Issue167

Contents

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. General Community News
    1. Lucid open for development
    2. Ubuntu Open Week review
    3. Updating the Ubuntu Code of Conduct (Benjamin Mako Hill)
    4. Ubuntu Marketing Team revival and SpreadUbuntu
  4. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Karmic
    3. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week
  5. LoCo News
    1. Ubuntu Tunisia: Software Freedom Day Tunisia 2009
    2. Karmic Release in Norway
    3. Ubuntu Georgia 9.10 Install Fest
    4. New York State Release Celebration
    5. Karmic Massachusetts Party Photos
  6. Ubuntu Forum News
    1. Tutorial of the Week
    2. Ubuntu Forums Community Interviews
      1. An Interview with Mako
      2. An Interview with lisati
  7. The Planet
    1. Matthew East: Ubuntu Hits Italian National TV (again)
    2. Leandro Gomez: Thank You!
    3. Mahyuddin Susanto: Ubuntu movement at West Sumatra after Earthquake
  8. In The Press
    1. Q&A: Ubuntu 9.10 security
    2. Fedora 12 vs. Ubuntu 9.10 Benchmarks
    3. Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 Shines Bright
    4. Pulling the trigger on Ubuntu 9.10 upgrade, Part 1: Eyes wide open/shut
    5. Review: Ubuntu 9.10 first look
    6. Ubuntu 9.10 'Karmic Koala' is here: 5 things CIOs must know
    7. Hey Ubuntu, Stop Making Linux Look Bad
  9. In The Blogosphere
    1. Memo to Ubuntu Devs: Make Separate Home Default
    2. Testing the Nouveau Driver on Ubuntu
    3. 5 Reasons why Ubuntu 9.10 is better than Windows 7
    4. Bomgar Embraces Ubuntu for Remote IT Support
  10. In Other News
    1. Canonical Matching Creative Commons Donations
    2. LugRadio Documentary – Now Available Online
  11. Meeting Summaries: October 2009
    1. Ubuntu Governance
      1. MOTU Council
      2. Technical Board
    2. Xubuntu Team
      1. Packaging, Development, & Testing
      2. Artwork and marketing
    3. Asturian Team
    4. Chilean Team
    5. German Kubuntu Team
    6. Irish Team
    7. Japanese Team
    8. United States Teams
      1. California Team
      2. Chicago Team
      3. Ohio Team
    9. Ubuntu Beginners Team
  12. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Monday, November 09, 2009
      1. Ubuntu Studio Developer Meeting
      2. Security Team Catch-up
    2. Tuesday, November 10, 2009
      1. Asia Oceania Membership Board Meeting
      2. Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting
      3. Desktop Team Meeting
      4. Kernel Team Meeting
      5. Ubuntu-ie LoCo IRC Meeting
    3. Wednesday, November 11, 2009
      1. Server Team Meeting
      2. Foundation Team Meeting
      3. QA Team Meeting
    4. Thrusday, November 12, 2009
      1. Marketing Team Meeting
      2. Ubuntu Java Meeting
    5. Friday, November 13, 2009
      1. MC Meeting
    6. Saturday, November 14, 2009
    7. Sunday, November 15, 2009
  13. Updates and Security for 6.06, 8.04, 8.10, 9.04 and 9.10
    1. Security Updates
    2. Ubuntu 6.06 Updates
    3. Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
    4. Ubuntu 8.10 Updates
    5. Ubuntu 9.04 Updates
    6. Ubuntu 9.10 Updates
  14. Archives and RSS Feed
  15. Additional Ubuntu News
  16. Conclusion
  17. Credits
  18. Glossary of Terms
  19. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  20. Feedback

newspaper-icon3.jpg

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #167 for the week November 1st - November 7th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Lucid open for development, Ubuntu Open Week review, Updating the Ubuntu Code of Conduct, Ubuntu Marketing Team revival and SpreadUbuntu, LoCo News: Tunisia, Norway, New York State, Massachusetts, Ubuntu Forums Tutorial of the Week, Ubuntu Hits Italian National TV (again), Canonical Matching Creative Commons Donations, LugRadio Documentary – Now Available Online, Team Meeting Summaries: October 2009, 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

  • Lucid open for development
  • Ubuntu Open Week review
  • Updating the Ubuntu Code of Conduct

  • Ubuntu Marketing Team revival and SpreadUbuntu

  • Ubuntu Stats

  • LoCo News: Tunisia, Norway, New York State, Massachusetts

  • Ubuntu Forums Tutorial of the Week
  • Ubuntu Hits Italian National TV (again)

  • In the Press & Blogosphere

  • Canonical Matching Creative Commons Donations

  • LugRadio Documentary – Now Available Online

  • Team Meeting Summaries: October 2009

  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

General Community News

Lucid open for development

Lucid Lynx is now open for uploads.

