Issue186

Contents

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. General Community News
    1. Mark Shuttleworth: Less is more. But still less
    2. Ubuntu Server Survey 2010 released
    3. Ubuntu One Music Store now in public beta
    4. Ubuntu One Blog: Updates to web contacts
  4. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Lucid
    3. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week
  5. LoCo News
    1. Call for LoCo Council Elections
  6. Launchpad News
    1. Launchpad read-only 11.00-13.00 UTC March 31st, 2010
  7. The Planet
    1. Jono Bacon: Planning For 10.10 - Growing Our Translations Community
    2. Daniel Holbach: Ubuntu participates in Google Summer of Code
    3. Nigel Babu: Reviewers Team - Where are we?
    4. Daniel Holbach: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - Free Culture Showcase Winners!
  8. In The Press
    1. Hands-on: Ubuntu One music store will rock in Lucid Lynx
    2. Ubuntu Server Aims for the Enterprise
    3. Intel KMS vs. UMS With Ubuntu 10.04
    4. Women In, Near, and Around Ubuntu - Celebrating Ada Lovelace Day - Part 1
    5. Cloudy with a chance of Linux: Canonical aims to cash in
  9. In The Blogosphere
    1. Ask Ubuntu's Jono Bacon Whatever You Like - Weekly!
    2. Dell Backs Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud
    3. Am I really running Ubuntu?
    4. 'Lucid Lynx' Ubuntu enters beta
    5. Matt Asay on Partisanship
    6. The new Ubuntu Linux's five best features
    7. The Ubuntu Manual Project needs you!
    8. The UbuntuOne Music Store Now Open
    9. First look at Ubuntu One Music Store
    10. Ubuntu, Buttons, and Democracy
    11. Ubuntu: Showing Signs of Server Momentum?
  10. In Other News
    1. Full Circle Magazine #35 & Podcast #3
  11. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Monday, March 29, 2010
      1. Security Team Catch-up
    2. Tuesday, March 30, 2010
      1. Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting
      2. Developer Membership Board
      3. Desktop Team Meeting
      4. Kernel Team Meeting
    3. Wednesday, March 31, 2010
      1. Server Team Meeting
      2. Foundation Team Meeting
      3. QA Team Meeting
      4. Jono Bacon @ Home Videocast : Various Topics and Q+A
      5. Edubuntu Meeting
    4. Thursday, April 1, 2010
      1. Ubuntu Java Meeting
      2. Ubuntu Translations Meeting
      3. Israel LoCo IRC Meeting
    5. Friday, April 2, 2010
      1. Lucid Weekly Release Meeting
    6. Saturday, April 3, 2010
      1. BugJam
      2. DC Loco IRC meeting
    7. Sunday, April 4, 2010
  12. Updates and Security for 6.06, 8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10, and 10.04
    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
    7. Ubuntu 10.04 Updates
  13. Subscribe
  14. Archives and RSS Feed
  15. Additional Ubuntu News
  16. Conclusion
  17. Credits
  18. Glossary of Terms
  19. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  20. Feedback

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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #186 for the week March 21st - March 27th, 2010. In this issue we cover: Mark Shuttleworth: Less is more. But still less, Ubuntu Server Survey 2010 released, Ubuntu One Music Store now in public beta, Ubuntu One Blog: Updates to web contacts, Call for LoCo Council Elections, Launchpad read-only 11.00-13.00 UTC March 31st, 2010, Planning For 10.10 - Growing Our Translations Community, Ubuntu participates in Google Summer of Code, Reviewers Team - Where are we, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - Free Culture Showcase Winners, Full Circle Magazine #35 & Podcast #3, 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

  • Mark Shuttleworth: Less is more. But still less
  • Ubuntu Server Survey 2010 released
  • Ubuntu One Music Store now in public beta
  • Ubuntu One Blog: Updates to web contacts
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Call for LoCo Council Elections

  • Launchpad read-only 11.00-13.00 UTC March 31st, 2010
  • Planning For 10.10 - Growing Our Translations Community
  • Ubuntu participates in Google Summer of Code
  • Reviewers Team - Where are we?
  • Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - Free Culture Showcase Winners!
  • In the Press & Blogosphere

  • Full Circle Magazine #35 & Podcast #3

  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

General Community News

Mark Shuttleworth: Less is more. But still less

One of the driving mantras for us is “less is more”. I want us to “clean up, simplify, streamline, focus” the user experience work that we lead. The idea is to recognize the cost of every bit of chrome, every gradient or animation or line or detail or option or gconf setting. It turns out that all of those extras add some value, but they also add clutter. There’s a real cost to them – in attention, in space, in code, in QA. So we’re looking for things to strip out, as much (or more) as things to put in.

