Issue176

Contents

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. General Community News
    1. Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Lynx Alpha 2 Released
    2. Ubuntu Developer Week
    3. Announcing Ubuntu User Day - January 23, 2010
    4. Kernel Bug Day - Tues 19 Jan, 2010
    5. Ubuntu Server team: Amazon Web Services(AWS) client libraries feedback needed
    6. Ubuntu Women Leadership Appointment Announcement
  4. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Karmic
    3. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week
  5. Launchpad News
    1. Launchpad maintenance 20th January 2010
  6. The Planet
    1. Jono Bacon: Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase - Lucid Edition
  7. In The Press
    1. Plymouth In Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2: Dead Simple
    2. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" Alpha 2 Released
    3. Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 Benchmarks With Early Fedora 13 Numbers
    4. Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 Removes HAL
  8. In The Blogosphere
    1. Five Essential Ubuntu Features by Christopher Tozzi
    2. Tegra 2 supports Ubuntu Linux
    3. Ubuntu v. Macintosh and Windows
    4. Canonical, IBM: Ubuntu Will Counter Windows 7 At Lotusphere
  9. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Monday, January 18, 2010
      1. Security Team Catch-up
    2. Tuesday, January 19, 2010
      1. Community Council Meeting
      2. Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting
      3. Developer Membership Board
      4. Desktop Team Meeting
      5. Kernel Team Meeting
      6. LoCo Council Meeting
    3. Wednesday, January 20, 2010
      1. Server Team Meeting
      2. Foundation Team Meeting
      3. QA Team Meeting
      4. Edubuntu Meeting
      5. Americas Membership Board Meeting
    4. Thursday, January 21, 2010
      1. Ubuntu Java Meeting
    5. Friday, January 22, 2010
      1. Lucid Weekly Release Meeting
    6. Saturday, January 23, 2010
      1. Ubuntu User Day
    7. Sunday, January 24, 2010
      1. Ubuntu Gaming Team Meeting
  10. 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
  11. Subscribe
  12. Archives and RSS Feed
  13. Additional Ubuntu News
  14. Conclusion
  15. Credits
  16. Glossary of Terms
  17. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  18. Feedback

newspaper-icon3.jpg

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #176 for the week January 10th - January 16th, 2010. In this issue we cover: Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Lynx Alpha 2, Ubuntu Developer Week, Ubuntu User Day, new Ubuntu Women leadership, and Free Culture Showcase.

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

  • Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Lynx Alpha 2
  • Ubuntu Developer Week
  • Ubuntu User Day
  • New Ubuntu Women leadership
  • Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase
  • Kernel Bug Day
  • Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 Removes HAL
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • The Planet
  • In the Press & Blogosphere

  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

General Community News

Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Lynx Alpha 2 Released

Welcome to Lucid Lynx Alpha 2, which will in time become Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

Pre-releases of Lucid are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Alpha 2 is the second in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Lucid development cycle. The Alpha images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Lucid. You can download it here:

See http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Mirrors for a list of mirrors.

Alpha 2 includes a number of software updates that are ready for wider testing. Please refer to http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/lucid/alpha2 for information on changes in Ubuntu.

This is quite an early set of images, so you should expect some bugs. For a list of known bugs (that you don't need to report if you encounter), please see:

If you're interested in following the changes as we further develop Lucid, have a look at the lucid-changes mailing list:

We also suggest that you subscribe to the ubuntu-devel-announce list if you're interested in following Ubuntu development. This is a low-traffic list (a few posts a week) carrying announcements of approved specifications, policy changes, alpha releases, and other interesting events.

Bug reports should go to the Ubuntu bug tracker:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2010-January/000665.html

Ubuntu Developer Week

Welcome to the Ubuntu Developer Week! We will have one week of action-packed sessions from Jan 25th 2010 to Jan 29th 2010!

Ubuntu Developer Week is a series of online workshops where you can:

  • learn about different packaging techniques
  • find out more about different development teams
  • check out the efforts of the world-wide Development Community
  • participate in open Q&A sessions with Ubuntu developers

  • much more…

All sessions will happen on IRC, and the best way to join is to use Lernid[1]. (There are other ways[2] too.)

If you’re not comfortable yet asking all your questions in English, we will have a couple of people helping to translate your questions and translating back the answers. Have a look at the Ubuntu Developer Week page to see how it works.