We do not recommend that users upgrade to Lucid at this time; it is likely to be in very considerable flux until the initial round of merges is complete. As ever, any developers wishing to take the plunge at this early stage should ensure that they are comfortable with recovering from anything up to complete system failure.

Automatic syncs from Debian will begin shortly. Because Lucid is an LTS, autosyncing will track the Debian testing series for this cycle, rather than Debian unstable as we normally do.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

We expect this more conservative policy for package syncing will enable us to prepare a more stable long-term support release. The cost of this approach is that not only regressions will be delayed from reaching Lucid - bugfixes uploaded to Debian unstable will be delayed too (packages uploaded to Debian unstable normally don’t reach Debian testing for at least 10 days). If you believe a newer package version from unstable is needed for any reason, please don’t hesitate to request a sync using the normal process:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SyncRequestProcess

Likewise, package merges from either testing or unstable are perfectly ok, as needed. Merge-o-Matic (https://merges.ubuntu.com/) currently points at Debian unstable; we hope to be able to provide merge data for Debian testing in a week or so, in the meantime please be aware of this fact when preparing any merges.

As usual, the release schedule for Lucid is available at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidReleaseSchedule. This year, the first milestone will come in mid-December, well after UDS, and the end of automatic Debian package syncs is not planned until February - shortly before feature freeze itself. Since this cycle’s schedule includes a significant number of changes compared with respect to past releases, there’s been a lot of feedback, some of which is still being incorporated. This may still result in some fine-tuning of the more specific freezes on the timeline; you can expect this to all be finalized by the end of this week.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-November/000636.html

Ubuntu Open Week review

With the community on a high from the newest Ubuntu release, Karmic Koala, Ubuntu Open Week was just what the doctor ordered to help introduce everyone to all the different facets of the work that goes on every week to make Ubuntu the top notch Linux distribution that it is. Every year, the number of participants grows and the presentations get better. This years open week was no exception and was a huge success. If you missed any of the sessions, you can catch up on the fun by visiting the Ubuntu Open Week wiki page here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek There you can click on each presenters title link to see the logs of the sessions.

Thanks to Nathan Handler and Amber Graner, you can also get a brief overview of each days talks at the following links:

A big hand goes out to all the presenters, and to all the participants for their attention and the great questions asked. Everyone learned a lot about our rockin' Ubuntu community and what goes on behind the scenes to make Ubuntu the great distribution that it is today!

Updating the Ubuntu Code of Conduct (Benjamin Mako Hill)

The Ubuntu Code of Conduct is one of the most surprisingly successful projects Benjamin has ever had the privilege of working on. On his first day working for the company that would become Canonical, he talked with Mark Shuttleworth about some ideas for community governance. Partially in reaction to some harsh behavior in other free software projects he'd worked on, Mark and he agreed that some sort of explicit standard for behavior in Ubuntu would be a good thing. Over lunch of what was literally his first day working on Ubuntu, he wrote a draft of code of conduct that was essentially the version that Ubuntu has used until now. Shuttleworth made a series of modification to his draft but he didn't think either of them took it too seriously. They figured it would be easy to update it later. http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct

Over time, that code has become a central piece of the Ubuntu community. Every new Ubuntu member cryptographically signs the code. When conversation in any Ubuntu forums, channels, or lists becomes disrespectful, users almost instinctively remind each other of the code. Through this process, the code has become a sort of constitution of our community and a widely enforced standard. People treat the code as a reflection of what "ubuntu" --- both the concept and our project --- stands for.

Over time, the original code has spawned a Leadership Code of Conduct (which Benjamin also worked to draft), and has been modified and employed by scores of free software projects and by many projects that have nothing to do with free software at all. This is all wonderful, but a side effect has been that updating the code has become a more a difficult process that they originally imagined. http://www.ubuntu.com/community/leadership-conduct

Despite its success, the code remains a text written in an afternoon in Mark's flat. At times, this fact shows. For example, the code contains some off-hand humor that now seems a little awkward and the text was a bit too developer centric at points. And there was a lot that, quite simply, they would have done better if they had realized that the code would be so important. So this summer, Daniel Holbach and Benjamin spent another afternoon in Berlin discussing and crafting a new version of the code along with a detailed rationale document that describes all the things we'd changed and why.

