Issue22

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 22 for the week of Nov 12th - 18th, 2006. In this issue we cover the new Feisty schedule, new LoCo teams, Ubuntu-uk auction, changes in Feisty and much more.

In This Issue

  • Feisty on Schedule
  • New LoCo teams announced

  • New Ubuntu Customization Kit release
  • Ubuntu-based PBX announced
  • Ubuntu-uk holds childrens auction
  • Changes in Feisty
  • In the press
  • Upcoming events
  • Specification spotlight
  • Updates and security for 6.06 and 6.10
  • Bug stats

General Community News

Feisty on Schedule

Now that Edgy Eft 6.10 is out, the new plan of action is the Feisty Fawn 7.04 release schedule. This schedule puts Feisty's release at late April, and promises us the first milestone CD image, dubbed Herd 1, in a few short weeks time. You can read the news at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2006-November/000219.html or alternatively go direct to the schedule at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeistyReleaseSchedule.

LoCoSphere continues to grow

Ubuntu's incredible LoCoSphere continues to grow with new teams. One such team is the Bosnian LoCo Team. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/loco-contacts/2006-November/000782.html

Ubuntu - Just for You

Ever wanted to customise an Ubuntu LiveCD to your own tastes? With the UCK you can. Version 1.3 was released on the 10th of November, and includes support for the latest stable Ubuntu release, Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy Eft". For more information on the UCK, see the announcement at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2006-November/022345.html

Introducing an Ubuntu-based PBX

We here at the UWN recently got word of an up and coming Asterisk based PBX built upon Ubuntu. It is a commercially oriented suite of management and interface software which dramatically increases the ease of use and functionality of an Asterisk based PBX and is aimed at the SME market. More information can be found at http://www.clarosvoip.com/

Children to benefit from T-Shirt and Book

Children in Need, a UK charity, are destined to benefit from the generosity of members of our wonderful community. An Ubuntu t-shirt signed by luminaries such as Mark Shuttleworth, Jon 'Maddog' Hall, Jono Bacon and many others including Canonical staff and community members will be auctioned by the Ubuntu UK Team, with the money raised to go to the Children in Need charity. Jono Bacon has also contributed a signed copy of "Official Ubuntu Book" to raise the stakes and get more people interested. The auction is being held on the Ubuntu wiki. If you are interested, please visit https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/CharityWork/ChildrenInNeedTShirt and bid your piggy-bank to this terrific cause.

Changes In Feisty

Changes in Feisty came fast and furious this week, with the usual stock of uploads from the usual suspects, and an added helping in the form of the autosyncing of all the completely new packages in Debian.

Users of all the major desktops will be pleased to see a few major pieces get uploaded this week. The D-Bus 1.0 release was ushered into Ubuntu by Sebastian Droege. Hitting 1.0 means D-Bus is now API stable, so expect even wider adoption to follow suit. Also, Daniel T Chen uploaded the latest Flash Player 9 Beta, flashplugin-nonfree 9.0.21.55.2ubuntu1, which he labelled The "afraid of sunlight" release. Sebastien Droege also uploaded that friend of debuggers everywhere, valgrind, with its new release, 3.2.1 as well as sqlite 2.8.17, a common database in desktop applications.

On the server side, Christian Bjaelevik uploaded the new asterisk 1.2.1, which includes a fix for CVE-2006-5444 and -5445. openssl 0.9.8c was also synced from Debian.

Ubuntu

More pieces of GNOME 2.17.2 and related technologies arrived this week as well, with Daniel Holbach uploading at-spi 1.7.13, gtkmm2.4 1:2.10.3, dasher 4.3.1, gcalctool 5.9.7, gnome-speech 1:0.4.6, fast-user-switch-applet 2.17.3. eog 2.17.1, and totem 2.17.3, and libxml++2.6 2.17.1 and Sebastian Bacher also uploaded gnome-desktop 2.17.2, gnome-menus 2.17.2, gnome-python 2.16.2, gnome-keyring 0.7.1, gnome-python-desktop 2.17.1, libgnomeprint 2.17.0, libgnomeprintui 2.17.0, nautilus 2.16.2, gnome-session 2.17.2, libgnome 2.17.0, control-center 2.17.1 and pango1.0 1.15.0. Finally, Sebastian Droege uploaded tomboy 0.5.0 while Martin Pitt uploaded gnome-volume-manager 2.17.0. As always, you can find out the latest in GNOME 2.17 at http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointSeventeen/ReleaseNotes

