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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #163 for the week October 4th - October 10th, 2009. In this issue we cover ...

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In This Issue

General Community News

2009 Community Council vote complete

Thanks to all Ubuntu members who participated in the CC ballot. The new community council takes office immediately, and (in alphabetical order) comprises:

• Alan Pope
• Benjamin Mako Hill
• Daniel Holbach
• Elizabeth Krumbach
• Matthew East
• Mike Basinger
• Richard Johnson

We had several additional candidates, and the ballot was richer for their willingness to stand. I'd like to thank all of them, and in addition would like to thank James Troup who steps down from the CC after 5 years as a founding member.

Welcome to the new faces, I look forward to two wonderful years of good governance in the Ubuntu community!

The structures by which we organise tens of thousands of participants have matured substantially in the past years. We have a deeper and richer LoCo structure today than ever before (thanks to those who lead there). The Forums Council has matured in its role and sets the example for delegated leadership from the CC. The Tech Board has lead the restructuring of the developer community, and so we are merging the excellend MOTU Council into the new Developer Membership Board, providing a more granular view of developer participation across the huge Ubuntu archive. Ubuntu Translations are now more formally lead. All in all, I'm proud of the commitment this community continues to show towards effective leadership, and the willingness of members of the community to step up and participate in that way. Thank you all!

Mark Shuttleworth

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-October/000720.html

Ubuntu Server Eucalyptus Testers Needed

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala loves Eucalyptus, the Open Source system for implementing on-premise private and hybrid clouds using the hardware and software infrastructure that is in place, without modification. This allows you to run your own private cloud on your own hardware and infrastructure. Sound interesting? It really is, and this a rocking new feature in the new Ubuntu Server edition.

As we build to release, we could really use your help to make sure that Karmic Koala’s Eucalyptus support is rock solid. This post outlines how you can test this functionality, and provide some valuable feedback. You need two machines, one of which has to be capable of handling KVM.

The full instructions for testing can be found at the link below. Discussion about Eucalyptus can be posted directly to the ubuntu-devel mailing list and you are welcome to join the server development team in the #ubuntu-server IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.

http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/10/09/ubuntu-server-eucalyptus-testers-needed/

New MOTUs

• MC Meeting, 2009-10-09:
  • Travis Watkins was welcomed back to the MOTU team and recommended for upload rights for compiz-related packages.
  • Robert Ancell joined the MOTU team.

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

• Open (#) +/- # over last week
• Critical (#) +/- # over last week
• Unconfirmed (#) +/- # over last week
• Unassigned (#) +/- # over last week
• All bugs ever reported (#) +/- # 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 (10490) -144 over last week
• French (36412) -715 over last week
• Brazilian Portuguese (46525) -1223 over last week
• Swedish (53304) +126 over last week
• English (United Kingdom) (53342) -73 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 (16626) +417 over last week
• French (62207) +772 over last week
• Brazilian Portuguese (68341) -1314 over last week
• Swedish (71292) +432 over last week
• English (Uk) (88814) +1374 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

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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

Catalan LoCo Team Jam

The Catalan Team ran a translation and a packaging/bug-fixing jam and they had exceptional participation (about 20 people at peak time). Most importantly though, they had a good time. The event took place at the Citilab computing center in Cornellà, near Barcelona, and they'd like to thank them along with all those who participated in the jam. Pictures at the link below and also here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexm/sets/72157622384284789/

http://davidplanella.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/ubuntu-jamming-catalan-style/

Late Global Jam in Copenhagen

While Copenhagen didn't quite manage to get their Global Bug Jam in on the same date as the rest of the Ubuntu World, they still managed to get it done. They worked primarily on bug triaging, however they also had a quick look at the features of Empathy (the new default instant messaging client in Karmic Koala), and the Ubuntudanmark Podcast guys did a quick segment for their next podcast.

http://compadre.dk/blog/2009/10/11/late-global-jam-in-copenhagen/

New in Karmic Koala

Launchpad News

Bazaar 2.0.0: interview with Martin Pool

The Bazaar project released their version 2.0.0 this week. Matthew Revell spoke to Martin Pool, the project’s lead, about the release and Bazaar generally. Matthew asked Martin what was new and cool about the release:

“Harder, better, stronger, faster” — we made our new 2a format the default and it’s considerably smaller and faster. Ian’s recent benchmarks show repositories in this format are substantially smaller than for Mercurial, and roughly the same size as for Git. Of course results do vary but it does correlate, and determines how much data we have to transfer from local disk or across the network.