Like the sound of it? DIGG IT![3]

  1. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lernid

  2. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek/JoiningIn

  3. http://digg.com/linux_unix/Announcing_Ubuntu_Developer_Week_5

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek

Announcing Ubuntu User Day - January 23, 2010

The Ubuntu User Days Team would like to announce the first Ubuntu User Day, on January 23, 2010. This will be a very informative one day session geared towards beginner and intermediate Ubuntu users, as well as people who are interested in using Ubuntu. We have 14 classes covering topics ranging from installing Ubuntu, finding help, equivalent programs, using IRC, getting involved in the Ubuntu Community and more. We have enlisted the help of many talented people to lead these classes throughout the day.

These classes will be taught in #ubuntu-classroom with questions being asked in #ubuntu-classroom-chat on irc.freenode.net. Please visit http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays for a complete class list and schedule of classes.

There is also a Spanish version of Ubuntu User Days being offered on January, 23, 2010. Please visit Día Del Usuario Ubuntu at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DiaDelUsuarioUbuntu for more information on the Spanish Ubuntu User Day!

Please take a few minutes over the next week or so to promote the Ubuntu User Day to people you know, in your LoCo Team, in your blog, or any other resources you may have access to.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2010-January/000836.html

Kernel Bug Day - Tues 19 Jan, 2010

This is a friendly reminder that we're starting up Kernel Bug Day's again for the new year. Don't know what a Kernel Bug Day is [1]? This is the perfect opportunity to find out what it's all about.

The next Kernel Bug Day will be held Tues. 19 Jan, 2010 [2]. We'll be focusing on bugs with a closed upstream bug watch. These would be good targets in Launchpad to overlook and possibly close as well. Please join us Tuesday in the #ubuntu-kernel IRC channel on FreeNode as we tackle this list of bugs together

  1. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/BugDay

  2. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/BugDay/20100119

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kernel-team/2010-January/008307.html

Ubuntu Server team: Amazon Web Services(AWS) client libraries feedback needed

The Ubuntu Server team is looking for feedback on which AWS client libraries should be made available as part of Ubuntu. Making it easy to develop applications that use AWS and UEC services is one of the goal of the Ubuntu Server team. The AWS client libraries blueprint focuses on listing existing projects and then choose which ones should be packaged for Lucid.

If you know of great projects in PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java (or any other platform) that help using AWS and UEC services such as EC2 or S3 make a note of them in the wiki page.

http://ubuntuserver.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/rfc-amazon-web-services-client-libraries/

Ubuntu Women Leadership Appointment Announcement

Speaking on behalf of the Community Council, Elizabeth Krumbach is happy to announce that they have selected Amber Graner for the 6 month leadership position in the Ubuntu Women project. Congratulations to Amber and a huge thanks to Melissa and Penelope for putting their names forward as candidates. We hope the goals and visions presented on all three of their wiki pages[0][1][2] can be incorporated moving forward and it was a delight to see the wealth of community support for all three of these fantastic candidates.

  1. Amber: http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/UbuntuWomen/LeadershipNominations/January2010/Amber

  2. Melissa: http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/UbuntuWomen/LeadershipNominations/January2010/melissa

  3. Penelope: http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/UbuntuWomen/LeadershipNominations/January2010/Penelope

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-women/2010-January/002422.html

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (76535) -100 over last week
  • Critical (37) +/-0 over last week
  • Unconfirmed (39607) -161 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 (11286) -182 over last week
  2. French (44055) -20 over last week
  3. Brazilian Portuguese (44930) -118 over last week
  4. Swedish (66414) -26 over last week
  5. English (United Kingdom) (68882) +292 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/

Launchpad News

Launchpad maintenance 20th January 2010

Launchpad may be unavailable for up to 30 minutes from 11.00 UTC on Wednesday the 20th January, for planned hardware maintenance.

  • Starting: 11.00 UTC 20th January 2010
  • Expected back before: 11.30 UTC 20th January 2010

We are, though, hopeful that we can complete the maintenance without taking Launchpad off-line, in which case you will not notice any effect to your service.

http://blog.launchpad.net/notifications/launchpad-maintenance-20th-january-2010

The Planet

Jono Bacon: Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase - Lucid Edition

Once again the Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase is taking submissions for possible inclusion in the Showcase. This time photographs to be used as wallpaper are being handled by Ubuntu Art Team who already has a competition going.