They believe that what they have created is fully in the spirit of the original code. They've made efforts to minimize the delta in terms of text as possible. Daniel and Benjamin realize that changing the code out from under our community is a dangerous game, and they've make exceptional efforts to make sure that the new code doesn't say anything substantively different than the old code --- but that it does say it better.

After being posted since early June and after incorporating a series of revisions with members of the Ubuntu Community Council, the new draft was approved at the latest council meeting.

Of course, they are continuing to think about how they might improve the text going forward. One important goal they've thrown around, for example, is the creation of a code that is no longer Ubuntu specific and that can be employed by a wide range of different groups and different free and open source software projects.

http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/20091020-00

Ubuntu Marketing Team revival and SpreadUbuntu

The Ubuntu Marketing team has existed for ages but has been a little unstructured, lacked a vision with a path of action and thus its potential has not been reached this far. Some good projects have been created there (The Fridge and the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter being the greatest examples) but it’s been a long time since some palpable progress has been made. And that’s just sad, because we can make this team better.

Now, as the Ubuntu Community matures, the team seems to be gaining traction again and people, oldies and newcomers, are all excited about it!

As a sign of frustration with the lack of productivity of the team, Ruben Romero decided to put his time, sweat and tears where his mouth is and took upon himself to make a reality one of the oldest projects the Marketing team has had in mind: Spread Ubuntu. But in this, as with everything in life, wishes are not enough and his lack of time, technical know-how and Drupal/PHP knowledge could take him only so far. He had to get a hardcore web guru to join him. One of them, my man echowarp, aka now Ubuntu Member Evan Boldt, got really into the idea of Spread Ubuntu. His Drupal ability, technical insight and innovation help make the Spread Ubuntu site a reality. http://spreadubuntu.neomenlo.org/

With the rise of SpreadUbuntu as a Marketing Team project and its potential as a central marketing tool for LoCos and newcomers alike the marketing team seems to finally have aligned itself with the spirit of the global Ubuntu community and has now gained a place in its awareness. Things are moving along fast this time and ideas, contributions and initiatives are flourishing like they never before have!

So, if you are interested in fixing Ubuntu’s bug #1 reported by Mark Shuttleworth or have a deep desire to see the whole planet (as in Earth and the SpreadUbuntu logo) Ubuntized here and now is the time to get yourself involved and get things rolling!

To stay updated join the Marketing Team list and the SpreadUbuntu team and mailist. You can read more about the team reorganization (sign yourself up to the list) and come to our meeting starting the 12th of November at 2400 UTC (1900 EST), follow the Marketing Team Round Table under the Lucid UDS and join the meeting the week after (Date and time TBD).

These are exciting times!

http://huayra.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/ubuntu-marketing-resurrection-and-spreadubuntu-karmic-release-in-norway-ubuntu-open-week-in-spanish-update/

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (73074) +2834 # over last week
  • Critical (28) +3 # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (37416) +2370 # over last week
  • Unassigned (63937) +2640 # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (343795) +6794 # 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 Karmic

  1. Spanish (14367) -304 # over last week
  2. Brazilian Portuguese (49156) +5 # over last week
  3. French (50673) -51 # over last week
  4. Swedish (68583) 0 # over last week
  5. English (United Kingdom) (77438) -785 # 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 Tunisia: Software Freedom Day Tunisia 2009

For the third consecutive time our LoCo was present, on October 31th 2009, in the biggest celebration of free software in Tunisia, the Software Freedom Day 2009. This year the LoCo was directly involved in organizing this event as our friends Wajih and Mohamed were active members in the organizing committee.

As usual our LoCo took the opportunity to speak about the ubuntu distribution, about our community and to distribute dozens of ubuntu 9.04 CDs and disk images of the latest ubuntu 9.10. Two members of our LoCo ensured the animation of two workshops. The first workshop, led by Rached, was a presentation of free CMS Drupal. The second workshop, led by Mohamed, took place around a presentation of WaveMaker tool.

When visiting the different workshops and booths of FOSS clubs, the team was pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of members PCs were powered by Ubuntu. To these people they offered, on behalf of the LoCo, the stickers “Powered by Ubuntu” to replace their obsolete stickers.