I’m not sure we’ll go as far as Microsoft has with their new Windows Phone 7 UI (links to .PPTX), which uses a design language called Metro. It’s radically pared back, and very cool work. It will be interesting to see if they’ve gone too far, or if users take to the more abstract feel of it.

It’s not hard to get people enthusiastic about the idea that less is more. However, it’s quite hard to get people to agree on which bits can be less. It turns out that one person’s clutter is another person’s most useful and valued feature.

Less, it turns out, is still less.

So, for example, consider tooltips on the panel. In bug #527458, there’s some discussion about a decision I made to deprecate tooltips on panel indicators. For quite a lot of people, that’s a little less too far. Bug #527458: https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-application/+bug/527458

On that particular decision, we’ll have to let time tell. For the moment, the decision stands. I’m the first to admit fallibility but I also know that it would be impossible to get consensus around a change like that. If those tooltips are, on balance, really just clutter, then unless someone is willing to take a decision that will be unpopular, they will be clutter forever. And it’s easier for me to make a decision like that in Ubuntu than for virtually anybody else. I apologise in advance for the mistakes that I will certainly make, and which others on the design team may make too, but I think it’s important to defend our willingness to pare things back and let the core, essential goodness shine through. We have to balance innovation and change with clarification and focus. We can’t *stop* innovating and changing, and we have to be willing to remove things that someone will miss.

The bug is a good place to continue the discussion about that particular issue. But I thought it would be useful to issue a call to arms, and invite suggestions from people on the Ayatana list as to what elements of the existing Ubuntu desktop can be trimmed back, on balance making the whole better.

There’s a growing awareness and excitement about the importance of design in free software. A few years ago, folks laughed out loud when it was suggested that design is a good thing for the free software community to build expertise in. And it’s been slow going, admittedly. It’s hard to bring clarity in a crowd. Or mob. We’ve been doing our part to lead that at Canonical and in the Ubuntu community, both through internal work and through public forums. If you’re interested in design and Free Software, then Ubuntu and Ayatana and related forums are great places to participate. And your participation is welcome!

Be sure to visit the link below to read all the comments on Mark's blog posting, or to add your own.

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/330

Ubuntu Server Survey 2010 released

We are ready to release the report on the server survey, the information for which was gathered at the tail end of 2009 by the server community in collaboration with Canonical. http://www.ubuntu.com/files/server-survey-2010.pdf

The survey contained a vast array of questions, many of which were general and many others user-prompted depending on previous response. We are grateful to the nearly 3000 respondents for spending the 20-30 minutes required.

We use the survey to get a temperature check on what’s going on in the Ubuntu server user community. It is an imperfect polling method (basically self-selecting, survey in English only, etc) so we neither read it nor present it as a definitive statement either on what people use Ubuntu Server for, or what they want from Ubuntu Server.

But, it sure is useful at showing trends.

Personally, I think it is a great insight into why Ubuntu Server Edition is gaining significant market share in the server market by identifying how users are looking for an open source OS for volume operations and therefore how Ubuntu Server is meeting that need. It validates many of the technology choices by Canonical and the community and it give proof of the popularity of the Long Term Support model, important in the run up to the new LTS release on April 29th. The section on cloud computing provides some real data in the nebulous world of ‘cloud,’ giving users a voice for their concerns and for their readiness to engage with the cloud – and showing the early adoption of Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud as a potential solution.

A word also on the report itself. For readability and broad interest the report is a highly-edited version of the survey (although no actual responses are changed). All the responses are available to the leaders of the server community and shareable at their discretion. Frankly an unvarnished 150 page data output might have the merit of completeness, but it would certainly be at the expense of comprehensibility. The interpretation is intended to be fair, balanced and accurate but it is, of course, the view of the authors’ and therefore can only ever be an interpretation of the figures. Readers are encouraged to draw their own conclusion from the same figures. The Register published some interesting observations on the survey. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/24/canonical_ubuntu_survey/

http://blog.canonical.com/?p=365

Ubuntu One Music Store now in public beta

Hello Lucid Testers!

Many in the Ubuntu community are excited about the Ubuntu One Music Store. The ability to search and buy popular music from within Rhythmbox is right around the corner. Today is the day that we are expanding testing by inviting all Ubuntu Lucid users to take part in the public beta of this new feature.

Testing goal

Our primary goal for this phase of testing is to ensure that the purchase and download experience is flawless. Integrating a cloud service like Ubuntu One with buying music is new for digital music stores. While it brings many benefits to users, it also adds technical complexity that increases the opportunity for problems to occur.

