Issue79

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 79 for the weeks February 17th - February 23rd, 2008. In this issue we cover the release of Hardy Alpha 5, Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, Ubuntu Developer Week, newly approved LoCos and members, interview with the Ubuntu Server Product Manager, and, as always, much, much more!

UWN Translations

In This Issue

  • Hardy Alpha 5 Released
  • Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex
  • 5-a-Day
  • Newly Approved LoCos and Members

  • Review of Developer Week
  • Interview with Nick Barcet, Ubuntu Server Product Manager
  • Florida Team Rocks the Florida Linux Show
  • In The Press & Blogosphere

  • Meeting Summaries
  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

  • Bugs & Translations

General Community News

Hardy Alpha 5 Released

Another Hardy Heron pre-release is available for testing. Alpha 5 is the fifth in a series of six milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Hardy development cycle. Alpha 5 includes several new features that are ready for large-scale testing. Please refer to http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/hardy/alpha5 for information on changes in Ubuntu and https://wiki.kubuntu.org/HardyHeron/Alpha5/Kubuntu for changes in Kubuntu. Pre-releases of Hardy are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-February/000387.html

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

Hardy is now past feature-freeze and it's time to start planning features that are being lined up for inclusion after Ubuntu 8.04 LTS is released in April. The release which is planned for October 2008, will be named "Intrepid Ibex", and will most likely be version 8.10. The desktop will once again be a focal point as the team works to re-engineer the users interaction model so that Ubuntu works as well on a high-end workstation as well as it does on a sub-notebook. A particular focus will be pervasive internet access, the ability to tap into bandwidth whenever and wherever you happen to be. The ability to move from the office, to the train, and home, staying connected all the way will be a top priority. Ubuntu 8.10 will be the ninth release, and the fourth anniversary of the first release - 4.10.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2008-February/025136.html

5-a-Day

What is 5-A-Day? 5-A-Day is a blitz of the community to fix bugs. A simplified explanation, but if everyone pitches in and helps on just 5 bugs, think of the results. Not sure you have to ability to fix bugs? No problem! This program has been set up to let everyone contribute in some way. Follow the link to find out how you can help! And remember help to spread the news of this worth while bug blitz, by adding it to your blog. Get busy, get involved, and help get rid of those pesky bugs. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/5-A-Day

Newly Approved LoCos

  • Maryland Team - In less than a year, the Ubuntu Maryland LoCo Team has gone from a small group of Ubuntu enthusiasts to a large number of active members with a wide variety of technical expertise. The Team has already hosted a number of events, including install fests and presentations, as well as regularly scheduled meetings in-person and on IRC. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarylandTeam

  • Colombian Team - It has been a slow but steady path to bring together an active group of Ubuntu users in the Colombian Team. Free open source software does not have much visibility in local media and the government, educational and private initiatives have only been gaining traction for the past few 2-3 years. The Colombian Team has done projects like creating the Ubuntu in Wayuunaiki translation project and participated in events like Software Freedom Day with presentations and CD distribution. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ColombianTeam

  • Indiana Team - The Indiana LoCo Team has worked closely with the various LUGs to promote both Ubuntu and Linux in general. This has led to the Indiana LinuxFest. The LoCo has pursued projects such as the inACCESS / School Advocacy and Support program, which has spread Linux and open-source software through the school systems in Indiana. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IndianaTeam

Newly Approved Members

  • Eddie Martinez - Eddie created the agenda for the first Ubuntu-IL meeting, helped with the Ubuntu side of InstallFest at BarCampChicago, and helped represent the LoCo at FlorishConf 2007, a conference for FL/OSS at a local university. He has helped create the agenda for several meetings of the Ubuntu-Chicago LoCo as well as acted as moderator for their mailing list. He launched the Ubuntu-Illinois CodeSprint for Feb. 9th, 2008 and is working with the Ohio and Michigan Teams to set up a TriLoCo meeting/collaboration. He is working with the LoCo on "Project Green", converting Christian Life College in Mt. Prospect, Illinois to 100% Ubuntu. https://launchpad.net/~eddiemartinez

  • Leandro Gómez - Leandro started the Nicaraguan Ubuntu LoCo Team (approved in April) and since then his main efforts have been in improving the local team and helping other teams in the region get started. He has participated in the organization of many events in the last twelve months, including the award-winning SFD Nicaragua 2007 event and the Linux Tour, one of the biggest Linux events in Central America. https://launchpad.net/~leogomez72

