Issue67

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #67 for the week November 18th - November, 24th, 2007. In this issue we cover: Macedonia Students Use Ubuntu, New MOTU's, Azureaus Gets Fix, Launchpad News, Ubuntu Forum News, and much, much more.

UWN Translations

In This Issue

  • Every Macedonian Student To Use Ubuntu
  • MOTU
  • Azureus Gets Fix
  • Launchpad News
  • Ubuntu Forum News
  • In The Press
  • In The Blogosphere

  • Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Sercurity

  • Bug & Translation Stats

General Community News

Every Macedonian Student to Use Ubuntu-Powered Computer Workstations

LONDON, November 20th, 2007 - The Macedonia Ministry of Education and Science will deploy more than 180,000 workstations running Canonical’s Edubuntu 7.04 as part of its "Computer for Every Child" project. The Macedonia "Computer for Every Child" project is one of the largest known thin client and desktop Linux deployments ever undertaken. Half of elementary and secondary Macedonia students attend school in the morning, and half attend in the afternoon, so 180,000 workstations will allow for one classroom computing device per student for the entire Republic's public school population. The first 7000 computers pre-installed with Ubuntu were shipped on September 4th 2007. The project will enable a range of innovative educational programs, including interactive web-based classes in which specialized experts teach lessons in such areas as mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics to multiple schools and classrooms around the country. http://www.ubuntu.com/news/macedonia-school-computers

MOTU

John Dong is a MOTU! After years of work in Ubuntu (the Backports team, MOTU team, Forums administration, etc.) John finally became part of the team!

New in Gutsy Gibbon

Azureus Gets Fix

Over the past several weeks John Dong has been working in bug 57875 to make Azureus packages work again. Thanks to the help of countless package testers, this week the archive managers approved the updated package (2.5.0.4-1ubuntu3~gutsy1) for both the Backports and Updates repositories. We encourage torrenters to give Azureus another try -- you will find it faster, lighter, and more stable than you may expect.

Launchpad News

Personal Package Archives 101

Personal Package Archives 101 session: join Jordan Mantha (Laserjock) and Launchpad developer Celso Providelo (cprov) to learn the basics of using Launchpad's PPA to build and host your own Ubuntu packages.

Where: #ubuntu-classroom on Freenode. When: 15.00 - 16.00 UTC Wednesday 28th November.

Inkscape Joins Launchpad

Inkscape switching to Launchpad: Inkscape is switching its bug tracking to Launchpad. Right now the Launchpad team are importing Inkscape's bug history from their current tracker. Read project founder Bryce Harrington's comments on the Launchpad News blog: http://news.launchpad.net/general/inkscape-moving-to-launchpad

If you have a project and wish to choose Launchpad for your bug tracking system, please send an email to feedback@launchpad.net.

Ubuntu Forum News

This Weeks Interviews & Observations

Quite a funny timing, this week's interviews features jdong, one of the Forums administrators and FC member. He is also our unofficial security “expert”, and a collector interested in, hum, odd items... Discover the full interview here: http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/an-interview-with-jdong/

Additional forum spaming with malicious code that could corrupt user systems has unfortunately taken place once again this week. It got quickly handled, and a global banner has been set up to warn members: http://ubuntuforums.org/announcement.php?a=54. Next Forum Council meeting (date and time to be set up) will examine the different processes we can implement to deal with this new situation.

In The Press

  • Linux desktops grow and grow and grow - The Linux Foundation annual survey really runs till the end of the month but entries are drying up, and they've already received 20,000 responses, so they've started crunching the numbers. Just over half of respondents were from Europe and 35.8 per cent from the US. The majority, 68.4 per cent, of Linux desktops are in small and home office set-ups or small businesses with less than 100 machines. Medium businesses of between 101 and 500 PCs account for 9.7 per cent and companies with between 1,001 and 5,000 account for 6.2 per cent of Linux desktops. In terms of flavors of Linux the "Ubuntu family" accounts for 54.1 per cent followed by Red Hat versions with 50.2 per cent, while Novell SUSE picks up 35.2 per cent. Ubuntu scores slightly higher with personal users at 55.4 per cent, followed by Debian at 22.2 per cent and Gentoo 10.2 per cent, then Knoppix at 7.1 per cent. http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/11/23/linux_desktop_survey/

