Issue49

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #49 for the week July 15th - July 21st, 2007. In this issue we cover the release of Gutsy Tribe 3, Canonical's launch of training courses, the first Ubuntu conference in Germany, a State of the Union Summary of the Ubuntu US LoCo Teams, the release of Launchpad 1.1.7, a new ATI driver in Gutsy, and much much more.

UWN Translations

In This Issue

  • Canonical To Launch First Official Training Courses
  • Gutsy Tribe 3 Released
  • German LoCo announces Ubucon 2007

  • United States of Ubuntu: LoCo Team State of the Union

  • New ATI Radeon X1000 Driver in Gutsy
  • Launchpad 1.1.7 Released
  • In The Press and In the Blogosphere
  • Translation stats
  • Bug Stats

General Community News

Canonical To Launch First Official Training Courses!

To be officially launched at the end of November 2007, the two courses will feature two different formats. The first will be a instructor led two day classroom course, and the second will be a web based e-learning course following the same content as the classroom course. Material for the instructor led course will be freely available on the Ubuntu wiki for all to use, share, improve and translate. The focus of both courses will be to ease the transition of new users from MS to Ubuntu. Ubuntu will set up a new Ubuntu Community Training Team for this project, and asks for support and involvement from the whole Ubuntu community to help make this new project a success. Read more about this exciting new Ubuntu project, and find out how to volunteer by clicking on the link below. Ubuntu desktop training courses: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1038

Gutsy Tribe 3 Released

The Ubuntu Fridge has announced the release of the Tribe 3 release of Gutsy Gibbon.

Pre-releases of Gutsy are not recommended for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage.

For more information, see https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2007-July/000319.html and http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/tribe3.

For more details what has been included in this release, go to: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/tribe3

LoCo News

United States of Ubuntu: LoCo Team State of the Union

Christer Edwards aka Zelut has written the State of the Union Summary for the Ubuntu US LoCo Teams. The project is just past the half way point and has 25 teams up, running, and working toward approval. But, like any project, help is needed. Christer makes a impassioned plea to all US Ubuntu users to find or start a LoCo Team in your state. Please visit the link below to see if your state has a team already in place to join, or needs someone to start a team. Ubuntu advocacy, could there be a better project? http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2007/07/14/united-states-of-ubuntu-state-of-the-union/

On July 14th, 2007, radio station WCOJ 1420AM, featured a discussion of Ubuntu with Pennsylvania team members Elizabeth Bevilacqua and Alex Launi. The radio show, Computer Corner, is primarily a Windows based computer program. However, the hosts of the program expressed having more excitement after trying out a Ubuntu Live CD, than with any other Linux distribution they had ever tried. Impressed enough that after the show the hosts invited Alex and Elizabeth back to do a follow up show sometime in the next couple of months. To hear the pod cast and get a better idea of how the discussion went, click on the link below. Great job of Ubuntu advocacy Team Pennsylvania! Thanks also to Melissa Draper for hosting this podcast. http://geekosophical.net/misc/pleia_on_the_radio.ogg

German LoCo announces Ubucon 2007

The first Ubuntu Conference for Germany has been set for October 20th and 21st of this year. Whether you are a tech savvy computer expert or just an everyday user, the German Ubucon is the place to be in October. Their goal is to give everyone a deeper insight into the Ubuntu Linux distribution by focusing on presentations, talks, workshops, tutorials, and getting to know the other community members. Like Ubuntu, this Ubucon is free, but you need to register, so follow the link to find out more! http://the-space-station.com/blog/?p=14

New in Gutsy Gibbon

The Avivo Driver On Ubuntu

The Avivo Driver for ATI Radeon X1000 (R500) has been introduced to the public. It requires X server version 1.3 which will be standard in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. The driver contains RandR 1.2 support, support for a variety of R500 graphics cards, and most recently support for Shadow Framebuffer was added. While it still isn't comparable when it comes to the features found in the fglrx driver or even the open-source Radeon driver for the R200/300/400 series, it is a work in progress and should improve as time goes by. Instructions on installing this new driver can be seen by clicking the link. We should also note that Ubuntu users of Feisty Fawn will also find instructions on installing the required X server necessary to support and use this new driver. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=777&num=1

