Benjamin Drung asked that the Technical Board discuss the use of units in Ubuntu, specifically the distinction between IEC base-2 multiple units such as kibibyte (KiB) vs. SI base-10 multiple units such as kilobyte (kB) vs. the current scattered implementations.
- (as an aside, there's a third "standard" in the form of the O'Reilly Style Guide which species a base-2 multiple unit (KB))
- The Technical Board agreed that the current scattered forms are a mess, and that we should have a nuanced policy on their use in Ubuntu
- Action: bdrung to draft an initial policy to serve as a basis for discussion
- Select a chair for the next meeting
- The next meeting takes place after the TB vote has been completed.
- It seems unfair to bestow the chair on a newly elected member
- If mdz is elected for a further turn, he is the next chair on rotation
- If mdz is not elected, the next chair on rotation would fall to cjwatson
- Yulia Novozhilova was approved for per-package upload privileges to netbeans
Ubuntu Development Teams
Xubuntu Team
Xubuntu team report for August 2009
Packaging, Development, & Testing
Cody updated xubuntu-artwork package to include MurrinaXubuntu theme for testing.
- Cody/Mario patched gnome-screensaver to recommend gnome-power-manager OR xfce4-power-manager to prevent gnome-screensaver from pulling in gnome-power-manager.
- Cody seeded libasound2-plugins to fix no sound issue.
Cody patched exaile to drop bad and ugly gstreamer plugins to suggests instead of recommends to fix ISO oversize issue. (comment from SiDi : did you patch exaile 0.2.14 old package ? the 0.3 one does not recommend ugly/bad plugins and weights 11.4 MB instead of 65)
SiDi wrote a notify-osd patch that allows building notify-osd with xfconf for use of XFCE's font settings
SiDi wrote a notify-osd patch to enable color / opacity / text size gconf/xfconf keys for a11y reasons
SiDi fixed one of the two bugs in xfce4-volumed (crashes when no sound card is available)
- Cody packaged and uploaded gdm-2.20 for use instead of the new gnome-dependent gdm.
Ubuntu LoCo Teams
Chilean Team
IRC Triagging Session I (Taller de Triage). By VictorVargas and MarlonCisternas (August 1st, #ubuntu-cl).
- IRC Activity for Bug Jam (August 8th and 9th, #ubuntu-cl)
IRC Monthly Meeting (August 24th, #ubuntu-cl). The meeting page with the log is here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ChileanTeam/Reuniones/2009-08-24.
Greek Team
An Ubuntu repository (http://ts.sch.gr/repo/) has been created for educational software used in Greek schools. Members of our loco team where involved in the project.
5th issue of Ubuntistas (http://ubuntu-gr.org/story/31-07-09/ubuntistas-%CF%84%CE%B5%CF%8D%CF%87%CE%BF%CF%82-5-%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%8D%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%82-%CE%B1%CF%8D%CE%B3%CE%BF%CF%85%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%82-2009), our team's e-magazine was released.
Honduras Team
Ubuntu Honduras Loco Team has a web page.http://ubuntu-honduras.org/Ubuntu-Honduras.
Planning next visits for the Ubuntu-Tour (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HondurasTeam/Ubuntu_Tour) on the following months (https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-hn/2009-August/thread.html).
- August 1st:
I Ubuntu Coffee Bash (http://ubuntu-honduras.org/node/13) at the city of San Pedro Sula.
Irish Team
We ran a Geeknic (http://wiki.geeknic.org/index.php/Dublin_2009_2) on Sunday 2nd August in Dublin. It was a great day out. Some pictures here: http://pix.ie/czajkowski/album/349891.
Face to face meet up on Thursday 6th of August in the Longstone (http://www.thelongstone.com).
Czajkowski (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/czajkowski) and Rory (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RoryMcCann) gave a short talk on Ubuntu NGO (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NGO) at the meeting.
Regular Monthly IRC Meeting (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IrishTeam/IRCMeetings/2009-08-12) was held at 9pm Irish time on Wednesday 12th August.
Japanese Team
- We held "Ubuntu Offline Meeting Tokyo" on August 1st at Hirose Building, Akihabara.
- This event, organized by Ubuntu Japanese Team and Hirose Electric Works, ltd. had Ubuntu 9.04 install party, a number of seminar sessions and lunch party.
- We received more 70 visitors.
Report page (Japanese): https://wiki.ubuntulinux.jp/Offline200908Report
- pores_n joined the Japanese team.
- He has been participated in many offline events and helped other members. We are glad to welcome him to the team.
- Fumihito Yoshida, who is team member, started new series "Do you know? - processes behind OS" on Software Design September issue.
Yoshida wrote "How to use TOMOYO Linux on Ubuntu" on ThinIT which is Japanese web magazine.
- Our team wrote up yearly team report from July 2008 to June 2009.
- We are arranging for Open Source Conference Nagoya.
