Issue189

Contents

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. General Community News
    1. Archive frozen for preparation of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
    2. Ubuntu Open Week
    3. New Loco Council Members Announced
    4. New operators appointed on #ubuntu, #ubuntu-offtopic and #kubuntu
    5. Reminder: Regional Membership Boards - Restaffing
    6. 1st Annual Ubuntu Women World Play Day Competition Announced
    7. New Ubuntu Member
  4. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Lucid
    3. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week
  5. LoCo News
    1. Lucid Parties
    2. Hungarian Loco Team shares Release Party Badges
    3. Lucid Release parties in Norway
    4. Ubuntu-ni presentation at American College
    5. Ubuntu Honduras Visited UNAH-VS
    6. Minor Team Reporting Change
  6. Launchpad News
    1. Feature Friday: project announcements
    2. Links round-up 16th April
  7. The Planet
    1. Jani Monoses: Facebook app for Lucid countdown banners
    2. Ubuntu Inside Out – Free Software and Linux Days 2010 in Istanbul
    3. Quickly 4.0 available in Lucid!
  8. In The Press
    1. Canonical's services play: Revenue windfall or trap?
    2. From Dapper To Lucid, Four Years Of Ubuntu Benchmarks
    3. Ubuntu 10.04 Gets A New Catalyst Pre-Release
    4. Ubuntu One Music Store Open for Testing
    5. Ubuntu’s New Web Office Integration
  9. In The Blogosphere
    1. Ubuntu Is A Poor Standard Bearer For Linux
    2. Selling Ubuntu to the “Third World”
  10. In Other News
    1. Out of beta: 40 Ubuntu-based TurnKey virtual appliances
    2. Full Circle Podcast #4: It’s Everyone Else’s Fault
    3. Ubuntu-UK podcast: Hear Em Rave
  11. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Monday, April 19, 2010
      1. NGO Meeting
      2. Security Team Catch-up
    2. Tuesday, April 20, 2010
      1. Community Council Meeting
      2. Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting
      3. Technical Board Meeting
      4. Desktop Team Meeting
      5. Kernel Team Meeting
      6. LoCo Council Meeting
    3. Wednesday, April 21, 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
      6. Ubuntu-ie IRC Meeting
    4. Thursday, April 22, 2010
      1. Ubuntu Java Meeting
    5. Friday, April 23, 2010
      1. Lucid Weekly Release Meeting
    6. Saturday, April 24, 2010
      1. BugJam
      2. DC Loco IRC meeting
    7. Sunday, April 25, 2010
      1. Ubuntu IRC Council Meeting
      2. Ubuntu Gaming Team Meeting
  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

newspaper-icon3.jpg

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #189 for the week April 11th - April 17th, 2010. In this issue we cover: Archive frozen for preparation of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, Ubuntu Open Week, New Loco Council Members Announced, New operators appointed on #ubuntu, #ubuntu-offtopic and #kubuntu, Reminder: Regional Membership Boards - Restaffing, 1st Annual Ubuntu Women World Play Day Competition Announced, New Ubuntu Member, Lucid Parties, Hungarian Loco Team shares Release Party Badges, Lucid Release parties in Norway, Ubuntu-ni presentation at American College, Ubuntu Honduras Visited UNAH-VS, Minor Team Reporting Change, Feature Friday: project announcements, Links round-up 16th April, Facebook app for Lucid countdown banners, Free Software and Linux Days 2010 in Istanbul, Quickly 4.0 available in Lucid!, Out of beta: 40 Ubuntu-based TurnKey virtual appliances, Full Circle Podcast #4: It’s Everyone Else’s Fault, Ubuntu-UK podcast: Hear Em Rave 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

  • Archive frozen for preparation of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
  • Ubuntu Open Week
  • New Loco Council Members Announced
  • New operators appointed on #ubuntu, #ubuntu-offtopic and #kubuntu
  • Reminder: Regional Membership Boards - Restaffing
  • 1st Annual Ubuntu Women World Play Day Competition Announced
  • New Ubuntu Member
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Lucid Parties
  • Hungarian Loco Team shares Release Party Badges
  • Lucid Release parties in Norway
  • Ubuntu-ni presentation at American College
  • Ubuntu Honduras Visited UNAH-VS
  • Minor Team Reporting Change
  • Launchpad News
  • In the Press & Blogosphere

  • Out of beta: 40 Ubuntu-based TurnKey virtual appliances

  • Full Circle Podcast #4: It’s Everyone Else’s Fault
  • Ubuntu-UK podcast: Hear Em Rave
  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

General Community News

Archive frozen for preparation of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

Steve Langasek, Ubuntu Release Manger, announced on that the Archive is now frozen.

