UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue41

Contents

In This Issue
General Community News
LoCo News
1. 1. Newly Approved LoCos
In The Press
In The Blogosphere
Meetings and Events
Community Spotlight
1. Xubuntu Team
Updates and security for 6.06, 6.10, and 7.04
Bug Stats
Did you know...
Archives and RSS Feed
Additional Ubuntu News
Conclusion
Credits
RSS
Feedback

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #41 for the week May 13th - May 19th, 2007. In this issue we cover the new Torrent Team, progress of the Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded Project, newly approved members and LoCos, Community Council and Forum Council meetings, and we set the spotlight on the Xubuntu Team.

UWN Translations

Deutsch - Start one! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue41/De
Español - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue41/Es
Français - http://ubuntu-fr.org/lettre/lhu41.html
Italiano - http://wiki.ubuntu-it.org/NewsletterItaliana
Português - Start one! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue41/Pt
Português do Brasil - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue41/PtBR

In This Issue

New Torrent Team
Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded Project Underway
Newly Approved Members
Officially Approved LoCos
Team of the Week: Xubuntu Team
Meetings and Events
Security Updates

General Community News

Community Council

The Community Council met to discuss agenda freezes, the Ubuntu Media Center, and approval of new members and LoCo teams. It was decided that the agenda will be frozen one day before meetings for general items and just before the meetings for LoCo teams and member candidates. The Ubuntu Media Center Team was approved and is responsible for creating software that will be installable on any Ubuntu based system and provide multimedia facilities like out-of-the-box support for remote controls, TV watching (including PVR capabilities), video/music on deman, X10 home control technology, and many other features. Read more at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMediaCenterTeam.

Newly Approved Ubuntu Members

The last Community Council meeting approved a whole raft of new Ubuntu members. Read on for a quick bio on each.

Nick Ali
- Nick is an active member of the Georgia US LoCo and the Ubuntu Marketing Team. He has participated in the LoCo Doc's Day and writes for the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. Recently, he has started working on the LoCo Hosting Admin team which will help setup and maintain sites for LoCos. Nick hopes to help get the Georgia US LoCo approved soon. https://launchpad.net/~boredandblogging
Duda Nogueira
- Duda is an active member of the Brazilian Team and focuses on organizing events in Minas Gerais, Brazil. He is a member of the Ubuntu Brazilian Translators and has represented the Brazilian Team at FISL 8.0 throughout the conference. Duda works on the Brazilian Team wiki extensively, creating documentation relevant to the Brazilian community. https://launchpad.net/~dudanogueira
Dax Solomon Umaming
- Dax has provided Xubuntu training to faculty and staff at Our Lady of Lourdes College Foundation and has been invited back to do a two day training/seminar on Xubuntu and FOSS. He has also been invited to deliver a talk about Implementing FOSS in School at Saint Louis University. Dax will continue to focus on usability, quality, and documentation for Xubuntu and Edubuntu and hopes to get his LPI certification and become an Ubuntu Certified Engineer. https://launchpad.net/~knightlust
Murat Güneş
- Murat has been on Ubuntu Forums since March 2005 and has over 5000 posts. As one of the leaders of the Forum Ambassadors Team, Murat keeps track of user ideas submitted to the Gutsy Gibbon Idea Pool. Two such ideas were turned into blueprints and discussed at UDS-Sevilla. Murat also contributes Turkish translations and hopes to be a MOTU in the future. https://launchpad.net/~mgunes/
Dave Walker
- Dave is a member of BugSquad and actively triages bugs. Recently Dave has been nominated for the proposed IRC Jury/Panel. He is a maintainer for Ubuntu MythTV and active member of the Ubuntu-UK LoCo, as well as channel operator for #ubuntu-uk. Dave hopes to be a MOTU in the future. https://launchpad.net/people/davewalker

New Torrent Team

Andrea Veri has announced the creation of the MOTU torrent team, and they need your help! The torrent team will take care of and develop packages related to the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol, while working closely with upstream. It’s also the bug report contact for all torrent packages in Launchpad. They are currently interested in universe and main sponsorship and are looking for more packagers too, so if you are someone who is interested, ping Andrea Veri (bluekuja) on #ubuntu-motu-torrent on irc.freenode.net, or just apply to join the team in launchpad. As is the custom across Ubuntu you can keep an eye on them via their wiki page. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~motu-torrent Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Teams/Torrent