During this day two competitions was held for Tunisian FOSS clubs and communities. The first contest for “the best work of promoting FOSS in Tunisia” and the second for “the best idea for promoting FOSS in Tunisia”. At the last minute the organizing committee decided to cancel the first contest as our LoCo was the unique candidate. But we won, brilliantly, the first prize in the second competition with our idea that we have implemented since our approval in 2008 which is: visiting academic and educational institutions in different Tunisian cities to promote FOSS alternatives and provide assistance for migration projects like the one we made at the Engineers National School of Sfax.

http://blog.nizarus.org/2009/11/ubuntu-tn-in-the-software-freedom-day-tunisia-2009

Karmic Release in Norway

The Ubuntu 9.10 release got so much attention in the Norwegian IT media that you could say the phenomenon was unprecedented! See a compilation of media links in the wiki of the Norwegian LoCo team: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NorwegianTeam/PR#Karmic

As if that was not enough: Ubunter@s in Norway are starting to get involved in the development of the team like never before and they are right now working on a reorganization of the Team itself, and also revamping their web presence!

To follow the development of these discussions join the Norwegian LoCo forum, the team mailing list, and/or their chat on #ubuntu-no @ the FreeNode IRC network.

http://huayra.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/ubuntu-marketing-resurrection-and-spreadubuntu-karmic-release-in-norway-ubuntu-open-week-in-spanish-update/

Ubuntu Georgia 9.10 Install Fest

The Ubuntu Georgia LoCo and ALE will be holding an Ubuntu 9.10 install fest at ITT-Tech Atlanta.

Enter the ITT Tech building at the north end, front doors on the east side are kept locked on the weekends.

http://boredandblogging.com/2009/11/06/ubuntu-georgia-9-10-install-fest/

New York State Release Celebration

The New York State Team held their Release Party / Event this weekend on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at the Waterloo Holiday Inn. The Event was held from 1-3 pm and feature two talks on FOSS as well as a few computers running Ubuntu 9.10. System 76 furnished one of the demo computers. Following the Event they had a party to celebrate and install Ubuntu.

http://www.ausimage.us/Blog/HomePage

Karmic Massachusetts Party Photos

A big thanks to everyone and especially James Grey who organized this time round. We didn’t have a cake as we usually do, but we did have plenty of food and plenty of drink. No informational events, but plenty of social meanderings, talking about all sorts of things. Pictures at the link below.

http://doctormo.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/karmic-massachusetts-party-photos/

Ubuntu Forum News

Tutorial of the Week

This week, we'll highlight a tutorial from dmizer (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=77219), one of the ubuntuforums moderators. dmizer is contributing to a large and never ending project: having Ubuntu and Windows talk to each other. Really worth noting!

"Howto: Fix Windows share browsing issues" will help you place everyone in the same workgroup, know each other's names, be able to talk though the walls, even the firewalls, share stuff and much more. Last but not least, dmizer will give you personalized support if your computers do not wish to cooperate.

Well, I cannot believe this tutorial had slipped thought the holes, all fixed now !

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1169149

Ubuntu Forums Community Interviews

An Interview with Mako

Mako, Benjamin Mako Hill, has been involved with Ubuntu when the project did-no-have-a-name-yet. He is a PhD student at MIT and has helped shape the Ubuntu project, in particular early versions of the Ubuntu Code of Conduct, the governance systems, membership process, Shipit and he got recently re-elected to the Community Council. He is also involved in the OLPC (One Laptop per Child) project as part of his research at MIT, the author of several Ubuntu famous books and much more!

Please read the whole interview here: http://blog.joeb454.com/2009/10/an-interview-with-mako/

An Interview with lisati

lisati (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=327635) is one of the prominent contributors of the Ubuntu Forums, always helpful, always nice to everyone, not counting time spent to help around. He lives in New Zealand and has been around computers as soon as they were made available to him. If you ask a question in Forum Feedback and Help, chances a good he'll answer you!

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

The Planet

Matthew East: Ubuntu Hits Italian National TV (again)

In May 2008 the release of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS was reported on Italian national television. Fabio Marzocca of the Ubuntu-it community was interviewed. This week, a further report was broadcast about the release of Ubuntu 9.10. This time Flavia Weisghizzi was interviewed about the new release, and did a great job: thanks Flavia! You can watch the YouTube recording here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qE-kZdthNI

One interesting thing about the report is how heavily they focus on the Koala as the mascot of the release. Ubuntu generally takes the view that its release mascots are used only during the development phase, and that the final version when released should be referred to by its version number (Ubuntu 9.10, in this case). However the way that the program focused on the image of the Koala demonstrates that people will find it easy to associate with such mascots.

http://www.mdke.org/?p=101

Leandro Gomez: Thank You!