Entering the showcase is simple:

  • Your submission must be one of the following:
    • Audio Entries – no larger than 1MB in size – made available in Ogg Vorbis format.
    • Video Entries – no larger than 2.5MB in size – made available in Ogg Theora format.
  • All entries must be licensed and distributable under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike or Creative Commons Attribution license.

  • Upload your submission somewhere online (there are lots of free hosting solutions available such as archive.org). Do not email any of the organisers or judges with your submissions.
  • Add your entry to one of the submission tables at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFreeCultureShowcase.

  • When the deadline for submissions closes, our panel of judges will pick a shortlist, and the Community Council will then pick the final winners from the shortlist.

The deadline is 28th February 2010 and you can read more about it at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFreeCultureShowcase.

http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/01/12/ubuntu-free-culture-showcase-lucid-edition/

In The Press

Plymouth In Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2: Dead Simple

Michael Larabel of Phoronix recalls that a month ago he wrote about Plymouth getting pulled into Ubuntu 10.04 LTS after Canonical ended up flip-flopping on their decision to use this Red Hat created splash program that leverages kernel mode-setting to provide a pleasant and flicker-free boot experience while being highly customizable and extensible. After the Plymouth packages got pulled into Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Phoronix also provided a video that showed it running on the "Lucid Lynx", but it was pretty boring with just a static Ubuntu logo and at the time some warning messages bled into the background. Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 was this week and it featured Plymouth instead of USplash. The udev warning messages have since been cleared up, but the artwork remains the same. Included in the article is a photograph of this Plymouth plug-in as of today's Ubuntu Lucid packages, which will hopefully be enhanced by the artwork team before Ubuntu 10.04 LTS final is released in April. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Nzg4MQ

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" Alpha 2 Released

Phoronix's Michael Larabel reports that on January 14, 2010 Canonical and the Ubuntu development community announced the release of Lucid Lynx Alpha 2, or more easily known as Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Alpha 2. This second alpha release of Ubuntu 10.04 delivers on Plymouth integration, the likewise-open package for Active Directory authentication has received a major upgrade, KDE 4.4 RC1, Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud improvements, and many other improvements to this popular Linux distribution. Details regarding Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 can be found on the Ubuntu web-site. The Lucid blueprints on Launchpad provide additional information regarding the features expected for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Lastly, the mailing list announcement has links for the different distributions in the Ubuntu family that have been upgraded to a Lucid Lynx Alpha 2 status, such as Ubuntu ARM, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Nzg4Mw

Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 Benchmarks With Early Fedora 13 Numbers

Michael Larabel of Phoronix tells us that with Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 having been released, he couldn't resist but to run some new benchmarks of the Lucid Lynx after our original tests last month found Ubuntu 10.04 was off to a poor performance start. In some areas the performance of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Alpha 2 remains lower than in Ubuntu 9.10 -- largely due to performance regressions upstream in the Linux kernel. Overall, there are both good and bad performance improvements for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Alpha 2 in relation to Ubuntu 9.10. Most of the negative regressions are attributed to the EXT4 file-system losing some of its performance charm. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_lucid_alpha2&num=1

Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 Removes HAL

Linux Pro Magazine's Kristian Kissling notes that "HAL" unfortunately isn't the heinous supercomputer from Kubrick's film 2001, but Ubuntu's Hardware Abstraction Layer between Ubuntu's hardware and software. It has now disappeared entirely from the current Ubuntu 10.04 test version, and it's function being taken over among other things by DeviceKit. The advantage to this, according to the official announcement, is that Ubuntu has a faster boot and startup from hibernate time. Removing HAL has the consequence that Wacom drivers can no longer be used for drawing tablets. Follow this link for more information: http://www.linuxpromagazine.com/Online/News/Ubuntu-10.04-Alpha-2-Removes-HAL

In The Blogosphere

Five Essential Ubuntu Features by Christopher Tozzi

Christopher Tozzi, WorksWithU list five essential features that Ubuntu offers out-of-the-box that he has yet to see in any version of Windows.