  • NComputing PC virtualization now comes in Ubuntu - NComputing, the company that has allowed cash-strapped schools and community organizations around the world to harness the untapped power of their PCs, has launched a virtual PC version for open-source Ubuntu Linux operating systems. The US-based company says it can reduce desktop computing costs by over 50 per cent, simply by using the up-to 90 per cent of computing power that commonly lies idle in every PC. This is achieved by hooking as many as 30 users up to one PC via a range of access terminals. Each user still has a monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers, but instead of each running a desktop or laptop PC, they connect to a single machine. "NComputing has dramatically reduced the cost of PC computing to empower a new generation of users in under-served markets worldwide," said Stephen Dukker, CEO and Chairman of NComputing. "Our virtual PC solutions, when combined with open-source software such as Ubuntu Linux and OpenOffice.org, are hard to beat." http://m-net.net.nz/2071/latest-news/latest-news/ncomputing-pc-virtualisation-now-comes-in-ubu.php

  • Ubuntu Server: Good Concept, Flawed Execution - Carla Schroder continues her examination of the Ubuntu Server in this article. First the good stuff: It's an easy, one-CD installation. Some users might have an expectation that Ubuntu Server will be all shiny and easy like Ubuntu Desktop. It's not—you need to know what you're doing, because it doesn't do any hand-holding. The bad stuff: Poor documentation on the Ubuntu-specific customizations. Bleeding-edge package versions are scary for servers, and she questions the effectiveness of putting something like App-Armor on a system that is already security-questionable. LAMP security is famously difficult even with conservative package choices, and careful attention to security patching. Quality control seems in need of some quality control. The concept behind Ubuntu Server is wonderful— a lean, carefully-selected batch of packages that gets you up and running quickly, and that you can easily add to as you need. She can see using Ubuntu Server as a LAN server, and as a training server, but she thinks opening it up to the Internet is asking for trouble. http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3712031

  • Rice Technology Solutions to Distribute Ubuntu Based Linux Exclusively - Rice Technology Solutions (RTS), a southern Nevada based IT solutions provider, and subcontracting firm today announced that it will exclusively distribute Ubuntu for all future linux deployments. Ubuntu was selected in large part because of the company's technical savvy and business acumen. The partnership will provide Canonical Ltd with a local point of presence on the sales side, as well as hardware and software installation, service and support. When asked why should companies consider a Linux solutions opposed to a traditional Windows based solution, Rice said: "Linux is the future of the desktop and server, unlike its main competitor Windows, the software is constantly updated and improved upon. There are many features that make it a superior choice, those being security, scalability, reliability." http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/26394/

  • Ubuntu Scores First Major Pre-installed Server Win - Dell is expected to announce in the first quarter of 2008 that it has certified Ubuntu Linux for its server lines. In an interview with Rick Becker, Dell Product Group's vice president of solutions, Becker said that Dell is currently in the process of certifying Ubuntu for all its server lines. "But we are still several months away from announcing a certification. I'd say it'll be announced in Q1 next year." Dell, however, is already selling pre-loaded Ubuntu on its servers. "At the moment, if a Dell customer asks us to pre-load Ubuntu on a server, we'll do it for them. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2217530,00.asp

In The Blogosphere

  • Linux United. No more Distro Wars - Justin Breithaupt thinks it's time to put the distro wars to an end. "One thing I’ve learned the hard way through several business deals and by trying to release my own distro is that you should not bash other distro's, people, or companies that do you wrong." The distro war that has been holding the Linux community back. Ubuntu is a prime example of this war. "Their community has made it clear to me several times that they should be the only distro for desktop users to clear up confusion between distro's, because their distro is the best one, and it’s the easiest to use. This is the kind of attitude that will bring us all down." http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/96277/

Meetings and Events

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

New York Loco Meeting

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Personal Package Archives 101

  • Start: 15:00 UTC
  • End: 16:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-classroom
  • Agenda: Basics of Personal Package Archives and, if there’s time, questions.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Desktop Team Development Meeting

  • Start: 14:00 UTC
  • End: 15:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: No agenda listed as of the publication

Updates and security for 6.06, 6.10, 7.04, and 7.10

Security Updates

  • None Reported

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates

Ubuntu 6.10 Updates

Ubuntu 7.04 Updates

Ubuntu 7.10 Updates

Bug Stats

  • Open (37590) +220 # over last week
  • Critical (16) +/-0 # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (20263) +114 # over last week
  • Unassigned (28805) +181 # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (136906) +1048 # 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 (14902) -164 # over last week
  2. French (38688) +/-0 # over last week
  3. Swedish (49226) -16 # over last week
  4. English-UK (45941) -5642 # over last week
  5. German (66535) +/-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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Conclusion

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UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue67 (last edited 2008-08-06 17:00:41 by localhost)