Issue244


Contents

  1. In This Issue
  2. General Community News
    1. Precise Pangolin Alpha 1 Released!
    2. Ubuntu 12.04 Development update
  3. Community Acknowledgments and Success Stories
    1. Stories and saying thanks
  4. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Oneiric
    3. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top Ideas This Week
    4. Ask Ubuntu Top 5 Questions This Week
  5. LoCo News
    1. Akademy FR at Capitole du Libre
    2. New Location for Co-Sponsored Hands-On Linux Workshop
  6. Ubuntu Cloud News
    1. How to create a Basic or Advanced Crowbar build for Hadoop
    2. juju at SCaLE 10x
    3. Deploying status.net quickly with juju
  7. The Planet
    1. Victor Tuson Palau: Asus and Ubuntu in Portugal
    2. Rick Spencer: Smoke Tests
    3. Michael Hall: Reports of Ubuntu’s death are greatly exaggerated
    4. David Planella: Building the Ubuntu App Development community (I): communication channels
    5. Charles Proffit: Ubuntu User: I have a problem…
    6. Martin Pitt: Precises QA improvements for Alpha-1
  8. In The Press
    1. Ubuntu penguins build Linux TV challenge
    2. Q&A: Installing Software on Linux
    3. Readers' Choice Awards 2011
  9. In The Blogosphere
    1. Ubuntu 11.10 Explored!
    2. Fedora 16 vs. Ubuntu 11.10 Performance Benchmarks
    3. Work Is Underway on Ubuntu TV, with Mark Shuttleworth Watching
    4. A few useful tweaks for Ubuntu
    5. Ubuntu’s One Hundred Paper Cuts Project is Precisely Back!
    6. Alpha 1 Released
  10. In Other News
    1. Unity on the Telly
    2. Mythbuntu: Mythbuntu guides moved to AskUbuntu.com!
    3. Lubuntu 11.10 review: Lightweight Linux
    4. The End of the Distro Wars
  11. Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
  12. Weekly Official Ubuntu Derivative Distributions Team Meetings
  13. Other Articles of Interest
  14. Upcoming Meetings and Events
  15. Updates and Security for 8.04, 10.04, 10.10, 11.04 and 11.10
    1. Security Updates
    2. Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
    3. Ubuntu 10.04 Updates
    4. Ubuntu 10.10 Updates
    5. Ubuntu 11.04 Updates
    6. Ubuntu 11.10 Updates
  16. UWN Translations
  17. Subscribe
  18. Archives
  19. Additional Ubuntu News
  20. Conclusion
  21. Credits
  22. Glossary of Terms
  23. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  24. Feedback

newspaper-icon41.jpg

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 244 for the week of November 28 - December 4, 2011.

In This Issue

  • Precise Pangolin Alpha 1 Released!
  • Ubuntu 12.04 Development update
  • Stories and saying thanks
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Akademy FR at Capitole du Libre
  • New Location for Co-Sponsored Hands-On Linux Workshop
  • Ubuntu Cloud News
  • Victor Tuson Palau: Asus and Ubuntu in Portugal
  • Rick Spencer: Smoke Tests
  • Michael Hall: Reports of Ubuntu’s death are greatly exaggerated
  • David Planella: Building the Ubuntu App Development community (I): communication channels
  • Martin Pitt: Precises QA improvements for Alpha-1
  • In The Press
  • Ubuntu 11.10 Explored!
  • Work Is Underway on Ubuntu TV, with Mark Shuttleworth Watching
  • Ubuntu’s One Hundred Paper Cuts Project is Precisely Back!
  • Alpha 1 Released (Collection of links about the release)
  • Unity on the Telly
  • Mythbuntu: Mythbuntu guides moved to AskUbuntu.com!

  • Lubuntu 11.10 review: Lightweight Linux
  • The End of the Distro Wars
  • Other Articles of Interest
  • Upcoming Meetings and Events
  • Updates and Security for 8.04, 10.04, 10.10, 11.04 and 11.10
  • And much much more!

General Community News

Precise Pangolin Alpha 1 Released!

Kate Stewart, Ubuntu Release Manager, announced on Thursday, December 1st that the Alpha 1 Precise Pangolin was released.

The announced reads as follows:

We are pleased to bring you the first set of developer images that capture the current fleeting reality of our Precise Pangolin (Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 1) as it starts to emerge.

Pre-releases of Precise Pangolin are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs as we work towards getting this LTS release ready.

Alpha 1 is the first in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Precise development cycle. The Alpha images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Precise. You can download them here:

Additional images are also available at:

For more information on this Precise Pangolin Alpha 1 release please see the announcement in full.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-release/2011-December/000538.html

Ubuntu 12.04 Development update

Daniel Holbach, keeps readers informed with this latest installment of the Ubuntu 12.04 development updates. Seven weeks into this release cycle and Holbach says, “Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 1 has just been announced. Bear in mind it is of alpha quality, but please go and test it if you are curious and want to help out.”

