Contents

  1. In This Issue
  2. General Community News
    1. And We're Back
    2. Ubuntu 12.04 Development update
    3. New IRC Council
    4. Precise Quality, not just for Precise
    5. #lubuntu call for operators
    6. Canonical at CES, Las Vegas, 10th – 13th January to showcase Ubuntu TV
  3. Community Acknowledgments and Success Stories
    1. Thanking the Ubuntu community
    2. Thanks to the Open Source Community
  4. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Oneiric
    3. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week
    4. ASK Ubuntu Top Five Questions this week
  5. LoCo News
    1. Ubuntu-Co and Ubuntu Oregon release themes for Chrome!
    2. Ubuntu Ireland LoCo 2011 year end roundup….As I saw it
  6. Ubuntu Cloud News
    1. Retrieve Public SSH Key From EC2
    2. phpMyAdmin Charm ready!
    3. You Should Use EBS Boot Instances on Amazon EC2
  7. The Planet
    1. Canonical Design Team: Improving the Multi-Monitor Experience in Ubuntu
    2. Michael Hall: Writing Unity Lenses
    3. Sergio Meneses: Día del Usuario Ubuntu en Español?…. esta aquí! y necesita Instructores!
    4. Ubuntu Women: New wiki.ubuntu-women.org theme now live!
    5. Ronnie Tucker: Full Circle Magazine - Lite!
    6. Marco Ceppi: Ask Ubuntu, 32k Mile Marker
    7. Stéphane Graber: Networking in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
    8. Ubuntu App Developer Blog: Top 10 Ubuntu Software Centre app downloads for December 2011
    9. Elizabeth Krumbach: Community Council Begins Ubuntu Mailing Lists Review
    10. Canonical Design Team: System Settings for Precise and Launcher Reveal Prototype
  8. In The Press
    1. Ubuntu targets smartphones, clouds
    2. Ubuntu's Precise Pangolin to pull less power than predecessors
    3. Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot' Will Power New PC Line
    4. Munich Linux Migration Project LiMux Reports Success
  9. In the Blogosphere
    1. Empathy with MSN XMPP Support Lands in Ubuntu 12.04
    2. Canonical shares U1DB technical preview
    3. The X.Org Stack For Ubuntu 12.04 To Enter Staging
    4. 5 Alternatives To Unity For Ubuntu Users [Linux]
    5. Ubuntu AppStore Goes Online
  10. In Other News
    1. Kicking off 2012 with iOS Files and CES
    2. Vodacom Success!
    3. Full Circle #56 - out NOW!
  11. Featured Podcasts
  12. Weekly Official Ubuntu Flavors Team Meetings
  13. Upcoming Meetings and Events
  14. Other Articles Of Interest
  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

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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 247 for the week December 19 2011 - January 8, 2012.

In This Issue

General Community News

And We're Back

The Ubuntu News Team hopes everyone had a wonderful holiday season and that 2012 is starting out to be great.

Issue 247 will be a little longer than past issue as we try to bring you the highlights from the holidays.

Thanks for your continued support and we are looking forward to bringing all of you the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter throughout 2012.

Ubuntu 12.04 Development update

Daniel Holbach shares some of the latest news in Ubuntu 12.04 development, including creating working daily builds, QA work on automatic ISO and upgrade testing as well as the reduction in number of uninstallable packages. Holbach also reports: "publisher (the machinery that makes packages available once they are built in Launchpad) can be run every 30 minutes" shortening the amount of time between uploading a fix and testing.

The spotlight of the development update is on “Fixing Ubuntu bugs – how you can be part of every step along the way” where the process flow is described consists of test, file bugs, investigate the bug, forward upstream, pick up the fix, integrate the fix and propose for upload.

The update wraps up with basics for how to get involved, find something to work on and get in touch with the development team.

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2011/12/22/ubuntu-12-04-development-update-9/

New IRC Council

The Community Council announces and congratulates the following new IRC Council (IRCC) Members:

And sends thanks to the former members of the IRCC for their work.

Precise Quality, not just for Precise

Mark Shuttleworth discusses the path forward with the development of 12.04 as he describes the three legs of the Ubuntu engineering practice: cadence, quality and design. He discusses the Quality Assurance (QA) tools and processes now being employed to not only help quality on the Ubuntu side, but which will also work with upstreams that have test suites.

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/938

#lubuntu call for operators

The IRCC is now taking applications for a number of new operator positions in the #lubuntu channel. Requirements and core expectations are outlined and instructions for applying are provided.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-irc/2012-January/001475.html

Canonical at CES, Las Vegas, 10th – 13th January to showcase Ubuntu TV

Canonical has announced its participation in the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas from January 10-13. "On display will be the latest in Desktop, Cloud and demonstrations on Ubuntu One, plus an exclusive Ubuntu concept design which will be announced during the show."