There were a number of GNOME-related uploads by a variety of people, including Jerry Haltom with banshee 0.11.2 and banshee-official-plugins 0.11.2, Daniel Chen and gnome-osd 0.11.3, the new clamtk 2.26 uploaded by Daniel Holbach, who also uploaded glom 1.3.1, labyrinth 0.3 and contacts 0.2, the new gaim 2.0.0+beta5 by Sebastian Bacher, who as uploaded xournal 0.3.1 and xchat-gnome 0.15, Sebastian Droege's liferea 1.0.25 as well as inkscape 0.44.1 uploaded by Kess Cook. Finally, Jeremie Corbier uploading gnomebaker 0.6.0, brasero 0.5.1 was uploaded by Mario Danic and gnumeric 1.7.2 by Gauvain Pocentek. Adrien Cunin also uploaded gtodo 0.16.0~rc2 while Daniel Chen uploaded gxine 0.5.8. Most GNOME and GTk+ applications list their new releases at http://www.gnomefiles.org/.

The relentless march of new pieces of the Telepathy stack continued with week with Daniel Holbach uploading telepathy-gabble 0.4.5, telepathy-inspector 0.4.0, meta-telepathy 3 (telepathy-gnome now depends on gossip-telepathy or cohoba), gossip-telepathy 0.18+cvs20061115, and telepathy-stream-engine 0.3.13 while Riccardo Setti uploaded telepathy-sharp 0.0.svn.20061115 from the Tapioca project.

Kubuntu

On the Kubuntu side, KDE got refreshed with version 3.5.5a, and KOffice 1.6.0 made its way into the repositories. Along with those, Konversation and KDevelop both got refreshed this week with new version from debian. A few NEW KDE applications also made their way over such as ktoon, kredentials, and komparator, not to mention a few new kwin-styles for your enjoyment.

Xubuntu

More parts of the XFCE 4.4 RC2 were landed this week by Gauvain Pocentek with xfce4-dev-tools 4.3.99.2, xfce4-battery-plugin 0.4.90.3, xfce4-clipman-plugin 2:0.5.99.1, xfce4-notes-plugin 1.3.99.1, xfce4-smartbookmark-plugin 0.4.2, xfce4-terminal 0.2.5.6rc1, xfce4-appfinder 4.3.99.1, xfce4-weather-plugin 0.5.99.1, thunar-archive-plugin 0.2.2, mousepad 0.2.8.

Edubuntu

In Edubuntu-land, Oliver Grawert uploaded the new gcompris 8.1, as well as tuxmath 0.97 and tuxmath 1.0, tuxtype 1.5.6.dfsg1, kino 0.92 while tuxpaint 0.9.16 was uploaded by Jordan Mantha.

Feisty Kernel version announced

Ben Collins announced this week that Feisty will have the latest stable kernel from upstream (2.6.20) at release. The primary reasons for doing this are paravirtualization enhancements, power management enhancements and the kernels' release cycle falling a few months before Ubuntu release which gives enough time to stabilize and test. You can read the full announcement at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2006-November/022413.html

Desktop "bling" begins to land

In light of the announcement, Matthew Garrett uploaded compiz 0.3.3-0ubuntu~git20061111 and desktop-effects 0.6.163, the latter of which is Fedora's control panel. To get compiz working in Ubuntu, simply install desktop-effects, compiz and compiz-gnome, turn it on by clicking the button in the "Desktop effects" applet that's under System/Preferences. A note of caution, if you have installed compiz from another source previously this may cause problems; depending your video card this may not work for you. For full details read: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2006-November/022398.html

New versions from Debian

There were a large number of new packages synced from Debian this week by Scott James Remnant. They include:

  • audacious 1.2.1 - http://audacious-media-player.org/Main_Page

  • auto-install 0.02 - http://packages.debian.org/oldstable/admin/autoinstall

  • automake1.10 1.10
  • awffull 3.7.1 - http://www.stedee.id.au/awffull

  • bcfg2 0.8.4 - http://trac.mcs.anl.gov/projects/bcfg2/

  • biloba 0.4 - Turn based strategy board game for up to 4 players
  • bloboats 1.0.1 - A boat racing game http://bloboats.dy.fi/

