Issue95

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This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Weekly News Team. Please feel free to contact us to submit an idea, or to voice any concerns or suggestions. Send your email to ubuntu-news-team-bounces@lists.ubuntu.com. *Please note that you must subscribe to the list to be able to submit. 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. This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Weekly News Team. If you have a story idea or suggestions for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list at https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/Ubuntu-news-team and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Ideas. 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 them to ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com.

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #95 for the week June 8th - June 14th, 2008. In this issue we cover: Intrepid Alpha 1 delayed, more info about Global Bug Jam, future Brainstorm plans, Server Team Intrepid blueprints, new Ubuntu Members, future of Gobuntu, Kubuntu Tutorial Days, Mark Suttleworth's response to accusations of proprietary codecs in Ubuntu, open source in UK schools, 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

  • Intrepid Alpha 1 Delayed
  • Global Bug Jam: How you can help make it happen!
  • Future Brainstorm Plans
  • Intrepid blueprints from the Ubuntu Server Team
  • New Ubuntu Members
  • Gobuntu Future
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Ubuntu Colombian Team OpenFest

  • Technical Update
  • Launchpad News
  • Ubuntu Forums News
  • In the Press & Blogosphere

  • In Other News
  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

General Community News

Intrepid Alpha 1 Delayed

According to the published Intrepid release schedule at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardyReleaseSchedule, the first Intrepid alpha was scheduled for June 12, 2008. Due to a number of factors, chief among them the current division of developer attention between the upcoming 8.04 point release and Intrepid, the alpha release was not made available as scheduled. Needless to say, every effort is being made to get an installable alpha image together in the coming days. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-June/000431.html

Global Bug Jam: How you can help make it happen!

The Ubuntu Global Bug Jam is going to be a big event, and the place to be the weekend of 08 August - 10 August, 2008. Make sure to contact your LoCo about this event to help coordinate efforts. Documentation on the event and how to organize it can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GlobalBugJam and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RunningBugJam.

Things you can do to help organize the event in your area:

The Global Bug Jam is definitely going to ROCK. Help make it happen in your area! http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/?p=123

Future Brainstorm Plans

Three months after the launch, it is time to do a small recap and lay out the plans for the next months. The project is now working towards better feedback to your input. Starting this cycle, there should be some regular developer feedback on popular ideas. In the next months, the work will be focused on an easier classification of ideas in projects, so that it can be exploited by non-Ubuntu software developers. Also coming is an easy way for Brainstorm users to contact each other, tools for Ubuntu developers to spot and keep track of the interesting ideas, and in the long run, the project is heading towards a project neutral release, but don't expect it too soon. http://blog.qa.ubuntu.com/node/12

Intrepid blueprints from the Ubuntu Server Team

With the end of UDS, members of the Ubuntu Server Team are busy writing specifications (aka blueprints) about topics discussed during the summit. Here is a non-exhaustive list of blueprints that are currently been written:

Remember, these are plans, there is no guarantee that they will make it into Intrepid Ibex. http://ubuntuserver.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/a-selection-of-intrepid-blueprints-from-the-ubuntu-server-team/

New Ubuntu Members

The EMEA Board

The EMEA Membership Board had their third meeting last Tuesday. Three candidates have been welcomed aboard the Ubuntu ship.

Javier Garrido has been rocking hard for the Spanish LoCo team, being administrator of Ubuntu-es since February 2007. Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Meisok LP: https://launchpad.net/~meisok

László Torma has supported, written about, and documented Ubuntu. He is also doing great work for the Hungarian LoCo team. Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Toros3 LP: https://launchpad.net/~toros.hu

Risto Kurppa has been doing great work for the Finnish team, supporting users and writing articles. Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RistoHKurppa LP: https://launchpad.net/~risto.kurppa

The EMEA Board is happy to welcome aboard these excellent members! Our next meeting will be on June 17, 2008 18:00 UTC. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Membership/RegionalBoards/EMEA

The AsiaOceania Board

The AsiaOceania Membership Council had its first Meeting on June 10th, 2008. The board approved 3 new Ubuntu members.