In a later post Canonical revealed that the concept design would be an Ubuntu TV. They have launched a new site at http://www.ubuntu.com/tv with details.

http://blog.canonical.com/2012/01/03/canonical-at-ces-las-vegas-10th-13th-january/

http://blog.canonical.com/2012/01/09/canonical-to-showcase-ubuntu-tv-at-ces/

Community Acknowledgments and Success Stories

Thanking the Ubuntu community

Marek Bardoński wrote up a summary of Ubuntu Community Appreciation Day and adds some thoughts of this own:

“We are in Christmas period. Everyone reassembles wishes and try to appreciate others.

It is the perfect time to thank the people, by which we can enjoy a free operating system - Ubuntu, and in a broader perspective - the whole Open Source community. Consider how computer world would look without free software:

These are only some aspects, which is worth noting. Exactly one month ago, on 20.11.2011, we held the first Community Appreciation Day Ubuntu, a day in which users would like to thank developers for their work. For my part, I would like to thank all the Ubuntu developers and wish further successful development. I put a few links showing gratitude from the community:

Let us remember this day, I encourage everyone to create entries and thank Ubuntu contributors, especially in this day in the next year - 20/11/2012.”

Original post in Polish: http://bdfhjk.blog.pl/2011/12/20/ubuntu-community-appreciation/

Thanks to the Open Source Community

Scott Sanbar discusses some of his recent successes and the open source tools he’s currently using. He then goes on to thank the Ubuntu Beginners Team and notes he seeks to increase his involvement in, Ubuntu and the Open Source Community in general.

http://www.sanbarcomputing.com/?p=197

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

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) (5230) +/-0 over last week
  2. Spanish (8947) -3 over last week
  3. English (United Kingdom) (37544) -8189 over last week
  4. Brazilian Portuguese (43935) -1320 over last week
  5. Bosnian (51575) -5061 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 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/

ASK Ubuntu Top Five Questions this week

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

LoCo News

Ubuntu-Co and Ubuntu Oregon release themes for Chrome!

The Ubuntu Columbia and Ubuntu Oregon teams have both released themes for Chrome branded for their respective teams; they are now available for free in the Chrome Web Store.

http://sergioandresmeneses.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/ubuntu-theme-for-chrome/

http://www.ubuntu-oregon.org/2011/12/28/ubuntu-oregon-chrome-theme/

Ubuntu Ireland LoCo 2011 year end roundup….As I saw it

Mike O'Donohue shares highlights from the Ubuntu Ireland team in 2011, including their Ubuntu Hours, Global Jams, Release Parties(Natty and Oneiric) Geeknics and monthly team meetings on IRC.

http://airurando.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/ubuntu-ireland-loco-2011-year-end-roundup-as-i-saw-it/

Ubuntu Cloud News

Retrieve Public SSH Key From EC2

Eric Hammond demonstrates some handy features of EC2 as he solves the problem of a lost public SSH key by launching of a new EC2 instance where the ssh public key can be captured.

http://alestic.com/2011/12/ec2-public-ssh-key

phpMyAdmin Charm ready!

Marco Ceppi shares a video of how to install and deploy his new juju charm for simple deployment of phpMyAdmin. Ceppi explains: “In summary you’ll need to fetch this charm, bootstrap a deployment environment, deploy MySQL charm and phpMyAdmin charm, create a relationship between the two, and expose the service.”

http://marcoceppi.com/2011/12/phpmyadmin-charm/

You Should Use EBS Boot Instances on Amazon EC2

Eric Hammond discusses some of the big benefits of EBS boot instances over instance-store, some of the side cases where instance-store may be useful and wraps up with background and notes on the technologies.

http://alestic.com/2012/01/ec2-ebs-boot-recommended

The Planet

Canonical Design Team: Improving the Multi-Monitor Experience in Ubuntu

During UDS-P held in Orlando, Florida last November, the design team demonstrated a prototype being developed for multi-monitor support. This post discusses the plans for this support. The design team also shares a video demonstration of this prototype.

http://design.canonical.com/2011/12/improving-the-multi-monitor-experience-in-ubuntu/

Michael Hall: Writing Unity Lenses

In this post Michael Hall shines the spotlight on of the important areas that make up the Unity desktop--Lenses.

Hall talks about what a Lense is, how he dug into the technology behind Lenses, and what it takes to write a Lense.

http://mhall119.com/2011/12/writing-unity-lenses/

Sergio Meneses: Día del Usuario Ubuntu en Español?…. esta aquí! y necesita Instructores!

Sergio Meneses announces Ubuntu User Days in to offered in Spanish on January 14, 2012. Mmeses also announces a call for session instructors. If you or someone you know would like to take part or want more information about this event please share the links below.

