Issue89

Contents

  1. In This Issue
  2. General Community News
    1. Ubuntu Open Week Review
    2. Intrepid Ibex: Open for Business
    3. Rick Clark is now a MOTU
  3. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Hardy
  4. LoCo News
    1. FLISOL Nicaragua 2008
  5. Launchpad News
    1. Launchpad 1.2.4
  6. Ubuntu Forum News
    1. Tutorial of the Week
  7. In The Press
  8. In The Blogosphere
  9. In Other News
    1. gNewSense releases DeltaH(based on Hardy Heron)
    2. Fox News Responds to the Linux Community
    3. Ubuntu 8.04 vs. Windows Vista Power Usage
    4. Interview with Donald Knuth
  10. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Tuesday, May 6, 2008
      1. Community Council Meeting
      2. GNOME - An Introduction (Spanish)
    2. Wednesday, May 7, 2008
      1. Server Team Meeting
    3. Thursday, May 8, 2008
      1. Desktop Team Meeting
    4. Friday, May 9, 2008
      1. MOTU Meeting
  11. Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.04, 7.10, and 8.04
    1. Security Updates
    2. Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates
    3. Ubuntu 7.04 Updates
    4. Ubuntu 7.10 Updates
    5. Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
  12. Archives and RSS Feed
  13. Additional Ubuntu News
  14. Conclusion
  15. Credits
  16. Glossary of Terms
  17. Feedback

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 89 for the weeks April 27th - May 3rd, 2008. In this issue we cover: Ubuntu Open Week, Intrepid Ibex: Open for Business, FLISOL Nicaragua 2008, Launchpad 1.2.4, gNewSense release of DeltaH (based on Hardy Heron), Fox News Responds to Linux Community, Ubuntu 8.04 vs. Windows Vista Power Usage, Interview with Donald Knuth, and much, much more!

UWN Translations

  • Note to translators and our readers: We are trying a new way of linking to our translations pages. Please follow the link below for the information you need.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Translations

In This Issue

  • Ubuntu Open Week Review
  • Intrepid Ibex: Open for Business
  • Ubuntu Stats

  • LoCo News

  • Launchpad News
  • Ubuntu Forum News

  • In the Press & Blogosphere

  • In Other News

  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

General Community News

Ubuntu Open Week Review

Ubuntu Open Week concluded on May 3rd, and was a great success. There were 7 sessions a day over a 6 day period, with a wide range of topics being discussed. From the welcome to the closing feedback session, informed presenters gave us a look at everything "Ubuntu." It's a big task to find a good mix of talks that would be interesting to a community of people who pride themselves on being up to date, as well as newcomers. Sessions covered the very technical, like packaging, to community-oriented topics, like the Ubuntu Forums. A big thanks to all who gave of their time to make presentations, and to the community for their interest. If you missed any talks that you were particularly interested in, you can read the logs for each discussion by clicking on the session at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek.

Intrepid Ibex: Open for Business

Intrepid Ibex is now open for general development. Automatic syncs from Debian will begin just as soon as a final set of compiler changes are in place. The release schedule for Intrepid is available at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IntrepidReleaseSchedule. To summarise the next few months, the dev team expects to be able to produce the first milestone in mid-June, to cease automatic syncs from Debian near the end of June, and to enter feature freeze near the end of August. It is not recommend that users upgrade to Intrepid at this time; there will likely be considerable flux until the initial round of merges is complete. As always, any developers wishing to take the plunge at this early stage should ensure that they are comfortable with recovering from anything up to complete system failure.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-May/000424.html

Rick Clark is now a MOTU

Rick Clark (a.k.a. dendrobates on IRC) is the newest addition to the MOTU team. Rick is also the technical lead of the Ubuntu Server team. https://launchpad.net/~dendrobates

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (45195) +1288 # over last week
  • Critical (33) +5 # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (22364) +694 # over last week
  • Unassigned (35753) +1088 # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (178696) +2544 # 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

This is the top 5, not specific languages, so the languages might change week to week.