We are one week out from the 10.04 LTS release candidate and two weeks from the final release, so as many of you have probably already noticed, the archive is now frozen and will not thaw again before release.

During the freeze, all uploads to main must be approved by a member of the release team, so if you have fixes that are important to get in and will need discussion, please do get in touch as soon as possible. Uploads to main should at this point focus on release-critical bugs only.

See the previous message for more information about this process: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2010-April/000705.html

The list of release-critical bugs that we want to still try to resolve before the release candidate on April 22 is tracked here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+bugs?field.milestone=21439

Additional bugs that are still considered "targets of opportunity" for the release are found at: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+bugs

If you have bugs which you believe should be listed there but aren't yet, please get in touch with me or another member of the release team.

In addition, Lucas Nussbaum has helpfully been providing a list of packages that fail to build in Lucid. Please help us to make 10.04 LTS the best release possible by pitching in to resolve these build failures: http://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/ubuntu_ftbfs.cgi

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2010-April/000709.html

Ubuntu Open Week

Every cycle we have a week’s worth of IRC sessions for users of Ubuntu and/or people who want to get more involved in Ubuntu. Think of it as “kicking the tires” on the community, see if you like it, and then finding something you’re interested in and going and doing it.

Also, don’t miss the Spanish Open Week!

Here’s a quick FAQ:

Is it too late to run a session?

Nope, we can always add extra sessions if we get more volunteers, so if you want to run a session then get a hold of us! This is the week after release so the buzz of new users will be exciting, a perfect opportunity to teach a class!

I want an Open Week in my own language!

Grab a wiki page and Just Do It(tm). Let us know and we’ll help get the word out. If you can’t find enough speakers for a whole week then just do what sessions you can.

Hey no fair, my *buntu (and/or other team) is missing!

We always want to use OpenWeek to get more users interested in your project and to find volunteers. Ping me for a session and we’ll get you on the schedule.

Sneaky, you scheduled me for a session and didn’t even ask!

Likely you’ve done a session in the past and people demanded more of you. Don’t be so awesome next time. If there’s any questions or if you’re unsure if you want to commit just stop by #ubuntu-community-team on freenode IRC and ask!

For more information on open week and how you can join go to: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek/

http://castrojo.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/announcing-ubuntu-open-week-4/

New Loco Council Members Announced

It’s with great pleasure I announce on the behalf of the Community Council the newly appointed members of the LoCo Council:

Alan Pope (returning incumbent) of Ubuntu UK - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AlanPope

Paul Tagliamonte of Ubuntu US Ohio - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Paultag

Leandro Gomez of Ubuntu Nicaragua - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Leocharrua/LCE2010

Thanks to Alan for his continued dedication and work on the council, and big Ubuntu welcome to Paul and Leandro! Thanks to everyone who put their name forward, we always have great applicants so the decision is never easy, and we hope you all consider applying again in the future.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/loco-contacts/2010-April/004418.html

New operators appointed on #ubuntu, #ubuntu-offtopic and #kubuntu

The IRC Council has chosen a number of new operators for the #ubuntu, #ubuntu-offtopic and #kubuntu channels. This is the result of our first round of the new operator recruitment process based on Launchpad teams. We are pleased to find that the process works smoothly. Great candidates showed up, and the Council were technically well enabled to do our part of the job.

The new members by team:

  • #ubuntu operator team: Anthony Hook (h00k), Giovanni Chiazzese (IdleOne), Mackenzie Morgan (maco) and Nathan Handler (nhandler).

  • #ubuntu-offtopic team: Anthony Hook (h00k) and Matt Wheeler (funkyHat).
  • #kubuntu team: Ralph Janke (txwikinger).