United States Teams
Ohio Team
Ohio LinuxFest
- Conference materials and CDs have arrived
- Ordered and received Ubuntu books from Pearson to display at booth
- Set team contact from ~ubuntu-us-oh-council back to ~jpeddicord
- ~ubuntu-us-oh-council still in place; change just to make things easier for external contacts
- Discussed alternate IRC meeting times
- More NEO group discussions
Filed a team report on time (yeah! )
Pennsylvania Team
Team member Alex Launi presented on bzr (http://ubuntupennsylvania.org/?p=47) at PLUG (http://www.phillylinux.org)
South Central PA hosted a Social/Planning Meeting (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PennsylvaniaTeam/EventsTeam/080809SCPA)
Began planning our portion of the UbuntuGlobalJam with a Philadelphia Mythbuntu Installfest (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PennsylvaniaTeam/EventsTeam/PhillyMythJam2009) and participation in the US Teams Wiki Doc Day (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/USTeams/Events/WikiDocDay2009)
Started planning and taking donations for a table at CPOSC 2009 (http://ubuntupennsylvania.org/?p=48) where team member Elizabeth Krumbach (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/lyz) will be speaking in October
Arizona Team
Planning and execution of Tucson Jaunty installfest. A co-hosted event with the University of Arizona Computer Science Dept. (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArizonaTeam/Installfest/Jaunty-Tucson)
Working on ABLEconf - a co-hosted event set for Oct. 2009 where the states LUGs, SIGs, and our team host an open source conference. Location for this years event is in Phoenix. (http://www.ableconf.com/)
Ubuntu Beginners Team
Ubuntu Beginners Team Meeting 2009-08-11 (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BeginnersTeam/Meetings/20090811)
Explain Folding@Home (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FoldingAtHome) and how to install and setup origami (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FoldingAtHome/origami)
Agree to stop using the Ubuntu Beginners Team Calendar and to use the Fridge Calendar (http://fridge.ubuntu.com/calendar) instead
- Agree to drop ##beginners-classroom and use #ubuntu-classroom instead
Ubuntu Beginners Team Meeting 2009-08-25 (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BeginnersTeam/Meetings/20090825)
- Status update about ##beginners-classroom being dropped and progress being made on new mailing list creation
Yvan Pierre (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/yvan300) joined the Ubuntu Beginners Team. He has been a great participant in all team activities, and has done an excellent job of helping people in #ubuntu-beginners-help.
- Agree to try and revive the quiz that is given to Padawans
Upcoming Meetings and Events
Monday, August 31, 2009
Ubuntu Developer Week, Day 1
- Agenda: None listed as of publication
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Ubuntu Developer Week, Day 2
- Agenda: None listed as of publication
Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting
- Start: 13:00 UTC
- End: 14:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
Server Team Meeting
- Start: 15:00 UTC
- End: 16:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
Desktop Team Meeting
- Start: 16:30 UTC
- End: 17:30 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-desktop
Kernel Team Meeting
- Start: 17:00 UTC
- End: 18:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
- Agenda: Not listed as of publication
LoCo Teams Meeting
- Start: 17:00 UTC
- End: 18:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-locoteams
- Agenda: None listed as of publication
EMEA Membership Meeting
- Start: 20:00 UTC
- End: 21:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Membership/RegionalBoards/EMEA
Community Council Meeting
- Start: 21:00 UTC
- End: 22:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Ubuntu Developer Week, Day 3
- Agenda: None listed as of publication
Cameroonian LoCoTeam monthly IRC meeting
- Start: 14:00 UTC
- End: 16:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-cm
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
- Start: 17:00 UTC
- End: 18:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Ubuntu Developer Week, Day 4
- Agenda: None listed as of publication
Karmic Alpha 5
Ubuntu Java Meeting
- Start: 14:00 UTC
- End: 15:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
- Agenda: None listed as of publication
Friday, September 4, 2009
Ubuntu Developer Week, Day 5
- Agenda: None listed as of publication
Karmic Weekly Release Meeting
- Start: 15:00 UTC
- End: 16:30 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
Agenda: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReleaseTeam/Meeting/2009-09-04
How to run a successfull Jam (Jorge Castro)
- Start: 21:00 UTC
- End: 22:00 UTC
- Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-classroom
Saturday, September 4, 2009
- None listed as of publication
Sunday, September 5, 2009
- None listed as of publication
Updates and Security for 6.06, 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04
Security Updates
USN-822-1: KDE-Libs vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-822-1
USN-823-1: KDE-Graphics vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-823-1
USN-824-1: PHP vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-824-1
USN-825-1: libvorbis vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-825-1
Ubuntu 6.06 Updates
langpack-locales 2.3.18.23 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2009-August/012783.html
sun-java5 1.5.0-20-0ubuntu0.6.06.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2009-August/012784.html
Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
tzdata 2009l-0ubuntu0.8.04 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2009-August/012280.html
ganeti 1.2.0-1ubuntu0.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2009-August/012281.html
compiz-fusion-bcop 0.6.0-1ubuntu0.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2009-August/012282.html
zabbix 1:1.4.2-4ubuntu3.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2009-August/012283.html
wasce-server 2.1.1.3final-4 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2009-August/012284.html
sun-java6 6-16-0ubuntu1.8.04 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2009-August/012285.html
sun-java5 1.5.0-20-0ubuntu0.8.04 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2009-August/012286.html
Ubuntu 8.10 Updates
tzdata 2009l-0ubuntu0.8.10 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/intrepid-changes/2009-August/009760.html
Ubuntu 9.04 Updates
tzdata 2009l-0ubuntu0.9.04 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/jaunty-changes/2009-August/009881.html
zabbix 1:1.6.1-3ubuntu0.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/jaunty-changes/2009-August/009882.html
packagekit-gnome 0.3.13-0ubuntu1.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/jaunty-changes/2009-August/009883.html
gitosis 0.2+20080825-2ubuntu0.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/jaunty-changes/2009-August/009884.html
sun-java6 6-16-0ubuntu1.9.04 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/jaunty-changes/2009-August/009885.html
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:
- John Crawford
- Craig A. Eddy
- Dave Bush
- Sayak Banerjee
- Isabelle Duchatelle
- Liraz Siri
- Nathan Handler
- And many others
Glossary of Terms
MC - MOTU Council - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Council
MOTU - Master Of The Universe - Developers responsible for the Universe and Multiverse repositories. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU
- NGO - Non-governmental Organization.
Other acronyms can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/glossary
Ubuntu - Get Involved
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UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue157 (last edited 2009-08-30 20:34:04 by ip68-231-150-152)