Testers must keep in mind that this is a beta test. We are excited to open this feature up for wider testing, but testers must understand that things will break. If something happens preventing a tester from receiving songs, there may be a delay in fulfilling their purchase. The best thing to do is to tell us about the problem using the channels below so we can resolve it quickly.

How to provide feedback

For those of you who want to test the Ubuntu One Music Store, there are a few ways for you to search for and report issues.

  • Search Launchpad [1] for your issue
  • Report new bugs against the Rhythmbox Ubuntu One Music Store project [2]
  • Chat with all beta testers on IRC: #u1msbeta on freenode

These are the primary places that the store developers will be monitoring so directing questions and issues here will ensure that they will be addressed.

The music selection

During the first few days of this expanded testing, some users may notice gaps in the songs available in the store. We are aware of it and are addressing the issue. It should be resolved very soon.

Our catalog will continue to improve and we will also look for efficient ways that users can provide more feedback about improving the selection of songs available.

How to test the store

All Lucid users around the world are invited to participate in this beta test of the Ubuntu One Music Store. If something unexpected happens, you need to tell us about it. The only way that the store will get better for everyone is if you do your part and speak up.

Some areas to test include…

  • MP3 codec detection
  • Search
  • Browse
  • Preview song samples
  • Add items to your basket
  • Checkout and buy process
  • Download to Ubuntu One
  • Sync to your computer
  • Songs added to your Rhythmbox library
  • Review purchase history in My Downloads

MP3 support

Many have had questions about MP3 support for the store and how their computer would play purchased songs. You do not have to purchase any software or codecs to play the songs on your computer. Additional details on this issue are available on the Ubuntu One Music Store FAQ page [3].

How to install the store

If Rhythmbox on your Lucid installation doesn’t already have the Ubuntu One Music Store option, use Software Center to search for and install the plugin. Enable the plugin by going to Edit > Plugins in Rhythmbox.

FAQ

We already provide a lot of great information about the store on the Ubuntu wiki [3]. This area and the FAQ content will be updated with more information as we get additional feedback from your testing.

Thank you for your help in improving the Ubuntu One Music Store for everyone!

The Ubuntu One Team

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/rhythmbox-ubuntuone-music-store

[2] In order for the team to capture the most information about your issue, please file a bug by opening a terminal and typing: ubuntu-bug rhythmbox-ubuntuone-music-store

[3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/MusicStore ?

Discuss the Ubuntu One Music Store Public Beta on the Forum: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1436457

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/2000

Ubuntu One Blog: Updates to web contacts

There’s a lot of great activity going on in the Ubuntu One team these days. Over the coming weeks leading up to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, you will start to see more and more information about new desktop and website features and improvements that will make Ubuntu One a more stable service and a joy to use.

We recently made some changes to the contacts page by grouping your address book in an A-to-Z format. This should make it load faster and be easier to use whether you have 10 contacts or thousands. There are also a few more enhancements to this tool coming soon.

Stay tuned for more news on all of the improvements coming soon to Ubuntu One.

http://voices.canonical.com/ubuntuone/?p=290

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (77052) +286 # over last week
  • Critical (27) +/-0 # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (36954) −42 # 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 Lucid

1. English (United Kingdom) (455) +453 # over last week Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx", see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/

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

Call for LoCo Council Elections

Thanks to the great work Jan Claeys, Alan Pope, and Efrain Valles have done in the Ubuntu LoCo Council. In April their term comes to an end, so we are calling for volunteers to step forward and nominate themselves or someone else willing to fill this position.

The LoCo Council is defined on the wiki. We meet up once a month over IRC to go through items on the team agenda. This typically involves approving new LoCo teams, re-approval of existing approved teams, resolving issues within teams, approving LoCo team mailing list requests, and anything else that comes along.

The process by which a new member of the Council is selected is defined by the Community Council is outlined on the wiki. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CommunityCouncil/Delegation The first stage is for people to nominate themselves, or be nominated by someone else. We will confirm with each person whether they actually want to be put forward or not. We will give 2 weeks for this process.

Please create a wiki page for your nomination as per the following template:

General

  • Name:
  • Contact details:

Key Achievements

  • ...

Vision

  • (vision for the Loco Council role)

Testimonials

  • ... (please don't forget to sign with your @SIG@)

Comments

  • ... (please don't forget to sign with your @SIG@)

Please pass this mail back to your own LoCo team so everyone is aware of the process. We welcome nominations from anywhere in the world, and from any LoCo team. Nominees do not need to be a LoCo Team Contact to be nominated for this post. We are however looking for people who are active in their LoCo Team.

Please send nominations to loco-council at lists.ubuntu.com which is a private mailing list only for the LoCo Council members. The above mailing list is moderated, however all nomination mails will be approved before the end of the nomination period.