The other cool thing about this release is that it’s the start of a stable series of 2.0.1 releases, where we’ll be landing only bugfixes and (as much as we can manage it) no new bugs or features, no API compatibility breaks, and no format changes. We’ve heard from users that in some situations they find our monthly releases too much, so we’re now going to give them the choice of a more stable series, or to keep getting new features every month with the 2.1betas.

The full interview is available at the link below.

http://blog.launchpad.net/bazaar/bazaar-2-0-0-interview-with-martin-pool

Ubuntu Forums News

An Interview With cariboo907

It’s that time again! Today Joe Barker interviews one of the new additions to the Ubuntu Forum Staff, cariboo907. According to Joe, Jim is very calm and focused no matter what the situation, and in my opinion – a wonderful addition to the staff. In the interview, we get some incite about Jim's personal life, past and present. Refer to the link below to read the whole interview.

http://blog.joeb454.com/2009/10/an-interview-with-cariboo907/

UF Tutorial of the Week

Today we'll step out of the Tutorials & Tips section to visit two tutorials, one of them in T&T, the other one in the current Karmic Development section. Both threads will show you everything you always wanted to know about grub2 (but were afraid to ask). Both are from drs305 (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=223945). grub2 is default with Karmic and can be installed on Jaunty.

The first one, "GRUB 2 Basics" will get you started with grub2, in particular with the /boot/grub/grub.cfg and /etc/default/grub files. The second one, "Grub 2 Title Tweaks Thread" will help you tweak grub2 titles to your desire. Before upgrading to Karmic, make sure you read both of them!

Special mention to ranch hand's (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=647614) "Grub2 Introduction" (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1285897) for links to grub2 documentation.

"GRUB 2 Basics" http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1195275

"Grub 2 Title Tweaks Thread" http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1287602

The Planet

Joey Stanford: Ubuntu Tribal Leadership

The Ubuntu community is a tribe. In fact, inside Ubuntu we have different tribes (some represented formally by teams like MOTU, Core Devs, LoCo Teams, and the like). Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, is a different tribe. Canonical as well has different “sub-tribes”. Upstreams, the valuable authors of programs inside Ubuntu, each have their own tribe. How do we lead and cooperate with all of these tribes and “sub-tribes” and do it well? Or, in Ubuntu tribal speak, one might ask how do we advance the vision of Ubuntu? To get a better sense of the question and some answers, I encourage you to watch David Logan’s talk on tribal leadership. http://www.ted.com/talks/david_logan_on_tribal_leadership.html

http://joey.ubuntu-rocks.org/blog/2009/10/10/ubuntu-tribal-leadership/

In The Press

New Ubuntu Community Council elected

The H Online reports that a new Ubuntu Community Council has been elected. Seven members were elected by the community from the twelve candidates selected by Ubuntu founder and sponsor Mark Shuttleworth. New council members include Daniel Holbach (Germany), Matthew East (UK), Mike Basinger (US), Benjamin Mako Hill (US), Alan Pope (UK) and Richard Johnson (US). The only woman on the team is Debian system administrator Elizabeth Krumbach (US). She has been a member of several Ubuntu teams since 2007 and is also a member of Ubuntu-Women. According to Shuttleworth, "the new community council takes office immediately". Appointments to the council are for a period of two years. http://www.h-online.com/open/New-Ubuntu-Community-Council-elected--/news/114414

Dell's Ubuntu 9.04 Offers More Changes

Phoronix's Michael Larabel says that Ubuntu 9.04 was released back in April while the next release, Ubuntu 9.10, will be out in less than three weeks. However, only recently has Dell been getting around to rolling out their Linux desktops, netbooks, and notebooks with an Ubuntu 9.04 installation option rather than Ubuntu 8.10. In a blog post on Direct2Dell, Dell's John Hull has commented on some of the technical changes to be found with those Dell systems shipping with Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" -- including those that are available with Ubuntu Moblin Remix. These changes are good to see and that Dell continues to invest in their Ubuntu offerings, albeit this is coming six months after Ubuntu 9.04 was released. Whether Dell will begin offering Ubuntu 9.10 systems on the heals of the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is yet unknown. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzU5Mw

Screenshots Tour of Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 Beta

Damien of MakTechEasier notes that six months down the road, it’s time to gear up for the newly born Ubuntu baby again. This time, Ubuntu 9.10, codenamed Karmic Koala, will be officially released on the 29th of October. The folks at MakeTechEasier have grabbed the LiveCD image, wiped their machines clean and installed the full version onto them. They now present you the screenshots tour (and new features) review of Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 beta. Hit the following link for more. http://maketecheasier.com/screenshots-tour-ubuntu-karmic-910/2009/10/06

Shuttleworth at LinuxCon: Will Ubuntu Lead Free Software?