Welcome new members! A big thanks to all the applicants. We were forced to turn down a few good candidates, and hope they will apply again when more operators are needed.

The new members will be soon formally accepted through Launchpad. The new operators will now enter a probation period and assigned a mentor, as described on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IRC/IrcTeam/Probation . Mentors will soon contact the new operators and establish communication to ensure smooth entrance into the team and their new duties.

Thanks again to all who offered to help as operators!

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-irc/2010-April/000986.html

Reminder: Regional Membership Boards - Restaffing

Reminder from the announcement last week that the Regional Membership Boards are looking for new members. The April 23rd, 2010 deadline to either nominate yourself or someone else fast approaching. Please see the the original announcement to the LoCo Contacts mailing list at:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/loco-contacts/2010-April/004378.html

1st Annual Ubuntu Women World Play Day Competition Announced

The Ubuntu Women Team announced that the project will be sponsoring a photo competition to celebrate World Play Day on May 28th, 2010. In the announcement, by Melissa Draper on April 13, to the Ubuntu Women mailing list the competition is open to girls ages 2 to 12 years.

The Project will be awarding two (2) winners. The first of whom will be the popular voted Community Choice, and will receive a Dell Mini 10n (or equivalent net-book based on availability). The second winner chosen by random drawing will receive a Canonical Sponsored Ubuntu SWAG collection.

There are 4 simple steps to entering:

1. Take the picture of your girl(s) using Ubuntu.

2. Sign the Model Release Waiver Form

3. Email the Photo and the signed Release Waiver Form

4. Wait for the Voting results to be announced

For all the details, forms, enter cutoff dates and more please go to:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-women/2010-April/002759.html

New Ubuntu Member

The Asia Oceania Membership Board has announced a new Ubuntu Member from their meeting on April 13th, 2010.

Omer Akram, aka om26er, has been triaging bugs and providing help in #ubuntu. His triaging focuses on Empathy, Gwibber, Indicators, and he works with upstream developers as well.

The Asia Oceania Membership Board and the Ubuntu Community welcome this new Ubuntu Member.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2010-April/000951.html

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (78740) +573 over last week
  • Critical (30) +4 over last week
  • Unconfirmed (37723) +475 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) (1458) -1266 over last week
  2. Spanish (11739) -1476 over last week
  3. Brazilian Portuguese (37271) -3495 over last week
  4. French (40477) -74 over last week
  5. German (56236) -5538 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

Lucid Parties

Daniel Holbach writes:

In just a few days we’ll see another member of the Ubuntu menagerie to the door: the Lucid Lynx. Time for us to celebrate our good work as a team.

If you’ve never run a release party before, check this guide out[1]. It should make a lot of things a lot clearer. Once you and your team are clear on where to have the party, who to invite and what to do, head to the LoCo Directory[2] and add the venue and the event there. Party people will be able to comment the event and add their RSVP information.

Awesome! We're looking forward to seeing lots of parties from all around the globe on there. Seems like there’s 14 already registered[3]. Be sure to get your team signed up and enjoying the fun.

http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/?p=651

Hungarian Loco Team shares Release Party Badges

László Torma reported to the loco-contacts mailing list that András Bognár, a member of the Hungarian Ubuntu Community created some web badges to advertise their release parties. László liked them so much he asked András to created the badges in English so they could be shared with the whole community.

We have less than 2 weeks until the release of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Not too much time, but still enough to make people aware of the release party's. Translate the badge into your own language, share it with your LoCo, and put it on your blog! Let's make awesome release parties all over the world!

The badges and the original email can be found at the link below.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/loco-contacts/2010-April/004379.html

Lucid Release parties in Norway

As Ubuntu 10.04 – Lucid Lynx is shaping up rather nicely the release party in Oslo has been shaping up for a while, and only the last details remain. The team hopes to have time this weekend to finish up the details and make an announcement. For details please see our wiki planning page for activities under the Lucid cycle (Norwegian only)[1].

http://huayra.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/update-nokia-booklet-3g-prads-ubuntu-release-in-norway-and-spreadubuntu-for-release-party-material/

Ubuntu-ni presentation at American College

José Ernesto Dávila about being invited to speak about the Ubuntu Nicaragua LoCo Team:

Last Wednesday, April 14th. I was invited by the Fedora Ambassador Neville A. Cross to make a brief presentation about the Ubuntu Nicaragua LoCo Team as part of a series of talks about Free Software for the students of the American College sponsored by Güegüe Communications.