  • bmpx 0.32.0 - Beep Media Player eXperimental
  • boson 0.12 - http://boson.eu.org/

  • ceferino 0.97.5 - Action game similar to Super Pang http://www.losersjuegos.com.ar/juegos/ceferino/ceferino.php

  • clutter 0.1.0 - http://projects.o-hand.com/clutter/

  • collectd 3.10.3 - Statistics collection daemon http://collectd.org/

  • cryptmount 1.2 - Management and user-mode mounting of encrypted file systems
  • dates 0.1 - A calendar optimised for embedded devices http://projects.o-hand.com/dates

  • db4.5 4.5.20 - Berkeley DB
  • decompyle 2.3.2 - A Python byte-code decompiler
  • eikazo 0.5.1 Graphical frontend for SANE designed for mass-scanning
  • einstein 2.0 - Puzzle game inspired on Einstein's puzzle
  • fileschanged 0.6.5 - Command-line utility that reports when files have been altered
  • filezilla 3.0.0~beta2 - Port of the famous Win32 graphical FTP client
  • freetennis 0.4.8-2 - Free Tennis simulation game
  • gbackground 1.0 - Program to change the gnome background periodically
  • gchempaint 0.6.6 - 2D chemical structures editor for the GNOME2 desktop
  • gcstar 0.4.1 - An application for managing your movie collection
  • geekast 0.1.2 - GNOME interface to peercast
  • ggz-server 0.0.13
  • glipper 0.95 - A clipboard manager for GNOME and other window managers
  • gnash 0.7.1+cvs20061006.1521 - Free Flash movie player
  • gplanarity 11496 - Simple puzzle game involving untangling planar graphs
  • gpscorrelate 1.4 - Correlates digital photos with GPS data filling EXIF fields
  • gst-pulse 0.9.4 - A GStreamer 0.10 plugin for the PulseAudio sound server.

  • gstm 1.2 - Gnome SSH Tunnel Manager
  • guile-1.8 1.8.1 - The GNU extension language and Scheme interpreter
  • gxmms2 0.6.4 - xmms2 client for the GNOME desktop
  • hpodder 0.5.8 - Tool to scan and download podcasts (podcatcher)
  • ink 0.3.2~rc3 - Tool for checking the ink level of your local printer
  • jwchat 1.0beta2 - A full featured, web-based Jabber chat client
  • kbibtex 0.1.5 - BibTeX editor for KDE
  • kicad 0.0.20060828 - Electronic schematic and PCB design software
  • knowledgeroot 0.9.7.3 - Webbased knowledgebase system
  • kolabadmin 0.0.20061103 - Kolab administration tool
  • ktoon 0.8 - 2D animation toolkit
  • linux-libertine 2.2.0 - The Linux Libertine family of free fonts
  • lphoto 1.0.61 - Digital photo manager
  • lsb-appchk3 3.0.3 - LSB v3.x Application checking tool
  • lsb-pkgchk3 3.0.3 - LSB v3.x package checking tool
  • magicrescue 1.1.4 - Recovers files by looking for magic bytes
  • mediawiki1.7 1.7.1 - Website engine for collaborative work
  • molly-guard 0.2.1 - Protects remote machines from accidental shutdowns/reboots
  • mt-daapd 0.2.4+r1376 - iTunes-compatible DAAP server
  • opencity 0.0.3stable - A 3D city simulator game
  • openguides 0.57 - A web application for managing a collaboratively-written city gui
  • openldap2.3 2.3.29
  • pengupop 2.1.12 - Online multiplayer clone of Bust a Move
  • pgfouine 0.7 - PostgreSQL log analyzer
  • photoprint 0.3.3 - Image printing utility
  • planet 2.0 - Flexible feed aggregator
  • pootle 0.10.1 - Web-based translation and translation management tool
  • proftpd-dfsg 1.3.0
  • python-django 0.95 - A high-level Python Web framework
  • qemu-launcher 1.7.1 - GTK+ front-end to QEMU computer emulator
  • request-tracker3.6 3.6.1 - Extensible trouble-ticket tracking system
  • ri-li 2.0.0 - A toy train simulation game
  • scala 2.1.5 - The Scala programming language
  • secure-delete 3.1 - Tools to wipe files, free disk space, swap and memory
  • ser 0.9.6 - Sip Express Router, very fast and configurable SIP proxy
  • serendipity 1.0.3 - Weblog manager with extensive theming and plugin support
  • shorewall-lite 3.2.4 - Shorewall (lite version), a high-level tool for configuring Netfi
  • skribe 1.2g - Document production system
  • splashy 0.1.8.1 - A complete user-space boot splash system
  • squid3 3.0.PRE5 - A full featured Web Proxy cache (HTTP proxy)
  • stetic 0.1.0~svn.64684 - GNOME and GTK+ GUI designer
  • subcommander 1.2.1 Graphical client for subversion
  • tikiwiki 1.9.6 - Groupware and content management system
  • transcend 0.3 - Retro-style, abstract, 2D shooter
  • transmission 0.6.1 - Free, lightweight BitTorrent client