Russel John is the Team Contact of Ubuntu Bangladesh LoCo Team and has conducted and contributed to various events to spread Ubuntu. Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Russell LP: https://launchpad.net/~russell.john

Mahayudin Susanto is from Indonesia. Notable contributions made by Susanto include translations and advocating for Ubuntu in the East Java region of Indonesia. Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Udienz LP: https://launchpad.net/~udienz

Muhammed Takdir is also from Indonesia. Notable contribution include the efforts made in taking Ubuntu/Edubuntu to schools of a region called Sinjai. Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MuhammadTakdir LP: https://launchpad.net/~muhammad-takdir

The AsiaOceania Board is happy to welcome aboard these excellent members! Please check our wiki page for future meetings. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Membership/RegionalBoards/AsiaOceania

MOTU News

After some time away, Zhengpeng Hou has found time to return to MOTU and continue previous work in package maintenance, CJK support, KDE bugfixing, and helping with the sponsor queues. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2008-June/025535.html

The Ubuntu Developer Channel continues to be packed with goodness. It is a pleasure to announce another fantastic MOTU video - Packaging 101, Part 1 and Part 2. The video is presented by Daniel Holbach and is an instructional on how to put together a package. This video is a great first step in learning packaging, and will get you started on the path to becoming a MOTU.

Note: You can catch up on all 22 videos at the Ubuntu Developers YouTube site: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=ubuntudevelopers

Gobuntu Future

The Gobuntu development team is announcing that after the 8.04 release of Gobuntu, the project will aim to merge many of the Gobuntu changes into mainline Ubuntu. One such merge would be their "Free Software Only" installer option, which only installs software considered free by the Free Software Foundation's definition of software freedom. The primary focus of the Ubuntu community, Canonical, and their derivative and downstream projects remains the success of free, Open Source software. It is hoped that by providing every Ubuntu user with the ability to install a completely free system, using the standard Ubuntu installer, we will move closer to a world of freedom, choice, and personal liberty with the hardware you own. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/gobuntu-devel/2008-June/000795.html

Kubuntu Tutorial Days - Sunday June 15th, 2008

Kubuntu Tutorials Day is back. Join the Kubuntu team in IRC channel #kubuntu-devel for some great chats with Free Software’s finest developers. There are five months of development ahead before the release of Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, so this is the perfect way to learn how to get involved. Mark your calendar to attend any, or all of the scheduled presentations. https://wiki.kubuntu.org/KubuntuTutorialsDay

  • 19:00 UTC - Getting Involved - Richard Johnson(nixternal)
  • 20:00 UTC - Usability - Celeste Lyn Paul(seele)
  • 21:00 UTC - Packaging & merging howto - Jonathan Riddell(Riddell)

  • 22:00 UTC - Plasma with Python - Michael Anderson(nosrednaekim)
  • 23:00 UTC - But triage - Ralph Janke(txwikinger)
  • 24:00 UTC - Kubuntu Q & A Session - The Kubuntu Team

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (46878) +84 # over last week
  • Critical (31) -1 # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (23112) -145 # over last week
  • Unassigned (37528) 128 # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (189580) +1486 # 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 (13449)
  • French (39225)
  • English (United Kingdom) (49694)
  • Swedish (52899)
  • Brazilian Portuguese (55464)

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

LoCo News

Ubuntu Colombian Team OpenFest

Last Saturday, June 7th, the Colombian Ubuntu LoCo Team, along with the OpenSolaris Colombian Team, organized the first Free Software Festival on the University of San Buenaventura campus. The event featured an installfest, conferences, demos, workshops where the team presented the advantages of Ubuntu 8.04, and an overview of the LoCo team's organization and Community work. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ColombianTeam/Eventos/openfestusb2008

Technical Update

Mirco Muller, Ubuntu "bling" expert, has written some responses to submitted Brainstorm ideas:

http://blog.qa.ubuntu.com/node/15

Launchpad News

Launchpad service interruptions: June 17th, 18th, and 19th

Downtime details:

  • June 17th 22:00 UTC - June 18th 03:00 UTC: all of Launchpad will be offline.
  • June 18th 22.00 UTC - June 18th 00.00 UTC: code browse, pushing and pulling to code branches hosted on Launchpad will be unavailable.
  • June 19th 22.00 UTC - June 20th 03.00 UTC: uploading to, building and publishing in package archives - both distribution archives and PPAs - will be unavailable.

