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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #14, for the week of Sept, 10 - 16, 2006. In this issue we cover ...

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

In This Issue

General Community News

The Edgy Eft Knot 3 CD Released

Put in a little write up here about the general release of Knot 3.

Ubuntu Developer Summit Announced

Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon has announced the next Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) to be held right inside Google headquarters in Mountain View, California on November 5 to 10, 2006. The summit is open to the public, but be aware that it's an intense developer-oriented event, and participants should be prepared for hard-core low-level discussion. If you are ready for the challenge, the summit provides a great place to talk to core Ubuntu developers. The summit is not a conference, exhibition or other audience-oriented event, but an opportunity for Ubuntu developers -- who usually collaborate online -- to work together in person on specific tasks.

For more details about the summit, check out https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperSummitMountainView

Alexandre Vassaloti has recently opened up #ubuntu-trivia on Freenode. Currently, a themed Ubuntu quiz is scheduled once a week - the next one is on Friday, so be sure to come along and flex your Ubuntu-powered-brain-muscle. The quizzes are written up by quizmasters and a bot takes care of scorecharting the results. Read more at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuTrivia

Changes in Edgy

Chuck Short has uploaded a new development snapshot of xen, with a lot of bugfixes and support a large number of network cards, including via ndiswrapper.

The latest version of gnome-app-install features better integration of the popularity contest data (http://popcon.ubuntu.com/). It can sort this information and it will also take it into account when calculating the ranking for searches. To help make it really efficient, please enable it on your system! Go to System/Administration/Software Properties and click on the "Statistics" tab there.

Another new feature is the support for translated packages descriptions in apt and its various frontends (aptitude, synaptic, gnome-app-install, update-manager, adept, etc). If there is a translation available for the package description it will be automatically picked up and used. See https://launchpad.net/products/ddtp-ubuntu/+translations for the current translation status. A special thanks to our friends from http://ddtp.debian.net/ for their hard work. There are still many untranslated descriptions, so help is very appreciated!

Kubuntu Updates

Knot 3 has been released! This latest release brings with it an assortment of cool new applications, designs, and artwork. The first thing you will notice upon booting up Edgy 3 is a brand new splash screen, and at login time, yet another splash screen update. The desktop wallpaper has been changed and the purple color scheme has been darkened a bit. Press Alt + Space and have a look at the new Katapult design! Amarok has been updated to version 1.4.3 bringing with it some bug fixes, some changes, and even some new features. Have a go at the new and improved IRC application, Konversation. Sporting a new version 1, Konversation is becoming a must have graphical IRC client. How about some torrent action? KTorrent is rocking along with version 2.0.1. Make sure that once you fire up KTorrent, that you seed your Kubuntu Edgy ISO files! Other new improvements include, but definitely aren't limited to: Hardware Database, Hibernate on logout, New Gamma Configuration, Power Manager changes, and much more! To get the scoop on these updates, and to leave some feedback, head on over to https://wiki.kubuntu.org/EdgyEft/Knot3/Kubuntu

Other new versions in Edgy

postfix 2.2.3 (bug fix release) pygoocanvas 0.4.1 gcin 1.2.5

Don't forget quick installation notes, enable extra repository, package name, use g-a-i where possible, etc... (could someone make this comprehensible to mortals?)

Launchpad News

In The Press

Reuters takes a very high profile look at Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu:

"Ultimately open source is the platform of the future," Shuttleworth told Reuters. "It's one of those enormous waves that is taking over everything -- like the Internet."

Shuttleworth's "Ubuntu" family of software programmes is based on the Linux open source operating system, which works on the principle that software is free and can be modified at no cost by anyone to suit local and specific needs -- unlike rival Microsoft's proprietary software.

With quirky names for its programmes like 'Hoary Hedgehog' and 'Warty Warthog', Ubuntu -- an African word that means caring for your community and humanity for others -- is meant to be simpler to use than other Linux systems.

PC World magazine last year named Ubuntu as the 26th best product of the year -- ranking it above Apple's iTunes media player which was in 34th spot.

Read the whole piece at http://tinyurl.com/oytwh (Reuters.co.uk)

James Derk took Ubuntu for a spin and thinks it might be time to give Linux another shot:

Yes, I know, you expect Linux, the free operating system developed by volunteers all over the world, to be nerdy and hard to use.

And, when compared to Windows, it used to be. But several new distributions of Linux make it painfully easy to get up and running on Linux without spending a dime.

My new favorite of these is Ubuntu, a great product with a catchy name. However, it is an appropriate name for what it is. "Ubuntu" is an African word meaning "humanity to others" and this is one software company that follows that word.

You can find the rest of the article at http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/12964

Meetings and other similar events

IRC Meetings in #ubuntu-meeting on irc.freenode.net Local Community Teams Meeting on Mon, Sept. 18, 14:00 UTC Community Council Meeting on Tue, Sept. 19, 22:00 UTC Edubuntu Meeting, on Wed, Sept. 20, 12:00 UTC Ubuntu Development Team Meeting on Thu, Sept. 21, 15:00 UTC

Upcoming Events

Nothing this week, but we're all looking forward to the Developer Summit, aren't we, now?

Feature Of The Week - ???

Additional News Resources

As always you can find more news and announcements at:

• http://www.ubuntu.com/news

and

• http://fridge.ubuntu.com/

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates

Bug Stats

• Open (15019) (+332 over last week)
• Unconfirmed (8023)
• Unassigned (10310)
• All bugs ever reported (53238)

As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started, please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpingWithBugs

Infamous Bugs

Conclusion

Thank you for reading the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. See you next week!

Credits

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

• Corey Burger
• John Little
• Jerome S. Gotangco
• Jenda Vancura
• Joey Stanford
• anyone else that contributes
• And many others

Feedback

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 [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam Ubuntu Marketing Team Contact Information Page].