Issue400


Contents

  1. In This Issue
  2. General Community News
    1. Introducing Ubuntu Find-A-Task
  3. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Ask Ubuntu Top 5 Questions this week
      1. Most Active Questions
      2. Top Voted New Questions
  4. LoCo News
    1. Qt Day 2015, March 13-14th, Florence
  5. LoCo Events
  6. Ubuntu Cloud News
    1. Ubuntu Partner Ecosystem Growth Continues
    2. Mojo: Juju Service Orchestration distilled
    3. Juju Quickstart 1.60 is out
    4. Announcing snappy Ubuntu Core on Vagrant cloud
    5. Snappy Ubuntu Core now on the hypervisor of your choice with OVA
    6. Skymind join Charm Partner Programme
  7. The Planet
    1. Nicholas Skaggs: PSA: Community Requests
    2. Ronnie Tucker: Ubuntu Phone Details
    3. Robie Basak: What's in an Ubuntu package version string?
    4. Riccardo Padovani: Ubuntu Calculator App Reboot is in the store
    5. Daniel Holbach: Building a great community
    6. Riccardo Padovani: Launchpad on DuckDuckGo
  8. Other Community News
    1. Announcing the Scope Showdown winners
  9. Canonical News
    1. VirtualBox extensions for MAAS
  10. In The Press
    1. You'll get sick of that iPad. And guess who'll be waiting? Big daddy Linux...
    2. Ubuntu Phone: The little phone that could
  11. In The Blogosphere
    1. Ubuntu 15.04 Might Get Global Menu And HUD Support By Default For Java Swing Applications
    2. Meizu To Announce Triple Boot Ubuntu Phone This Month?
    3. PC-BSD 10.1 vs. Ubuntu 14.10 vs. Fedora 21 Benchmarks
    4. Why Scopes, Not Apps, Are Ubuntu Phone’s Secret Weapon
    5. Ubuntu 15.04 Finally Lets You Set Menus To ‘Always Show’
    6. ‘Unity Greeter Badges’ Brings Missing Session Icons to Ubuntu Login Screen
  12. Other Articles of Interest
  13. Featured Audio and Video
    1. Ubuntu Community Q&A - 13th January 2015
  14. Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
  15. Monthly Team Reports: December 2014
  16. Upcoming Meetings and Events
  17. Updates and Security for 10.04, 12.04, 14.04 and 14.10
    1. Security Updates
    2. Ubuntu 10.04 Updates
    3. Ubuntu 12.04 Updates
    4. Ubuntu 14.04 Updates
    5. Ubuntu 14.10 Updates
  18. Subscribe
  19. Archives
  20. Additional Ubuntu News
  21. Conclusion
  22. Credits
  23. Glossary of Terms
  24. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  25. Feedback

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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 400 for the week January 12 - 18, 2015.

In This Issue

  • Introducing Ubuntu Find-A-Task
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Qt Day 2015, March 13-14th, Florence

  • LoCo Events

  • Ubuntu Cloud News
  • Nicholas Skaggs: PSA: Community Requests
  • Ronnie Tucker: Ubuntu Phone Details
  • Robie Basak: What's in an Ubuntu package version string?
  • Riccardo Padovani: Ubuntu Calculator App Reboot is in the store
  • Daniel Holbach: Building a great community

  • Riccardo Padovani: Launchpad on DuckDuckGo

  • Announcing the Scope Showdown winners

  • VirtualBox extensions for MAAS

  • You'll get sick of that iPad. And guess who'll be waiting? Big daddy Linux...
  • Ubuntu Phone: The little phone that could
  • In The Blogosphere
  • Other Articles of Interest

  • Ubuntu Community Q&A - 13th January 2015

  • Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
  • Monthly Team Reports: December 2014
  • Upcoming Meetings and Events
  • Updates and Security for 10.04, 12.04, 14.04 and 14.10
  • And much more!