The downtime will be used to upgrade the servers that host Launchpad to the latest version of Ubuntu, 8.04 LTS Hardy Heron. This will result in an improved platform on which to develop new Launchpad services. Specifically, it will include Python 2.5 and PostgreSQL 8.3, along with updates to several libraries that Launchpad relies on. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/launchpad-users/2008-June/003820.html

Ubuntu Forums News

Ubuntu Forums Interviews

Second to IT professionals, UF Staff members are in the Medical or Life Sciences field. ugm6hr is one of the latter - a medical trainee from the UK. As many others, he started very early on with computers (around 7), in the Commodore Amigas era. Please meet with him here: http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/an-interview-with-ugm6hr/

Tutorial of the Week

This week's highlighted thread is a long-running emergency tip called "How to install Grub from a live Ubuntu cd," by catlett.

This is another tutorial that you hope you never have to use, but in the case that your MBR is damaged or you misbuild a dual-boot system, you'll want to know how to restore Grub. This thread -- which was first posted in 2006 -- can probably help, and all you'll need is a live CD and a little patience. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351

Have fun!

New Record

In roughly a year, the ubuntuforums have seen the number of registered users double. This week, a new record was reached, 600,000 register users! http://matthewhelmke.net/wordpress/2008/06/12/six-hundred-thousand/

The evolution of registered members over time since UF was created has been published by kanem who will be collecting data to complete the graphs. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=825915

In The Press

  • Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva Performance Compared - After last weeks release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.0, one of the requests they received was to do a side-by-side comparison between the popular desktop Linux distributions. Ubuntu 8.04, Fedora 9, and Mandriva 2008.1 were chosen and it included 28 benchmark tests. Using the same hardware, and the standard default settings for each distribution gave the tests credibility, however some tests are just a comparison of Ubuntu 8.04 and Fedora 9. Ubuntu 8.04 won in 14 of the 28 tests. Mandriva 2008.1 won in three of the nine tests where it was used. Ubuntu won 10 of the 19 tests that were just between Ubuntu 8.04 and Fedora 9. As to which distribution is the fastest, from all of these tests and their varying results, it really depends what areas of the Linux desktop are important to you. You can see the details presented in graphic form at the link. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_3way_pts&num=1

  • Spawn of Ubuntu - It isn’t enough just to create a great distribution these days, you also have to create a distribution that can spawn offspring to further that greatness. All the major distributions including Slackware, Red Hat, SUSE, Gentoo, and Debian have reproduced to the point where the children scarcely look like the parent. Now the children have grown up enough to begin procreating new and exciting distributions of their own for every whim and user type. Ubuntu is one of those prolific parents that has produced new offspring on a regular basis. A few new Ubuntu-based distributions have converted from other distributions to join the ever-growing Ubuntu family, and Ubuntu has also produced some nifty new desktop distributions of their own. http://www.linux-mag.com/id/6200

  • Ubuntu is early favorite in OpenLogic survey - A survey of open source software adoption, OpenLogic Inc.'s Open Source Census, has scanned more than a thousand computers to date. The objective of the survey is to help assist clients with support issues, and to attempt to quantify the actual usage of open source applications and their relative popularity. OpenLogic's Discovery Engine, which automatically identifies and inventories open source software, has searched 1,270 machines and detected open source software on about a third, or 478 computers. Of those computers with open source software, the leading operating system was Ubuntu, which was detected on 46% of all machines with open source software. http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid39_gci1317353,00.html

