Issue277


Contents

  1. In This Issue
  2. General Community News
    1. Ubuntu Developer Summit Sponsorship Now Open
    2. Top 10 Ubuntu app downloads for July 2012
    3. Welcome new members
  3. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Precise
    3. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top this week
    4. Ask Ubuntu Top 5 Questions this week
  4. LoCo News
    1. Event Report – Ubuntu 12.04 Release Party
    2. Ubuntu Village @ FOSSCON Sat August 11th
  5. Ubuntu Cloud News
    1. Juju Java Cluster – Part 1-3
    2. juju deploying CentOS clouds
  6. The Planet
    1. Ricardo Salveti: Pre-built images for XBMC (Ubuntu 12.04 based) with hw acceleration finally available at Linaro
    2. Ubuntu TV Weekly Update #4
    3. Jorge Castro: OnAir Video Online if You Missed It
    4. Didier Roche: Time for a Quickly reboot?
    5. Jorge Castro: Ubuntu Forums Needs Single Sign On, again
    6. Nicholas Skaggs: A video walkthrough of ISO Testing
    7. Dustin Kirkland: Introducing overlayroot -- overlayfs + dmcrypt!
    8. Charlene Tessier: Achieve Personal Unity – 12.04 Customiztion Guide
    9. Lubuntu Blog: Box icon theme
    10. Jono Bacon: Ubuntu Accomplishments:Building Maturity
    11. Nicholas Skaggs: Quality Perceptions Survey
    12. Paolo Sammicheli: Ubuntu Opportunistic Programming @Europython: The slides
  7. Canonical News
    1. Ubuntu Server 12.04: IAAS we can! Ubuntu Cloud infrastructure
  8. In The Press
    1. Road test: Self-driving car heads into city
  9. In The Blogosphere
    1. What Is Ubuntu's Target Audience?
    2. Like Lubuntu? Help Pick Wallpapers for its Next Release
    3. Ubuntu 12.10 Continues Strong On The PandaBoard ES
    4. Faster Zombies!
    5. Ubuntu For Android Gets A Video Demo, Looks Awesome
    6. How One Teacher Built a Computer Lab for Free
  10. In Other News
    1. Android SDK Installer for Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)
    2. Red Hat and Canonical ‘traitors’ to open source for working with Microsoft
    3. Mid-2012: Arch Linux vs. Slackware vs. Ubuntu vs. Fedora
  11. Other Articles of Interest
  12. Featured Podcasts
    1. Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S05E12 – The Portland Sketch Book
  13. Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
  14. Upcoming Meetings and Events
  15. Updates and Security for 8.04, 10.04, 11.04, 11.10 and 12.04
    1. Security Updates
    2. Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
    3. Ubuntu 10.04 Updates
    4. Ubuntu 11.04 Updates
    5. Ubuntu 11.10 Updates
    6. Ubuntu 12.04 Updates
  16. Subscribe
  17. Archives
  18. Additional Ubuntu News
  19. Conclusion
  20. Credits
  21. Glossary of Terms
  22. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  23. Feedback

newspaper-icon41.jpg

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 277 for the week July 30 - August 5, 2012.

In This Issue

  • Ubuntu Developer Summit Sponsorship Now Open
  • Top 10 Ubuntu app downloads for July 2012
  • Welcome new members
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Event Report – Ubuntu 12.04 Release Party
  • Ubuntu Village @ FOSSCON Sat August 11th
  • Juju Java Cluster – Part 1-3
  • juju deploying CentOS clouds
  • Ricardo Salveti: Pre-built images for XBMC (Ubuntu 12.04 based) with hw acceleration finally available at Linaro
  • Ubuntu TV Weekly Update #4
  • Didier Roche: Time for a Quickly reboot?
  • Jorge Castro: Ubuntu Forums Needs Single Sign On, again
  • Nicholas Skaggs: A video walkthrough of ISO Testing
  • Dustin Kirkland: Introducing overlayroot -- overlayfs + dmcrypt!
  • Charlene Tessier: Achieve Personal Unity – 12.04 Customiztion Guide
  • Nicholas Skaggs: Quality Perceptions Survey
  • Canonical News
  • Road test: Self-driving car heads into city
  • What Is Ubuntu's Target Audience?
  • Faster Zombies!
  • Ubuntu For Android Gets A Video Demo, Looks Awesome
  • How One Teacher Built a Computer Lab for Free
  • In Other News
  • Other Articles of Interest
  • Featured Podcasts
  • Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
  • Upcoming Meetings and Events
  • Updates and Security for 8.04, 10.04, 11.04, 11.10 and 12.04
  • And much more!