  • turbogears 1.0~b1
  • vdrift 0.0.2006.10.06 - Drift racing simulation
  • videolink 1.0 - Assembles a DVD video filesystem from HTML pages and video files
  • w3c-linkchecker 4.3 - W3C Link Checker
  • xen-common 3.0.3
  • xenman 0.5 - A graphical Xen management tool
  • xserver-xorg-video-i810-modesetting 1.6.5.git20061014.ac1
  • youtube-dl 2006.09.25 - Download videos from youtube.com
  • zope-ldapmultiplugins 1.4 - LDAP plugin for Zope/Plone
  • zope-ldapuserfolder 2.8~beta - LDAP user and group source for Zope/Plone

In The Press

Since the Edgy Eft 6.10 release is still a fresh topic, Ubuntu is getting it's fair share of Tech news coverage. One such article discusses the artwork side of the development process. Ubuntu Artist in Chief Frank Schoep was interviewed by Linux.com about the artwork process for this Edgy release. In the open and honest interview, Frank discussed what worked well and where there was room for improvement, and also extended his thanks to the community.

"The road was the destination. Although I fully understand the disappointment about the community Human artwork not being the default, I want to thank everyone in our artwork community for being around and sticking to the process for Edgy."

"For Feisty," he says, "a major improvement will be to have Mark's visual direction explicitly clear in advance of any work done by the community, so we can prevent working opposite of where we should be going. This will also allow the community to focus more on creating artwork instead of defining a design direction."

You can read the full interview at http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/11/14/1714241.

Further word of the work with Sun has also been revealed, with the announcement of certification of Ubuntu on the "Galaxy" line. Sun also pointed out that that their "GlassFish" Java EE 5 application server will be distributed with Ubuntu LTS 6.06. Despite this good news, there are still criticisms.

"What Sun is not doing, somewhat paradoxically, is offering customers the option of preloading Ubuntu LTS 6.06 on its Niagara and Galaxy servers."

For the full story, go to http://www.itjungle.com/tlb/tlb111406-story06.html.

We all know the Ubuntu Community rocks, and increasingly, people on the outside are seeing the same. This blog post on LinuxToday is a good example, with the author impressed at the reaction he received to an article about Ubuntu 6.10 (64bit). Find out the details at http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/archives/061118-142233.html

Due to growing dissent with his previous operating system, this user has documented his transition from Windows to Ubuntu. The user, manager of a small software company, has grown increasingly unhappy with the licensing that will be coming with Vista. Is this the first of many? We can hope. Read his blog post at http://www.skunkworks.ro/?p=19

The Thai FOSS community is contesting claims by the Thai IT Minister that Free and Open Source Software is lacking in IP and offers Thailand no value. The minister's comments were made at his first 'meet the press' and published in the Bangkok Post. See http://bangkokpost.net/151106_Database/15Nov2006_data001.php for the article.

The original letter, in Thai, is viewable at http://www.blognone.com/node/3365 with an English translation of the letter at http://www.localfoss.org/Thai_FOSS_Community_Responds_to_IT_Minister.

