Issue34

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #34 for the week March 25th - March 31st, 2007. In this issue we cover Canonical's quest to find a new User Interface Designer, the long awaited and newly born Xubuntu team and the general buzz going around about Ubuntu.

UWN Translations

In This Issue

  • Canonical Looking to Hire User Interface Developer
  • New Way to Ask for a Program to be Packaged
  • Ubuntu Receives PC Welt Editor's Choice Award
  • Easy-to-install Codec Wizards

General Community News

Canonical Looking to Hire User Interface Developer

Canonical is looking for someone with excellent user interface design skills. No previous Linux experience is required. Anyone from Linux experts to computer game developers could be suitable for this role. You can read the full announcement at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2007-March/023443.html

New Xubuntu Marketing Team

In a recent meeting of the Xubuntu developers, Freddy Martinez was named the head of the Xubuntu Marketing efforts. The process will begin by building a solid community around marketing Xubuntu and updating the website to match the new Drupal used by Ubuntu. The tentative page for the marketing effort can be found here, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam/Xubuntu

Lionel Le Folgoc Joins MOTU

Lionel Le Folgoc has joined the ranks of MOTUs. He primarily works on packaging, Medibuntu, and makes an effort to help with reviewing and sponsoring packages. You can read the full announcement at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2007-March/023477.html

LoCo News

The UWN needs you! We at the UWN would love to write more about what your LoCo team is doing, but we can't if you don't tell us what's in the works. Email the loco-contacts or ubuntu-marketing lists, find somebody in #ubuntu-marketing on IRC to add it for you, or just add it yourself.

New in Feisty Fawn

With Feisty getting closer to release and the Beta release out at the end of last week, there haven't been many changes in Feisty this week, except for the new OpenOffice.org 2.2, which includes a new Human theme. For the confused, Human is the default Ubuntu theme.

Feisty Release Bug Status

Tollef Fog Heen, Ubuntu Release Manager, recently posted a list of bugs which must be fixed before release. As of press, the email announcing this was not available, but you can see the list of bugs at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+milestone/ubuntu-7.04

Automatic Crash Reporting for Final Release

There has been a vigorous discussion over the past week about how to handle the new bug and crash reporting software in Feisty, called apport. (Apport has existed in previous releases of Ubuntu, but this is first time the crash reporting side is fully available). While a final decision on the menu item has not yet been made, Martin Pitt has raised the issue of the handling of automatic crashes, due to problems with scalability, privacy concerns and ability to fix the actual crasher. No decision has been made yet and you can follow the discussion on the ubuntu-devel list. (Due to issues with mail archiving, a link is not yet available)

Call for Testing of HPLIP 1.7.3

Till Kamppeter, maintainer of all printed things in Ubuntu, is trying to get the latest HPLIP, the driver for HP multifunction printers, into Feisty. However, he needs testers of the 1.7.3 version to make certain it still works. You can read more about his call for testers at https://beta.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hplip/+bug/98520 - See the 1st comment about "CALL FOR TESTING" on how to help with this.

Development News

Informal Policy on Bugs in Binary Packages

Responding to a community question about bugs in binary packages such as the Nvidia/ATI drivers, Matt Zimmerman has stated, "We take responsibility for kernel bugs where we do not believe that a binary driver is to blame, and we will work with hardware vendors to share bug tracking information. What we cannot do is take responsibility for analyzing or fixing bugs which are the fault of a binary driver."

New Way to Ask for a Program to be Packaged

Following the latest MOTU meeting, a replacement for the http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UniverseCandidates page was decided upon. Following the tradition of Debian, packaging requests should now be filed as bugs. You can read the whole procedure and followups at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2007-March/023445.html

Change in Freeze Exception Procedures

Tollef Fog Heen, Ubuntu release manager, has announced a change in the way maintainers ask for freeze exceptions for their packages. With the new procedure, a bug against the relevant package should now be filed with the ubuntu-release team subscribed to the bug. However, if the request is urgent, contacting the release team directly via IRC or email is still acceptable.