Launchpad News

Launchpad 1.1.7 Released

For those of you who don't know, Launchpad brings out a new version of its development about every four weeks, with the new version 1.1.7 recently released. This is quite an accomplishment considering that right now, they’ve got: five main applications, 3,397 registered projects, 1172 teams, a staggering 1,121,443 people registered and a heck of a lot of code. A few of the new features in version 1.1.7 are: Easier adding of dependency for projects with large numbers of projects, Support for email upstreaming of bug trackers, Importation and search of Debian bugs, Smart Server to make it quicker to create a new Launchpad-hosted branch, Searchable translations, and many more improvements. Find out more about the other improvements by clicking the link below. https://help.launchpad.net/ComingFeatures

In The Press

  • Will HP Follow Dell In Offering Preinstalled Ubuntu Systems!? - Rumors are flying around because Bdale Garbee, Hewlett-Packard's Linux CTO, is making a keynote address at the Ubuntu Live Conference on Monday, July 23, 2007. Thus, much speculation is that HP is going to follow in Dell's footsteps in offering preinstalled Ubuntu computers. It is PURE SPECULATION, but doing it at the conference would be the perfect stage to announce an Ubuntu initiative at HP. Don't put this one in the win column by any means, but do keep you fingers crossed. Another major computer company offering the Ubuntu Operating System preinstalled would only be a good thing. http://techiqmag.com/2007/07/16/four-surprises-in-the-linux-market/

  • "Intel launches mobile Linux initiative" - Intel has unveiled an ambitious project aimed at developing open source software for mobile devices. The Moblin project comprises a Linux kernel, UI framework, browser, multimedia framework, and embedded Linux image creation tools, along with developer resources such as documentation, mailing lists, and an IRC channel. Moblin is the upstream project from which several components of Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded are being derived. http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9302797289.html

  • "Windows Guy Tries Ubuntu 7.04" - Tom Baker gives us a time line of his experiences with running Feisty Fawn from the live CD on his Dell Latitude 620. After spending a few hours playing around with all the goodies on the live CD, he decides to go for the install. Impressed by the speed of the installation, 30 minutes, and the ease of use, he concludes that Feisty Fawn is the first Linux desktop OS that is ready to use by anyone. http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/328

  • "Open-Xchange Express Edition Announced" - Designed to make it easy for small and mid size businesses to take advantage of the cost savings of Open Source, without requiring prior Linux experience, is the main goal of OXEE. The package includes all the tools required to turn a bare bones computer into a fully functional collaboration server running Ubuntu Linux. This kind of ready to use software will make it easier for SMB's to increase productivity and spur innovation while reducing their IT costs.http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS9241467025.html

  • "NZ Outfit Dumps Open Office For MS Office" - The NZ Automobile Association has just announced that it is dropping Open Office and switching back to MS Office. According to their CIO, 'Microsoft Office is not any cheaper, but it was almost impossible to work out what open-source was actually costing because of issues such as incompatibility and training.' In addition, 'you have no idea where open-source products are going, whereas vendors like Microsoft provide a roadmap for the future.'" About 500 seats are involved. MS conceded to letting Office users run the software at home as well. http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/tech/A6AB17B34B1BA81ECC2573160079BFBC

  • "Linux device offers free phone calls for life" - A startup is readying an interesting new Linux-based device promising to deliver free domestic calls (in the U.S.) for life, with no ongoing charges. Ooma's hub uses P2P networking, with each user's landline serving as a potential local termination point for all other users. http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4897744650.html

  • Linux Install Podcast gives an audio tour of installing Kubuntu - thelip.net brings us a podcast featuring Ben Cheever of Salt Lake City, Utah, giving a step by step tutorial on installing Kubuntu Feisty Fawn, using the alternate CD. Ben covers partitioning, the initial set up, restricted drivers, desktop effects, and looks into alternate suspend applications for laptops. Ben uses a Dell Latitude laptop for the install and also covers wireless setup, Automatix and goes over some of the features of KDE. There is a lot of great information available for you Kubuntu Feisty Fawn laptop users on this podcast, so click the link and start enjoying it. http://thelip.net/?p=54