IT Management's Bruce Byfield knows that when Mark Shuttleworth talks, the free and open source software (FOSS) world listens. Shuttleworth gives technical suggestions about how free software can improve, and emphasizes that improvements will attract both developers and users to free software. Byfield questions some of Shuttleworth's points though. "Is cadence necessary? Does it conflict with quality? Is design already receiving sufficient attention? Is greater participation an unalloyed good?" Follow this link to Byfield's article and see if you agree. http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3842626/Shuttleworth-at-LinuxCon-Will-Ubuntu-Lead-Free-Software.htm

The Ubuntu obsession of Tanner Helland

Steven Rosenberg tells us that he has been looking in on Tanner Helland's Ubuntu-rich blog for some time, and he recently found a virtual motherlode of well-researched and reasoned opinions on where Ubuntu should be headed. While there's a whole lot right with open-source software, there's quite a bit that's not so right and needs both minor and major improvement before a free, open-source, Unix-based operating environment can really challenge Windows and Macintosh for significant share on the desktops of non-geeks and geeks alike. http://insidesocal.com/click/2009/10/the-ubuntu-obsession-of-tanner.html

Ubuntu Karmic Koala preview

ghacks.net's Jack Wallen says if you’ve been following the Ubuntu release cycle you know that the .10 release is forth coming. Slated to hit the bandwidth October 29th, 2009, 9.10 promises to have quite a number of new features that should please even the most discerning of Linux users. Wallen says that after using 9.10 for a day he has to say that he is impressed. He has been using 9.04 on nearly all of his machines and was wondering how Ubuntu could be improved upon. Well, it seems the development team has, in fact, improved upon 9.04. It’s not a giant leap forward, but the speed improvements and the new software promises to make the Ubuntu experience one that anyone can enjoy. http://www.ghacks.net/2009/10/04/ubuntu-karmic-koala-preview/

What makes Ubuntu so user friendly?

Jack Wallen of ghacks.net says that of all the Linux distributions, the consensus is beginning to become clear that Ubuntu is, hands down, the most user friendly of the Linux distributions. But what makes it user-friendly? And what, in specific, makes Ubuntu so appealing that it could easily become the flagship Linux distribution? Of course what you really need to do is define “user friendliness”. User-friendly, to Wallen, is an operating system that does not interfere with the user. A real user friendly operating system will allow the user to do what they need to do without confusing road blocks or cumbersome sub-systems. And, finally, a user-friendly operating system should be secure from the threat of viruses and malware without the inclusion of third-party software. Linux has that in spades. http://www.ghacks.net/2009/10/06/what-makes-ubuntu-so-user-friendly/

In The Blogosphere

Dell: Ubuntu Desktop PC Is Back

Joe Panettieri, of Works With U, notes that Dell's long dry summer is over. Their website is now offering a number of models of computer with Ubuntu Linux installed. These include: Inspiron 537 ST n-Series, equipped with Ubuntu Desktop Edition 9.04, the Dell Mini 10v netbook (with 8.04), Inspiron 15n notebook (9.04) and Studio XPS 13 (9.04). Dell also offers Ubuntu Moblin Remix Developer Edition on the Mini 10v.

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/10/07/dell-ubuntu-desktop-is-back/

Ubuntu Linux 9.04 - Technical Details

John Hull, writing on the Dell community Direct2Dell website, notes some of the advances that Dell has made with their offering of Ubuntu 9.04. These include Cyberlink's PowerDVD application for DVD playback, a new GUI tool for creating recovery/restore media for the OS, GRUB2 bootloader, and native support for the wireless cards that Dell uses. Dell also has the custom Ubuntu ISO available at http://en.community.dell.com/wikis/linux/ubuntu-9-04-dell-factory-recovery-iso.aspx for those who might be interested.

http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2009/10/09/ubuntu-linux-904-technical-details.aspx

Karmic Koala: The best Ubuntu Linux ever?

