Issue171
WORK IN PROGRESS
Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #171 for the week November 29th - December 5th, 2009. In this issue we cover ...
UWN Translations
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https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Translations
In This Issue
General Community News
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 Karmic
- Language (#) +/- # over last week
- Language (#) +/- # over last week
- Language (#) +/- # over last week
- Language (#) +/- # over last week
- 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
New in Karmic Koala
Launchpad News
Ubuntu Forums News
In The Press
First look at Kubuntu Netbook Edition 9.10 Technology Preview and the KDE Plasma-Netbook 4.4 interface
Caitlyn Martin of Distro Watch guesses that by now almost anyone who keeps up with Ubuntu knows about the Ubuntu Netbook Edition. What many people are not aware of is that there is now a Kubuntu Netbook Edition and an Ubuntu Moblin Remix in development as well. By the time Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" is released next April netbook users will have three Ubuntu variants customized for their smaller systems. From Martin's experience playing with it, Kubuntu Netbook Edition 9.10 really is incomplete. Despite the missing functionality and a few bugs it's pretty easy to see just how promising the Plasma-Netbook 4.4 desktop is. Martin was also pleasantly surprised that most of the issues fall into the category of inconveniences, not show-stopping problems. It's really surprising just how usable this pre-alpha development code already is. http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20091130
Five Years of Ubuntu
Christer Edwards of Packt Publishing outlines some of the things Ubuntu has brought to the Linux world, and what a major impact it has had in such a short amount of time. He has been using Ubuntu nearly that entire time, having joined the fun with the 5.04 release. Edwards says that if there is any one word that could sum up Ubuntu, it would be Community. Nearly everyone Edwards has met through Ubuntu in the last five years cites the community as the single major reason for their use. In many aspects, Ubuntu is technically equal to its competitors, but nowhere else will you find the same level of community support. http://www.packtpub.com/five-years-of-ubuntu/
'Ubuntu Needs a Longer Release Schedule!'
LinuxPlanet's Carla Schroder recognizes that the popular Ubuntu Linux's six-month release schedule keeps it in the public eye; every release is greeted with a barrage of news, reviews, praise, and complaints. It seems the last few releases have generated an increasing number of cries for longer release schedules, that six months is too short and results in too many bugs. Mark Shuttleworth discussed at length the importance and benefits of a short release cycle in his Linuxcon keynote: it generates excitement and keeps contributors motivated. And it follows the long-standing principles of "many eyes make all bugs shallow" and "release early, release often." Schroder decided to go to the source and ask Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community Manager, to explain the Ubuntu release cycle and clarify some of the whys and wherefores. Follow the link to see what they discussed. http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6918/1/
Ubuntu X.org Guru Calls for Desktop Help
Kristian Kissling of Linux Magazine tells us that Bryce Harrington is agonizing over the nontrivial task of delivering a working X server for Ubuntu. On the Ubuntu desktop mailing list he speaks of a flood of bug reports and appeals to improving the situation. The X server must ideally cooperate with with open and closed ATI, NVIDIA and Intel cards, but not forget those from smaller providers, a fact that becomes most noticeable to users when they're sitting in front of blank screens instead of the desktop. The call for help from Ubuntu users keeps coming to Harrington as bug reports on Launchpad. Now Harrington is calling for help himself. His graph of bug reports for Karmic Koala in recent weeks "literally went off the chart," which prompted him to recommend concrete steps to avoid future X.org problems. Follow this link to read more: http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Ubuntu-X.org-Guru-Calls-for-Desktop-Help
Nouveau DRM Getting Pulled Into Lucid Soon
Phoronix's Michael Larabel states that a week ago he found out that Nouveau would be pulled into Ubuntu 10.04 as the default NVIDIA graphics driver replacing the current open-source NVIDIA driver mess that is known as xf86-video-nv. A meeting was held on November 30th on IRC regarding Nouveau in Ubuntu's kernel, and with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS planning to ship with the Linux 2.6.32 kernel, which has no support for Nouveau, it's to be decided what DRM code to back-port into this Ubuntu kernel. Also being decided is whether to pull in all of the Nouveau code now and then pull in a more recent DRM snapshot when the Ubuntu 10.04 release nears, or whether to just selectively pull in new patches. Whatever the case, the first alpha freeze for Ubuntu Lucid is happening next week so expect some Nouveau DRM code to get pulled in shortly so that it will be present for Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 1. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Nzc1Mg
Ubuntu 10.04 May Backport Newer Kernels
Michael Larabel of Phoronix tells us that the Ubuntu kernel team has written a message on the Ubuntu announcement mailing list in which they lay out the kernel summary for Ubuntu Lucid. In this message the kernel team confirms that Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (the "Lucid Lynx") will indeed be shipping with the just-released Linux 2.6.32 kernel. By the time Ubuntu 10.04 rolls around in April, the Linux 2.6.33 kernel will have been released and the Linux 2.6.34 kernel will be in development, but the Ubuntu developers have decided to stick it out with the 2.6.32 kernel for a maximum stabilization period, especially since this is a Long-Term Support release. An interesting piece of news did come out of this message and that is the Ubuntu kernel team may end up back-porting newer kernels into Ubuntu Lucid. They will experiment with bringing kernels from newer Ubuntu releases (i.e. Ubuntu 10.10 and Ubuntu 11.04) back to the Lucid package repository. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Nzc3MA
Ubuntu's B-Sides: Alternative Apps
Ubuntu User's Kristian Kissling tells us that in his blog, Canonical coworker Jorge O. Castro announces his so-called "b-sides" of Ubuntu, software that didn't make it into Ubuntu's standard installation. Such "b-sides" will now be available for Ubuntu. Castro together with Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre assembled a PPA for these "killer Bs" that provide a selection of programs that Castro considers needing to be "classy" but couldn't be included in the standard installation due to CD space considerations. A metapackage called b-sides would load the bundle of software. Castro provided a b-sides list that includes OpenOffice, GNOME Do, Gwibber, Jokosher, Miro, Inkscape, gimp-data-extras and GNOME Scan. To install the apps, Ubuntu users can update their systems' software sources with the PPA and install the b-sides package. http://ubuntu-user.com/Online/News/Ubuntu-s-B-Sides-Alternative-Apps
In The Blogosphere
Eucalyptus: Boosting Ubuntu’s Cloud Efforts?
http://www.workswithu.com/2009/11/29/eucalyptus-boosting-ubuntus-cloud-efforts/
In Other News
Forensic Cop Journal 2(1): Ubuntu Forensic
http://forensiccop.blogspot.com/2009/12/forensic-cop-journal-21-ubuntu-forensic.html
Ubuntu CE 6.0 Beta Brings Dansguardian Fix
http://beginlinux.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/ubuntu-ce-dansguardian-fi/
Meeting Summaries: <MONTH> <YEAR>
Upcoming Meetings and Events
Community Spotlight
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
UWN #: A sneak peek
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Additional Ubuntu News
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Conclusion
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Credits
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Glossary of Terms
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