General Community News

Introducing Ubuntu Find-A-Task

Ian Weisser writes: "The Ubuntu Community website has an awesome new service: Find-A-Task", describing it as a referral service to help volunteers discover teams and tasks that match their interests. He describes the process of getting a team listed, what to put on a team's landing page, and thanks those who helped get the service online.

http://cheesehead-techblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/introducing-ubuntu-find-task.html

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (116635) +15 over last week
  • Critical (270) +12 over last week
  • Unconfirmed (57858) +103 over last week

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

Ask Ubuntu Top 5 Questions this week

Most Active Questions

Top Voted New Questions

People Contributing the best questions and answers this week: Rinzwind (http://askubuntu.com/users/15811/rinzwind), Fabby (http://askubuntu.com/users/344926/fabby), Toroidal (http://askubuntu.com/users/364819/toroidal), muru (http://askubuntu.com/users/158442/muru) and Luis Alvarado (http://askubuntu.com/users/7035/luis-alvarado)

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

LoCo News

Qt Day 2015, March 13-14th, Florence

Riccardo Padovani asks if we've ever been to Florence, suggesting that March 14th would be an ideal date to do so as it will be Qt Day. He shares some Ubuntu-specific details about the event, including talks about how Unity uses Qt, provides some contact information, and says that the 2014 event really improved his Qt knowledge.

http://www.rpadovani.com/qtday-2015

LoCo Events

Want to learn whether there is an event upcoming in your area? Visit the LoCo Team Portal to browse upcoming events around the world:

http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/

Ubuntu Cloud News

Ubuntu Partner Ecosystem Growth Continues

Canonical inform us that a primary reason for Ubuntu’s success is the active and growing ecosystem of partners. The Open Interoperability Lab (OIL), in which 28 partners have invested, helps Ubuntu and their partners grow a healthy ecosystem.

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/01/13/ubuntu-partner-ecosystem-growth-continues/

Mojo: Juju Service Orchestration distilled

Tom Haddon writes, in the first of a series of three posts, about Mojo which is a system of configuration and tools for verifying the success of Juju environment deployments. He uses a diagram to show how the same Mojo specification and manifest can be used with different stages to deploy into three different environments for development, staging and production.

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/01/13/mojo-juju-service-orchestration-distilled/

Juju Quickstart 1.60 is out

Jorge Castro writes that Francesco Banconi has just announced Juju Quickstart 1.60. He says that there are too many improvements to list, so provides a link to Francesco's blog post.

http://www.jorgecastro.org/2015/01/14/juju-quickstart-1-dot-60-is-out/

Announcing snappy Ubuntu Core on Vagrant cloud

Canonical announces that snappy Ubuntu Core is now available on Vagrant Cloud. Vagrant enables a cross platform developer experience on MacOS, Windows or Linux; however, due to how the Ubuntu Core works, shared file systems within Vagrant are not possible at this time. “We are working on getting the shared file system support enabled and will announce this in due course,” noted the article. For those want to use Vagrant this blog post will give you the commands to do so.

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/01/14/announcing-snappy-ubuntu-core-on-vagrant-cloud/

Snappy Ubuntu Core now on the hypervisor of your choice with OVA

In this article, Canonical announces that snappy Ubuntu Core is now available on the hypervisor of your choice thanks to OVA, which is an industry standard for cross-hypervisor image support.

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/01/15/snappy-ubuntu-core-now-on-the-hypervisor-of-your-choice-with-ova/

Skymind join Charm Partner Programme

Canonical announces that the newest member of the Canonical Charm Partner Programme is Skymind, makers of DeepLearning4J, an open source deep-learning library. According to Skymind co-founder Adam Gibson: "With Juju Charm, Skymind technology will become even easier to deploy in the cloud."

