Issue59

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #59 for the week September 23rd - September 29th, 2007. In this issue we cover the Ubuntu 7.10 Beta release, newly approved LoCo team and Ubuntu members , LoCos participating in Ohio LinuxFest 2007, and, as always, much much more!

UWN Translations

In This Issue

  • Ubuntu 7.10 Beta Released
  • Newly Approved Ubuntu Members
  • Søren Hansen Joins Ubuntu Core Developers
  • Florida Loco Team Is Approved

  • LoCos Participate in Ohio LinuxFest 2007

  • In The Press and In the Blogosphere
  • Meetings and Events
  • Updates and security for 6.06, 6.10, and 7.04
  • Translation stats
  • Bug Stats

General Community News

Ubuntu 7.10 Beta Released

The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the beta release of Ubuntu 7.10 and its variants, Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu. Codenamed "Gutsy Gibbon", 7.10 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. Ubuntu 7.10 on the desktop features a cutting-edge graphical experience with composited desktop effects, fully automated printer installation, and superior support for Firefox browser plugins. Ubuntu 7.10 server edition brings enhanced security-in-depth with AppArmor and easy install-time options for multiple common server configurations.

  • Desktop Highlights: Compiz Fusion, Printer installation, Free Flash support with Gnash, and Automated Firefox plugin installation.
  • Server Highlights: App`Armor, and Pre-configured installation options
  • Edubuntu Highlights: Faster thin clients
  • Kubuntu Highlights: In addition to the above Desktop Highlights, Dolphin file manager, Strigi desktop search, and Restricted-manager.

For other information on where to download, feedback and help, comments and bug support, and much more, visit the link below.https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2007-September/000103.html

Newly Approved Ubuntu Members

  • Jeffrey Elkner has been using Ubuntu since Hoary. He is a founding member of the DC Loco Team and has set up numerous Ubuntu/Edubuntu labs. He has also been active at the Ubuntu Down Under and Ubuntu Below Zero developer summits. He also participates in several projects including Edubuntu Installations and Edubuntu User Stories. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JeffreyElkner and https://launchpad.net/~jelkner

  • Paul Bartell has been using Ubuntu since Hoary. He is a member of the Ubuntu PNW and the Ubuntu Washington Loco Teams. His dream is that Ubuntu will eventually obtain at least a 50% market share. Paul's also been involved in several install fests, tech fairs, and Software Freedom Day events in Seattle. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaulBartell

  • Neal McBurnett has been an Ubuntu user, promoter, contributor and distributor since the first release in 2004, on servers and desktops, for myself and several non-profit organizations. An active member and founding member of the Colorado Loco Team, he helped to organize a little Ubucon at Google in Boulder last June. Neal is also active on the Ubuntu Server Team, Launchpad Beta Testers, Ubuntu Directory Services, and the Ubuntu Loco Ethusiasts Team. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NealMcBurnett and https://launchpad.net/~nealmcb/

  • Matthew Gallagher started using Ubuntu with the Breezy release. He is a member of the Ubuntu DC Loco Team, and helped to set up the Ubuntu/Edubuntu labs in several Virginia locations. Helping to advocate and educate in the Virginia area seem to be the focus of this new Ubuntu Member. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MatthewGallagher and https://launchpad.net/~mattva01

  • Chris Rohde is most active in the Florida Loco team and spends most of his time the #ubuntu-florida channel helping to build their team. He started the Ubuntu Florida Loco Team in March 07, and has since spent all his time working on spreading and improving this loco team and its influence within Florida. He was instrumental in helping plan Orlando's first Bar Camp, and right now is helping to plan the Gutsy release parties in Florida. One of his short term goals is to help a few more Florida Loco Team members to obtain Ubuntu Membership. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ChrisRohde and https://launchpad.net/~bordy

  • Rick Clark works for Canonical as the manager of the Ubuntu Server Team. He is fairly new to Ubuntu, but has been a long time Linux user. Currently his main focus is growing the Server community particularly with people that work in corporate environments. Rick is as active as he can be in the Georgia US Loco. Many of the things he works on are currently not public, but UDS planning, Hardy planning take up a large part of my time these days. His most recent success was getting re worked libpam-ldap and lib-nss-ldap packages in main, as well as ldap-auth-config and ldap-auth-client, which he created. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/dendrobates and https://launchpad.net/~dendrobates