The installation process and features of the oft controversial Ubuntu derivative 'Ubuntu Christian Edition' were discussed in this positive review. The features included the potentially dangerous Automatix script. The review can be found at http://quickworx.info/index.php/2006/11/15/using-unbuntu-christian-edition-a-review/ The UWN would like to advise against the use of Automatix and other automation scripts.

Another review has been published at http://www.openaddict.com/page.php?26 This review is of Ubuntu 6.10 on a Dell XPS M170 Laptop. The review is in-depth and has a slightly more technical format than the one above. The review also advocates the use of EasyUbuntu; while we discourage both, EasyUbuntu is less likely to cause issues than Automatix.

If you bought your laptop or desktop preloaded with Microsoft Windows, you may be able to get your money back. Simply document your declination of the license agreement and contact your manufacturer for a refund. Dave Mitchell from Sheffield did exactly that and is now £55.23 richer. Read about Dave's experience at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6144782.stm

Joseph Hall serves up some interesting instructions on how to Ubuntufy your holidays more with these tasty sugar cookies. What sets them apart is the ingenious use of ingredients to create cookies that have the Ubuntu logo on them. We know what will be on our desert plates this holiday. For more details, please see http://blog.josephhall.com/2006/11/sugar-cookies.html

The Flemish Ministry of Education in Belguim has announced a project to give each school two cd's, one including Open Source Windows applications and the other with a customized version of Ubuntu 5.10. The Ubuntu cd contains a number of pieces of educational software, both for the desktop and for infomation sharing. You can read further at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2006-November/009381.html

Finally, yet another interview with the increasingly popular Mark Shuttleworth, this time by DesktopLinux, at http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS4646261136.html.

Upcoming Events

The Ubuntu Tamil Team is hosting a National Youth Day & IT Education Meet of Jan 13 of 2007. They have also organized a meeting of IT professionals on Dec 16th of 2006. You can read more about these two meetings at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/loco-contacts/2006-November/000781.html

Specification Highlight

One of the more interesting specs released for the next Ubuntu release, Feisty Fawn, is for Network Roaming. This shall incorporate NetworkManager, allowing users to configure their networking settings easily, such as when you wish to connect to an as-yet-unknown wireless point to check your e-mail on at a cafe or airport. The spec shall also help you with differing network set-ups, making it easier to flip between DHCP and static IP addresses and the like - so called "Location Specific Networking". Setting up a WPA-encrypted network should also be far easier using the NetworkManager system, completely removing the need to use the command-line when setting up a secure wireless network.

The Default Network Services spec would also include "Service Discovery" - allowing you to connect to a new network environment, with your computer picking up a network-accessible cups printer, meaning you can instantly print on it without any configuration whatsoever.

More of the Feisty specs can be obtained on Launchpad.

Updates and security for 6.06 and 6.10

Security Updates

USN-383-1: libpng vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-383-1
USN-382-1: Thunderbird vulnerabilities http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-382-1
USN-381-1: Firefox vulnerabilities http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-381-1

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates

Backports

debootstrap_0.3.3.0ubuntu8~dapper1
eagle_4.16-2~dapper1
gnome-commander_1.2.0-3.1~dapper1
mpd_0.12.1-1ubuntu1~dapper1
scorched3d_40-1ubuntu1~dapper1

Ubuntu 6.10 Updates

Backports

brasero_0.5.0-0ubuntu1~edgy1
debootstrap_0.3.3.0ubuntu8~edgy1

Bug Stats

  • Open (19810) +503 over last week
  • Unconfirmed (10554) +476 over last week
  • Unassigned (15026) +496 over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (65412) +713 over last week

As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started, please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpingWithBugs

Check out the bug statistics: http://people.ubuntu-in.org/~carthik/bugstats/

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More Ubuntu news

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Conclusion

Thank you for reading the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. See you next week!

Credits

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

  • Corey Burger
  • Matthew Walster
  • Tony Yarusso
  • Melissa Draper
  • Eldo Varghese
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  • And many others

Feedback

This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Marketing Team. Please feel free to contact us regarding any concerns or suggestions by either sending an email to ubuntu-marketing@lists.ubuntu.com or by using any of the other methods on the Ubuntu Marketing Team Contact Information Page.

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