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/01/16/skymind-join-charm-partner-programme/

The Planet

Nicholas Skaggs: PSA: Community Requests

Nicholas reminds the community about the Community Requests fund which can help with running your own Ubuntu event. He says that if you are an Ubuntu Member then you can request materials, and that you have access to the donations provided by the Ubuntu Community.

http://www.theorangenotebook.com/2015/01/psa-community-requests.html

Ronnie Tucker: Ubuntu Phone Details

In this article, Ronnie Tucker gets Ubuntu Phone details from Canonical. “Users deserve a richer, faster and unfragmented experience built around the things they do most on their devices,” says Canonical. “With the Ubuntu phone we are moving away from the app grid towards integrated content and services. And we do this by providing a user experience that is centered on bringing the key mobile digital life services directly to the screen, which at the heart we call ‘scopes.’” Readers can find out more about ‘scopes” and how Canonical wants to improve the user experience for Ubuntu Phone users.

http://fullcirclemagazine.org/2015/01/13/ubuntu-phone-details/

Robie Basak: What's in an Ubuntu package version string?

Ronnie Basak writes a comprehensive guide to Ubuntu package version strings. He provides examples that deal with a Stable Release Update (SRU), whether a version is in sync with Debian, if a package has been specifically modified by Ubuntu, and how to compare versions.

http://www.justgohome.co.uk/blog/2015/01/ubuntu-package-versions.html

Riccardo Padovani: Ubuntu Calculator App Reboot is in the store

Riccardo Padovani informs us that the alpha release of the Ubuntu Calculator App Reboot is now available in Ubuntu Touch Store. Riccardo provides recognition to his fellow developers and testers but also hopes to get additional help from the community.

http://www.rpadovani.com/ubuntu-calculator-app-reboot-store

Daniel Holbach: Building a great community

Daniel Holbach reflects on a recent Community Council meeting which met up with the Xubuntu team. He reproduces part of the IRC log and says: "I’m very happy with what the Xubuntu folks are doing and I’m glad to be part of such an open and welcoming community as well."

https://daniel.holba.ch/blog/2015/01/building-a-great-community/

Riccardo Padovani: Launchpad on DuckDuckGo

Riccardo Padovani reports that DuckDuckGo has added Launchpad bug tracker integration to their search engine, allowing users to view information about the bug directly. This functionality will soon be available to 3rd party developers through the DuckDuckGo Spice repository.

http://www.rpadovani.com/launchpad-duckduckgo

Other Community News

Announcing the Scope Showdown winners

David Planella announces the results of the Ubuntu Scope Showdown which was a contest to develop an Ubuntu scope in 6 weeks. During this time, participants had the opportunity to use the new development tools to create a complete scope from scratch and publish it to the store. David reveals that the winning scope was "Cinema Scope" written by Daniele Laudani who won a Dell XPS 13 developer laptop preloaded with Ubuntu.

https://developer.ubuntu.com/blog/2015/01/16/announcing-scopes-showdown-winners/

Canonical News

VirtualBox extensions for MAAS

Ivan Zoratti writes that during the holidays he spent some time cleaning up demos and code that he uses daily at Canonical, and that he has a specific need of "the integration of VirtualBox hosts, specifically running on OS X (but not only), with Ubuntu Server running MAAS." Ivan runs through some of the scripts that he has created, and describes some of the improvements that he intends to make.

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/01/15/virtualbox-extensions-for-maas/

In The Press

You'll get sick of that iPad. And guess who'll be waiting? Big daddy Linux...

Scott Gilbertson of The Register looks at device convergence in this article. Gilbertson talks to Jon Melamut, VP of professional and engineering services for Canonical to get his thoughts on the subject. Melamut says in regards to Linux in the mobile space that "Ubuntu for phones has been a major focus for Canonical, and we’re now in a position to bring devices to market." Gilbertson notes this “true device convergence” is still a ways off and the success of Ubuntu and others in the space still remains to be seen. In his conclusion, Gilbertson wonders if desktop “power-users” will ever switch to a mobile based device.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/16/linux_desktop_then_what/

Ubuntu Phone: The little phone that could

Jack Wallen of TechRepublic discusses how the the Ubuntu Phone could succeed as easily as it could fail. He looks at the competition from Android and iOS, the availability of apps, and gives us a brief specification of the device. Jack says in his conclusion: "If anyone can do it, I have every faith that it will be Canonical."