General Community News

Ubuntu Developer Summit Sponsorship Now Open

Jono Bacon announces that sponsorship is available for the next Ubuntu Developer Summit, taking place 29th Oct -- 1st Nov at Bella Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark and shares details of how community members can apply for sponsorship.

Bacon writes: “At the heart of a great UDS is a diverse group of attendees who can bring their experience and expertise to the discussions. You don’t have to be technical, or be a programmer or packager to attend -- UDS is open to everyone (including non-Ubuntu folks) and free to attend. We encourage everyone with an interest in Ubuntu to attend.”

http://www.jonobacon.org/2012/08/01/ubuntu-developer-summit-sponsorship-now-open-4/

The announcement of Copenhagen, Denmark as the next UDS location was also covered throughout the blogosphere:

Top 10 Ubuntu app downloads for July 2012

The top app downloads for the past month are in, and bring with them a few surprises. For paid applications, popular indie games such as Braid, Super Meat Boy, and Bastion take spots one through three respectively. Nine out of the ten commercial applications are games, with the only exception being Fluendo DVD Player. Command and Conquer, Full Circle Magazine #61, and IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition lead the pack of free apps.

http://developer.ubuntu.com/2012/08/top-10-ubuntu-app-downloads-for-july-2012/

Welcome new members

Results from the Membership Board meeting (2 August 2012):

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2012-August/001607.html

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (98558) -925 over last week
  • Critical (63) +3 over last week
  • Unconfirmed (49242) -813 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 Precise

  • English (Australia) (2) +/- 0 over last week
  • English (United Kingdom) (7970) -2800 over last week
  • Spanish (10183) -224 over last week
  • Bosnian (33780) -5 over last week
  • Brazilian Portuguese (34423) -1297 over last weke

Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 12.04 "Precise Pangolin", see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise/ and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations

Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 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

Event Report – Ubuntu 12.04 Release Party

Shrini of the Indian Linux Users’ Group shares a report about the Ubuntu 12.04 event and release party, which was held at MIT Anna University, Chennai, India along with the Ubuntu Tamil team.

Photos from the event here: https://picasaweb.google.com/102002010785949271518/UbuntuReleaseParty2012

Full blog post: http://ilugc.in/content/event-report-ubuntu-12-04-release-party/

Ubuntu Village @ FOSSCON Sat August 11th

Ubuntu Pennsylvania will be running an “Ubuntu Village” at the upcoming FOSSCON on August 11th and encourages everyone to bring their own laptops, since the Ubuntu Village is hosting an all-day installfest during the conference. Registrations are available at the following link: https://www.wepay.com/events/fosscon-2012

Besides the invitation for attendees, Ubuntu Village is also calling for volunteers.

http://ubuntupennsylvania.org/?p=132

Ubuntu Cloud News

Juju Java Cluster – Part 1-3

Robert Ayeres in his series of blog posts, Juju Java Cluster, gives detailed demonstrations:

  • How to deploy Juju cluster with a sample Grails application
  • How to add Memcached service to cluster
  • About Tomcat configuration options that are available including JMX monitoring
  • About session monitoring

http://voices.canonical.com/robert.ayres/2012/08/01/juju-java-cluster-part-1/

http://voices.canonical.com/robert.ayres/2012/08/01/juju-java-cluster-part-2/

http://voices.canonical.com/robert.ayres/2012/08/03/juju-java-cluster-part-3/

juju deploying CentOS clouds

Jorge Castro shares information how Francisco Souza at globo.com got Juju to work on CentOS, which Souza details in this blog post: http://f.souza.cc/2012/07/using-juju-to-orchestrate-centos-based.html