Just wanted to give a big THANK YOU to our amazing Latin American community who contributed to make the dream of a Ubuntu Open Week in Spanish come true. Thanks to: Pablo Rubianes, Igor Guerrero, Eduardo Rosales, Dante Díaz, René Mayorga, Rubén Romero, José Angel Bonilla, Andrés Rodríguez, Adolfo Fitoria, Marcelo Gutierrez, Marconi Poveda, Efrain Valles and Diego Turcios. Special thanks to José Ernesto Dávila, the ubuntu-ninja behind this event. See you again at the Lucid Lynx Ubuntu Open Week!

http://leogg.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/thank-you-2/

Mahyuddin Susanto: Ubuntu movement at West Sumatra after Earthquake

There is a great picture showing one persons Ubuntu activism.

http://tweak.udienz.net/2009/11/ubuntu-movement-at-west-sumatra-after.html

In The Press

Q&A: Ubuntu 9.10 security

Net-Security.org's Mirko Zorz tells us that Kees Cook is the security engineer and Gerry Carr is the head of platform marketing at Canonical, and Zorz interviews both on the security improvements in Ubuntu 9.10, the security challenges the Ubuntu team faces as well as what the latest version of Ubuntu offers to the developer community. Zorz questions them on what the most notable security features are that were introduced with Ubuntu 9.10, and also asks what Ubuntu version 9.10 has in store for the developer community. Follow this link for Cook and Carr's replies: http://www.net-security.org/article.php?id=1343

Fedora 12 vs. Ubuntu 9.10 Benchmarks

Michael Larabel of Phoronix reports that Canonical released Ubuntu 9.10 last week, which introduced the Ubuntu Software Center and brought a wide variety of other improvements, while Red Hat is scheduled to release Fedora 12 in two weeks. With the impending release and the current development freeze, he took the current release candidate for Fedora 12 x86_64 and has looked at how its performance compares to Ubuntu 9.10. In many of the tests Ubuntu 9.10 had carried the lead -- both by small and large margins -- but the Karmic Koala had stumbled when it came to the OpenGL performance, PostgreSQL, and NASA NPB. Hit this link for further details on Larabel's testing and results: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=fedora12_ubuntu910&num=1

Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 Shines Bright

LinuxPlanet's Paul Ferrill notes that Canonical released Ubuntu 9.10 in various forms last week including the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) edition. UNR has been around since Ubuntu 8.04 and has taken on some pretty stiff competition of late from Moblin. In Ferrill's opinion UNR represents a solid step forward for netbook users. It provides anyone familiar with Ubuntu the same basic commands and applications you'll find in the desktop addition. It also makes it a snap to sync your key files between your main machine and a second (or third) painlessly. In contrast, Moblin caters to the mobile user interested in quick access to their favorite applications coupled with a quick boot time. Both do what they do well and should meet the basic needs of most any netbook user. http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/6893/1/

Pulling the trigger on Ubuntu 9.10 upgrade, Part 1: Eyes wide open/shut

Steven Rosenberg of Inside So Cal says that even though he said he'd wait a month, or two or more, before upgrading his main laptop from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10, he got in early enough one day and had a fast enough connection to his chosen mirror that he decided to do the upgrade to Karmic then. Rosenberg states that Ubuntu 9.04 worked better than Ubuntu 8.04 on his hardware. He hopes for minimal regression and maximal improvement, which he received when going from Hardy to Jaunty. He hopes for more of the same as he goes from Jaunty to Karmic. Follow this link to see how things worked out for him: http://insidesocal.com/click/2009/11/pulling-the-trigger-on-ubuntu.html

Review: Ubuntu 9.10 first look

The Globe and Mail's Lynn Greiner tells her readers that the Ubuntu Linux menagerie has birthed a new creature, the Karmic Koala, with the release last week of Ubuntu Linux 9.10. The successor to the release code named Jaunty Jackalope (aka version 9.04) boasts a herd of changes and enhancements that are so far making testers smile. As Linux matures, it's becoming more and more of an OS accessible to the average user. Karmic Koala is another step in that direction. There are still a few foreign concepts for a Windows convert to absorb, but on the whole Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala, is a package that won't be a horrible stretch for the novice, yet contains enhancements for the Linux guru as well. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/review-ubuntu-910-first-look/article1348084/

