Issue82

Revision 36 as of 2008-03-16 08:19:58

Clear message

WORK IN PROGRESS

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 82 for the weeks March 9th - March 15th, 2008. In this issue we cover the Ubuntu 8.04 beta freeze, Ubuntu Classroom team, the return of Ubuntustats.com, LoCo projects from the Jordanian, New Mexico, and UK teams, and, as always, much, much more!

UWN Translations

In This Issue

  • Ubuntu 8.04 Beta Freeze
  • Ubuntu Classroom
  • Ubuntustats.com Returns
  • FLOSS Introduction - The Jordanian Way
  • Endorphin Power Company Ubuntu Install and Support
  • Ubuntu UK Podcast
  • Ubuntu Forums News & Interviews

  • Tutorial of the Week
  • In The Press & Blogosphere

  • In Other News
  • Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

  • Bug & Translations

General Community News

Ubuntu 8.04 Beta Freeze

Hardy Heron 8.04 LTS is now only one week away from beta release, and has entered beta freeze. During the freeze, all uploads to main must be approved by a member of the release team [1], so if you have fixes which are important to get in, please do get in touch as soon as possible. Uploads to universe require a manual push through the queue, but are not subject to release management approval.

[1] https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-release

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-March/000403.html

Ubuntu Classroom

What is Ubuntu Classroom? It's a place for users to learn how to give back to the community. The idea is to show the millions of users of Ubuntu how they can personally make Ubuntu better. The goal is to help show users how easy it is to contribute to Ubuntu, and then follow that up to make sure those same users continue to contribute.

How can you help? Join the team! Meetings are every Sunday at 12:00 UTC (2:00PM EST) in gobby.(gobby.ubuntu.com) The team needs presenters, people to blog about upcoming presentations, ambassadors to help spread the news by inviting other users to check out the upcoming presentations, and people to be available in IRC to help answer questions. Help get this team on track by volunteering some of you time, you'll be glad you did.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom (this is being redone, so check back often!)

http://tinyurl.com/2epthg (Ubuntu Classroom schedule calendar)

Ubuntustats.com Returns

After a lengthy downtime due to excessive traffic and load to the server, Felipe Lerena finally managed to put some spare time into migrating everything to a new server, provided by Mitch Mahan, and launched UbuntuStats back into the intrawebs. The plan is continue building, to expand the statistics gathered, and start showing trends in different areas. Also of importance will be cleaning up the code to allow other people to contribute code into the project and provide public snapshots of the database. http://beuno.com.ar/archives/61

LoCo News

Ubuntu Jordan LoCo: FLOSS Introduction - The Jordanian Way

As part of Ubuntu Jordan LoCo Team continuous efforts to spread awareness about GNU/Linux, the team organized a public event at The University of Jordan. A lecture Introducing FLOSS in the Jordanian way, as well as a brief background of FLOSS history, was given by Khamis SekSik. The lecture also included Mr. Seksik explaining some reasons to use FLOSS Jordan, as well as information on the selling service VS software, and comparing backward compatibility issues between FLOSS and other software. It is worth mentioning that next week Ubuntu Jordan LoCo Team is scheduled to start giving Ubuntu Desktop Courses in cooperation with the Jordan University IEEE Student Branch, who was an important part of this event. Visit the link for pictures of the event. http://syntux.net/blog/2008/03/13/ubuntu-jordan-loco-floss-introduction-the-jordanian-way/

Ubuntu New Mexico LoCo: Endorphin Power Company Ubuntu Install and Support

In September of 2007, Dave Thomas and Eric Krieger were sitting at the New Mexico Software Freedom Day event when they began tossing around various thoughts and ideas about open source software. The discussion eventually landed on the topic of the Philosophy of Ubuntu -- "I am what I am because of who we all are." A question arose: "How could we, as a group, give back to our community?" Eric approached his boss at Charter Bank and asked if they could donate some PCs to a local non-profit organization. Charter Bank generously agreed to donate twenty-five PCs, several switches, and a server. It was determined, after some discussion on the teams email list, that a deserving organization would be Endorphin Power Company (EPC). EPC is a local shelter with special focus on the substance-dependent and homeless. The ultimate goal is to bring a highly functional computer network to EPC by using Ubuntu and Open Source Software with emphasis on documentation and training.