  • Spanish (15710 )
  • French (39693)
  • English-UK (50195)
  • Swedish (53042)
  • Brazilian Portuguese (65696)

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

LoCo News

FLISOL Nicaragua 2008

Some preliminary stats from the FLISOL Nicaragua 2008 event:

  • +1,000 people attended the three local events in Managua, León and Juigalpa
  • 17 conferences
  • 58 installs (*buntu: 38, openSuse: 11, Debian: 4, Fedora: 4, Linux Mint: 1)

See some pictures by visiting the following links: http://leogg.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/flisol-nicaragua-2008/ and http://leogg.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/flisol-2008-part-ii/

Launchpad News

Launchpad 1.2.4

The Launchpad team is proud to announce the release of Launchpad 1.2.4 on 1st May 2008!

New features this month include:

  • the ability to build PPA packages for multiple series and copy packages from one PPA to another
  • a new design for project code overview pages
  • an easier way for casual contributors to post to mailing lists.

New information on copying PPA packages, a new project code overview page, contributing to the mail lists without subscribing, and many other changes are available for your review at the link. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/launchpad-users/2008-May/003665.html

Ubuntu Forum News

Tutorial of the Week

The Tutorial of the Week for April 28, 2008, is an unusual one, but also a quick and easy one -- "HOWTO: Replace Nautilus with PCMan (4 Steps, No Fuss)." PCManFM is an exceptionally lightweight file manager that does a lot of the same work as Nautilus. You might find it preferable to the Gnome default, if only because it's usually easier on system resources. Try it out and see. See you next week! http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=692238

In The Press

  • Tony Yarusso and the Minnesota LoCo decided to gather contact information of the local media outlets to see if they could get a spot for their Ubuntu release parties. John Gordon of NPR, who hosts a daily segment called Future Tense, got in touch and did an interview with Tony about whether Ubuntu is ready for the "mainstream." It aired on May 1st, the segment is about 5 minutes long, and can be heard here: http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/4788725/510014/90094709/PUB_90094709.mp3. John also includes a blog piece on why Ubuntu is not ready for the mainstream: "The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment" summarized in the UWN section "In the Blogosphere" below. http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/2008/05/01.shtml#017580

  • VIA unveils open source driver development portal - Chip maker VIA has launched a beta version of its VIA Linux Portal. The first offering is a graphics driver, the VIA CN896 digital media IGP chipset, for the new Ubuntu 8.04. Documentation and source code for the drivers will be released over the coming weeks, and official forums and bug tracking will be added later this year. More at http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2215466/via-open-source-driver-portal

  • First Look: Ubuntu 8.04 'Hardy Heron' - The most significant improvement by far in Hardy is Wubi, a new utility that works with Microsoft Windows. Wubi lets a novice user install Ubuntu on top of Windows without having to modify hard disk partitions. Messing with partitions can be dangerous and data can be lost if something goes wrong. Wubi removes all of the risk of a conventional install by creating a large file in the Windows filesystem that is treated like a virtual disk to house the Ubuntu installation. http://www.adtmag.com/article.aspx?id=22514

  • Ubuntu 8.04 Is Ready to Take On Windows - Ubuntu's deep software catalog, focus on usability and active community combine with long-term support to put desktop Linux's best face forward. Canonical has marshaled the best of what the open-source world has to offer in Ubuntu 8.04, a Linux-based operating system that's capable of mounting a serious challenge to Microsoft Windows on mainstream desktops and notebooks. Jason Brooks of eWeek did tests of Ubuntu 8.04, both in its final form, and in a series of test releases that led up to the official launch on April 24th. Jason has been impressed enough with the distribution to award it the eWEEK Labs Analyst's Choice designation. http://www.eweek.com/index2.php?option=content&task=view&id=47793&pop=1&hide_ads=1&page=0&hide_js=1

In The Blogosphere

  • The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment - Content Consumer was interested to see how far Linux had come in terms of being used easily by the mainstream. So, he tricked his girlfriend Erin into sitting down at a brand new Ubuntu 8.04 installation and performing some basic tasks. There were 12 tasks to complete and the conclusion was: The main issue with the desktop experience is that the geeky programmers and designers assume too much from the average user. Ubuntu also needs a welcome screen for the first time you open up your desktop, with little videos explaining a few key concepts to how Linux and Ubuntu work. Maybe it could ask “What do you want to do?” and then explain how they could do this. Linux won’t truly be ready for the desktop until a computer illiterate can sit down at a the computer and with little effort do what they want to do. http://contentconsumer.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/is-ubuntu-useable-enough-for-my-girlfriend/