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ubuntu-phone-the-little-phone-that-could/

In The Blogosphere

Ubuntu 15.04 Might Get Global Menu And HUD Support By Default For Java Swing Applications

Andrew of WebUpd8 writes that JAyatana was uploaded to the main Ubuntu 15.04 repositories on 12 January and notes that according to the changelog, it will probably be installed by default. Java Swing Ayatana (JAyatana) is a project that integrates Java Swing applications with Ubuntu's global menu (AppMenu) and HUD. You can find out more about how to run JAyatana in Ubuntu 15.04 in this article.

http://www.webupd8.org/2015/01/ubuntu-1504-might-get-global-menu-and.html

Meizu To Announce Triple Boot Ubuntu Phone This Month?

Joey-Elijah Sneddon of OMG! Ubuntu! speculates that Meizu's Ubuntu Phone could be released on January 27th, and gives his reasons for thinking so. He also writes that various rumours suggest that it could actually be a phone triple booting between Ubuntu, Flyme OS and another mobile OS.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/01/meizu-announce-triple-boot-ubuntu-phone-month

PC-BSD 10.1 vs. Ubuntu 14.10 vs. Fedora 21 Benchmarks

Michael Larabel of Phoronix publishes a comprehensive set of benchmarks when PC-BSD 10.1 was compared to Ubuntu 14.10 and Fedora 21. He says that the tests were mostly done for curiosity sake but he may do further comparisons between multiple operating systems if there is sufficient interest.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=21364

Why Scopes, Not Apps, Are Ubuntu Phone’s Secret Weapon

Joey-Elijah Sneddon of OMG! Ubuntu! says that in the build up to the launch of the Ubuntu Phone, he'll be highlighting some of his favorite features, and that the first is Scopes which work differently to those on the desktop. He says that they work more efficiently on the phone and goes on to explain why although apps still have a role to play, they're no longer essential.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/01/ubuntu-phone-bq-photo-scopes-details

Ubuntu 15.04 Finally Lets You Set Menus To ‘Always Show’

Joey-Elijah Sneddon of OMG! Ubuntu! informs us that the latest build of Unity for Ubuntu 15.04 offers an option to make application menus always visible. He says that the option is only available through a dconf switch, hopes that a regular setting option will be made available, and that the option will be backported to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/01/ubuntu-15-04-always-show-menu-bar-option

Andrew of WebUpd8 also reported on this story - http://www.webupd8.org/2015/01/always-show-menus-unity-feature-lands.html

‘Unity Greeter Badges’ Brings Missing Session Icons to Ubuntu Login Screen

Joey-Elijah Sneddon of OMG! Ubuntu! says that a solution has been found to Unity Greeter showing a lack of branded icons for alternative desktop sessions such as Cinnamon. He says that a new unity-greeter-badges package has been created, and that is has been accepted into Ubuntu 15.04.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/01/unity-greeter-badges-brings-missing-session-icons-ubuntu-login-screen

Ubuntu Community Q&A - 13th January 2015

Daniel Holbach is joined by David Planella and Alan Pope for another regular Ubuntu Q&A session in which they answer viewers questions put to them on IRC.

http://youtu.be/P41UQUFzFto

Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings

Monthly Team Reports: December 2014

See here for the team report for December 2014: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TeamReports/December2014

If your team is not producing monthly reports, see this page to get your team started: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BuildingCommunity/TeamReporting

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 10.04, 12.04, 14.04 and 14.10

Security Updates

Ubuntu 10.04 Updates

End of Life - April 2015 (Server)

Ubuntu 12.04 Updates

End of Life - April 2017

Ubuntu 14.04 Updates

End of Life - April 2019

Ubuntu 14.10 Updates

End of Life - July 2015

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:

  • Paul White
  • Elizabeth K. Joseph
  • Ian Nicholson
  • John Mahoney
  • Aaron Honeycutt
  • Vishnu Narayanan
  • Amber Graner
  • 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://community.ubuntu.com/contribute/

Or get involved with the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter team! We always need summary writers and editors, if you're interested, learn more at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Join

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 check http://community.ubuntu.com/help-information/ for more information on where to get help.

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UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue400 (last edited 2015-01-19 23:13:09 by lyz)