To date, the team's EPC project is progressing nicely. They just finished setting up and installing the EPC computer lab this past Saturday. It was a proud day for our Ubuntu community, but this is only the beginning! The successful installation of the computer lab has given the team a solid foundation upon which to build. Future projects include the networking and installation of all of the computers in the residents' dormitory rooms, the launching of an EPC intranet (and associated server applications), and the creation of internet kiosks within a planned cafe. Additionally, the team will be holding regular meetings at EPC, and will be giving instructionals by using the Ubuntu Desktop Course in a series of classes at the new computer lab. New projects continue to be discussed and will be more fully developed as our involvement grows.

Project wiki page with pictures here:https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Endorphin_Power_Company_Ubuntu_Install_and_Support_

Another summary and more pictures can be found on Dave Thomas's blog: http://dthomasdigital.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/new-mexico-locos-computer-lab-project-takes-off/

Contact information

NM LoCo Team contact: mrimbert@ubuntu.com

EPC Project Lead: grammatoncleric@ubuntu.com

NM LoCo IRC channel #ubuntu-us-nm

New in Hardy Heron

Technical Board decisions

At Tuesday's meeting of the Ubuntu Technical Board, two technical decisions were taken with regard to the Ubuntu 8.04 release:

  • Automatic indexing in tracker will be disabled for Ubuntu 8.04. While we value the functionality provided by tracker and intend to continue to support its rapid development by including it by default in Ubuntu, the side effects of automatic indexing have a significant impact on users regardless of whether they make use of tracker's search features. Instead, users who desire this functionality can turn on indexing by changing their preference settings.
  • The officially released architectures for Ubuntu 8.04 will be i386 and amd64. The SPARC port will continue to be provided with build infrastructure, and Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, 7.04 and 7.10 will continue to enable SPARC deployments well into the future, but there will not be an official Ubuntu 8.04 release for SPARC.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-March/000400.html

Ubuntu Forums News

Ubuntu Forums Interviews

  • Hailing from the town of Kottawa, Sri Lanka, PmDematagoda is a recent addition to the staff, but has at least a decade’s experience working with PC systems and Windows. XP and a virus introduced him to Linux, and from there, Ubuntu was only a short step away… Please learn more here: http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/an-interview-with-pmdematagoda/.

  • Cross the line in the forums and you’ll probably face KiwiNZ as a result. On one hand, he’s the forum strongman — more than likely he’s the one who’ll press the button that bans you — but on the other hand, he’s a father of three and an experienced IT manager. An Ubuntu user since its inception, and a forum member since the earliest days of its existence, KiwiNZ is the last administrator left to be interviewed. Read on to learn more about member No. 9.: http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/an-interview-with-kiwinz/.

Tutorial of the Week

This week's tutorial might not be one you need right away, but it might be one you want to keep in mind for the future: OldPink's "HowTo: Transfer your bootable Ubuntu installation between hard drives." http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=599599

Aside from being exceptionally useful, this is another tutorial that's well-designed and easy to follow. Be sure to thank OldPink if it comes in handy, in the future.

In The Press

http://www.newsday.com/business/yourmoney/ny-bzdolinar5605828mar09,0,7395494.column

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2273486,00.asp

In The Blogosphere

  • Talking Ubuntu Linux: Q&A with System76 President Carl Richell - System76, one of the best-known providers of pre-installed Ubuntu systems, recently introduced new servers certified to run the operating system. All About Ubuntu caught up with System76 President Carl Richell to discuss his views on the Ubuntu server market. System76 has offered Ubuntu pre-loaded servers since the release of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. Currently they are providing servers to small businesses, schools, governments, and enterprises. Business customers are deploying web applications, email, telephony, and thin clients. Higher education customers utilize Ubuntu servers for research and complex calculations. Scientists and students will soon be using System76 servers for plant genome sequencing. Ubuntu’s early focus on delivering a stellar desktop operating system has proven extremely valuable to the server side. Many System76 business customers started with System76 laptops and desktops, their first Linux computers, and are now deploying Ubuntu servers. Visit the link to read the entire interview.http://allaboutubuntu.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/talking-ubuntu-linux-qa-with-system76-president-carl-richell/