The content of my presentation was the Philosophy of Ubuntu and how people can join and contribute to our rockstar community.

http://josernestodavila.blogspot.com/2010/04/ubuntu-ni-presentation-at-american.html

Ubuntu Honduras Visited UNAH-VS

Elvira Martinez writes about the visit of the Ubuntu Honduras Team to a local University.

As the Honduran Team is definitely happy to have events like this one. Alex and Elvira visited a local university UNAH-VS in San Pedro Sula (Honduras) where they met with approximately 100 computer science students that were very interested.

They gave a brief introduction about their meeting objectives, and then Alex gave a presentation about Free Software, and the importance of Ubuntu to it. At the end they invited students to join the team, explained how the team works, and told them they needed more active people to join and help promote Ubuntu in Honduras.

They also shared some Ubuntu CDs with them, and invited them to join the team at the FLISOL Latin American Free Software Installation Festival. It was very gratifying that several students showed interest by giving the team their e-mail addresses and asking the team to send them the presentation we made.

The Honduran Team wishes to give special thanks to Wendy Ramos, and Engineer Ruben Fernandez for inviting us. They hope they can help them in a future implementing Free Software in UNAH-VS.

http://blog.diegoturcios.net16.net/?p=481

Minor Team Reporting Change

Nathan Handler is about to start working on a script that will be parsing the team reports for various information [1]. In order to make this easier. He would like to request that all teams update the new month template (he's holding off creating the April Team Report page), so that the name displayed on the report matches the display name on Launchpad. For example, the Chicago LoCo would be 'Ubuntu Chicago LoCo Team'. This change is only really necessary for LoCo teams at this point, but any team is more than welcome to make this change if they wish to do so. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/loco-contacts/2010-April/004393.html

Launchpad News

Feature Friday: project announcements

Not sure you need a full blog for your project but still want to announce your news? Launchpad gives you a no-frills way to make project announcements, complete with an Atom feed. It’s simple to get started: visit your project overview page and click Make announcement in the right-hand column’s Announcements box. There you’ll also find a link to your project’s announcements Atom feed.

Any announcement you make will also show up in the universal Launchpad announcements feed. See Sikuli's announcement examples here: https://launchpad.net/sikuli/+announcements There is also an example at the link below.

http://blog.launchpad.net/feature-friday/feature-friday-project-announcements

In case you missed them, here are a few links to Launchpad related posts from the past month or so:

Fixing the bug tracker widget: Curtis Hovey looks at what’s wrong with the way you set a project’s external bug tracker, in Launchpad. http://curtis.hovey.name/2010/04/15/fixing-the-bug-tracker-widget/

No project is an island: Curtis again, “I think the best summary of what Launchpad does is that it hosts open source communities.” http://curtis.hovey.name/2010/04/12/no-project-is-an-island-2/

Canonical pays to upgrade Gnome’s Bugzilla: “…the makers of Launchpad paid for improvements to Bugzilla, a competing product—not to mention that Ubuntu’s competitors will benefit from improvements to GNOME. As [Kiko] notes, Canonical views this as ‘bridging the gap’ from Ubuntu to upstream.” http://www.gnomejournal.org/article/96/canonical-upgrading-gnome-bugzilla-and-commercial-sponsorship

Microsoft developer Garret Serack announces The Common Opensource Application Publishing Platform (CoApp): “CoApp aims to create a vibrant Open Source ecosystem on Windows by providing the technologies needed to build a complete community-driven Package Management System, along with tools to enable developers to take advantage of features of the Windows platform.” And it’s hosted on Launchpad. http://blogs.msdn.com/garretts/archive/2010/03/31/the-common-opensource-application-publishing-platform-coapp.aspx

Being the Launchpad Release Manager: Deryck, the Launchpad Bugs team lead, talks about managing a Launchpad release and asks if it makes sense to talk about website releases. http://www.devurandom.org/weblog/2010/mar/30/launchpad-release-manager-rotation/

http://blog.launchpad.net/general/links-round-up-16th-april

The Planet

Jani Monoses: Facebook app for Lucid countdown banners

Stas Sușcov, one of the most active members of both the Moldavian and Romanian LoCo teams, has created a Facebook application to spread the 10.04 countdown banners.