Castro summarized juju client availability with the following: “Right now for juju we have clients for RPM-based distributions like Fedora, OpenSUSE, and CentOS (thanks to Brandon Holtsclaw).”

http://www.jorgecastro.org/2012/08/01/juju-deploying-centos-clouds/

The Planet

Ricardo Salveti: Pre-built images for XBMC (Ubuntu 12.04 based) with hw acceleration finally available at Linaro

Ricardo Salveti shares information about pre-built Ubuntu 12.04 based images for XMBC, and their integration with Linaro components and LEB. The current state of pre-built images can be found at the following link: http://snapshots.linaro.org/precise/pre-built/ti-panda-x11-base/

More at: http://rsalveti.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/pre-built-images-for-xbmc-ubuntu-12-04-based-with-hw-acceleration-finally-available-at-linaro/

Ubuntu TV Weekly Update #4

Jim, senior software engineer on the Ubuntu TV project, shares the current status of the Ubuntu TV project including: Unity 3D transition state, lenses and scopes, Ubuntu TV Test card, and much more.

http://www.doadjustyourset.com/2012/07/30/ubuntu-tv-weekly-update-4

Jorge Castro: OnAir Video Online if You Missed It

The video from the Alpha 2 Ubuntu OnAir Hangout is now online. The video features several developers and community members, and covers questions asked by the community on topics such as Project Sputnik, secure boot, and the upcoming web apps feature in Ubuntu 12.10.

http://www.jorgecastro.org/2012/07/30/onair-video-online-if-you-missed-it

Didier Roche: Time for a Quickly reboot?

Despite Quickly’s great success during the Ubuntu app showdown, Roche would like that they “step back, look around and restate the project’s goals to build an even brighter future for Quickly.” He therefore announces the Quickly reboot project.

http://blog.didrocks.fr/post/Time-for-a-Quickly-reboot

Jorge Castro: Ubuntu Forums Needs Single Sign On, again

Jorge Castro is looking for a volunteer who is experienced with PHP, Single sign on (SSO) and vBulletin (VB) to work on a SSO integration with v.Bulletin 4.x.

http://www.jorgecastro.org/2012/07/31/ubuntu-forums-needs-single-sign-on-again/

Nicholas Skaggs: A video walkthrough of ISO Testing

Nicholas Skaggs posted a screencast tutorial on how to perform ISO Testing to help ensure high quality, daily ISO images. The testing takes place inside of a virtual machine, and only takes about twenty minutes.

http://www.theorangenotebook.com/2012/07/a-video-walkthrough-of-iso-testing.html

Dustin Kirkland: Introducing overlayroot -- overlayfs + dmcrypt!

Dustin Kirkland shares details about “a new binary package called overlayroot, which is part of the cloud-initramfs-tools source package and project.” By implementing “two awesome Linux kernel technologies,” overlayfs and dmcrypt Kirkland shares details about the new package and a history of how it came to be developed.

http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2012/08/introducing-overlayroot-overlayfs.html

Charlene Tessier: Achieve Personal Unity – 12.04 Customiztion Guide

Charlene Tessier announces the availability of the “Achieve Personal Unity - 12.04 Customization Guide” which is meant in particular for users “who have been using Ubuntu for a while and now feel up to the challenge to tinker with it further.”

http://frenchfortunecookie.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/achieve-personal-unity-12-04-customiztion-guide/

Lubuntu Blog: Box icon theme

The new Lubuntu Box icon theme is almost ready, and has now been merged into the repositories. If you’re using Lubuntu an update will be available soon that will change the icons to the new ones.