Ubuntu 9.10 'Karmic Koala' is here: 5 things CIOs must know

CIO.com.au's Rodney Gedda says that in case you’ve been too busy dealing with rogue iPhones, October 2009 was a big month for operating systems. Gedda questions if CIOs still care about operating systems. Probably not as much as they used to, but with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" being released within days of each other, CIOs at least have a reason to be excited about the future of the desktop. In addition to the countless upgrades and enhancements that arrive every six months with each new Ubuntu release, Karmic has some useful enhancements that should prove particularly interesting to CIOs and IT managers. It's almost as though Ubuntu is standing up to be counted among business operating systems now that Windows 7 has been released. Gedda goes on to list five reasons that he believes CIOs must know about Ubuntu 9.10. Click this link to see those reasons: http://www.cio.com.au/article/324578/ubuntu_9_10_karmic_koala_here_5_things_cios_must_know

Hey Ubuntu, Stop Making Linux Look Bad

Linux Magazine's Christopher Smart says that it’s the same old story. A new Ubuntu release, a new series of pain and frustration. Canonical releases a new version of Ubuntu every 6 months, come what may. Unfortunately what most often comes is a system full of bugs, pain, anguish, wailing and gnashing of teeth as many “early” adopters of Karmic Koala have discovered. The problem is, Ubuntu makes Linux look bad. As more and more people make the switch to free software this is not a good thing. Linux is meant to be stable, secure, reliable. On the other hand, Ubuntu is obviously doing a lot right. People are indeed switching to Linux, and most of these users have come from an operating system far more torturous, but what they arrive to doesn’t have to be the way it is. Of course these sort of issues are not limited to Ubuntu, but it certainly seems to have more than its fair share. Perhaps it’s the whole commercially driven “release on time” philosophy, or maybe there aren’t enough beta testers. In Smart's opinion, something is very wrong with Ubuntu’s release cycle. http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7600/1.html

In The Blogosphere

Memo to Ubuntu Devs: Make Separate Home Default

Christopher Tozzi of WorksWithU in this article lists the reasons why having the Ubuntu installer give /home (home directory) a partition automatically is important. Tozzi states," Unfortunately, separate /home is an option that only geeks are likely to choose, since it requires manual partitioning, which will frighten most normal people away" but that's not the only reason he cites. Backing up /home then reinstalling and putting the data can be tedious and time consuming. Take a look and at the article, Christopher even gives a link to a Brainstorm idea for just such a thing. See what you think and if you have time check out the idea and cast your vote. http://www.workswithu.com/2009/11/06/memo-to-ubuntu-devs-make-separate-home-default/

Testing the Nouveau Driver on Ubuntu

WorksWithU's Christopher Tozzi found some time to test the Nouveau video driver for nVidia cards. In the this article he gives a bit of history surrounding the Nouveau video driver project. Tozzi reminds readers that Nouveau is the default driver for nVidia in Fedora 11 but as of Jaunty, when Nouveau began available in Ubuntu, it is not installed by default but available in the repositories. Tozzi also gives the outcome of his testing, discussing the basics of the 2D functionality and the drivers performance. With a positive outlook on the project Tozzi notes, "Nouveau may not be much yet, but it’s a solid start to what should one day allow more Linux users to take full advantage of their computers’ capabilities without having to rely on closed-source software." Have an nVidia video card? Take a look at the Nouveau project. http://www.workswithu.com/2009/11/06/testing-the-nouveau-driver-on-ubuntu/

5 Reasons why Ubuntu 9.10 is better than Windows 7

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Computerworld Blog, talks about the 5 reasons Ubuntu 9.10 is better than Windows 7.

  1. Security
  2. Cheap
  3. Easy Upgrade
  4. Hardware compatibility
  5. Applications

In this article he describes each of these points in further detail. Vaughan-Nichols states, "What I do hope...is to give some food for thought" He reminds people that there are many ways to try Linux without changing anything on your Windows machine. He says "Give Ubuntu a try." and see what you find for yourself.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/15035/5_reasons_why_ubuntu_9_10_is_better_than_windows_7

Bomgar Embraces Ubuntu for Remote IT Support

WorksWithU's Joe Panettieri discusses in this article the significance of Bomgar - Enterprise remote support, now supporting Ubuntu. Panettieri says that Bomgar 10.4, which debuts on November 16, includes support for Linux which includes, Ubuntu, Red Hat and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. According to Pannettieri, "Bomgar, is a virtualized help desktop platform that allows companies to remotely manage systems over the internet." This gives IT managers another option in what distributions they can use as their remote administration platform. Before with Bomgar they could typically only use Window, MacOS X or SUSE Linux Desktop. Bomgar pledges increasing support for Ubuntu, and seeing as how Bomgar is one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the US, one wonders what this means for Ubuntu. http://www.workswithu.com/2009/11/02/bombar-embraces-ubuntu-for-remote-it-support/