If you’d like to ask any of the LoCo Council members questions privately then you contact us individually or use the above mailing list address. https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-lococouncil/+members

The nomination process starts March 26th, 2010, and ends at 00:01 UTC on April 9th, 2010. Once this period is over the LoCo Council will collate the nominations and double check that each person nominated is still happy to stand.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/loco-contacts/2010-March/004315.html

Launchpad News

Launchpad read-only 11.00-13.00 UTC March 31st, 2010

Launchpad is releasing the latest version of Launchpad on the March 31st, 2010. While we roll-out the new code, Launchpad’s web interface will be read-only, and other services, such as code hosting and PPAs, will be unavailable.

  • Starts: 11.00 UTC 31st March 2010
  • Expected back by: 13.00 UTC 31st March 2010

We’ll post details of the new release.

http://blog.launchpad.net/notifications/launchpad-read-only-11-00-13-00-utc-31st-march-2010

The Planet

Jono Bacon: Planning For 10.10 - Growing Our Translations Community

Ubuntu has always had a strong commitment to ensuring that it is available in everyone’s local language. We have seen incredible growth in this area, and Ubuntu is available in many languages, and this hugely helps people use the system and helps adoption.

With this goal in mind we have invested heavily in providing some rocking tools to make translations as easy as possible; this includes tools such as Rosetta in Launchpad, and the facilities that make the workflow simple for every day translators.

The translations process has two fairly key users:

  • Translators – people who translate strings. Many of these folks are often non-developers, and in many cases power-users who speak a given language who want to help translate Ubuntu. Many of folks want to dip in and out of translations: they want a list of things that need translating and will contribute when they have time.
  • Developers – these are people who want to ensure that their application has rocking multi-language support. These kinds of folks have a more systematic requirement: translations become a feature that they want to support in their apps.

I am keen for us to focus on these two specific demographics in the 10.10 cycle, and I have asked David Planella on my team to work on this.

I have asked David to focus on some key areas:

  • Simplifying translation workflow: ensuring it is dead simple to get involved as either a translator or developer.
  • Raise the awareness and importance of translations in the Ubuntu community.
  • Identify tools and infrastructure needs to improve how our translations community works.
  • Identify what needs we have to ensure we are working as effectively with upstreams as possible.

So, as with my previous 10.10 planning article, what feedback do you folks have that David can focus in on?

http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/03/26/planning-for-10-10-growing-our-translations-community/

Daniel Holbach: Ubuntu participates in Google Summer of Code

A lot of you noticed already that Ubuntu is going to participate in Google’s Summer of Code!

This is an awesome opportunity for students learning more about open source development and life in a Linux distribution and for the open source world as a whole.

If you want to participate make sure you generally

As a mentor:

As a student:

And now, the more selfish part of the blog post: I handed in a project idea myself, which will deal with Harvest. If you know quite a bit about Django and web design and want to work on a great tool that will make contributing to Ubuntu Development easier, get in touch with me. I’m sure we can make Harvest rock even harder.

http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/?p=635

Nigel Babu: Reviewers Team - Where are we?

A few days back, I had talked about the Reviewers Team and how we were trying to get people interested in reviewing the patches attached to bug reports. After that post, we’ve been able to do some extensive organization.

New Wiki

All the Ubuntu Reviewers Team related material is now in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReviewersTeam. Over the past few days, I’ve been filling it up with information, but the most critical bits are there already there.

A More Active Channel

I sent out plea for help in BugSquad and beginners-team mailing list and I’m very happy to get a response from a bunch of people. Persia and akgraner echoed the mail to the ubuntu-devel and the ubuntu-women mailing list respectively, which has also brought in some contributors. Also, thanks to nhandler, the channel is now logged and logs available at irclogs.ubuntu.com

Patch Day

Using the same concept as Hug Days, we’re planning to have Patch Days, we’ll not have a set package as target, but we keep a particular number of bugs as target for the day. The Patch Day would run for one day in every time zone, that would come to a total of 49 hours or so. Dates to be announced.

An Update on Numbers

On my last post on the topic, there were 1801 open bugs without branches attached, it has gone up to 1812 bugs now, but to give a perspective, there are 14321 closed bugs. This makes use of a more sensible method for numbers I guess.

http://justanothertriager.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/where-we-are/

Daniel Holbach: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - Free Culture Showcase Winners!

We have two heroes of Free Culture who will have their pieces of art released on the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS CDs. Without further ado let me present you the two winners of this cycle’s Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase.