However that’s not all. He also includes information about customizable bug lists, and events -- Ubuntu Developer Week and a Bug Jam and Bug Squashing Party in Portland.

Holbach also highlights first time contributors Gregory Hainaut and Alexey Mamadaliev and shines the spotlight on what’s been happening in Ubuntu development in the last seven weeks.

For those who want to get involved in Ubuntu Development, Holbach covers those areas as well. To find our more about how you can get involved in this exciting area of the Ubuntu project read the full post at the link below.

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2011/12/02/ubuntu-12-04-development-update-6/

Community Acknowledgments and Success Stories

Stories and saying thanks

Daniel Holbach gives some advice on how the Ubuntu community can remember to thank and appreciate contributors as well as share those succcess stories.

Holbach writes, “By reaching out to contributors, thanking them and welcoming them to the Ubuntu community you do a lot to encourage them and help them integrate into your team more quickly. Generally I feel this is part of our culture already.”

See the full post to find out how you can recognize contributors in your areas of interest in Ubuntu.

http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/2011/11/stories-and-saying-thanks/

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (88316) +147 over last week
  • Critical (124) -5 over last week
  • Unconfirmed (46098) -77 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 Oneiric

  1. English (Australia) (7290) -17061 over last week
  2. Spanish (9039) -34 over last week
  3. Brazilian Portuguese (45262) -143 over last week
  4. English (United Kingdom) (45733) -149 over last week
  5. Bosnian (62504) -2661 over last week

Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Oncelot", see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/oneiric/ and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations

Ubuntu Brainstorm Top Ideas 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/

Ask Ubuntu Top 5 Questions This Week

Ask (and answer!) your own questions at http://askubuntu.com

LoCo News

Akademy FR at Capitole du Libre

Akademy FR, Ubuntu Party and Drupal Camp were co-located and held last weekend, November 26-27, 2011 in Toulouse, France. The KDE team ran a booth and hosted tracks on Saturday noting that they were able to demo KDE to various Ubuntu users who weren’t familiar with it. Sunday proved to be an equally eventful day with workshops that for the most part attracted attendees who were already familiar with Free Software.

http://agateau.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/akademy-fr-at-capitole-du-libre/

New Location for Co-Sponsored Hands-On Linux Workshop

The Hands on Linux workshop that is co-sponsored by the Ubuntu New York LoCo Team (Rochester) and Interlock Rochester now have a new location with rooms dedicated to Ham Radio, Workshop, Hands-on / Presentation Room, Lounge area, Office Space along with a Server / Networking room.

For more information and to see pictures of the new space check out the link below.

http://ftbeowulf.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/new-location-for-co-sponsored-hands-on-linux-workshop/

Ubuntu Cloud News

How to create a Basic or Advanced Crowbar build for Hadoop

Barton George shares two videos which Crowbar lead architect Rob Hirschfeld put together. “The first, Crowbar Build (on cloud server), shows you how to use a cloud server to create a Crowbar ISO using the standard build process,” writes George. “The second, Advanced Crowbar Build (local) shows how to build a Crowbar v1.2 ISO using advanced techniques on a local desktop using a virtual machine.”

http://bartongeorge.net/2011/11/29/how-to-create-a-basic-or-advanced-crowbar-build-for-hadoop/

juju at SCaLE 10x

Jorge Castro announces there will be a juju presentation at SCaLE 10x. Castro also notes, “Along with sponsoring the Speaker track and the Press and Speaker Green Room, we will be holding a juju charm school!”

For more information on juju and Charm School at SCaLE 10x see the full post at the link below.

http://cloud.ubuntu.com/2011/11/juju-at-scale-10x/

Deploying status.net quickly with juju

In this post Jorge Castro demo’s the status.net charm written by George Edison (Nathan Osman), who also did the ThinkUp charm.

Read the Castro’s post in full to find out more information about deploying status.net using this new juju charm.

http://cloud.ubuntu.com/2011/12/deploying-status-net-quickly-with-juju/

The Planet

Victor Tuson Palau: Asus and Ubuntu in Portugal

Victor Tuson shares the video demo of Asus running Ubuntu releasde by the Worten store in Portugal.

http://victorpalau.net/2011/11/28/asus-and-ubuntu-in-portugal/

Rick Spencer: Smoke Tests

Rick Spencer lets readers know that the QA Team has started a page for getting up the minute automated results from smoke testing of daily images. Spencer writes, “They still have more smoke tests to set up, but everything is running automatically from daily builds. You can check to see if the latest build installs and if basic tests run. If they do, it's probably worth testing with that build. If it's not, then the team should be busy at work at making it work testing!”