In The Press

OmniNerd has a 2006 Operating System Vulnerability Summary which discusses security issues of many popular OSs including Vista Ultimate, OS X, and Ubuntu. The report concluded that out of the box, Windows and OS X are remotely vulnerable without diligence: "owners of Windows and OS X systems are the most susceptible to quick and thorough remote violations by hackers." On the other hand, Unix and Linux "generally maintained its integrity against remote attacks." Read the full article: http://www.omninerd.com/2007/03/26/articles/74

Ubuntu Receives Editor's Choice Award from PC Welt. Editor in chief, Andreas Perband, says "Within the Open Source category there was one clear winner, Ubuntu. I congratulate them on getting this well deserved award. We chose Ubuntu because of its dedication to releasing every six months - bringing the best of Open Source to its users, its ease of installation and its 'just works' philosophy." Read the full article: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/84097/

Peter Newton at PC World writes about Feisty and features like Beryl, Compiz, Gnome, and Xfce. Newton is impressed with the multitude of options available for Beryl. Read the full article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130110-c,linux/article.html

Linux.com reviews System 76's Ubuntu-certified Darter laptop recently and found that it has a few flaws, but overall provides a decent system for Linux users clamoring for a Linux-friendly vendor. Read the full article: http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/03/20/1328237

At Windows IT Pro, Mark Joseph Edwards reviewed Debian and Ubuntu. He was impressed by Ubuntu when his Orinoco network card, nVidia video card, sound card, and DVD drive all worked without any configuration. Read the full article: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/95628/95628.html

In The Blogosphere

"Only Ubuntu Linux" discusses new features in Feisty, like the migration tool, help centre, and codec wizards. Screenshots of the new tools are included as well. http://onlyubuntu.blogspot.com/2007/03/ubuntu-704-feisty-fawn-beta-preview.html

Connie Veneracion, a wife and mom in the Philippines, writes about replacing a desktop with a laptop and installing Ubuntu. Read more: http://houseonahill.net/2007/03/28/ubuntu-on-sams-msi-s425/

Xcerion, a Swedish start-up, has created an XML-based "Internet OS" and corresponding back-end software infrastructure that looks and mimicks any regular desktop OS. The back-end servers run Ubuntu. Read more: http://gigaom.com/2007/03/31/xcerion/#more-8592

In Free Market News, David Bond writes about being fed up with paying Microsoft for constant upgrades of Windows and Office. He is introduced to OSS with Firefox and eventually moves on to Open Office and Ubuntu. Read more: http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/39/7137/free.asp?nid=7137&wid=39

Steve at Seopher.com is "impressed with how simple Ubuntu makes things." He discusses that Feisty easily downloads and installs the appropriate codecs to play videos and "how generally the whole look and feel of Ubuntu give across a well-rounded feel." Read more: http://www.seopher.com/articles/review_of_ubuntu_feisty_fawn_alpha_5_for_new_users

Melissa Draper, a philosophical geekess, talks about four Feisty features that will 'sell' Ubuntu: codec grabbing, migration assistant, network manager, and desktop effects. Read more: http://www.geekosophical.net/?p=81

Meetings and Events

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Marketing Team Meeting

Monday, April 02, 2007

Community Question Time

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Community Council Meeting

Kernel Team Meeting

Mozilla Team Meeting

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Edubuntu Meeting

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Ubuntu Development Team Meeting

  • Start: 16:00
  • End: 18:00
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting

Community Spotlight

Ubuntu Easy-to-install Codec Wizards

The upcoming Feisty release will include a new guided wizard for installing codecs not shipped with Ubuntu. It gives users a safe way of installing codecs they can legally use to view multimedia content. When a user tries to view a video without having the appropriate codecs, the application will suggest installing the correct codecs. If the appropriate repositories are not active, the wizard will set them up, then auto-detect and install the needed packages. The video will start playing without the need to restart the application. This wizard will prevent the need for users to follow complex instructions on installing codecs and using unknown repositories.

Updates and security for 6.06 and 6.10

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates

Ubuntu 6.10 Updates

Bug Stats

  • Open (25783) +858 # over last week
  • Critical (19) +1 # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (12166) +483 # over last week
  • Unassigned (18491) +690 # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (88561) +2901 # 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/

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:

  • Martin Albisetti
  • Nick Ali
  • Corey Burger
  • Audrey Deutschmann
  • 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 (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam). If you'd like to contribute to a future issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, please feel free to edit the appropriate wiki page.

UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue34 (last edited 2008-08-06 17:00:14 by localhost)