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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue ## for the week February 1st - February 7th, 2009. In this issue we cover ...

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

General Community News

Ubuntu Jaunty Alpha 4 released

Alpha 4 is the fourth in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Jaunty development cycle. The Alpha images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Jaunty. You can download it here:

• Ubuntu: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/jaunty/alpha-4/

• Edubuntu: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/jaunty/alpha-4/

• Kubuntu: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/jaunty/alpha-4/

• Xubuntu: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/jaunty/alpha-4/

• Ubuntu Studio: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/jaunty/alpha-4/

• Ubuntu Netbook Remix http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-netbook-remix/releases/jaunty/alpha-4

• Ubuntu MID: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mid/releases/jaunty/alpha-4

See http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Mirrors for a list of mirrors.

Pre-releases of Jaunty are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

• Software updates for testing: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/jaunty/alpha4

• List of known bugs: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/jaunty/alpha4

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-February/000530.html

Rock The Docs: The Ubuntu LoCo Docs Day

Efrain came up with the term "Rock the Docs" as a way of describing the "Spring cleaning" of the Online LoCo Documentation[1]. Jono Bacon has requested that we have a LoCo Docs Day to update and improve the LoCo documentation.

So, how do you get involved? Simple:

• Save The Date! Put the 12th Feb 2009 in your calendar as the LoCo Docs Day.

• On the day (or before if you want to join in the usual chit-chat) join the #ubuntu-locoteams IRC channel on Freenode.

• Contribute some of your time and expertise going in and contributing content to the wide variety of documentation. If you are unsure of where to start, why not take a look at our LoCo FAQ and see there are any questions that you have had in the past that the document does not answer. We would all love to see the FAQ become a hugely authoritative document. There is a suggestion of other pages that need a refresh here.

Come out and share the fun!

• [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoTeams

http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/02/04/rock-the-docs/

Hall of Fame interview: Christophe Sauthier

Christophe Sauthier (huats) is involved in various aspects of Ubuntu. He started helping out in the team doing French translations and among other things he maintained the French LoCo web site. Nowthe French LoCo contact and the one they turn to in emergencies: affectionately referred to as "lé president". Christophe is an MOTU, and a driving force behind the MOTU Mentoring Reception. A YouTube video of Christophe speaking about himself is available[1].

• [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTmXJ0_G2Gk

http://hall-of-fame.ubuntu.com/?feature=christophe-sauthier

Fridge Calendar Has Moved

The old Fridge calendar has been replaced with a Google Calendar.

The new Fridge calendar is at http://fridge.ubuntu.com/calendar. Please update your subscriptions accordingly.

To add an event to the calendar, see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Fridge/Calendar.

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1825

Next Ubuntu HugDay

HugDay is a special day where the Ubuntu Community comes together with a shared goal of triaging a specific package or set of packages. Working together allows the team to share knowledge and give some much needed assistance to the Ubuntu Developers.

• When: Feb. 12nd, 2009
• Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-bugs (freenode)

• Help on bugs: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpingWithBugs/

• Info page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBugDay/20090212

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-February/000405.html

New Contributing Developer

Although Nick Ellery was part of "ubuntumembers" already, we decided to add him to "universe-contributors" based on his good work in the MOTU team.

Ubuntu Stats

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

Infamous Bugs

Translation Stats Jaunty

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 strings to translate in Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope," see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/jaunty/

Translation Stats Intrepid

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 strings to translate in Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex," see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/intrepid/

5-a-day bug stats

Top 5 contributors for the past 7 days

• person (#)
• person (#)
• person (#)
• person (#)
• person (#)

Top 5 teams for the past 7 days

• team (#)
• team (#)
• team (#)
• team (#)
• team (#)

5-A-Day stats provided by Daniel Holbach. See http://daniel.holba.ch/5-a-day-stats/

Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week

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Ubuntu Brainstorm is a community site geared toward letting you add your ideas for Ubuntu. You can submit your own idea, or vote for or against another idea. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/

LoCo News

First Ubuntu Event in Monastir Tunisia

Rafik reports on the install fest held in Monastir, Tunisia on February 4 at the High Institute of Computer Sciences and Mathematics (ISIMM). The dean of the school assisted them by making an amphitheater available for the event, and a banner was created, saying, "It's time to forget about Windows". Rafik was assisted in this event by Badii Mriga and Sabri Ben Dhaou. Some students were unable to attend due to courses, and some were impatient and installed Ubuntu prior to the event. Regardless, they had fun and look forward to holding a Jaunty Jackalop Release Party and install fest.

http://rafiiik.blogspot.com/2009/02/first-ubuntu-event-in-monastir.html

New in Intrepid Ibex

Launchpad News

Launchpod Episode #16

http://blog.launchpad.net/podcast/launchpoad-16-talking-about-launchpad-221

Launchpad performance weeks

http://blog.launchpad.net/launchpad-performance-week/introducing-launchpad-performance-weeks