  • Eric Krieger - Eric is a member of the New Mexico Team, project lead for Endorphin Power Company Ubuntu Install and Support, which is dedicated to improving the lives of people, with special focus on the substance-dependent and homeless. He participated in the 2007 Software Freedom Day Team in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. He has also posted various "HOWTOs" on the Ubuntu Forums. https://launchpad.net/~grammatoncleric

  • Andrea Colangelo - Part of the the Italian LoCo Team, Andrea is involved in CD and sticker projects, Ubuntu-it Press Office (the team that writes press-releases and take care of contacts with media) and Ubuntu-it screencasts. Andrea is also a member of Italian Developer Team, involved in packaging and backporting software that the Italian community requests. Future plans include becoming a MOTU, and continuing focus on Debian/Ubuntu cooperation. https://launchpad.net/~warp10

  • Craig A. Eddy - Craig has been a contributor to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter since November 2007. He is a member of the Arizona Team and has been the reporter for the AZ Team Newsletter as well. In addition, he has submitted bug reports to LaunchPad and assists people on the Ubuntu Forums. https://edge.launchpad.net/~tyche

  • Greg Grossmeier - Greg is the Founder/Team Lead for the Michigan LoCo. He helped setup the first packaging jam, and is part of the Bug Control Team on LaunchPad. https://launchpad.net/~greg.grossmeier

  • Nicolas Valcárcel - Nicolas is a member of the Peruvian LoCo Team (and council). He has given talks about the MOTU process, MOTU Development, and how to get started. He has plans for 3 more talks for the next 2 months about Ubuntu development. Nicolas ran 2 sessions during Developer Week and has been active in bug fixing and bug triage. https://launchpad.net/~nvalcarcel

Review of Developer Week

The first ever Ubuntu Developer Week was a success. Session covered a wide array of topics like learning how to triage bugs, different packaging techniques, Ubuntu derivatives, MOTU processes, hosting code on Launchpad, and packaging Firefox 3 extensions. IRC logs and details can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek. To read summaries of sessions from each day, see Daniel Holbach's blog:

http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/?p=88

http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/?p=91

http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/?p=92

http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/?p=94

Interview with Nick Barcet, Ubuntu Server Product Manager

UWN: Who are you? What do you do at Canonical?

I'm Nick Barcet, an almost 40 years old geek that started programming on a TRS-80 quite a long time ago. I joined Canonical in September 2007 to fill the role of Ubuntu Server Product Manager. The role of a product manager is to be the interface between the technical team and the rest of the company. This implies

  • gathering the feedback and requests from our other department and their customers or partner,
  • putting in common word the technicalities of new implementation so that our sales and marketing team can understand them
  • proposing and participating in the definition of the product strategy and many other fun activities.

UWN: How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro? And how long have you been using Ubuntu?

I started with Linux with SuSE in 1998 as a hobby, which became handy when Novell bought SuSE while I was working there. I switched to Ubuntu end of 2005 on my Desktop and with Dapper on my servers (I had left Novell at that time).

UWN: Virtualization is in the news more and more nowadays. The Server Team has been focusing on KVM, and VMware has been in the commercial repository for almost a year, and OpenVZ was just added. How is the relationship with VMware progressing? What has been the reaction to JeOS? Are ISVs putting it to use? Is there any more planned collaboration?

We do have a great relationship with VMWare, which is progressing very well. As you have noticed, we also started working with Parallels (ex SWSoft) and they are providing OpenVZ in Universe, which is another great option to Ubuntu users. As each of these technologies are providing answers to different use cases, I think that we are starting to have a great virtualization story on Ubuntu Server Edition.

JeOS has generated a lot of attention and the number of Virtual Appliances built on it are growing every day. JeOS is updated to work also with KVM in version 8.04, and we've also improved the VMWare ESX support. This will certainly increase the momentum that we are already observing. We're confident that 8.04, will see numerous ISVs certify on it and bringing many more options, both virtualised or not, to Ubuntu users.

UWN: Are there plans to get involved with "cloud" computing, similar to how RHEL is directly available on Amazon's EC2 services?