It is written in Python, runs on Google App Engine and the code is hosted on Launchpad: bzr branch lp:~sushkov/ubuntu-website/ubuntu-countdown-fb

http://janimo.blogspot.com/2010/04/lucid-countdown-banners-facebook-app.html

Ubuntu Inside Out – Free Software and Linux Days 2010 in Istanbul

Earlier this month, Matt Zimmerman gave a Keynote at the Free Software and Linux Days event in Istanbul, Turkey. He notes that this was his 1st visit to Turkey as well as giving a presentation with simultaneous translation.

Matt's new talked titled Ubuntu Inside out covers:

  • What Ubuntu is about, and where it came from
  • Some of the challenges we face as a growing project with a large community
  • Some ways in which we’re addressing those challenges
  • How to get involved in Ubuntu and help
  • What’s coming next in Ubuntu

For more information on Matt's talk and a link to the presentation video go to:

http://mdzlog.alcor.net/2010/04/15/ubuntu-inside-out-free-software-and-linux-days-2010-in-istanbul/

Quickly 4.0 available in Lucid!

Didier Roche announced the availability of Quickly 0.4 in lucid.

After more than 6 months of heavy development the new release brings shiny new features, and a further lowering of the barrier for opportunistic new and seasoned developers. Development should just be easy and fun! Thanks to all the awesome contributors making this release happened: Philip Peitsch, Petar Vasić, Jens Persson, Łukasz Jernaś Brian, Jonathan Lange and Shane Fagan.

Special kudos to Rick Spencer for his continue devotion to opportunistic development and making quickly-widgets.

For more information on Quickly 4.0 in Lucid go to:

http://blog.didrocks.fr/index.php/post/Quickly-0.4-available-in-lucid!

In The Press

Canonical's services play: Revenue windfall or trap?

InfoWorld's Neil McAllister thinks it's tough to compete in an industry where your customers expect your product to be free. Recently, a few software vendors have begun offering Internet services as a way to add value to their products and raise revenue, but the latter model is not without its pitfalls. Take Canonical, for example. The company behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution now offers cloud-based data synchronization services under the Ubuntu One brand. You can get 2GB of storage for free; $10 per month gets you 50GB. Soon Canonical will be expanding its offering to include contact synchronization for smart phones -- also for a fee -- and an Ubuntu One Music Store as a Linux-based competitor to iTunes. These are bold moves, to be sure, but there's just one problem: For a small company whose core competency is software development, an online service-based business is a whole new ballgame. Software vendors who hope to follow in Canonical's footsteps should read carefully. Offering Internet services presents unique challenges, costs, concerns, and risks. Large companies, such as Apple and Microsoft, are able to adapt quickly to the new model. Maybe Canonical will, too. Other smaller players may decide that it's more prudent to stick to what they know best.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/canonicals-services-play-revenue-windfall-or-trap-878

From Dapper To Lucid, Four Years Of Ubuntu Benchmarks

Last week, Michael Larabel of Phoronix shared that Phoronix was benchmarking Ubuntu's current and past LTS releases, and had begun by running graphics benchmarks, looking at how the proprietary drivers from the past compare to open-source drivers from the present. He now has an assortment of system benchmarks to publish from the Long-Term Support releases of Ubuntu 6.06.1, Ubuntu 8.04.4, and an Ubuntu 10.04 development snapshot. While in some areas the performance in Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" has dropped due to the slower -- but more reliable -- performance of the default EXT4 file-system, in a majority of the tests, later Ubuntu LTS releases are getting faster, not slower. In nine of the 18 tests, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS was the clear winner over Canonical's previous two Long-Term Support releases. This is good for dispelling any rumors that Ubuntu Linux is getting slower with time, but in fact for many areas it is getting faster. Other areas like the boot speed and power efficiency has improved dramatically with succeeding Ubuntu releases. What is also making Ubuntu 10.04 an exciting Long-Term Support release is addressing more usability issues, the use of Plymouth for the boot screen, Ubuntu Netbook ARM improvements, the introduction of the Ubuntu One Music Store, a new desktop theme, and many package updates. As earlier tests have shown, the overall open-source graphics support is greatly improved in Ubuntu 10.04 compared to even Ubuntu 9.04 or 9.10 with the ATI Radeon support now using kernel mode-setting and the introduction of Nouveau support for NVIDIA graphics.