In Other News

Canonical Matching Creative Commons Donations

Jono Bacon has just released news that Canonical will match funds donated to Creative Commons up to the amount of $3000. Creative Commons, of course, are the people that created a set of Free Culture licenses that make it simple for people to release open content. Jono, himself, uses such licenses, as does Ubuntu with the Free Culture Showcase. The matching dollar for dollar is only for this week. http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/11/05/canonical-matching-creative-commons-donations/

LugRadio Documentary – Now Available Online

Canonical's Jono Bacon says that last year he wrapped up LugRadio after five seasons, over two million downloads and six live events. For over a year now Tony Whitmore from the excellent ubuntu-uk Podcast has been working on a documentary chronicling the history of the show, and packed with interviews, behind-the-scenes footage of how they planned a show, the studio, LugRadio Live USA and more. He premiered the hour-long documentary at LugRadio Live 2009 to resounding applause and acclaim, and it is now available online, and freely available. Follow this link to watch the video. http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/11/04/dont-listen-alone-the-lugradio-documentary-now-available-online/

Meeting Summaries: October 2009

Ubuntu Governance

MOTU Council

  • 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.
  • Impromptu MC Meeting, 2009-10-29:
    • Jonathan Carter, South-African MOTU #2, joined the ranks of the MOTU team. Congratulations!

Technical Board

  • Technical Board meeting, 2009-10-06
    • Review actions from last meeting

      • Keybuk to find Bdale at LinuxCon to hash out participation: done; Bdale will watch a few meetings, then have a discussion. He is on the TB mailing list now.

      • kees to drive sun-java6 email thread and get resolution on responsibility: Neil is soliciting migration plans; needs to be discussed in-depth at next UDS; Colin made a note about handling it in the foundations track

      • cjwatson to drive DMB email thread to conclusion: followup happened, voting is ongoing

      • Keybuk to finalize unit policy and email to TB for vote: deferred

      • cjwatson to drive vote on Archive Reorg rights for ubuntu-desktop and mythbuntu in email: Blocked on DMB email thread conclusion, deferred

    • Archive reorganization:
      • mdz raised the problem that newly created projects often change their name shortly after they get introduced to the wide audience (example: software-store → software-center, espresso → ubiquity); is there a possible process enhancement for this?
      • Keybuk: renaming packages later is better than introducing packages later (and getting fewer feedback)
      • pitti: does not happen often enough to be a major concern
      • cjwatson: we don't need to do this for packages that aren't really significantly user-visible
      • mdz will come back with a list of packages which were renamed and how much developer effort was wasted, to see whether any followup is required
    • core-dev application process
      • TB → DMB application handling is currently in flux, and there were objections against the proposed process
      • DMB meeting next Tuesday 1400 UTC to settle on a process
    • Select a chair for the next meeting
      • Keybuk
    • Actions from this meeting:
      • Keybuk to finalize unit policy and email to TB for vote
      • cjwatson to drive vote on Archive Reorg rights for ubuntu-desktop and mythbuntu in email
      • pitti to announce DMB meeting next Tuesday 1400
  • Technical Board meeting, 2009-10-20
    • Review actions from last meeting
      • Keybuk to finalize unit policy and email to TB for vote. See agenda item.
      • cjwatson to drive vote on Archive Reorg rights for ubuntu-desktop and mythbuntu in email This has been done.
      • pitti to announce DMB meeting next Tuesday 1400 This was done.
    • Developer Membership Board
      • The inaugural meeting took place last week, and meetings will take place every two weeks thereafter as required. ACTION (continued): jono to review and update governance documentation to reflect that the DMB is now handling developer applications, not the TB
    • Units Policy

      • https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UnitsPolicy General consensus on the draft policy has been reached, with a note that the exception section could do with being less rules-based and merely granted to the traditional tools such as df and du, perhaps directly by name. ACTION: Keybuk to drive units policy to completion and vote by e-mail

    • EC2 image updates

      • https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2009-September/028954.html Discussion of Scott Moser's draft proposal for providing updated EC2 kernel (AKI), ramdisk (ARI) and filesystem (AMI) images on a regular basis throughout the cycle. It was agreed that an update to the kernel requires all three images to be updated, and that an update to either the ramdisk or filesystem needs those two images to be updated. The schedule was agreed to be based on the time to download the updates not included in a new image (which users need to configure themselves currently), and based on security issues. These updated images will be provided throughout the support cycle for the given release. ACTION: Scott Moser to dedraft from an RFC to a policy ACTION: Scott Moser to continue working on a system to find the right root filesystem