Ubuntu Server Edition works very well on EC2 already and there are quite a few how-to published on the subject, pre-built images posted by the community [1] and even virtual appliances available, such Paul Dowman's "EC2 on Rails" [2]. As you know, Canonical's business model is to sell Technical Support, not to sell the "maintenance" as other distribution do. We're watching the RH/Amazon tie up and it is definitely an interesting way of delivering the server product to the market. As we only charge for support and not maintenance we would have to deliver it a different way but it is too soon to talk about specifics or any deals.

As a side note, there is currently quite a bit of confusion in what is support and maintenance. What I refer to as maintenance is the is the commitment Ubuntu has on providing security updates for the packages that are defined in seed whatever dependencies are necessary to make them work. More precisely our commitment is to provide free maintenance for Ubuntu products as follow:

  • Ubuntu Desktop, Kubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server: security updates and select bug fixes (18 months)
  • Ubuntu Desktop LTS: Security updates and select bug fixes (3 years)
  • Ubuntu Server LTS: Hardware compatibility updates (until next LTS), Security updates and select bug fixes (5 years)

As you see, this is quite different from support, where this only covers the activity to provide various types of answers to customer over the phone, web or email which Canonical offers for a fee.

[1] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EC2 http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/kbcategory.jspa?categoryID=116

[2] http://ec2onrails.rubyforge.org/

UWN: Many businesses use Active Directory or some form of LDAP extensively. How is the Windows AD integration coming along for Hardy and what are the future plans?

Thanks to the great work from Jerry Carter producing likewise-open, and of Rick Clark packaging it in Ubuntu, the package has been uploaded just before Feature Freeze. On Ubuntu desktop, it provides a graphical interface to integrate into AD, while on Ubuntu Server Edition a single command line will allow the joining. Once this is done, all authentications are seamlessly redirected to AD.

It looks good at fulfilling its promise of very easy integration into an AD domain, but it now needs some extensive testing before 8.04 is released. If you have access to an AD domain and can run a few tests with Hardy, now is the right time to do so and it is a great way to contribute to Ubuntu Server Edition.

UWN: Landscape is systems management tool provided by Canonical with a support contract. What does it do? Are there other applications provided at the commercial level?

Landscape is a systems management tool that provides grouped management, inventory, user management and monitoring of multiple servers in a centralized way. With Landscape it is possible to simultaneously request and installation, update or removal of a package on all or some of your managed at the same time. The same can be done for users. You also get a very clear summary of resources consumption on you servers over time with very smart graphs grouping the info for multiple servers. More information and screen shots are available on Canonical's web site [1].

Landscape is the only application we provide specifically for commercial support users right now. We intend to improve and expand it over time to become even more valuable to them as it is a compelling reason to use our support. These customers are also encouraged to use Launchpad and Bazaar if appropriate. I don't know if we will add more applications for commercial customers. We will where and when it make sense.

[1]http://www.canonical.com/projects/landscape

Launchpad News

Launchpad 1.2.2: faster PPA builds, enhanced bug subscriptions and more karma!

It's time for another Launchpad release and this is one with something for just about everyone!

  • Karma fiends take note: registering branches and linking branches to bugs or blueprints now earns you karma! Want to know more about karma? Take a look at https://help.launchpad.net/KarmaCalculation

  • Faster PPA builds: we've cut the time it takes to build packages in PPAs. The moment you upload your source, Launchpad starts building.
  • More bug notifications: now you can subscribe to get bug mail about any milestone, project, package or distribution.
  • Savannah bug watches: keep an eye on bugs tracked at savannah.gnu.org and savannah.nognu.org
  • Improved branch registration page: it's now easier to register a branch in Launchpad.