Original posts in Spanish: http://sergioandresmeneses.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/dia-del-usuario-ubuntu-en-espanol-esta-aqui/

http://sergioandresmeneses.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/el-dia-del-usuario-ubuntu-necesita-instructores/

Ubuntu Women: New wiki.ubuntu-women.org theme now live!

The Ubuntu Women project has announced the completion of one of their core blueprint items for this cycle as it releases the new branding theme for wiki.ubuntu-women.org. Elizabeth Krumbach thanks the people involved for helping the team reach this goal.

http://blog.ubuntu-women.org/2011/12/new-wiki-ubuntu-women-org-theme-now-live/

Ronnie Tucker: Full Circle Magazine - Lite!

Ronnie Tucker announces a mobile/epub version of Full Circle. For those who follow Full Circle Magazine on Facebook and google+ you’ve see the preview of the beta. Tucker says its looking good so far and he notes that readers should, “think of Full Circle Magazine Lite as a quick beta test edition of FCM to read on tablets and mobile phones.”

Download instructions and more information about this app can be found at the link below

http://fullcirclemagazine.org/2011/12/29/full-circle-magazine-lite/

Marco Ceppi: Ask Ubuntu, 32k Mile Marker

Marco Ceppi, an Ask Ubuntu Moderator, points out that Ask Ubuntu enters 2012 with 32,000 users and just over 32,000 questions. Ceppi also notes that the top 3 questions asked on the site in 2011 were:

More about Ask Ubuntu and how you can get involved can be found in the full post.

http://marcoceppi.com/2011/12/ask-ubuntu-32k-mile-marker/

Stéphane Graber: Networking in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

In this poste Stéphane Graber writes that one focus he has for the 12.04 cycle is to get Ubuntu’s support for complex networking working in a predictable way. His plan is to review exactly what happens at boot time and to get a list of possible scenarios that are used on servers in corporate environment and make sure these always work.

Graber writes about the following areas: Bonding, Tagging, Bridging, Complex Network Configuration Example, and IPv6.

In his conclusion he states, “At this point, I think Ubuntu Precise is pretty much ready as far as networking is concerned. The only remaining change is the new ifupdown and the small installer change that comes with it for DHCPv6 support.”

http://www.stgraber.org/2012/01/04/networking-in-ubuntu-12-04-lts/

Ubuntu App Developer Blog: Top 10 Ubuntu Software Centre app downloads for December 2011

Here’s the lost of the top 10 list of apps downloaded from the Ubuntu Software Centre during December 2011.

Commerical Apps include: TRAUMA, Fluendo DVD Player, Braid, Oil Rush (pre-order, beta access), Steel Storm: Burning Retribution, World of Goo, Monster RPG 2, The Clockwork Man: The Hidden World, Uplink, Memory Owl.

The top 10 list of free apps include: Ryzom, CrossOver Games, Vendetta Online, CrossOver Pro (Trial), Full Circle Magazine, CrossOver Standard (Trial), Wunderlist, Tribal Trouble 2, Magic 8 Ball, Clipardo (demo).

For a description of each of the downloads see the link below.

http://developer.ubuntu.com/2012/01/top-10-ubuntu-software-centre-app-downloads-for-december-2011/

Elizabeth Krumbach: Community Council Begins Ubuntu Mailing Lists Review

Elizabeth Krumbach reports that at the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) in Orlando, Florida last November the Community Council (CC) was presented with the issue of inactive mailing lists on lists.ubuntu.com and the potential to discourage new contributors who join these inactive lists. The CC began a project to review the lists and contact owners of ones which are being proposed for shut down. Krumbach’s post includes a list of mailing lists currently proposed for deletion and invites comments from the community about the status of each of these lists.

http://princessleia.com/journal/?p=5598

Canonical Design Team: System Settings for Precise and Launcher Reveal Prototype

Christian Giordano, of the Canonical Design Team says that with Unity the Design Team has been trying to raise the bar innovating in the User Experience with new UI elements, such as Dash and Overlay Scrollbars. “Besides the usual detailed tweaks to options + related widgets, there were other areas we looked at. These are: layout consistency, Unity customisation options, simplified structure,” writes Giordano.

The Design Team would also like users to take a look at the full post and the links listed in the post and give them your feedback.

In another post, Stewart Wilson of the Canonical Design Team revealed the prototype of the Launcher. Wilson says, “The motivation for making the Launcher available from any display is to allow the user to launch and switch applications, without having to travel onto another display to do so.”