  1. Hardware autoconfiguration
  2. Multiple desktops
  3. Software repositories
  4. ssh client
  5. No antivirus

Tozzi states, "I’d like to emphasize again that I’m no Windows-hater. For some users, Windows makes more sense than Ubuntu." and he continues with, "...I can’t imagine myself living without Ubuntu (or a similar Linux distribution, since the features listed above are not unique to Ubuntu itself) ever again..." http://www.workswithu.com/2010/01/14/five-essential-ubuntu-features/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+WorksWithU+(Works+With+U)

Tegra 2 supports Ubuntu Linux

Interested in touchscreen technology? See what soltesza has to save about the Ubuntu Linux supported Nvidia devices. "According to this faq-like post on the official Nvidia Tegra developer site, Ubuntu Linux is supported as an operating system for Tegra 2 based devices. "This is extremely important for both Nvidia and Linux in general since a lot of IT-savvy people find Android insufficient for the netbook form factor and ask for a “real” Linux on these very promising devices. A simple Gnome desktop or Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix user interface may not be perfect for a touchscreen operated tablet but is very useable with the traditional laptop form factor. Some of the Tegra 2 tablets will add a pointer device as well, in addition to the touchscreen (like the Notion Ink Adam) so these machines will be easy to use with a customized, full Linux desktop." http://soltesza.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/tegra-2-supports-ubuntu-linux/

Ubuntu v. Macintosh and Windows

Don Watkins, on his blog - Country Contemplative, compares and contrasts Ubuntu, Macintosh, and Windows. Watkins states that, "it [Macintosh] is Linux with great multi-media...I love Photo Booth, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD all great software products that work together rather seamlessly. But are they worth double the price of a Dell for the average person." Watkins has this to say about Windows, "I think Microsoft has gotten the bugs out of Vista in Windows 7. So far it’s quite easy to operate and doesn’t have all the “yes/no” permission questions of Vista. I got Windows 7 Premium because I wanted to experiment with their multimedia tools too." And with regards to Ubuntu, Watkins notes the plus side for him, "with Ubuntu and Linux in general and this is where Linux really kicks both Windows and the Mac is you have the same OS whether mainframe, desktop, laptop or mobile device and it’s just plain stable. " Watkins makes some interesting predictions on what he sees as the future for Ubuntu, Macintosh and Windows. Take a look and see if you think he's got it. http://countrycontemplative.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/1963/

Canonical, IBM: Ubuntu Will Counter Windows 7 At Lotusphere

The VAR Guy, gives the scoop on Canonicals effort to counter Microsoft's Windows 7 push at IBM's Lotusphere conference in Orlando next week. Sounds interesting, "IBM has previously stated Smart Work can save customers up to 50 percent per seat on software costs vs. traditional Microsoft-based desktops. Canonical says the solution includes Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition and Lotus Symphony, which includes word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, fully supported by Canonical at $5.50 per user, per month based on 1000 seat deployment." The VAR Guy states that it is important to keep this upcoming push in perspective as well, "The company’s channel remains a work in progress, and the next three months will rank among the most critical in Canonical’s history — due to the forthcoming Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) release in April 2010 and the ongoing CEO transition, which should be completed by March 2010." http://www.thevarguy.com/2010/01/14/canonical-ibm-ubuntu-will-counter-windows-7-at-lotusphere/

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Monday, January 18, 2010

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, January 19, 2010

Community Council Meeting

Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting

Developer Membership Board

  • Start: 15:00 UTC
  • End: 16:00 UTC
  • Location: Not listed as of publication
  • Agenda: Not listed as of publication

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 Council Meeting

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

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

Edubuntu Meeting

Americas Membership Board Meeting

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Ubuntu Java Meeting

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

Friday, January 22, 2010

Lucid Weekly Release Meeting

  • Start: 16:00 UTC
  • End: 17:30 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/ /ReleaseTeam/Meeting/2010-01-22

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Ubuntu User Day

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Ubuntu Gaming Team Meeting

  • Start: 20:00 UTC
  • End: 22:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not 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

Subscribe

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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
  • Amber Graner
  • Liraz Siri
  • And many others

Glossary of Terms

  1. HAL - Hardware Abstraction Layer
  2. IRC - Internet Relay Chat.
  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. UEC - Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud.

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.

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License CCL.png Creative Commons License 3.0 BY SA

UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue176 (last edited 2010-01-19 18:06:24 by ip68-0-180-217)