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, the Cyber Cynic, has taken a look at Ubuntu 9.10 Beta, and was impressed with what he saw. Karmic Koala impressed him with the ease and looks of the installation, the speed of booting to the desktop, the improvements to GNOME, Empathy and Evolution, and the Linux 2.6.31 kernel with the ext4 filesystem. In addition, he felt that the Ubuntu Software Center is a nice addition for new users.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/14871/karmic_koala_the_best_ubuntu_linux_ever

Sex, Live, and Virtualization

http://ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Marcel-Gagne-Orbiting-Planet-buntu/Sex-Live-and-Virtualization

Ubuntu 9.10 Preview: New Login Manager

Christopher Tozzi, of Works With U, is impressed with the new Karmic Koala Beta. He begins with the new boot screen, for which he provides a brief screencast to show it in action. He likes the looks and the fact that it doesn't use hardware accelleration and is therefore available to less advanced machines. He also likes the fact that the desktop doesn't appear until it's actually ready for use.

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/10/03/ubuntu-910-preview-new-login-manager/

Ubuntu 9.10 Preview: New Theme, Icons

Christopher Tozzi, of Works With U, looks at the new theme and icons for Karmic Koala. In his opinion, these are minor cosmetic changes for the theme. Simply adding a dark brown version of one window decoration theme, and minor modification of the wallpaper while using the same colors doesn't impress him. He was impressed with the new icons, both the default and the Nautilus ones. He provides screenshots of the icons and window decoration selection window.

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/10/07/ubuntu-910-preview-new-theme-icons/

In Other News

Ubuntu 9.10 - Almost Perfect

Bryan Lunduke describes himself as a "rather harsh critic." He even wrote an article titled “The Perfect Linux Distro”. In this article, he looks at a number of what he sees as improvements with Ubuntu 9.10. The potential of the Ubuntu Software Center is just the beginning. He likes what has been done with the theme and icons, and is even more impressed with the available choice of wallpaper. He is also impressed with the new LiveCD, the choice of Empathy over Pidgin, and the addition of Ubuntu One. He does mention some things that he feels are missing, such as games, video editing, and Banshee music player. Overall, in his words, "I’d take it so far as to say I see very little reason that Ubuntu 9.10 would not be an excellent choice for the vast majority of computer users."

http://lunduke.com/?p=815

Hulu Desktop (Linux)

Hulu Desktop for Linux is currently built on Fedora 11 and Ubuntu 9.04. The packages should also work on any Linux distribution with glib2.16 (such as Ubuntu 8.04+ and Fedora 9+). You must have Adobe Flash Player 9.0.124 or higher installed. If you can load and watch videos on Hulu.com, you should be able to use Hulu Desktop for Linux. Hulu Desktop depends on the following libraries or packages, although they should be pre-installed with the supported distributions:

• GTK+ 2.12 or higher
• GLib 2.16 or higher
• LIRC 0.8.2 or higher (required for remote control functionality)

Downloads for 32 or 64 bit Ubuntu at the link below.

http://www.hulu.com/labs/hulu-desktop-linux

Meeting Summaries

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Community Spotlight

Updates and Security for 6.06, 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04

Security Updates

• USN-841-1: GLib vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-841-1

• USN-842-1: Wget vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-842-1

• USN-843-1: BackupPC vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-843-1

• USN-844-1: mimeTeX vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-844-1

• USN-845-1: Pan vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-845-1

• USN-846-1: ICU vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-846-1

• USN-847-1: Devscripts vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-847-1

• USN-847-2: devscripts vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-847-2

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

• langpack-locales 2.3.18.25 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2009-October/012786.html

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

• debian-installer 20070308ubuntu40.12 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2009-October/012297.html

• apt-cacher 1.5.5-0ubuntu0.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2009-October/012298.html

• tzdata 2009n-0ubuntu0.8.04 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2009-October/012299.html

• adept 2.1.3ubuntu25.2 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2009-October/012300.html

Ubuntu 8.10 Updates

• tzdata 2009n-0ubuntu0.8.10 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/intrepid-changes/2009-October/009765.html

• landscape-client 1.3.2.3-0ubuntu0.8.10.0 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/intrepid-changes/2009-October/009766.html

Ubuntu 9.04 Updates

• tzdata 2009n-0ubuntu0.9.04 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/jaunty-changes/2009-October/009901.html

• landscape-client 1.3.2.3-0ubuntu0.9.04.0 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/jaunty-changes/2009-October/009902.html

• smart 1.2-0ubuntu1.9.04.1 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/jaunty-changes/2009-October/009903.html

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Conclusion

Thank you for reading the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter.

See you next week!

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Glossary of Terms

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