Ubu(un)con-Boulder

Ubucon-Boulder is a free, all-day gathering of Ubuntu-related demos, talks, chats, to show each other what *buntu can do, and Google’s Boulder office is where all the proposed action is. Jim McMaster, a developer at Google and Leslie Hawthorn, of Google’s Open Source Program Office in California are the gracious hosts for the venue of this unconference-like Barcamp. Due to space constraints, it will be a small gathering of around 20 people, and registration is first-come, first-served. Read more at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Ubucon-Boulder

New Story Submission Address

The Marketing Team has created a new mailing list you can submit any idea or story relevant to any of the Marketing Team projects (UWN, Full Circle, The Fridge, etc). Send us your scoops to: ubuntu-marketing-submissions@lists.ubuntu.com

Forum Council News

The Forum Council met to discuss username changes, how to deal with problem staff members, staff renewals, and staff selections:

Usernames will not be changed unless there are extenuating circumstances. Make the case to an admin, and they can decide whether or not to change it.
Forum staff problems will be dealt directly with the problem staff member. If agreement cannot be reached, it will be dealt with in a public meeting.
Staff renewals will be done with a simple private message on the forums.
Staff selections will be continue to be by word of mouth.

Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded Project Underway

Matt Zimmerman has announced more details about the Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded project (UME). The purpose of UME is "to build a complete mobile OS based on Ubuntu, with all of the necessary components integrated into the Ubuntu package archive, ready to install and run, or to tailor for custom mobile applications." A mailing list has been created, along with the beginnings of some technical specifications and code.

For a more technical overview of UME, see https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-mobile/2007-May/000004.html

LoCo News

Newly Approved LoCos

The Argentina Team has over 100 launchpad members and the most active LoCo forum. Among the many open source conferences the Argentina Team has taken part in, they organized and participated in the Flisol installfest where Ubuntu was set up on over 80 computers. Martin Albisetti will be giving two talks in the near future to local Linux conferences. The team also plans to help distribute ShipIt CDs locally and create videos aimed at Windows users to show how easy it is to use Ubuntu. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArgentinaTeam

The Catalan Team has over 50 launchpad members, over 200 list members and is second most active community on Ubuntu Forums. A website has recently been started and the planet consists of two daily news feeds and 14 bloggers. The team supports translations teams and has translated the Education Department's Ubuntu tutorials into Catalan. While 50 members of media were notified of their recent Feisty party, the team has promoted Ubuntu on several different radio shows. The Catalan Team also boasts the first humour section on the wiki for a LoCo. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CatalanTeam

The DC Team has been active in promoting Ubuntu at many conferences and conventions. They also provide introductory computer classes in Spanish to Tenants and Workers United, as well providing labs for libraries. The team is in the process of organizing the Free/Open Source Software in Education conference and setting up more community computing centers with Edubuntu. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DCTeam

In The Press

Alison Hunt, at Motley Fool, says that for most people who just use their computers for email, surfing the web, and photo management, a fast machine with Windows Vista is not necessary. There are free alternatives to Windows like Ubuntu and installing it is painless. Since Ubuntu comes with Evolution, Firefox, Open Office, F-Spot, and Rhythmbox, the user is ready to go. Alison likes that Ubuntu promises to remain free and will not charge for upgrades. Read the full article: http://www.fool.co.uk/news/money-saving-tips/household-bills/2007/05/15/kit-out-a-pc-for-free!.aspx
James Bannan, at APC Magazine, provides a tutorial on how to install Ubuntu and dual boot with Windows XP. James provides screenshots as he walks through loading the Live CD and running the installer to set the default language, time zone, keyboard layout, and user account. He continues with partitioning the disk and modifying GRUB to change the default operating system and boot menu timeout. James calls GRUB "an excellent and highly flexible bootloader." Read the full article at: http://apcmag.com/6101/dualboot_windows_xp_and_ubuntu
Brian Provost, at IT Security, discusses way to secure a default installation of Ubuntu. He suggests disabling ssh root login, limiting access to "su," and enabling automatic security updates. Antivirus software is recommended to protect inbound and outbound files transmitted from other Windows computers. Firewalls should be used to keep attackers away and various network tools allow for monitoring and securing networks. Read more: http://www.itsecurity.com/features/ubuntu-secure-install-resource/
The BBC has a programme covering Ubuntu and Mark Shuttleworth. Mark discusses how Ubuntu makes Linux more accessible by focusing on everday user experiences like working better on laptops, extending battery life, and providing improved wireless networking. Ubuntu's partnership with Intel is mentioned along with a test-drive of the Freedom Toaster, a kiosk which will burn different pieces of open source software onto a CD. Details of the programme can be found at http://www.bbcworld.com/Pages/ProgrammeFeature.aspx?id=18&FeatureID=201.