He also gives a link to the blueprint for the smoke tests results page.

http://theravingrick.blogspot.com/2011/11/smoke-tests.html

Michael Hall: Reports of Ubuntu’s death are greatly exaggerated

Michael Hall questions whether or not Distrowatch’s data “is a measure of the “popularity” of any given distro, as so many news stories are claiming it is.” Find out more about what Hall has to say on this subject at the link below.

http://mhall119.com/2011/11/reports-of-ubuntus-death-are-greatly-exaggerated/

David Planella: Building the Ubuntu App Development community (I): communication channels

“One of the main objectives for the Ubuntu 12.04 cycle is to build upon the foundations set by the Ubuntu App Developer site, My Apps and the Ubuntu Software Centre and start building an Ubuntu App Developer community to realize the vision of a rich ecosystem of apps around Ubuntu,” writes David Planella. With this post, Planella launches the first of a series that will discuss growing the Ubuntu App Developer Community as he shows readers how to get involved, and the benefits of Ubuntu as a target platform for both developers and users.

http://davidplanella.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/building-the-ubuntu-app-development-community-i-communication-channels/

Charles Proffit: Ubuntu User: I have a problem…

Charles Proffit seeks to improve the community involvement with bugs and hopes to continue the conversation he started at UDS-P. With the help of Brian Murray, Charles Proffit offers in this post a high level non-technical diagram of what happens when users encounter a problem.

http://ftbeowulf.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/ubuntu-user-i-have-a-problem/

Martin Pitt: Precises QA improvements for Alpha-1

“The fruits of the new QA paradigm and strategy and the new Stable+1 maintenance team have already achieved remarkable results,” writes Martin Pitt who outlines in this post what some of those improvements are. Improvements include:

  • The archive consistency reports like component-mismatches, uninstallability, etc. now appear about 20 minutes earlier than in oneiric.
  • CD image builds can now happen 30 minutes earlier after the publisher start, and are much quicker now due to moving to newer machines. We can now build an i386 or amd64 CD image in 8 minutes! Currently they still need to wait for the slow powerpc buildd, but moving to a faster machine there is in progress. These improvements lead to much faster image rebuild turnarounds.
  • Candidate CDs now get automatically posted to the new ISO tracker as soon as they appear.
  • Whenever a new Ubuntu image is built (daily or candidate), they automatically get smoke-tested, so we know that the installer works under some standard scenarios and produces an install which actually boots.
  • Due to the new discipline and the stable+1 team, we had working daily ISOs pretty much every day. In previous Alphas, the release engineer(s) pretty much had to work fulltime for a day or two to fix the worst uninstallability etc., all of this now went away.

Pitt also take time to thank the Canonical QA team and others for all their work to date.

http://www.piware.de/2011/12/precises-qa-improvements-for-alpha-1/

In The Press

Ubuntu penguins build Linux TV challenge

Gavin Clarke, The Register, writes, “Open-sourcers are taking Ubuntu Linux in the direction of Google TV and Microsoft's Xbox 360.” Clarke points to Mark Shuttleworth’s blog where a list of essential items and there priorities around bringing Ubuntu TV to the masses are discussed.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/28/ubuntu_tv/

Q&A: Installing Software on Linux

Gadgetwise, a NY Times site, answers a Windows user question about installing software on Ubuntu Linux.

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/qa-installing-software-on-linux/

Readers' Choice Awards 2011

Shawn Powers from Linux Journal announces Ubuntu received the “Best Linux Distribution” award from journal’s readers. Also, Debian was quite a contender this time. Read more at the following link:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/slideshow/readers-choice-2011

In The Blogosphere

Ubuntu 11.10 Explored!

Mohammad Kamil Nadeem explains what all makes Ubuntu 11.10 ‘Oneiric Ocelot’ the most awesome Ubuntu yet.

http://mknadeem.blogspot.com/2011/11/ubuntu-1110-explored.html

Fedora 16 vs. Ubuntu 11.10 Performance Benchmarks

Michael Larabel, Phoronix, gives readers “a comparison of the 64-bit performance of Ubuntu 11.10 vs. Fedora 16 in an out-of-the-box configuration.”

Larabel writes, “ When it comes to these benchmarks, what's worth noting is that Fedora 16 and Ubuntu 11.10 are both on GCC 4.6.x and the EXT4 file-system. Some of the important differences though is that Fedora 16 is on the Linux 3.1 kernel while Ubuntu 11.10 is on Linux 3.0 and Fedora 16 has a more recent (both user and kernel-space) graphics stack. There's also various other differences from the Linux operating systems from Canonical and Red Hat.”

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=fedora16_ubu1110_perf&num=1

Work Is Underway on Ubuntu TV, with Mark Shuttleworth Watching

Sam Dean, Ostatic, asks his readers, “If Google and Apple can boost the concept of revolutionizing television, then why can't the Ubuntu community do so as well?”