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

Ubuntu 10.04 Gets A New Catalyst Pre-Release

Phoronix's Michael Larabel recalls that a month ago the Canonical crew, working on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS received an unreleased Catalyst 10.4 driver from AMD for inclusion with the Lucid Lynx. The publicly available ATI Catalyst drivers had not -- and to this day still do not -- support the X.Org Server 1.7 used by this next Ubuntu release. Similar pre-releases for Ubuntu have happened in the past when AMD hasn't been quick to the game in supporting new Linux kernels and X Servers. This driver was made available in Ubuntu 10.04 even before Catalyst 10.3 was released. Catalyst 10.4 still has not been publicly released, but another updated 10.4 driver has made its way into the Lucid repository. As a Sunday morning update, an updated fglrx-installer package has entered Lucid that provides a new upstream release. fglrx 8.723.1 fixes an issue with the X.Org Server causing a segmentation fault when certain ATI graphics cards are installed. There may be other changes too "under the hood" with this driver release, but that's all that is officially mentioned.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODE0MQ

Ubuntu One Music Store Open for Testing

Kevin Purdy of Lifehacker reports that the DRM-free digital music store they previously peeked at has now opened to the public — at least the public that's using the Ubuntu 10.04 Beta. It's fairly easy to use, and automatically syncs your purchases to your free cloud storage. Technically, the Ubuntu One store launched late last month, but it must have slipped our attention. As it stands, you'll still need to head to your Software Source menu, and enable the copyright-restricted sources to install the necessary MP3 plug-ins, but once you do, buying and downloading music from Ubuntu One is very painless, based on a test purchase of some Jimi Hendrix tracks.

http://lifehacker.com/5516863/ubuntu-one-music-store-open-for-testing?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lifehacker%2Ffull+%28Lifehacker%29

Ubuntu’s New Web Office Integration

LinuxUK.org's Jamie Bennett thinks that desktop Integration with the cloud is hot news. Ubuntu One is a great example of this. Currently Ubuntu One integrates file storage, contacts and notes sync, and now you can even buy music from the online store, delivered straight to the Rhythmbox media player. But for some devices, integration with the cloud isn't just a nice feature, it completely changes the user experience (UX). Take for instance a low powered, possibly mobile/embedded system with limited processing power and memory. A cloud based service for these devices could allow resource intensive tasks to be offloaded to an online server somewhere, greatly improving the UX. One set of tasks that are used often but can put a strain on resources are related to office document editing. Online services such as Google Docs and Zoho are out there, but neither of these are tightly integrated with the desktop, until now. Enter webservice-office-zoho. This functionality is currently only available as default on Ubuntu's ARM images, typically where limited hardware resources are more commonly found. But that's not to say webservice-office-zoho can't be used on any other Ubuntu install. There are lots of things planned for the future of webservice-office-zoho. If you have comments, idea's or just want to rant, come along to the web integration UDS session this May, either in person or via online methods.

http://www.linuxuk.org/2010/04/ubuntus-new-web-office-integration/

In The Blogosphere

Ubuntu Is A Poor Standard Bearer For Linux

Caitlyn Martin, writing for the O'Reilly Community, makes the point that people outside the Linux community equate Ubuntu with Linux. The reason for her concern is that, though Long Term Support (LTS) releases are stable and usually just work, the same can't be said for the intermediate releases on their six month cycle. Things that worked in one release may be broken in the next, or even in an update. She attributes it to the 6-month-cycle being cutting edge, where the LTS is intended to be rock solid.

After reading all the comments to the above article Martin posted a follow up. In this follow-up article Martin states, "I'd like to clarify my thoughts on the subject. First and foremost, with all my criticism of Ubuntu, I am not questioning the competence or the expertise of the developers at Canonical. Far from it. As I pointed out in the article the folks behind Ubuntu have proven they are capable of delivering a quality product. That isn't at issue."