  • Michael Price is a member of the Beginner's Team, Ubuntu Wiki Team and the Ohio Loco Team among other teams. He is very active on the Ubuntu Forums and he has helped to clean up the wiki pages and created a few new pages on the Wiki. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Seisen and https://launchpad.net/~seisen

  • Mackenzie Morgan has been using Ubuntu for a year after a suggestion from a friend. She is a member of the DC LoCo and helped with the events there, like Software Freedom Day and Takoma Park. Participation in install fests and demo's have also been part of her Ubuntu focus. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MacoMorgan and https://launchpad.net/~maco.m

Søren Hansen Joins Ubuntu Core Developers

Having worked in Ubuntu and especially the Ubuntu Server Land, Søren Hansen joined the ranks of Ubuntu Core Developers. http://launchpad.net/~shawarma

LoCo News

Florida Loco Team Is Approved

By showing strong membership, advocacy, community involvement and charitable donations, the Florida Loco Team is the newest approved Ubuntu Loco Team. Active in Community Expo's, Software Freedom Day events, Bar Camp and Bar Camp Orlando, this team exemplifies the best of Ubuntu. Future plans for the team include development of a Florida Team LiveCD, working with the Alabama Loco Team and the Georgia Loco Team on a multi-state Linux Fest, and of course more advocacy events to further promote Ubuntu in the State of Florida. Congratulations Team Florida and keep up the great work! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FloridaTeam/

LoCos Participate in Ohio LinuxFest 2007

The Ohio LoCo manned a booth at Ohio LinuxFest 2007, which had over 2000 attendees. Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania LoCo teams were also present, along with individuals from the Georgia and Nebraska LoCos. Steven Stalcup, member the Ohio team, and Jorge Castro, of the Michigan team, gave talks at the event. Slides used for the presentations and pictures may be seen at http://vorian.org/?p=150.

In The Press

  • First Impressions: Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon - Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon, aka version 7.10, due to release next month. In Gnome 2.20, I can--at long last--drag and drop files out of zip and tarball archives. And thus one of my wishes for 2007 has been granted. The e-mail client, Evolution, has a cool new feature (suppressible with one click; quit your whining) that harangues you when you seem to be forgetting an intended attachment. Several disparate applets in the Gnome Control Panel have been brought together in the new Appearance applet, too. Totem, the media player, has much improved automatic codec downloading and installation. (The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, the most powerful tech journalist on the planet, recently criticized this feature for referring to codec packs that are "bad" and "ugly," but he failed to note that the feature works perfectly for a wide variety of media types, and that nothing like it exists on Windows or the Mac.) The power manager icon on my Gnome panel now provides a constant, dependable approximation of how much battery life is left, and even tells me if my creaky old battery is shot. Gutsy includes other niceties that are unrelated to the new Gnome release. When Firefox encounters a media type it doesn't know how to handle, it now uses the system's package-management tools to locate, download, and install the Ubuntu package for the necessary browser plug-in, all automatically. A PDF-generating virtual printer lets you easily produce PDF files from any application that can print. A new, friendly tool helps with graphics-card and monitor setup. The Tracker desktop-search tool is now installed and enabled by default, as are snazzy desktop effects (windows that fade in and out, Exposé-like task switching) driven by Compiz. Gutsy is still a beta, so I render no final conclusions about it here; I will say, though, that I like the changes I see, and I'm hungry for more. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,137663-c,linux/article.html

  • Review of Ubuntu 7.10 (gutsy) new features and changes (From: Tolero’s tech notes) - Compiz Fusion - Desktop Effects, Screen, Graphics and Driver Preferences, Desktop search, Printing service changes, Free flash player, Firefox - A third (currently alpha) version of the Firefox browser named ‘Gran Paradiso’ is included into the ‘universe’ repository, Gimp 2.4 and Open Office 2.3 Conclusion - As always, new version of Ubuntu is better than previous. But probably this version did the most powerful step forward than any other. I will strongly recommend my friend, who is using another operating system, to settle on the Ubuntu gutsy now, because most of the major barriers for newbies are gone. During testing run of the gutsy I have met only one confusing case. It was during installation of updates, when Update manager opened a terminal emulator frame. It was unclear even to me, what should I do next: just wait, because it was just an information message or type something in. In reality, I have simply to hit the ‘Enter’ button. http://tech.tolero.org/blog/en/linux/review-ubuntu-710-gutsy-features-changes