Ubuntu Forums News

In The Press

Canonical Survey Shows Ubuntu Server as Mission-Critical Enterprise Platform

Darryl K. Taft of eWeek reports that Canonical and analyst firm RedMonk have released the findings of a survey of thousands of Ubuntu users that show usage patterns for the Ubuntu server product. The survey, completed by nearly 7,000 respondents, shows that Ubuntu is being used in most common workloads, such as Web, file, database and mail server, and is considered "mission-critical" by most respondents. Steve George, director of support and services for Canonical, said the survey indicates not only that users are primarily using Ubuntu for such common workloads, but also that the security, backup and firewall areas are important workloads being run on Ubuntu. Users strongly indicated their intent to add Ubuntu servers to their data centers in the immediate and long term. "Clearly, we have businesses of all sizes using Ubuntu to run what they consider to be mission-critical applications," George said.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Canonical-Survey-Shows-Ubuntu-Server-as-Mission-Critical-Enterprise-Platform/

Survey Shows Ubuntu Not Just for Desktop Anymore

Elizabeth Montalbano of PC World tell us that Ubuntu should not be considered merely the desktop Linux distribution of choice anymore if a new survey conducted by Canonical and open-source analyst firm RedMonk is an indicator. The majority of nearly 7,000 businesses surveyed that are using Ubuntu Linux said they use it for a range of mission-critical workloads that are typically run on servers, such as proxy/caching, routing, mail security, clustering, virtualization, data backup and databases. Stephen O'Grady, analyst with RedMonk, said the range of applications for which companies are using Ubuntu will surprise some people. "The workload distribution is all over the map." He also said that while the survey covered more small businesses than enterprises, the size mix of companies surveyed was broad, and companies in all ranges reported using Ubuntu beyond the desktop.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/158948/survey_shows_ubuntu_not_just_for_desktop_anymore.html

http://www.canonical.com/campaign/serversurvey/survey

Sibyl Systems to Distribute Ubuntu Linux Exclusively

Sibyl Systems, a Central New York 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 a local point of presence on the sales side, as well as hardware and software installation, service and support. "Canonical is a wonderful partner for us. This is a highly capable company with great integrity. They are dedicated, hardworking and they know their products inside and out, unlike other big name software makers," said John J Rice, president and lead engineer for Sibyl Systems. "We look forward to exclusively working with them and to help them grow in the Syracuse area and north east US marketplace." When asked why companies should consider a linux solutions as opposed to a traditional Windows based solution Rice stated, "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, and ROI just to name a few."

http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=165989&Itemid=96

The case for Ubuntu on the server

Leigh Dyer of PC Authority weighs the pros and cons of whether Ubuntu has a future in server deployments. Dyer tells us, "I still run Debian on my servers, and the main reason is the release cycle. I don't have any servers that need to be updated every six months, so the LTS releases are the only ones that I'd feel comfortable running." Dyer will definitely be keeping a closer eye on Ubuntu's progress in the server market from now on, though. The Wikimedia Foundation recently announced that it was standardising on Ubuntu across its farm of several hundred servers, replacing a blend of OSs that included Red Hat and OpenSolaris. Dyer installed an Intrepid server to play with and is so far quite impressed. The installer is a nicely streamlined version of the Debian text-mode installer, and it lets you enable a number of specific profiles, like ‘Virtualisation host' or ‘PostgreSQL server', that install extra functionality on top of the base packages. It's definitely still designed for experienced admins, though - there are no GUI packages on the CD, so regardless of what options you select, you'll be staring at a plain text login screen once your system boots.

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/136027,the-case-for-ubuntu-on-the-server.aspx

In The Blogosphere

http://blogs.computerworld.com/ubuntu_server_linux_is_for_business

http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=1221

http://www.screenage.de/blog/2009/02/06/ubuntu-developers-visiting-ubuntu-berlin-and-c-base-with-interview-with-mark-shuttleworth/

In Other News

Full Circle Magazine #21

Featured in this issue:

• Command and Conquer - Formatting Output.

• How-To : Program in C - Part 5, Web Development - Part 2, Changing Video Aspect Ratios & Ubuntu ISO to Bootable USB.

• My Story - Creative Zen V Plus in Ubuntu
• Game Review - Tribal Trouble 2
• My Opinion - Missed Opportunity
• MOTU Interview - Nicolas Valcarcel
• Top 5 - Torrent Tools
• PLUS - FCM#20 Survey Results

*Get it while it’s hot! http://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-21/

Ubuntu podcast #19

In this episode:

• Ubuntu usability testing
• 8.04.2 released
• French pushing Ubuntu
• Ubuntu Developer Week
• etc, etc, etc

The podcast are announced on dent and tweet when they are about to stream live. If you want to know when that happens, follow http://twitter.com/ubuntupodcast or http://identi.ca/ubuntupodcast.

http://ubuntupodcast.net/2009/02/05/ubuntu-podcast-episode-19/

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-February/000400.html

Toshiba Netbook with Ubuntu Remix

http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/product/Toshiba-NB100-11R/1058543/toshibaShop/true/

Meeting Summaries

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Community Spotlight

Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.10, 8.04, and 8.10

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

Ubuntu 7.10 Updates

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

Ubuntu 8.10 Updates

UWN #: A sneak peek

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:

• http://www.ubuntu.com/news

and

• http://fridge.ubuntu.com/

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
• Craig A. Eddy
• Dave Bush
• Your Name Here
• And many others

Glossary of Terms

Ubuntu - Get Involved

The Ubuntu community consists of individuals and teams, working on different aspects of the distribution, giving advice and technical support, and helping to promote Ubuntu to a wider audience. No contribution is too small, and anyone can help. It's your chance to get in on all the community fun associated with developing and promoting Ubuntu. http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate

Feedback

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