There's also exciting news for Launchpad beta testers! You can now apply to use Launchpad to run a mailing list for a team you're involved with. Find out more at https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp

Not a beta tester yet? You're missing out on first looks at new features and the chance to shape the future of Launchpad. Learn more at https://help.launchpad.net/BetaTesting

For more details, see https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/launchpad-users/2008-February/003233.html

Ubuntu Forums News

Ubuntu Forums Interviews

Interviews with the following Forums members are now available:

Tutorials Of The Week

Here are the tutorials that have been selected for the past few weeks:

In The Press

  • Dell adds new notebook to Ubuntu lineup - Usually, the North American computer giants introduce their latest and greatest products to the U.S. market first, with Europe an afterthought. Not this time. Dell is bringing its latest Ubuntu-powered laptop, the Inspiron 1525, to the Europeans first. Americans will need to wait until later in February for Dell's newest Ubuntu Linux computer. The Dell Inspiron 1525 was introduced in January as the smaller, lighter and cheaper cousin of the popular Dell 1520. At just under 6 pounds, with a choice of eight colors and four optional design patterns, and with pricing that's expected to start at $499, this laptop is attractive to both the eye and the wallet. The laptop is built around the single-core Intel Celeron 540 processor at 1.86GHz, with a 533MHz FSB (Front Side Bus). With only 512MB of RAM, don't even think of running Vista, but it's more than enough for Ubuntu 7.10. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2937357707.html

In The Blogosphere

  • Cheap is good, but free is better - Jim Fisher writes that OpenOffice is a great free replacement for Microsoft Office. There are so many open source alternatives to most commercial programs, that an educated consumer may never have to purchase software if he knows where to look. Jim suggests alternatives to all sorts of expensive software programs like using GIMP as a replacement for Photoshop. He also recommends Ubuntu, since it comes loaded with applications that most people need such as a Web browser, Open-Office, instant messaging and other programs. Ubuntu requires much less horsepower to run than Windows XP and Vista, making it an ideal choice for older systems. If the user is familiar with Windows, the transition to Ubuntu will be easy.

  • 5 Things I Don’t Like About Ubuntu 7.10 - Matt has made the decision to move to Ubuntu, away from the world of Windows, which he has used for over 10 years. There are a lot of great things with Ubuntu and a few things he doesn't like. The default themes and wallpapers that come with Ubuntu are not attractive to him. Why is the screen saver selection and the wallpaper selection in two different places? They should be in one easy-to-find menu. Innovate file management. While there is nothing wrong with the current setup, there is nothing special about either. Ubuntu, for some reason, doesn’t find his iMac on the network and it’s kind of an annoyance. He also hates the terminal. Matt suggests making it easier to do things and maybe be able to do it with a GUI. http://www.lockergnome.com/digged/2008/02/19/5-things-i-dont-like-about-ubuntu-710/

In Other News

Canadian Availability of Dell machines

Dell has increased the availability of their systems. Now you can purchase the same machines in Canada that are available in the United States. A new machine is also available: the Inspiron 1525 (available in various colors). To keep up to date on all the Dell/Ubuntu offerings, bookmark: http://www.ubuntu.com/dell - this is the Ubuntu page for everything Dell/Ubuntu and will be updated as new products become available.

Zenbuntu

Zebuntu: http://zebuntu.com/ - is a new Xfce-based Ubuntu distribution with heavy Zeta influences. Bernd Korz explains the goals of Zebuntu in the project's announcement: http://zebuntu.com/component/content/article/25-das-projekt/46-zebuntu-sagt-qguten-tagq.html (in German): "Our goal is to use BlueEyedOS to offer a new platform for our former Zeta customers. In the future, Zeta, BeOS, as well as any future Haiku applications, will run natively on Zebuntu. This also offers a distinct advantage for developers for these platforms; they can use Zebuntu to develop for their platforms while utilising the performance and versatility of Linux." In other words, run BeOS applications on Linux.

http://osnews.com/story/19359/Zebuntu_Debuts

Canonical to resell IBM DB2 Express-C as software, virtual appliances

Canonical announced the availability of IBM DB2 Express-C 9.5 through the Ubuntu Partner Repository and as a virtual appliance running on VMware. IBM DB2 Express-C is a no-charge edition of the DB2 database server. Ideal for small businesses and multi-branch companies, DB2 Express-C can be set up quickly, is easy-to-use, and includes self-managing capabilities. "IBM DB2 Express-C is a great example of how we are bringing business-class applications to the Ubuntu community. Users have more access than ever before to the tools they need," said Mark Murphy, Canonical alliances manager. Canonical is also making an annual support contract for IBM DB2 Express-C available to its users through shop.canonical.com. This announcement marks the first time that Ubuntu users will be able to buy an annual subscription service directly from the company. "Allowing for the purchase of annual subscriptions directly from Canonical is also part of a larger commitment to mid-size enterprises that we will continue to build upon this year."

http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ibm-db2-ubuntu-virtual-appliance

Meeting Summaries

Ubuntu Studio

  • Continuing to manage/merge seed changes.
  • Artwork is 75% complete.
  • Continue testing and fixing bugs.