  • Hardy Heron moves into the Black Tower - The last time DeviceGuru wrote about the “Black Tower,” he had just installed Vista and Kubuntu 7.10 in a dual-boot setup. When version 8.04 of Kubuntu (”Hardy Heron”) hit the Web last week, he wasted no time upgrading to it. This blog article gives us a step by step run down on what was done to prep and install Kubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04. His take, "the Ubuntu-family distributions — including my favorite, Kubuntu — have already become the most popular version of Linux among desktop PC users. With Hardy Heron’s evolutionary enhancements and polish, the continuing march of the Penguins onto the world’s desktops will be unstoppable!" http://www.deviceguru.com/2008/04/28/hardy-heron-moves-into-the-black-tower/

  • Interview: Kenneth Wimer of the Ubuntu Art Team - The style of Ubuntu releases has varied throughout the releases, with some differing radically from others and the rest continuing to build the style. But where do all of the art and style ideas come from? FOSSwire talked with Kenneth Wimer of the Ubuntu Art Team to get his take on past, and present releases. You can also get an idea of the general direction of the art team as it relates to Ubuntu. Read the interview at http://fosswire.com/2008/04/25/interview-wiemer-ubuntu-art/

In Other News

gNewSense releases DeltaH(based on Hardy Heron)

DeltaH is gNewSense's second major release, and is based on Ubuntu Hardy. 2.0 was released on May 1st 2008 - less than a week after Hardy's release.

  • Features Since DeltaD (1.1)
    • Now based on Ubuntu Hardy
    • New Artwork

    • Switched from BurningDog(Firefox) to Epiphany

    • Switched to Blag's deblob script for the kernel
    • Non-free GLX removed from X/mesa
    • Builder: Use a chroot for building
    • Builder: Added support for Debian src packages

DeltaH is available for i386, with the GNOME desktop, and in Live CD format. You can join the IRC channel #gnewsense on the freenode.net server to chat about the release. http://www.gnewsense.org/Main/Deltah

Fox News Responds to the Linux Community

Video on the Fox News homepage does not work with Ubuntu. The Linux community spoke and foxnews.com listened. Gene, of The ERACC Web Log, received a polite message from Mr. Dave Denis the Director, Product Development at Fox News. Mr. Denis stated that Fox News is now aware of the problem with their Video page and is working with Maven Networks to get it fixed. He also stated that most of the Fox News developers use Ubuntu. More at http://blog.eracc.com/2008/04/28/guess-what-fox-news-is-responsive-to-the-linux-community/

Ubuntu 8.04 vs. Windows Vista Power Usage

When the Lenovo ThinkPad T60 was idling with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS "Hardy Heron" it had quite an advantage over Windows Vista Ultimate. Ubuntu was consuming five less Watts, which equates to more than 10% less power, over Microsoft Windows Vista. Without a doubt, Linux has been improving when it comes to power management in large part thanks to Intel and their various projects such as PowerTOP and LessWatts. In addition, the tick-less kernel feature is another important addition to the Linux ecosystem that is helping to lessen power usage. The report and graphs are at http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=hardy_power&num=2

Interview with Donald Knuth

Andrew Binstock interviews Donald Knuth on the success of open source, the problem with multicore architecture, the disappointing lack of interest in literate programming, the menace of reusable code, and that urban legend about winning a programming contest with a single compilation. Donald mentions that he uses Ubuntu. A very technical interview that is worth reviewing. http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1193856

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Community Council Meeting

GNOME - An Introduction (Spanish)

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Server Team Meeting

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Desktop Team Meeting

Friday, May 9, 2008

MOTU Meeting

Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.04, 7.10, and 8.04

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates

  • None Reported

Ubuntu 7.04 Updates

  • None Reported

Ubuntu 7.10 Updates

  • None Reported

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

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

Glossary of Terms

  1. PPA - Personal Package Archives
  2. FLISOL - Festival Latinoamericano de Instalación de Software Libre, Latin American Free Software Install Festival.

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/Issue89 (last edited 2008-08-06 17:00:27 by localhost)