She reiterates that she believes it's the difference between LTS and cutting edge releases, and not a fault of developers.

To read both articles in full please go to:

http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/04/ubuntu-is-a-poor-standard-bear.html

http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/04/how-canonical-can-do-ubuntu-ri.html

Selling Ubuntu to the “Third World”

Christopher Tozzi of WorksWithU notes that a possible major reason for lower uptake of Ubuntu in developing countries may be its lack of translation into the native language. He identifies the problem as being the lack of volunteers to do the translations because the number of people using Ubuntu in those countries is lower. His possible solution is for more hardware manufacturers to ship computers with Ubuntu pre-installed to those countries. This would also make pirating Windows OS less attractive in those countries. See his comments at the link.

http://www.workswithu.com/2010/04/11/selling-ubuntu-to-the-third-world/

In Other News

Out of beta: 40 Ubuntu-based TurnKey virtual appliances

TurnKey Linux comes out of beta in its last release based on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. Though Canonical will continue supporting 8.04 LTS Hardy for another 3 years, all future releases of the virtual appliance library will be based on the upcoming 10.04 LTS Lucid.

The current out-of-beta release features:

  • Bugfixes for all outstanding issues
  • Pre-installation of security updates
  • Improved Amazon EC2 support: simplified free subscription, support for all regions, EBS auto-mounting, and automatic EC2 instance setup
  • Support for TurnKey Hub: a simplified cloud deployment service soon to launch in private beta

Hub invites available on request to Ubuntu community members.

Full announcement: http://www.turnkeylinux.org/blog/maintenance-release

Full Circle Podcast #4: It’s Everyone Else’s Fault

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.

Your hosts this week are Robin Catling, Ed Hewitt, and Dave Wilkins

In this podcast:

  • Welcome
  • Since last episode
  • News
  • Opinion: Backup Solutions
  • Gaming
  • Feedback

Send us a comment to podcast@fullcirclemagazine.org

http://fullcirclemagazine.org/2010/04/17/full-circle-podcast-4-its-everyone-elses-fault/

Ubuntu-UK podcast: Hear Em Rave

Ciemon Dunville, Alan Pope, Dave Walker, Tony Whitmore and Laura Cowen gather in “Studio A” to bring you episode five of season three of the Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo Team.

In this weeks show:

  • Happenings of the week
  • Weekly News Items
  • Upcoming Events
  • Ubuntu Discussions
  • Emails, tweets, dents and voicemail since our last show

Comments and suggestions are welcomed to: podcast@ubuntu-uk.org

http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Monday, April 19, 2010

NGO Meeting

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, April 20, 2010

Community Council Meeting

Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting

Technical Board Meeting

  • Start: 14:00 UTC
  • End: 15:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • 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

  • Start: 17:00 UTC
  • End: 18:00 UTC
  • Location: Not listed as of publication
  • Agenda: Not listed as of publication

Wednesday, April 21, 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

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

Edubuntu Meeting

Ubuntu-ie IRC Meeting

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Ubuntu Java Meeting

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

Friday, April 23, 2010

Lucid Weekly Release Meeting

  • Start: 15:00 UTC
  • End: 16:30 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: None listed as of publication

Saturday, April 24, 2010

BugJam

  • Start: 20:00 UTC
  • End: 22:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-us-dc and #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 25, 2010

Ubuntu IRC Council Meeting

Ubuntu Gaming Team Meeting

  • Start: 19:00 UTC
  • End: 21:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: 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

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

Ubuntu 8.10 Updates

Ubuntu 9.04 Updates

Ubuntu 9.10 Updates

Ubuntu 10.04 Updates

Subscribe

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Archives and RSS Feed

You can always find older Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter issues at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter

You can subscribe to the Ubuntu Weekly News via RSS at: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/uwn/feed

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:

  • Amber Graner
  • John Crawford
  • Craig A. Eddy
  • Dave Bush
  • Chris Johnston
  • Liraz Siri
  • And many others

Glossary of Terms

  1. LTS - Long Term Support. - Said of a release that will receive support for 3-years/5-years rather than the typical 18 months
  2. UDS - Ubuntu Developer Summit

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/Issue189 (last edited 2010-04-18 21:06:03 by user80)