http://lubuntublog.blogspot.com/2012/08/box-icon-theme.html

Jono Bacon: Ubuntu Accomplishments:Building Maturity

Jono Bacon shares his thoughts around Ubuntu Accomplishment and goals for that application: quality, visibility and growth. He says, “With these goals we want to take Ubuntu Accomplishments from a casual code-base that generally works, to a professional, rock-solid, predictable, well-tested system that assures a great experience for our users.” Bacon also issues a request for volunteers to join the project. To make it easier for volunteers to catch up with what the Ubuntu Accomplishments team is doing, Bacon announces a schedule for new live video sessions.

http://www.jonobacon.org/2012/08/03/ubuntu-accomplishments-building-maturity/

Nicholas Skaggs: Quality Perceptions Survey

Nicolas Skaggs shares his thoughts about Ubuntu’s quality and has written a survey to collect information about quality perceptions in the community. Skaggs states “I have my own thoughts about the impact to the ubuntu project this testing has had, and I will continue to share my thoughts to point out the progress we make in this regard. But now, I want your input. I have created a survey to understand the community perspective on how we as a Ubuntu project are doing on quality.”

http://www.theorangenotebook.com/2012/08/quality-perceptions-survey.html

Paolo Sammicheli: Ubuntu Opportunistic Programming @Europython: The slides

Paolo Sammicheli shares materials about Ubuntu Opportunistic Programming from his lecture at Europython 2012 where he was one of the speakers.

http://xdatap1.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/ubuntu-opportunistic-programming-europython-the-slides/

Canonical News

Ubuntu Server 12.04: IAAS we can! Ubuntu Cloud infrastructure

In another webinar from Canonical, they invite participants to “join Mark Baker and Nick Barcet from the Ubuntu Server and Cloud teams to learn about OpenStack in Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS - and how you can use it to deliver the infrastructure and services you need.” The webinar will be held on August 9th - (16.00- 19.00, UK time, 11am Eastern time).

http://www.canonical.com/about-canonical/news-and-events/events/2012/08/09/live-webinar/ubuntu-server-1204-iaas-we-can-ubuntu

In The Press

Road test: Self-driving car heads into city

“Scientists at the Free Berlin University have been conducting research on one of the worlds first prototypes that can independently maneuver through heavy city traffic.” While watching the video you can see that Ubuntu 12.04 is used as a GPS system.

http://www.futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/technology/futureoftech/road-test-self-driving-car-heads-city-916303

In The Blogosphere

What Is Ubuntu's Target Audience?

Swapnil Bhartiya of Muktware summarises the recent open discussion about Ubuntu’s target audience. Bhartiya also pointed out what can be done under Ubuntu through the following topics:

  • Can We Define The PC/Desktop Market?
  • Beyond The Desktop
  • Coming Back To PC
  • 3rd Party Apps
  • Ubuntu Takes Care Of 95% Of My Computing
  • Hardware Support Under Ubuntu

http://www.muktware.com/4053/what-ubuntus-target-audience

Like Lubuntu? Help Pick Wallpapers for its Next Release

Joey Sneddon of OMG!Ubuntu! invites Lubuntu fans to vote for Lubuntu’s next release wallpapers. Sneddon states: “From 29 community-sourced images, users can vote for the five they would most like to see made available in Lubuntu by default. Voting closes on August 20th.”

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/08/like-lubuntu-help-pick-wallpapers-for-its-next-release

Ubuntu 12.10 Continues Strong On The PandaBoard ES

Michael Larabel of Phoronix shares benchmark results which “build upon the results from earlier PandaBoard ES benchmarking on Phoronix to show the performance of Ubuntu 11.10, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, the earlier Ubuntu 12.10 benchmarks from the beginning of June, and then Ubuntu 12.10 benchmarks using a development build from the end of July.”

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu1210_pandaes_strong&num=1

Faster Zombies!