Audio: Colin Ross – Frustration Blues

Video: Andrew Higginson – Ubuntu Is Humanity

You can read all about the two Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase winners at the link below.

http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/?p=637

In The Press

Hands-on: Ubuntu One music store will rock in Lucid Lynx

Ryan Paul of Ars Technica relays that Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution, has announced the official launch of the Ubuntu One music store. Integrated into the Rhythmbox music player in the upcoming Ubuntu 10.04 release, the store allows users to purchase downloadable songs and albums. After downloading a few tracks, Paul tells us that his overall impression is positive. Canonical has largely succeeded in making the music store feel like a convenient and well-integrated part of the Ubuntu user experience. With additional refinement, the music store could be a win for Canonical and Ubuntu users.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2010/03/hands-on-ubuntu-one-music-store-will-rock-in-lucid-lynx.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

Ubuntu Server Aims for the Enterprise

Linux Planet's Sean Michael Kerner tells us that Canonical is out with a new study this week looking at how users view and use their server platform. The Ubuntu Server study comes at an opportune time as the next major release of Ubuntu codenamed the Lucid Lynx is scheduled for release at the end of April. Gerry Carr, Head of Platform Marketing at Canonical, sees value in the report. "We use the survey to get a temperature check on what’s going on in the Ubuntu server user community," Carr blogged. "It is an imperfect polling method (basically self-selecting, survey in English only, etc) so we neither read it nor present it as a definitive statement either on what people use Ubuntu Server for, or what they want from Ubuntu Server. But, it sure is useful at showing trends."

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/7018/1/

Intel KMS vs. UMS With Ubuntu 10.04

Michael Larabel of Phoronix reminds us that last week Phoronix published benchmarks looking at the ATI Radeon KMS vs. UMS performance and found the user-space mode-setting support with the ATI driver (that is also limited to using DRI1 with these older code-paths) to perform significantly faster than the newer kernel mode-setting routes in most instances. To see how the performance difference is on the Intel side between the kernel mode-setting and user-space mode-setting implementations he ran a set of benchmarks on this side as well using Ubuntu 10.04. The results are not exciting like with the Radeon UMS vs. KMS benchmarks, but it is refreshing to see that the kernel mode-setting support does not lead to degraded performance as it does with the current ATI Radeon hardware on the open-source Linux stack. This is particularly good since with the latest mainline releases there is no user-space mode-setting support.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_kms_ums&num=1

Women In, Near, and Around Ubuntu - Celebrating Ada Lovelace Day - Part 1

Ubuntu User's Amber Graner recalls that last year at this time she had only been involved with Ubuntu and the Open Source community a little over a month. All things Ubuntu and Open Source in respects to her personal involvement were new, exciting and awesomely overwhelming and while she hates to admit it, Graner did not blog about anyone for Ada Lovelace Day 2009. Since then Graner tells us that she has been given the opportunity to meet and get to know so many amazingly talented and skilled women who are in Open Source and more specifically the Ubuntu Community. "The women I am writing about make the work and contributions they provide to Ubuntu, Open Source Projects, and initiatives to increase the visibility of women in open source, seem effortlessly awesome!" Graner then highlights the following women:

  • Akkana Peck
  • Belinda Lopez
  • Elizabeth "Lyz" Krumbach
  • Laura Czajkowski
  • Leigh Honeywell
  • Mackenzie Morgan

Follow this link to see details on the women listed above: http://ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Amber-Graner-You-in-Ubuntu/Women-In-Near-and-Around-Ubuntu-Celebrating-Ada-Lovelace-Day-Part-1

Cloudy with a chance of Linux: Canonical aims to cash in

Ryan Paul of Ars Technica says that although Ubuntu is generally regarded as a desktop Linux distribution, the sever variant is becoming increasingly popular in the cloud. It is silently infiltrating server rooms and gaining traction in enterprise environments. A recent survey published by Canonical provides some insight into adoption trends of Ubuntu on production servers. As Ubuntu's presence in the server space grows, it is showing up in some unexpected places. Weta Digital, the New Zealand company that did the special effects for Lord of the Rings and some of the 3D rendering for Avatar, reportedly runs Ubuntu on its 35,000-core render farm and virtually all of its desktop computers. The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind the popular Wikipedia website, rolled out Ubuntu on 400 of its servers in 2008. Paul states that Ars Technica uses Ubuntu ourselves on several of the key servers that power the Ars Orbiting HQ. One way in which Canonical is aiming to differentiate its server offerings is by emphasizing Ubuntu's support for the cloud. In the Ubuntu server survey, Canonical cites statistics from Cloud Market which show that Ubuntu is the most popular platform on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cluster (EC2), representing over 30 percent of all EC2 platform images. The cloud is playing an increasingly central role in Canonical's evolving business strategy. The company's commitment to UEC and Ubuntu's popularity on EC2 are both clearly growing. At the same time, Canonical is attempting to monetize the desktop with its integrated Ubuntu One cloud service. As Canonical climbs towards profitability, the cloud-centric strategy could give it a lift.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/03/ubuntu-gaining-traction-on-servers-and-in-the-cloud.ars

In The Blogosphere

Ask Ubuntu's Jono Bacon Whatever You Like - Weekly!