In The Blogosphere

  • Technology Today: Linux — This blogger has recently become a self proclaimed Linux lover. Ubuntu 7.10 was impressive enough to convince her to completely make the change to Linux. In her review she discusses the pros and cons of switching. Pros include: customizable, price, ease of program installation, updates/support, VirtualBox/wine, and stability. Cons include: compatibility, availability at the retail level, and the learning curve. Conclusion: "All in all I have been very impressed with Ubuntu Linux 7.10 and would recommend it to anyone who is willing to learn a new operating system. Recently a new version of Ubuntu was released, 8.04, which improves further on the current iteration, and I hope to upgrade soon. I cannot imagine ever returning to Windows and look forward to the future as Linux becomes even better supported and more widespread." http://www.beckymckimmy.com/blog/2008/06/05/technology-today-linux-a-new-users-review/

  • Ubuntu 8.04 LTS still No. 1 for my laptop - Steven Rosenberg says, "Ubuntu 8.04 LTS is the best operating system I've ever run." So many things are working so well that he's reluctant to do anything but keep using this long-term support version of Ubuntu, which will have three years of updates and patches on the desktop. He has continued to try out the Live CDs of other distros, but nothing has been able to handle his particular collection of hardware better than Ubuntu 8.04. http://www.insidesocal.com/click/2008/06/ubuntu-804-lts-still-no-1-for.html

  • Tonight is Linux Night! - Christopher Dawson decided to put on a Linux night with his local computer club. The theme, Get Lucky on Friday the 13th with Linux! They got a local non-profit group to donate $400 towards a kit computer. The club kicked in another $100 for peripherals, and they had themselves a computer giveaway. The idea was to get people out on a Friday night, show them the cost saving of building their own computer, and introduce them to the advantages of Ubuntu. They also burned Ubuntu CDs to give away to anyone who showed up. http://education.zdnet.com/?p=1727

In Other News

Mark Shuttleworth responds to unfounded rumors

A recent article at http://boycottnovell.com/2008/06/07/ubuntu-remix-codecs/ indicated that Ubuntu, and in particular, Mark Shuttleworth, had negotiated privately with Microsoft for proprietary codecs. This article started a debate that spilled over to one of the mailing lists. Within 24 hours, Mark posted replies in the negative to both the original article and mailing list.

The original article was referring to Canonical's recent announcement of its netbook remix platform that the company is working on with OEMs for the growing sub-notebook market. In order to protect themselves, and the customers purchasing their devices, those OEMs would naturally wish to make sure that media is "legally" playable. This is a standard industry practice, and a good example would be Dell's underwriting the cost of said codecs for the computers they sell that are pre-installed with the Ubuntu.

What needs to be understood is that netbook remix is maintained by Canonical, and not the Ubuntu community, and there is no intention to include proprietary codecs into the standard Ubuntu release. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2008-June/004510.html

Open source snub in UK schools

International big hitters had piled behind UK open source houses bidding for the Becta contract to set up an open source community in the schools sector. But Becta gave the open source community a surprise when it turned down their bids and awarded the business to a consultancy with no links to the open source community.

Becta said in a written statement: "Bids were invited and, following an evaluation process, the contract has been awarded to The Alphaplus Consultancy(Manchester)." It did not say why Alphaplus had been chosen over a line-up of prime open source bidders, but Mark Taylor, president of the Open Source Consortium, and whose consultancy Sirius bid for the work, said it was a mistake. "They've chosen the worst possible candidate because Alphaplus has no open source experience whatsoever," said Taylor.

John Winkley, a director of Alphaplus, said he wanted to clear his comments with Becta before saying what his firm could bring to the UK's schools open source community. But he refuted the allegation that Alphaplus wasn't qualified to do the work: "I think we are and Becta clearly thinks we are," he said. The open source community has long complained that the odds were stacked against them in the UKs public sector. One of the losing bidders was The Learning Machine, an open source schools specialist. The Learning Machine was backed by Canonical. http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/12/open-source-snub-uk-schools

Vienna failed to migrate to GNU/Linux: why?