Valve Team shares FPS testing results involving:

Hardware

  • Intel Core i7 3930k

  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680

  • 32 GB RAM

Software

  • Windows 7 Service Pack 1 64-bit
  • Left 4 Dead 2
  • Ubuntu 12.04 32-bit

The focus of the testing was to compare the OpenGL and Direct3D versions of the game Left 4 Dead 2. The results show that the OpenGL version running on Ubuntu is 44.4 FPS faster than Direct3D version, which they attribute to the "underlying efficiency of the [Linux] kernel and OpenGL".

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

Ubuntu For Android Gets A Video Demo, Looks Awesome

Stephen Schenck of PocketNow writes about Ubuntu for Android, which Canonical announced back in February this year. Schenck also shares a Portuguese version of an Ubuntu For Android Demo Video, which was presented at the Fórum Internacional Software Livre in Brazil two weeks ago.

http://pocketnow.com/2012/08/02/ubuntu-for-android-gets-a-video-demo-looks-awesome/

How One Teacher Built a Computer Lab for Free

Elizabeth of iFixit shares a story about Robert Litt a sixth grade teacher who was struggling with the problem of how to provide computers for underfunded school classrooms with no budget. Following a donation of computers, Litt shares how he learned about Linux, worked with a local Linux Users group and a non-profit who helped him grow his computer lab.

http://ifixit.org/3001/how-one-teacher-built-a-computer-lab-for-free/

In Other News

Android SDK Installer for Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

Adnan Hodzic of OMG!Ubuntu! writes about his project, Android SDK Installer for Linux, where he explains what the project is for, and also requests contributors to help him finish it. The project is available at the following link: https://github.com/AdnanHodzic/android-sdk-installer

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/07/android-sdk-installer-for-linux-debianubuntu

Red Hat and Canonical ‘traitors’ to open source for working with Microsoft

Jon Gold of Network World US writes about Theo de Raadt’s recent rant where he attacked Red Hat and Canonical for their secure boot solutions. Gold also mentions Stallman’s and Torvalds’ thoughts concerning secure boot which have been known for quite some time.

http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/operating-systems/3372860/red-hat-canonical-traitors-open-source-for-working-with-microsoft/

Mid-2012: Arch Linux vs. Slackware vs. Ubuntu vs. Fedora

Michael Larabel of Phoronix shares a Slackware vs.Ubuntu vs. Fedora comparison. This is not just a basic distribution comparison but “rather a larger Linux distribution performance comparison.” In this article Larabel demonstrates benchmark results from “from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, CentOS 6.2, Fedora 17, Slackware 14.0 Beta, and Arch Linux.”

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=arch_2012_linuxdistros&num=1

Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S05E12 – The Portland Sketch Book

“Mark Johnson and Tony Whitmore are joined by guest presenters Alan Bell and Andy Piper in Studio A for the twelfth episode of Season Five of the Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo Team!”

Topics include:

  • Making a Raspberry Pi case out of Lego, seeing the Reduced Shakespeare Company, fondling one’s slab and going to the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
  • Andy’s experiences at OSCON

  • Their competition to win an EcoPC

  • Interview Jonathan Nadeau from the Accessible Computing Foundation
  • Victoria Pritchard and Robin Catling dust off another audio recording of an episode of ‘Tomorrow’s Technology Today’ from the Herbert Maxwell Fosdyke Curmudgeon Memorial Sound Archive.
  • Ubuntu related news in the bit-about-Ubuntu
  • And more!

http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2012/08/01/s05e12-the-portland-sketch-book/

Weekly Ubuntu Development 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, 11.04, 11.10 and 12.04

Security Updates

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

None.

End of life - April 2013 (Server)

Ubuntu 10.04 Updates

End of Life - April 2013 (Desktop) - April 2015 (Server)

Ubuntu 11.04 Updates

End of Life - October 2012

Ubuntu 11.10 Updates

End of Life - April 2013

Ubuntu 12.04 Updates

End of Life - April 2017

Subscribe

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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
  • Jasna Benčić
  • Nathan Dyer
  • Matt Rudge
  • 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/Issue277 (last edited 2012-08-06 20:56:46 by lyz)