The folks art OMG! Ubuntu discuss Jono Bacon's decision to move "At Home with Jono Bacon" ustream.tv cast to a weekly time slot. This videocast will be an opportunity for the folks to ask the Ubuntu Community Manager, live and in real time questions about the latest and greatest news happenings in the Ubuntu Community. Jono explains why he thinks this weekly video session will be important to the community. "In each session I cover a range of topics, news in the Ubuntu world and importantly, I always do a Q+A session: this provides a great way to ask your questions about hot topics. I think it important for community leaders to provide a transparent opportunity to answer questions from their community." This OMG!Ubuntu article is full of links about this video cast series as well as information on how you can see and participate in the live Question & Answer session weekly.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/03/ask-ubuntus-jono-bacon-whatever-you.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+d0od+%28Omg!+Ubuntu!%29

Dell Backs Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud

In this article the Var Guy talks the Dell decision to support Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) as in infrastructure solution. The Var Guy goes on to explain how Dell and Canonical have been developing this UEC relationship for over 6 months now. The Var Guy sites Mark Murphy, Canonical Global Alliances Director, "Dell will offer a series of ‘blueprint’ configurations that have been optimised for different use cases and scale. These will include PowerEdge-C hardware, UEC software and full technical support – you will be able to buy these straight from Dell or you can use the ‘blueprints’ as a base to create your own bespoke solution." The Var Guy notes that Murphy's Blog continues with, "Behind the scenes we’ve worked with Dell’s DCS team for over six months to test and validate the integration of the cloud stack on their new PowerEdge-C series." The Var Guy discusses what make the timing critical as well as why this is a big when for Eucalyptus. He also notes that, "Canonical deserves to celebrate the Dell win. It’s significant."

http://www.thevarguy.com/2010/03/24/dell-backs-ubuntu-enterprise-cloud/

Am I really running Ubuntu?

Peter, My Thoughts Blog, questions is he really running Ubuntu when 80% of the applications he uses everyday on his laptop does not come from Ubuntu's repository. In this blog posts the author lists those applications and where he pulls the application from as well as the ones he compiles himself. The author comes to the conclusion that he really doesn't have a good reason to stick with Ubuntu and based on his list of modified and self complied applications he could switch to an alternate distribution, however, he gives back to the Ubuntu community by a series of "How to compile your custom Kernel" articles as well as his Git repository. He says, for now he will stick with Ubuntu and upgrade to Lucid when it is released in April.

http://blog.avirtualhome.com/2010/03/23/am-i-really-running-ubuntu/

'Lucid Lynx' Ubuntu enters beta

Matthew Broersma, ZDNet UK, looks the new features, the new look and the social networking side of Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx, beta version. Broersma points out that Lucid Lynx is the long-term support version of Ubuntu making sure readers understand that means the desktop version will be supported for 3 years and the server version for 5 years. He also noted how Ubuntu is highlighting the MeMenu,which allows users to manager instant messaging and post to a range of micro-blogging sites. Broersma also touches on the new desktop design and the light inspired theme.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-406545.html

Matt Asay on Partisanship

Jason Melton, The Source.com, gives his thoughts on, "Life’s too short for partisanship" blog post written by Matt Asay, Canonical COO. In this article Melton breaks down two points Asay had to say his partisanship post. The first point Melton looks at is, "If Microsoft warms up to open source, why not share some plaudits? And even when it gets things wrong, surely it’s better to politely critique rather than spew invectives?" The other is "But we don’t need to be partisan whiners and windbags along the way toward total world domination. Let the politicians beat each other up. We should be bigger than they. More like a community." Melton counters these points with, "Microsoft is not part of the community because they want to control what they can and destroy what they can not. ‘Twas not I, you, or Linux that set them down that road, friend. Microsoft freely chose that path.