In this post Dean gives links to both Mark Shuttleworth’s blog and Alan Bell’s proposed designs.

Dean concludes this post with a prediction that readers will see an Ubuntu-based TV platform arrive next year.

http://ostatic.com/blog/work-is-underway-on-ubuntu-tv-with-mark-shuttleworth-watching

A few useful tweaks for Ubuntu

This article looks at tweaks for your Ubuntu desktop. They looks at GNOME Tips, which include multiple wallpapers for desktop work spaces, browser integration themes, and Easter eggs. They also include Unity tweaks such as compiz settings manager and Unity settings along with adding newly installed programs to Launcher, Unity 2D for low-powered machines and simplicity fans and how to move Launcher to the bottom of the screen, but only for the 32-bit Ocelot release.

For more tweaks read this article in full.

(These tweaks have not been tested by the UWN team)

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/ubuntu-useful-things.html

Ubuntu’s One Hundred Paper Cuts Project is Precisely Back!

Bilal Akhtar lets OMG! Ubuntu! readers know that the popular One Hundred Paper Cuts project is back. In this article, Akhtar and http://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut describe a the paper cut project as:

Put briefly, a paper cut is a trivially fixable usability bug that the average user would encounter in a default application of Ubuntu or Kubuntu OR in any of the featured applications.

If you prefer a more detailed, itemized definition, a paper cut is:

  • A bug, or an unintended problem occurring within an existing piece of software,
  • the presence of which makes a computer more difficult or less pleasant to use,
  • that is easy to fix,
  • that the average user would encounter,
  • in a default application of the Ubuntu or Kubuntu release currently under development OR in any of the featured applications.

To find out more about this program check out the link below

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/12/ubuntus-one-hundred-paper-cuts-project-is-precisely-back/

Alpha 1 Released

Several sites have covered the release of 12.04 Alpha1, the following is a sampling collected by our editors.

In Other News

Unity on the Telly

If you're interested "Unity on the Telly" the you can take a look at this wiki page and find links to a collection of concept designs and storyboards for the Unity TV project. Do you have some design ideas? If so, you can add a link to your design on this page as well. According to the wiki page it is preferable that you use pencil, a common base template and the Ubuntu export filter. There are detailed instructions for installing pencil and getting the bits set up on this page as well.

Find out more at:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuTV/Designs

Mythbuntu: Mythbuntu guides moved to AskUbuntu.com!

The Mythubuntu team announces that they have moved their guides to AskUbuntu.com. According to the team’s blog post the reason given for this move is for a more efficient method to keep guides up to date and accurate. “The single forum post with all the guides is difficult to keep up to date and requires manual intervention from the Mythbuntu forum moderators (Mythbuntu developers). There isn't an automated way to take care of this. Moving to AskUbuntu.com for this enables us to have an auto-generated list of Mythbuntu/MythTV related guides.”

http://www.mythbuntu.org/node/356

Lubuntu 11.10 review: Lightweight Linux

Rohan Pearce, Techworld Australia, writes, “For some people, this may be the best Ubuntu derivative yet. For others, it’s going to be pretty snore-worthy.”

Pearce reviews Lubuntu--lightweight and energy saving variant of Ubuntu using LXDE-- in this post and even comments, “... there is strong, vibrant community surrounding the Ubuntu derivatives”

“Lubuntu gets a lot of things right, especially given it’s a relatively new addition to the Ubuntu family. It’s just really hard to get excited about it and it’s a distro I’d be unlikely to use personally,” concludes Pearce.

For the full review see the link below.

http://www.techworld.com.au/article/408847/lubuntu_11_10_review_lightweight_linux

The End of the Distro Wars

Brian Profitt, IT World, starts this article by saying, “Don't use DistroWatch as a measuring stick in any way for the popularity of a Linux distribution.” And even follows with a, “Seriously, stop it.” Profitt says, “Arguing about "popular" distributions is pointless.”

Want to know Profitt’s reasons then check out the link below.

http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/228757/end-distro-wars

Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings

Weekly Official Ubuntu Derivative Distributions Team Meetings

Upcoming Meetings and Events

For upcoming meetings and events please visit the calendars at fridge.ubuntu.com: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/calendars/

Updates and Security for 8.04, 10.04, 10.10, 11.04 and 11.10

Security Updates

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

Ubuntu 10.04 Updates

Ubuntu 10.10 Updates

Ubuntu 11.04 Updates

Ubuntu 11.10 Updates

UWN Translations

  • Note to translators and our readers please follow the link below for the information you need.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Translations

Subscribe

Get your copy of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter delivered each week to you via email at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-news

Archives

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

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:

  • Elizabeth Krumbach
  • Amber Graner
  • Alex Lourie
  • Liraz Siri
  • And many others

Glossary of Terms

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.

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UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue244 (last edited 2011-12-05 19:36:41 by user80)