  • Review: Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon (beta) - The biggest step forwards as far as I'm concerned is the improvement to the configuration of the X server. This means that you're now able to make changes to your display configuration without faffing around gediting your Xorg.conf file. Ubuntu now has the ability to switch between users quickly (sound familiar XP users?). This is handy because you don't need to close down the current session to change users. Gutsy is going to be the first Ubuntu release to ship with 3d effects installed by default and that's a nice touch. An impressive introduction is the PDF printer (something I recommend most people to have anyway); meaning you can print your documents straight to PDF without installing third party applications. Tracker is Google desktop search for all intents and purposes. It's able to index meta data contained within your files, folders, everything. From the contents of your documents to the meta-data attached to your Audio files: tracker searches them all. http://www.seopher.com/articles/review_ubuntu_7_10_gutsy_gibbon_beta_

  • First Ubuntu 7.10 ('Gutsy Gibbon') beta arrives - Ubuntu fans rejoice! The first beta of the next Ubuntu 7.10, aka "Gutsy Gibbon," arrived on Sept. 27, complete with corresponding releases of its variants: Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu desktop editions, as well as a server edition. Starting with the desktop, Ubuntu has moved to the brand spanking new GNOME 2.20 for its primary desktop environment. Compiz Fusion is a very new open-source project. It builds on top of the Compiz compositing windows manager foundation. To this, Compiz Fusion adds features from the, now merged with Compiz, Beryl composite window manager and Compiz Extras, a community set of improvements to Compiz. The Gutsy Gibbon beta also now includes dynamic screen configuration. With the right graphic drivers and chipsets for ATI, nVidia, and Intel graphics chips installed, Ubuntu can support the X Resize and Rotate Extension (xrandr); thanks to this capability, Ubuntu can dynamically detect monitors or projectors and allow for easy resizing and rotating of video output. The Gutsy Gibbon beta also includes a new deskbar applet. This applet enables you to quickly get to your most frequently used activities. Thinking of Web browsers, the new Ubuntu beta also makes it easier to get most of out of Firefox, thanks to an improved plugin finder wizard that lets users search and install packaged Firefox plugins. Under the hood, users will find the Linux 2.6.22 kernel powering up both the client (desktop) and server versions. This is supported by GCC 4.1.2 and glibc 2.6. One final note: the Ubuntu project would like to remind would-be users that this is a beta release. You should not install it on "production" machines. The final, stable version is expected to be released in next month. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS4543424246.html