  • Leaving Redmond, Wa in 24 hours - tgdaily.com is hosting a series of periodic articles on how to migrate from Microsoft Windows to other operating systems. This first article gives insight into our own beloved Ubuntu Linux, and calls it the new face of Linux operating systems. Click on the link to update yourself by reading this in depth article. http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32967/113/

  • Automatix can break your Ubuntu Install - Automatix is a program designed to help ease the burden of users by installing many different programs automatically. But this report states that it is also breaking Ubuntu systems on a world wide basis. Some of the problems reported include, Xorg failures on video card driver installation and failed upgrades from Edgy to Feisty. Some believe that if the community would come together and help form a better support team, most of these problems could be solved. For now however, the reviews of Automatix seem to be sharply divided. http://pimpyourlinux.com/linux-feature-review/automatix-can-break-your-linux-ubuntu-install/

  • Everex announced yesterday that Wal-Mart will carry its GC3502 PC, which is rumoured that it will come with Ubuntu preinstalled. The PC would be sold under $300 as "back to school" product this fall. Read the whole story at: http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6819255233.html

In The Blogosphere

  • Securing Your Freenode Connection - Ubuntu Member Aaron Toponce aka atoponce, brings us another informative how to on Securing your Freenode connection. Aaron first describes how to cloak your host name to deter a DOS attack. Ubuntu Members are given a free cloak with their membership, one of the added perks of Ubuntu Membership. However, percentage wise, there are many more non members than members. The second part of the how to is devoted to avoiding a specific router exploit called DCC by switching the port that you connect to. Everyone who uses IRC and Freenode should take the time to read and implement these security features. Thanks Aaron! Freenode Security by Aaron Toponce

  • Ubuntu Feisty On Your USB Drive - This blogs how to is a very in depth tutorial with screen shots showing you how you can have a pocket version of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn that you can actually save your preferences on. It contains everything necessary to be able to set up your USB Drive to boot your favorite operating system, Ubuntu, on any computer you happen to be sitting in front of. How cool is that? For those of you who would rather have one with Xubuntu, there is a link to a separate tutorial for that. http://xubuntublog.wordpress.com/2007/06/17/ubuntu-feisty-on-your-usb-drive-finally/

  • Psychocats Sets A Standard for New Users - Click on the link below and you will be directed to a page with options. What's so great about that you ask? Well, for new users, clicking on the Ubuntu Tutorials will take you to a place that will rock your world. Forum Administrator Aysiu has put together a instructional that includes most everything a new Ubuntu user could want to know. From burning the ISO's, partitioning, installation, setting up the extra repositories, and security to multimedia and aptitude versus apt-get. I have referred many people to this wonderful guide over the years. Oh, and you can double your fun by clicking the link entitled UbuntuCat Blog and reading some of Aysiu's personal opinions. Thanks Aysiu, from many of us for your devotion to Ubuntu and the Ubuntu Community. http://psychocats.net/

Meetings and Events

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Ubuntu Live Conference

Georgia US LoCo meeting

Catalan LoCo meeting

Monday, July 23, 2007

Ubuntu Live Conference

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Ubuntu Live Conference

Kernel Team Meeting

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Edubuntu Team Meeting

Xubuntu Developers Meeting

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Ubuntu Development Team Meeting

  • Start: 15:00 UTC
  • End: 17:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC Channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: No agenda set yet

Friday, July 27, 2007

MOTU Team Meeting

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Georgia US LoCo meeting

Catalan LoCo meeting

Updates and security for 6.06, 6.10, and 7.04

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates

Ubuntu 6.10 Updates

Ubuntu 7.04 Updates

Bug Stats

  • Open (30604) +73 # over last week
  • Critical (23) 0 # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (15182) +37 # over last week
  • Unassigned (22899) +114 # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (110430) +985 # over last week

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

Translation Stats

  1. Spanish (25918) -898 # over last week
  2. French (38767) -58 # over last week
  3. Swedish (54492) -6 # over last week
  4. English-UK (60210) -15 # over last week
  5. German (63107) 0 # over last week

Remaining string to translate in Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon", see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/gutsy/

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Additional Ubuntu News

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Conclusion

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See you next week!

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