In The Blogosphere

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, at ZDNet, discusses the process of installing LAMP on Linux. After researching for the easiest way to make this happen, Adrian decides to down and install Ubuntu 7.04. Adrian uses the server ISO and uses the text installer. He considers the lack of graphics during the installation refreshing compared to Windows. The installation routine was relatively easy and Adrian is surprised since he expected to do lots of command-line work. Read more: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=406
Sal Cangeloso, at XYZ Computing, wonders if Dell is good for Ubuntu. Without Wine or any virtualization software set up by default, some Windows users may shy away if certain Windows specific products do not work on Ubuntu. Special attention must be paid to the impact on smaller system builders like System76, who will have a tough time competing with Dell's prices. Still, with all the uncertainties of the Dell/Ubuntu partnership, Canonical will want to make sure Dell's support for Ubuntu doesn't reflect badly on them and Sal believes "the fact that it was made is a great sign for the future, especially for the ever-expanding legions of Ubuntu fans." Read more: http://www.xyzcomputing.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1053
"Only Ubuntu Linux" shows how to install a LAMP server using Ubuntu 7.04. Screenshots of the install process are provided along with instructions on how to set up a ssh server and configuring a static IP address for the server. Read more: http://onlyubuntu.blogspot.com/2007/05/ubuntu-704-feisty-fawn-lamp-server.html
Alphonse Leong, at PerformancePC, describes Ubuntu Studio as "an ambitious attempt to bring Linux multimedia creation to the mainstream, and the results are surprisingly good." Alphonse provides a quick synopsis of the various graphics and audio tools available on Ubuntu and thinks the interface is inviting and the simple installation makes the user productive quickly. Read more at http://performancepccanada.com/?defaultarticle=1101
Gary shows how to install and set up MythTV on Ubuntu. He shows how to test if a digital video broadcasting cards will work with the kernel and how to test the output using mplayer and gxine. Gary continues with instructions to install the MythTV software and testing the configuration. Read more at http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_ubuntu.php

Meetings and Events

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Xubuntu Developers Meeting

Start: 17:00
End: 19:00
Location: #ubuntu-meeting
Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu/Meetings

Georgia US LoCo meeting

Start: 19:00
End: 20:00
Location: #ubuntu-georgia
Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GeorgiaUSTeam/Meetings

Catalan LoCo meeting

Start: 20:00
End: 21:00
Location: #ubuntu-cat
Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CatalanTeam/Reunions

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Technical Board Meeting

Start: 20:00
End: 22:00
Location: #ubuntu-meeting
Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TechnicalBoardAgenda

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Edubuntu Meeting

Start: 20:00
End: 22:00
Location: #ubuntu-meeting
Agenda: https://wiki.edubuntu.org/EdubuntuMeetingAgenda

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Ubuntu Development Team Meeting

Start: 20:00
End: 22:00
Location: #ubuntu-meeting

Community Spotlight

Xubuntu Team

The aim of the Xubuntu Team is to provide a nice Ubuntu desktop experience (even on older hardware) by using Xfce4 as the desktop environment and GTK+ 2 applications wherever possible. The Xubuntu team takes care of Xfce and other packages that are part of the default Xubuntu installation. The team's tasks include packaging, coding, artwork, documentation, translation and testing. To find out more on them or to join the team, check out: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu

Updates and security for 6.06, 6.10, and 7.04

Security Updates

USN-459-1: pptpd vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-459-1
USN-460-1: Samba vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-460-1
USN-461-1: Quagga vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-461-1
USN-436-2: KTorrent vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-436-2

Bug Stats

Open (30639) -7 # over last week
Critical (23) +0 # over last week
Unconfirmed (15236) -133 # over last week
Unassigned (23011) -94 # over last week
All bugs ever reported (101628) +1174 # 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/

Did you know...

Did you know that Planet Ubuntu has a "Ubuntu Solar System" section where other Planets in different languages are featured? It's on the right side just below the "Subscribe" links. If you want to get your Planet on there, get in touch with us at the marketing team and we'll help you through the process

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:

http://www.ubuntu.com/news

and

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/

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
And many others

RSS

You can subscribe to the UWN feed at: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/uwn/feed

Feedback

If you would like to submit an idea or story you think is worth appearing on the UWN, please send them to ubuntu-marketing-submissions@lists.ubuntu.com. 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. If you have any technical support questions, please send then ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com.