Despite the announcement of several governments and councils concerning multi-year migration plans to GNU/Linux, some of those plans crumbled. But why? The City of Vienna made several crucial mistakes in their bid to migrate to open source. First, they tried to develop and implement their own distribution, instead of using an established, easy to use, stable one, like Ubuntu. Second, they thought they could depend on wine for certain already in use proprietary programs, which didn't work. The third problem is in direct relation to the first problem, they ran into hardware compatibility problems because they tried to develop their own distribution. Finally, the moment the city announced their decision to migrate to open source, Microsoft’s “damage control” machine started. The conclusion: The City of Vienna might well be a lost cause, but it is hoped that other IT managers can avoid making the same mistakes. The presence of a strong desktop distribution (Ubuntu) will hopefully simplify things. However, in the end IT managers need to accept that most of the world will eventually start migrating to open standards and free software. http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/vienna_failed_to_migrate_to_linux_why

Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu

The life of South African Mark Shuttleworth has been a kind of geek dream according to Glyn Moody, who talked with the Ubuntu founder and CEO recently. The discussion included talking about what led to the startup of Ubuntu after selling off Thawte Consulting to Verisign in 1999, Ubuntu's shift in strategy to address the server side, concern that Ubuntu is spreading itself to thin, and coordinating releases amongst the GNU/Linux distributions. Will computing in the cloud be a threat or an opportunity for Ubuntu? What is Mark's stand on including some proprietary elements in a free software distribution? Might KDE one day replace GNOME as the standard Ubuntu desktop? And finally, what would happen to Canonical and Ubuntu if Mark happened to fall out of a spaceship? All in all, a great interview that everyone should read. http://lwn.net/Articles/284760/

How to build RepRap 1.0 "Darwin"

RepRap 1.0 "Darwin" is a rapid prototyping machine that is capable of making the majority of its own component parts. Instructions and all necessary data are available completely free under the GNU General Public License from this website to everyone.

  • Software Requirements
    • A fairly modern computer
    • Decent graphics card (ATI / NVidia) 64MB+
    • Recommended at least 512MB of RAM
    • Serial port or USB <-> Serial converter

    • Ubuntu, but OSX and Windows also work.

Find out how to do it, and everything you'll need at: http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/RepRapOneDarwin

Siemens gets serious about open source

Siemens outsourcing unit is snapping up some of South Africa’s brightest open source minds as it readies to offer large-scale open source services to clients. One of those niches, says Felix Honigwachs, head of Siemens’ open source center of competency, is the South African public sector. Siemens already has relationships with a number of government departments including the departments of science and technology and labour. Recently, however, Siemens identified open source as having a very viable business case. Siemens already has in place partnerships and agreements with Red Hat, Canonical and enterprise content management suite providers Alfresco. On the desktop, Honigwachs says that the unit plans to offer either Red Hat or Ubuntu. "In government there is a preference for Ubuntu. We like Ubuntu and we have good quality skills on Ubuntu,” he says. http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=2489

Linux-Magazine Italia interviews Mark Shuttleworth

Vincenzo Ciaglia from Linux-Magazine Italia sent Mark Shuttleworth a few questions related to the release of 8.04 LTS. Since Vincenzo was going to translate the conversation into Italian, he agreed to let Mark post the English version on his blog. The interview included question about Canonical, Ubuntu 8.04, hardware and wireless issues, improvements to server edition, virtualization solutions, Debian, embedded devices, and much, much more. http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/148

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Monday, June 16, 20008

Bugs for Hugs Day

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Bugs for Hugs Day

Server Team Meeting

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Bugs for Hugs Day

Platform Team Meeting

  • Start: 06:00 UTC
  • End: 07:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not Listed as of Publication

QA Team Meeting

Xubuntu Community Meeting

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Desktop Team Meeting

Security Team Meeting

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Xubuntu Community Meeting

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Ubuntu Mozilla Team

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

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

Ubuntu 7.04 Updates

Ubuntu 7.10 Updates

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

Feedback

This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Weekly News Team. If you have a story idea or suggestions for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list at https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/Ubuntu-news-team and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Ideas. 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 them to ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com.

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