Wilson gives readers a link to the source prototype source code and asks users to give feedback on the Launcher as well.

http://design.canonical.com/2012/01/system-settings-for-precise/

http://design.canonical.com/2012/01/launcher-reveal-prototype/

In The Press

Ubuntu targets smartphones, clouds

Tom Henderson from TechWorld talks about new features that Ubuntu promises to deliver. He mentions working on ARM architecture (and targeting smartphones and servers) and cloud efforts (specifically juju).

http://www.techworld.com.au/article/410662/ubuntu_targets_smartphones_clouds

Ubuntu's Precise Pangolin to pull less power than predecessors

Michael Gorman from Engadget reports on Ubuntu kernel engineer Colin King’s blog post which discusses various improvements that should bring lower power usage in Precise Pangolin, including PCI Express Active State Power Management (ASPM).

http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/19/ubuntus-precise-pangolin-to-pull-less-power-than-predecessors/

Visit King’s original post here: http://smackerelofopinion.blogspot.com/2011/12/improving-battery-life-in-ubuntu.html

Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot' Will Power New PC Line

Katherine Noyes talks about US PC maker CTL who is launching a new line of Ubuntu-based PC, beginning with a laptop called the MB40U.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/246944/ubuntu_1110_oneiric_ocelot_will_power_new_pc_line.html

Munich Linux Migration Project LiMux Reports Success

Michael Reed of Linux Journal examines how the LiMux project “to convert local government institutions to Linux and open source software in Munich” is surpassing expectations. Launched in 2003 they report to have 9,000 Linux migrated workstations to a distribution also called LiMux and based on Ubuntu.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/limux-munich-linux-migration-project-reports-success

Also visit the English version of the LiMux page here: http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/english/index.html

In the Blogosphere

Empathy with MSN XMPP Support Lands in Ubuntu 12.04

Joey Sneddon, OMG! Ubuntu!, writes, “Barely day after GNOME devs added it to Empathy, working MSN XMPP support has landed in Ubuntu 12.04.”

For more information as well as screen shots see Sneddon’s full post.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/12/empathy-with-msn-xmpp-support-lands-in-ubuntu-12-04/

Canonical shares U1DB technical preview

Dj Walker-Morgan, H-online, summaries Canonical’s U1DB technical review.

“According to the announcement, U1DB is an API and data model designed to be backed by any database for storage. The API has been created to enable the storage of JSON documents in synchronised databases and to make that process simple,” writes Walker-Morgan.

For links to the original announcement, mailing list, reference implemation, quickstart guide, download and documentation see the link below.

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Canonical-shares-U1DB-technical-preview-1400271.html

The X.Org Stack For Ubuntu 12.04 To Enter Staging

Michael Larabel, Phoronix, writes, “Canonical is preparing to push their X.Org Server configuration they intend to use in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" into their staging area. Once again, it's not the latest upstream code, but a convoluted solution.”

Larabel continues with, “As was originally discussed at the Ubuntu 12.04 Developer Summit, X.Org Server 1.12 isn't being called into play for this next Ubuntu Long-Term Support release, but instead they are going with X.Org Server 1.11 while back-porting some of the changes from 1.12 to their 1.11 base.”

To read Larabel’s full commentary on the X.Org Stack for 12.04 see the link below.

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

5 Alternatives To Unity For Ubuntu Users [Linux]

Chris Hoffman, makeuseof, gives readers 5 alternatives to Unity which include: GNOME Shell (GNOME 3), KDE, XFCE, LXDE and Xmonad. Hoffman gives a description of each alternative along with screenshots in this post.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-alternatives-unity-ubuntu-users-linux/

Ubuntu AppStore Goes Online

Swapnil Bhartiya, Muktware, writes, “Ubuntu silently took its apps on-line by launching 'Ubuntu App Directory’”

Screenshots and a review of the site can be found at the link below.

http://www.muktware.com/articles/3154/ubuntu-appstore-goes-online

In Other News

Kicking off 2012 with iOS Files and CES

The Ubuntu One team at Canonical has launched the anticipated Ubuntu One “Files” app for iOS. The “Android version of this app has been hugely successful and the iOS version delivers to the same high standard, so you can secure and manage your photos and files directly from your iOS device wherever you are.”

The team also reports that Ubuntu One will be showcased alongside the Ubuntu OS at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas from January 10-13.

http://voices.canonical.com/ubuntuone/?p=1349

Vodacom Success!

In October, Canonical announced the launch of the Vodacom Webbook, embedded with Ubuntu, which is now available to buy in over 1,200 stores in South Africa. Canonical reports that the “product has been selling well and over the coming weeks is expected to be one of the ‘must have’ Christmas gifts for this year.”

http://blog.canonical.com/2011/12/19/vodacom-success/

Full Circle #56 - out NOW!

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

This month:

plus: more Ubuntu Games, My Desktop (and an extra!), My Opinion, My Story, and much much more!

Get it while it's hot! http://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-56/

Weekly Official Ubuntu Flavors 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

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:

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.

Except where otherwise noted, this issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License CCL.png

UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue247 (last edited 2012-01-10 00:59:12 by lyz)