Issue157

Contents

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. General Community News
    1. Karmic: Feature Freeze in place - Alpha 5 freeze ahead
  4. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Jaunty
    3. Translation Stats Karmic
    4. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week
  5. LoCo News
    1. Ubuntu Pennsylvania at Pennsylvania Open Source Conference
    2. Ubuntu Arizona Installfest
    3. Ubuntu-Mexico: Podcast #1
    4. Ubuntu US Georgia: UbuCon at Atlanta Linux Fest 2009
  6. Launchpad News
    1. Wear your badge with pride
    2. New guides to translating your project
  7. Ubuntu Forums News
    1. Tutorial of the Week
    2. Marking Threads as Solved
  8. The Planet
    1. Daniel Holbach: New week = Ubuntu Developer Week
    2. Ryan Troy: VMware cookbook - preview
    3. Jorge Castro: Linking bugs to upstream trackers podcast
    4. Laura Czajkowski: Global Jam time again
    5. Alan Pope: Ubuntu Repositories podcast
  9. In The Press
    1. 5 Annoying “Papercuts” to be Fixed in Ubuntu 9.10
    2. Coming Soon: Ubuntu App Centre – Replacing Add/Remove, Synaptic, Gdebi, Update Manager…
    3. Canonical Unveils The Ubuntu Software Store
    4. Checking In On Ubuntu Karmic's Boot Time
    5. Early Ubuntu 9.10, OpenSuSE 11.2, Mandriva 2010 Benchmarks
    6. Ubuntu 9.10 Gets A New Splash Screen, Not Plymouth
    7. Sharp's 5-inch PC-Z1 NetWalker honors Zaurus legacy with touchscreen Ubuntu
    8. Top 15 Linux Distributions for Netbooks
  10. In The Blogosphere
    1. Likewise Software: Ubuntu Meets Microsoft Active Directory
    2. Rethinking Empathy in Ubuntu 9.10
    3. Ubuntu 9.10 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7
    4. The Ubuntu Server: Slowly Gaining Acceptance
  11. In Other News
    1. Ubuntu at Parliament of Zimbabwe
    2. Full Circle Magazine #28
    3. Ubuntu UK podcast: Slipback
  12. Meeting Summaries: August 2009
    1. Ubuntu Governance
      1. Forum Council
      2. MOTU Council
      3. Technical Board
    2. Ubuntu Development Teams
      1. Xubuntu Team
        1. Packaging, Development, & Testing
    3. Ubuntu LoCo Teams
      1. Chilean Team
      2. Greek Team
      3. Honduras Team
      4. Irish Team
      5. Japanese Team
      6. United States Teams
        1. Ohio Team
        2. Pennsylvania Team
        3. Arizona Team
    4. Ubuntu Beginners Team
  13. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Monday, August 31, 2009
      1. Ubuntu Developer Week, Day 1
    2. Tuesday, September 1, 2009
      1. Ubuntu Developer Week, Day 2
      2. Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting
      3. Server Team Meeting
      4. Desktop Team Meeting
      5. Kernel Team Meeting
      6. LoCo Teams Meeting
      7. EMEA Membership Meeting
      8. Community Council Meeting
    3. Wednesday, September 2, 2009
      1. Ubuntu Developer Week, Day 3
      2. Cameroonian LoCoTeam monthly IRC meeting
      3. Foundation Team Meeting
      4. QA Team Meeting
    4. Thursday, September 3, 2009
      1. Ubuntu Developer Week, Day 4
      2. Karmic Alpha 5
      3. Ubuntu Java Meeting
    5. Friday, September 4, 2009
      1. Ubuntu Developer Week, Day 5
      2. Karmic Weekly Release Meeting
      3. How to run a successfull Jam (Jorge Castro)
    6. Saturday, September 4, 2009
    7. Sunday, September 5, 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. UWN #: A sneak peek
  16. Archives and RSS Feed
  17. Additional Ubuntu News
  18. Conclusion
  19. Credits
  20. Glossary of Terms
  21. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  22. Feedback

newspaper-icon3.jpg

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

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

http://azloco.com/

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

  1. https://likewisesoftwareevents.webex.com/likewisesoftwareevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=662371339

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.

http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2009/08/19/s02e11-slipback/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

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. Smile :-)

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.
  • 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

      • 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

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

Greek Team

Honduras Team

Irish Team

Japanese Team

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! Smile :) )

Pennsylvania Team

Arizona Team

Ubuntu Beginners Team

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

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

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

Community Council Meeting

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Ubuntu Developer Week, Day 3

  • Agenda: None listed as of publication

Cameroonian LoCoTeam monthly IRC 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, 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

How to run a successfull Jam (Jorge Castro)

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

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

Ubuntu 8.10 Updates

Ubuntu 9.04 Updates

UWN #: A sneak peek

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Conclusion

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Credits

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

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Glossary of Terms

  1. MC - MOTU Council - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Council

  2. MOTU - Master Of The Universe - Developers responsible for the Universe and Multiverse repositories. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU

  3. NGO - Non-governmental Organization.

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

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UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue157 (last edited 2009-08-30 20:34:04 by ip68-231-150-152)