    • Community Bugs: none this week
    • Next meeting: Keybuk and cjwatson are unable to attend the next meeting, mdz may not be able to attend
    • Chair for next meeting: SABDFL

Xubuntu Team

Xubuntu team report for October 2009

Packaging, Development, & Testing

  • Cody uploaded a new version of xubuntu-artwork

Artwork and marketing

  • Steve released first version of Albatross xfwm4 theme
  • Pasi refreshed the Xubuntu artwork guidelines.

Asturian Team

Chilean Team

German Kubuntu Team

Irish Team

Japanese Team

United States Teams

California Team

Chicago Team

Ohio Team

Ubuntu Beginners Team

  • Ubuntu Beginners Team Meeting 2009-10-06 (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BeginnersTeam/Meetings/20091006)

    • Meetings will now take place once every month instead of twice
    • Agree that we need to continue making an effort to get new people interested in joining the team
    • Decide to alternate the meeting time each month to accommodate other time zones.

    • Zach Kleinhenz (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ZachK_) joined the Ubuntu Beginners Team. He is an active member of many focus groups, and has done a great job of making new Ubuntu users feel welcome in the community.

    • komputes (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/komputes) joined the Ubuntu Beginners Team. He is really involved in the ubuntu community, bugs and supporting other users. He is also a key member in the ubuntu-qc LoCo.

    • Raidsong (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Raidsong) joined the Ubuntu Beginners Team. He has been doing a terrific job helping other users, and we are glad to welcome him to the team.

    • Diego Turcios (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DiegoTurcios) joined the Ubuntu Beginners Team. He is very friendly and always attempts to help others with problems in #ubuntu-beginners-help where he can.

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Monday, November 09, 2009

Ubuntu Studio Developer Meeting

Security Team Catch-up

  • Start: 18:00 UTC
  • End: 18:30 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: nothing formal, just a weekly catch-up.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Asia Oceania Membership Board Meeting

Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting

Desktop Team Meeting

Kernel Team Meeting

  • Start: 17:00 UTC
  • End: 18:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: None listed as of publication

Ubuntu-ie LoCo IRC Meeting

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Server Team 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

Thrusday, November 12, 2009

Marketing Team Meeting

  • Start: 00:00 UTC
  • End: 02:00 UTC
  • Location: None listed as of publication
  • Agenda: None listed as of publication

Ubuntu Java Meeting

  • Start: 14:00 UTC
  • End: 15:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: None listed as of publication

Friday, November 13, 2009

MC Meeting

  • Start: 08:00 UTC
  • End: 09:00 UTC
  • Location: None listed as of publication
  • Agenda: None listed as of publication

Saturday, November 14, 2009

  • None listed as of publication

Sunday, November 15, 2009

  • None listed as of publication

Updates and Security for 6.06, 8.04, 8.10, 9.04 and 9.10

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

Ubuntu 8.10 Updates

Ubuntu 9.04 Updates

Ubuntu 9.10 Updates

Archives and RSS Feed

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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
  • Amber Graner
  • Isabelle Duchatelle
  • Nathan Handler
  • And many others

Glossary of Terms

  1. Journo - Someone who for example might tape people fighting the cops, knowing that the cops will get the pictures from them and use them to persecute people, but who go ahead regardless. They then act shocked when their cameras get smashed and they get chased off.
  2. DMB - Developer Membership Board.
  3. LTS - Long Term Support. - Said of a release that will receive support for 3-years/5-years rather than the typical 18 months

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

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

  6. TB - Technical Board - http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/techboard

  7. UNR - Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

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

Ubuntu - Get Involved

The Ubuntu community consists of individuals and teams, working on different aspects of the distribution, giving advice and technical support, and helping to promote Ubuntu to a wider audience. No contribution is too small, and anyone can help. It's your chance to get in on all the community fun associated with developing and promoting Ubuntu. http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate

Feedback

This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Weekly News Team. If you have a story idea or suggestions for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list at https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/Ubuntu-news-team and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Ideas. If you'd like to contribute to a future issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, please feel free to edit the appropriate wiki page. If you have any technical support questions, please send them to ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com.

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UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue167 (last edited 2009-11-08 21:55:35 by ip68-231-150-152)