If you want to talk about smoothing out differences between actual community members (like GNOME vs KDE or Ubuntu vs RHEL), that’s one thing – and a good thing. But placing Microsoft in the same category is dishonest." Melton goes on to say, "I do agree with Mr. Asay that “it gets old”. Which is why I honestly don’t understand those who intentionally fire things up by promoting Microsoft technology. You know it will be controversial. You know it will cause problems. That is obvious, inarguable and proven time and time again. ... That's what gets old to me."

http://www.the-source.com/2010/03/matt-asay-on-partisanship/

The new Ubuntu Linux's five best features

Computer World's resident cyber cynic, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, reports that the forthcoming version of Ubuntu Linux, Lucid Lynx, has just gone beta, and it's going to be the most important Ubuntu release in years. What will this future look like? Based on Vaughan-Nichols' quick look at the beta, the main thrust of this redesign is to make it as friendly as possible to people who aren't already Linux desktop users. What are Canonical and Ubuntu bringing to its users this time? Here's Vaughan-Nichols' list of what I think are going to be Ubuntu's 10.04's best new features:

  • A manual - Sexy? No. But it's this kind of dull-yet-vital addition that can make Ubuntu much more attractive to the larger community of computer users who are still barely aware of Linux as a desktop platform.
  • Social by default - If manuals are from the 1980s, then Ubuntu 10.04's social networking on the default desktop is 2010 all the way.
  • New desktop theme - After years of the autumnal browns and oranges of the 'Human' theme, Canonical is switching to a brighter and lighter purple and orange theme.
  • Easier to use applications - Canonical has decided that its desktop and its programs need to be as easy to use as possible.
  • Faster boot - Lucid Lynx still doesn't boot as fast as Fedora, but they're trying to make the operating system move even faster from a cold start to a working system.

Put this all together, and you get a faster Linux that goes out of its way to make life easier for new users. It looks like the end result may be the most new-user-friendly Linux distribution in quite some time and, better still from Canonical's viewpoint, a Linux that will also be solid enough to carry the company from being the Linux community's darling to also being a commercial success.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/15784/the_new_ubuntu_linuxs_five_best_features

The Ubuntu Manual Project needs you!

OMG!Ubuntu readers are being asked to help out with the Ubuntu Manual Project. They have a link to the PDF download, and are asking for the following help.

  • Spelling and grammar mistakes
  • Factual errors
  • Missing references
  • Formatting errors
  • Sentences that don't make sense
  • Inconsistencies in wording
  • Somewhere where you think a screenshot is needed and there isn't a placeholder already

Start at a random place in the manual and work backwards or forwards. We don't want everyone starting at the prologue and getting a tonne of bugs about the prologue but none for Chapter 9, for example. Each time you find any of the above, jump on over to http://ubuntu-manual.org/?bugs and fill out the form. It's as easy as that!

Here's the link to the PDF download: http://ubuntu-manual.org/ubuntu-manual-draft.pdf

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/03/ubuntu-manual-project-needs-you.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+d0od+%28Omg!+Ubuntu!%29

The UbuntuOne Music Store Now Open

The long-awaited UbuntuOne Music store has finally opened its doors for Ubuntu 10.04 Beta users to try out. http://voices.canonical.com/ubuntuone/?p=263 The store is "built in" to Rhythmbox meaning you don't need to install any extra add-ons to use it - simply start Rhythmbox and click the 'UbuntuOne' sidebar entry to load up the store and do some browsing. Browsing the store is a straight-forward experience. You can search by artist, title or album titled or and navigating around the store is extremely easy. Previewing tracks is a one-click affair. Purchasing a song is as easy as clicking the 'Download' button followed by 'Checkout' and entering your payment information (all of which can be stored in your UbuntuOne account meaning you don't need to enter it again). Payment options accepted are Credit/Debit cards, Paypal and Click&Buy. Once you've completed the above your track is then prepared for download. This is the only part of the experience where I've (so far) found issue. Having purchased a track, the download proceeded to "process" for a good 20 minutes. The UbuntuOne part of the store then comes into play - your purchased tracks are downloaded to a 'special' "UbuntuOne" music folder which then syncs back to your UbuntuOne account.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/03/ubuntuone-music-store-now-open.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+d0od+%28Omg!+Ubuntu!%29

First look at Ubuntu One Music Store

Ed Hewitt, Yet Another Tech & Gaming Blog!, gives readers his initial reaction to the Ubuntu One Music Store in this blog post. He notes that the store is well integrated in Ubuntu through a plugin in Rhythmbox. Pointing out how the plugin acts as a portal to the music store. In this post he says he only has one complaint -- Ubuntu One gives most users 2GM of space, which is not enough for music. Hewitt also goes on to tell why he is not going to use the Ubuntu One Music Store -- price.

http://www.edhewitt.co.uk/2010/03/23/first-look-at-ubuntu-one-music-store/

Ubuntu, Buttons, and Democracy

When Ubuntu drinks, the free and open source software (FOSS) community gets a hangover. The distribution is so influential that its every development sends echoes rippling through the greater community. How else to explain how a simple change in desktop themes should spark not only debates about usability, but about how decisions are made in FOSS? This latest proof of Ubuntu's influence began when the Ubuntu Design and User Experience Team announced a new set of default themes. Then Ubuntu users began noticing a detail of the new theme: The positioning of the buttons on the title bar for manipulating windows.