In The Blogosphere

  • Ubuntu Desktop not used in business - I got a telling reponse from Canonical when I approached its Public Relations team looking for case studies of businesses that had switched from Windows: … we find that the businesses using Ubuntu tend to use the server edition right now and so a windows comparison is not relevant. Ubuntu desktop is largely in the consumer space not business. It hardly comes as a surprise to discover that most businesses use Windows, but I did think there would be a few examples. I’ve been running Ubuntu, mainly on my laptop, and find it perfectly solid and useable. In fact, it is possibly better suited for business than for consumers. The problem with Linux is that you always seem to run into one or two problems that require intricate, non-obvious steps to resolve. I don’t mean to minimize the problems facing anyone switching to Linux. In the business world, that includes custom or niche software that is likely to be Windows-only. Every small business I encounter seems to have an Access or VB application that has become business-critical. Another snag is doing without Microsoft Office. Yes, Microsoft Office is over-priced (unless you are a home or academic user), but it is on the whole better to work with than Open Office. Another factor, under-appreciated by the media, is that Windows has a mature and very comprehensive administrative infrastructure for managing any number of desktops. For larger organizations this makes Windows the obvious choice. I am hoping that someone will read this blog and say, “this is nonsense, we use Ubuntu in business”. Comments below.
    • This is nonsense. I have 2 customers that use Ubuntu as business desktop OSs. They are small, but still businesses. One has 4 Ubuntu desktops (and 2 windows desktops) and the other has about 8 ubuntu desktops and 1 windows desktop. And of course, there is our business - we have 4 ubuntu desktops, 4-5 ubuntu laptops, one OS X macboo and one Windows desktop PC. So there are 3 businesses right there. Oh, and all 3 use Ubuntu server along with many more of our customers using Ubuntu Server with all windows desktop environments. The difficulty we have with Ubuntu is management. While it is easier to remotely manage at the OS level, it’s more difficult to troubleshoot user level problems (printing and scanning being the most difficult). shankwc
    • For once I saw something that is truth about linux in a blog. My organization cannot switch to ubuntu or any other linux distro because of the problems you have identified. Someone has to fix them if they want linux to challenge the windows (rather MS) monopoly. Kewl Dude
    • We tried, gave up and moved back to Ubuntu. We are a small IT consultancy firm and provide solutions mainly on Linux but had been using Windows internally. We tried to push Linux on the desktop internally but failed initially with Fedora 4. We gave up and used Windows for a year or so. Recently we installed Ubuntu 7.04 for one of the developers when he was complaining of Virus/Worm issues and after seeing his hassle free desktop and the breadth of other applications, the rest of the employees actually came up and requested Ubuntu including all departments. Our infrastructure costs have come down dramatically. K. C. Ramakrishna
    • “This is nonsense, we use Ubuntu in business” Actually we use Kubuntu on all our machines at My Game Company. We do e-mail, software development, web site development and publishing, artwork, order fulfillment, finances, and all of our back end work on Kubuntu. We use Firefox for internet access, Thunderbird for our e-mail client, Spam Assassin for our spam filtering, GIMP for most of our game art, SoniK for audio editing, gftp for FTP, and Cross Over Linux for all the Windows applications we need (including Office 2000, Frontpage 2000, Quicken, Corel Photopaint 8, and Feed For All). We only use Windows and Mac when we have to port and test our games. We’ve been very happy with Kubuntu since we switched a year and a half ago. The file system is so much faster than Windows, and the machines are much more responsive. It is also very stable. The Windows apps run very well under Cross Over Linux, and in fact some of them start up faster on Kubuntu than they do on the same machine running Windows XP. We’ve had no problems with viruses, spyware, or adware. It has been a very satisfying experience, and we have no intention of ever going back to Windows. Troy Hepfner

    • As the PR guy who wrote the quote, albeit in a rushed email exchange not an official statement, let me complete the context. The vast majority of Ubuntu users are individuals using it either at home or at work. We see Ubuntu on desktops in thousands of companies across the world but that is different to being standardised as the desktop solution in these companies. As the IBM guy above says “we have guys running Ubuntu” but are IBM an official reference for Ubuntu? Sadly, no. So, ill-chosen words. For consumer read individual. I would appeal to readers who are using Ubuntu to tell us and let us use them as case studies to encourage others and to give to people like Tim as examples of businesses running Ubuntu. Consider buying support to resolve any issues - Landscape is designed to manage multiple deployments and is free with support contracts. Contribute, in short, and help us as we continue to invest to resolve the remaining issues on the way to widespread adoption in businesses. Gerry Carr Marketing Manager, Canonical http://www.itwriting.com/blog/?p=335

Meetings and Events

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Kernel Team Meeting

Ubuntu Artwork Team

Ubuntu New York Loco Meeting

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Launchpad Users Meeting

  • Start: 16:00 UTC
  • End: 16:45 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #launchpad
  • Agenda: Come find out what we’ve got planned for Launchpad 1.1.10 and ask your questions of the Launchpad team.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Xubuntu Developers 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 (31940) +902 # over last week
  • Critical (17) +0 over last week
  • Unconfirmed (16614) +537 # over last week
  • Unassigned (23903) +742 # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (123439) +2185 # 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

  1. Spanish (19560) -483 # over last week
  2. French (39723) -515 # over last week
  3. Swedish (51466) -733 # over last week
  4. English-UK (56558) +723 # over last week
  5. German (63860) -370 # 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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UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue59 (last edited 2008-08-06 16:59:51 by localhost)