  • Yes, my grandma can run Ubuntu Linux - Last week Lenovo lent Matt Asay one of its X61 ThinkPad laptops so that he could give Ubuntu Linux a try. A week into a new trial with Ubuntu Linux, it was clear that desktop Linux has come a long way. He found it extremely easy to use, and states that "this is an operating system that my grandma could(and in fact, did) use". This isn't to say that his week with Ubuntu Linux was uneventful. He had a few struggles, which he details in the article. These struggles, however, were almost entirely due to running Ubuntu on unsupported hardware, and not any fault of Ubuntu (or Linux) itself. To test how hard it is for an average user to find their way around Ubuntu, he had his grandmother, and the lady who cuts his hair give it a try. They were able to accomplish several tasks without even knowing that they were using a different operating system. All in all, he was very impressed with Ubuntu. The learning curve required to switch from Windows to Linux is all of 10 seconds long. His grandma did it. The lady who cuts his hair did it. Read the whole article, and see pictures of the ladies using Ubuntu by following the link. http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9889681-16.html

In Other News

First episode of Ubuntu UK Podcast: A Little Less Conversation

Ciemon Dunville, Alan Pope, Dave Walker and Tony Whitmore present the first episode of the Ubuntu UK Podcast. Available in OGG or MP3 formats, this first episode includes:

  • A brief intro to the cast, some history of how the podcast was conceived.
  • Discussion on Ubuntu’s Brainstorm site.
    • Introduction, discussion on why Brainstorm
    • Talk about some of the top ideas
  • FOSDEM 2008 - Interviews
    • Andrew Waffa, developer from the Bongo project
    • Becky Hogge of the Open Rights Group
    • Jan Claeys from the Belgian Ubuntu LoCo Team

  • Pimp the Ubuntu Demo day

http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2008/03/11/13/

kubuntu-de.org interview: Tobias König about the development of Akonadi

Tobias König is a Computer Science student and one of the core developers of Akonadi, one of the innovative technologies that will be implemented in KDE4. Akonadi is not a group ware server. Akonadi is an intermediate storage and abstraction layer for PIM data. This is similar to Phonon, for multimedia or Solid for hardware. Akonadi abstracts the access and maintenance of data for the rest of the system (i.e. the address book or the calendar). This is achieved by offering a common interface for all the data. In turn there are several improvements in comparison to KDE3: 1. PIM data must only be held once in the memory 2. There is a central instance which monitors any change of the data and hence informs all other components about it. 3. The whole Akonadi framework follows an asynchronous communication design. This means blocking of the user interface or for the loading or storing of data cannot occur anymore. The user will benefit because data that is changed, say in their address book, will automatically change in their birthday data too. Integration, with less memory usage. Read the whole interview by following the link. http://www.kubuntu-de.org/english/interview-tobias-k-nig-about-development-akonadi

http://www.shef.ac.uk/content/1/c6/04/14/88/adapting-to-changer1.pdf

Meeting Summaries

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Community Spotlight

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 (#) +/- # over last week
  • Critical (#) +/- # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (#) +/- # over last week
  • Unassigned (#) +/- # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (#) +/- # 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 Hardy

  1. Language (#) +/- # over last week
  2. Language (#) +/- # over last week
  3. Language (#) +/- # over last week
  4. Language (#) +/- # over last week
  5. Language (#) +/- # over last week

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

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:

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
  • Isabelle Duchatelle
  • John Crawford
  • Your Name Here
  • And many others

Glossary of Terms

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.