Bug #532633 was submitted which also caused a lot of stir in the community, also debate on how to classify it. Shuttleworth has indicated that he is willing to hear further discussion. In addition, by stating that the button position will remain at least for the current beta, he may be implying the possibility of change. No matter how the war of the buttons ends, it highlights the tension between democracy and meritocracy that is central to the workings of not only Ubuntu, but the greater FOSS community as well. Perhaps what matters is not that one tendency should prevail, but that both democracy and meritocracy should co-exist, each compensating for the weaknesses of the other.

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3872231/Ubuntu-Buttons-and-Democracy.htm

Ubuntu: Showing Signs of Server Momentum?

As Ubuntu 10.04’s debut approaches in April 2010, the hype has started: Plenty of folks are writing the usual Ubuntu vs. Windows or Ubuntu vs. Mac OS X stories. But another theme is emerging, and it involves Canonical’s Ubuntu Server Edition and Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) strategies — both of which are showing some momentum. Here’s why.

  • Dell has announced plans to support Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC), which is based upon the Eucalyptus Systems cloud platform.
  • Canonical has revealed the results of its annual Ubuntu server study. The most pressing finding: A full 72 percent of participants say they consider Ubuntu robust enough for mission critical services.

Where will Canonical head next? The company has been busy lining up independent software vendors (ISVs) to support Ubuntu Server Edition 10.04. Also, Canonical is working on a software appliance strategy — which allows ISVs and customers to more quickly deploy specific applications. There’s plenty more work to be done. Hewlett-Packard and IBM have shown only passing interest in Ubuntu Server Edition. And major ISVs like Oracle have yet to port their applications to the operating system. But it’s safe to say Ubuntu Server Edition’s glass is half full, thanks to the growing Dell relationship.

http://www.workswithu.com/2010/03/24/ubuntu-showing-signs-of-server-momentum/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WorksWithU+%28Works+With+U%29

In Other News

Full Circle Magazine #35 & Podcast #3

Full Circle - the independent magazine for the Ubuntu Linux community are proud to announce the release of our thirty-fifth issue.

This month:

  • Command and Conquer.
  • How-To : Program in Python - Part 9, Digitally Retouching a Photo in GIMP - Part 2, and Installing Google SketchUp using Wine.

  • Review - Motorola Milestone/Droid.
  • MOTU Interview - Pedro Fragoso.
  • Top 5 - Android Applications.
  • Ubuntu Women, Ubuntu Games, My Opinion, My Story, and all the usual goodness!

Get it while it's hot: http://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-35/

AND!

Full Circle Podcast #3: Hail the Mental Mongoose!

The podcast is in MP3 and OGG formats. You can either play the podcast in-browser if you have Flash and/or Java, or you can download the podcast with the link underneath the player.

Get it while it's hot: http://fullcirclemagazine.org/2010/03/27/full-circle-podcast-3-hail-the-mental-mongoose/

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2010-March/000909.html

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Monday, March 29, 2010

Security Team Catch-up

  • Start: 17:00 UTC
  • End: 17:30 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: nothing formal, just a weekly catch-up.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting

Developer Membership Board

  • Start: 14:00 UTC
  • End: 15:00 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

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Server Team Meeting

Foundation Team Meeting

  • Start: 16:00 UTC
  • End: 17:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not listed as of publication

QA Team Meeting

Jono Bacon @ Home Videocast : Various Topics and Q+A

Edubuntu Meeting

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Ubuntu Java Meeting

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

Ubuntu Translations Meeting

Israel LoCo IRC Meeting

  • Start: 16:00 UTC
  • End: 17:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-il
  • Agenda: None listed as of publication

Friday, April 2, 2010

Lucid Weekly Release Meeting

Saturday, April 3, 2010

BugJam

  • Start: 20:00 UTC
  • End: 22:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-us-dc and IRC channel #ubuntu-bugs
  • Agenda: None listed as of publication

DC Loco IRC meeting

  • Start: 22:00 UTC
  • End: 23:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-us-dc
  • Agenda: None listed as of publication

Sunday, April 4, 2010

  • None listed as of publication

Updates and Security for 6.06, 8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10, and 10.04

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

  • None Reported

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

Ubuntu 8.10 Updates

  • None Reported

Ubuntu 9.04 Updates

Ubuntu 9.10 Updates

Ubuntu 10.04 Updates

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Credits

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Glossary of Terms

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UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue186 (last edited 2010-04-04 17:36:11 by 99-21-107-94)