Documentation Team

Installer Team

Kubuntu Team

  • KDE 3 branch updated to 3.5.9 in Hardy
  • KDE 4 branch updated to 4.0.1 in Hardy and Gutsy (Gutsy PPA)
  • KOffice2 updated to Alpha 6 release in Hardy and Gutsy (Gutsy PPA)
  • Improvements to the new Printer configuration application (system-config-printer)
  • Improved LUKS support
  • HTTP Proxy support added to Ubiquity (ubiquity-frontend-kde)
  • South Birmingham LUG (sblug) held a Kubuntu Bug Triage Tutorial
  • Welcomed 3 new members - Carlos Diener (emonkey), Christian Mangold (neversfelde), and Eugene Tretyak (etretyak)

Wine Team

  • Wine 0.9.55 is in repositories, however it segfaults. Currently trying to narrow down the problem (see https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/wine/+bug/191575)

  • All needed 32 bit libaries are now included in ia32-libs, so amd64 should work the same as i386 without missing any functionality.
  • Wine now runs Photoshop CS2 fairly well.
  • No solution yet for how to include gecko into the package because Wine's gecko must be compiled with MSVC. Further discussion is needed on ubuntu-devel-discuss.
  • Inclusion of wine-mono, which is more difficult, hasn't started yet either.
  • Found a worker (Griswold) for the upstream changes we need to do some UI stuff in Better-Integrated-Wine-Spec https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BetterIntegratedWineSpec

For more information, see Team Reports: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TeamReports/February2008

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Monday, February 25, 2008

Hugs for Bugs Day

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Hugs for Bugs Day

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Hugs for Bugs Day

Marketing Team Meeting

Launchpad users meeting

Platform Team Meeting

  • Start: 07:00 UTC
  • End: 08:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: No agenda listed as of the publication

Education Team Meeting

  • Start: 12:00 UTC
  • End: 14:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: No agenda listed as of the publication

Server Team Meeting

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Desktop Team Meeting

Friday, February 29, 2008

MOTU Meeting

Community Spotlight

Florida Team Rocks the Florida Linux Show

The Florida LoCo Team joined together for the 1st Annual FLorida Linux Show. The exhibit booth experienced tremendous traffic, and provided support for both installation and application issues as they arose. It was refreshing to the team to see how many people were actively using ubuntu, and to listen to their experiences both positive and negative. The Florida LoCo team gained some new members and spent some time getting to know each other better in RL. See pics of Florida Loco Team Events: http://florida.ubuntu-us.org/content/blogcategory/25/67/

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

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates

Ubuntu 6.10 Updates

Ubuntu 7.04 Updates

Ubuntu 7.10 Updates

Bug Stats

  • Open (39959) +23 # over last week
  • Critical (21) -2 # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (19889) -392 # over last week
  • Unassigned (30490) +14 # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (154176) +1783 # 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 - Gutsy Gibbon

  1. Spanish (12390) +1 # over last week
  2. English-UK (24948) +1 # over last week
  3. French (37624) -104 # over last week
  4. Swedish (49177) +1 # over last week
  5. Brazilian Portuguese (65435) -194 # over last week

Translation Stats - Hardy Heron

This establishes the base-line for future weeks.

  1. Spanish (14508)
  2. English-UK (41221)
  3. French (44082)
  4. Swedish (53857)
  5. Brazilian Portuguese (67443)

Remaining string to translate in Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron", see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy

Archives and RSS Feed

You can always find older Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter issues at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter

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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:

  • Nick Ali
  • John Crawford
  • Isabelle Duchatelle
  • Craig A. Eddy
  • And many others

Glossary of Terms

  1. AD - (Windows AD) Active Directory
  2. CLI - Command Line Interface
  3. FL/OSS - Free Libre/Open Source Software
  4. LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
  5. LUKS - Linux Unified Key Setup
  6. RL - Real Life
  7. SFD - Software Freedom Day

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.

UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue79 (last edited 2008-08-06 17:01:31 by localhost)