Issue90

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WORK IN PROGRESS

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 90 for the weeks May 4th - May 10th, 2008. In this issue we cover...

UWN Translations

In This Issue

General Community News

Ubuntu Brainstorm keeps growing

In less than two weeks, the Ubuntu Developer Summit will take place, and the best ideas out there will be reviewed! Meanwhile, we just upgraded Ubuntu Brainstorm:

  • Developer comments
  • Bookmarks
  • User infos and stats
  • New categories lists
  • Get rid of bug submissions

See the changes at http://blog.qa.ubuntu.com/node/7

Newly Approved Members

  • Stefan Ebner - Stefan has been working to bring in most of the universe package changes in Debian since the beginning of the year, and has been very active in the development community becoming the 21st most active developer in the Hardy cycle. He also participates in the German language support forums. https://launchpad.net/~sebner

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

LoCo News

Ubuntu Finland was given an award from Finland's Minister of Communications

[http://www.ubuntu-fi.org/ Ubuntu Finland] was awarded Finnish Linux User Group's 2008 award at the [http://h41267.www4.hp.com/eventpage.aspx?&eventid=OAAxADQANQA%3D&cc=fi&lang=en HP Linux Forum], Helsinki, on 8th of May. The award was received by the team contact of Ubuntu Finland, Timo Jyrinki, and was given by the Finland's Minister of Communications, [http://www.valtioneuvosto.fi/hallitus/jasenet/viestintaministeri/en.jsp Suvi Lindén]. The award also included 2000€ in cash for Ubuntu Finland's usage.

Honorary mentions were given to Michael 'Monty' Widenius of MySQL fame, and [http://linux.fi linux.fi] for the general Linux-related portal and forums.

Press release (only in Finnish) at [http://www.flug.fi/tiedotteet/2008/tiedote-linuxtekija2008.pdf FLUG's home page].

Ubuntu features on Italian national television

Ubuntu made an appearance on Italian national TV this week. [http://www.neapolis.rai.it/ Neapolis], a show which focuses on technology and the internet, led its 8 May 2008 show with a feature about our favourite operating system.

The show explains the meaning of Ubuntu and its key features: freedom, the six month release cycle, guaranteed security updates, a comprehensive software library, and great community support. [:FabioMarzocca:Fabio Marzocca], of the Ubuntu-it local community team, makes an appearance to explain the significance of the recent Long Term Support release, Ubuntu 8.04, and to describe the active Italian Ubuntu community. The clip also features shots of Ubuntu in action.

If you speak Italian, or just love watching videos featuring Ubuntu, you can listen to the show on [http://www.rai.tv/mpplaymediageneric/0,,News%5E0%5E82736,00.html the RAI website], or [http://youtube.com/watch?v=dPKgVhodNiU on youtube].

Congrats to Fabio and the other Italian community members who helped bring this together.

New in Hardy Heron

Launchpad News

Your questions for the Launchpad podcast

On Wednesday 14th May, the Launchpad team records the first show in a brand new Launchpad podcast.

They're after your questions about Launchpad. Add your questions to their wiki page at:

https://help.launchpad.net/Podcast

If you have suggestions for a name for the podcast or some appropriately licensed music for the theme, email feedback@launchpad.net!

Ubuntu Forums News

Ubuntu Forums Interviews

This week, we'll have a glance at Wybiral's from the other side of the computer screen. A free-lance python programmer, he's one of the Programming Talk sub-forum regulars. He's got code in the repos, as he says, so you may be using some of his work. Please read the full interview here: http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/an-interview-with-wybiral/

Tutorial of the Week

For this week's tutorial pick, we step outside the Tutorials and Tips forum again, for something a little more timely and a lot more complex: The joint effort of forestpixie and starcraft.man on the comprehensive "Complete Guide to Installation in Ubuntu".

It's a thread so huge it takes up four or five posts, just to cover every topic. Don't tackle this one on your lunch hour, because it will take that long just to work your way through the table of contents (yes, there is a table of contents -- it's that big).

In any case, it's a huge endeavor originally presented by starcraft.man and updated for Ubuntu 8.04 by forestpixie. Many thanks to both members, for creating and updating such an impressive guide.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=781352

In The Press

  • Ubuntu Open Week unites community and developers - What's the next best thing for Linux users who can't attend an open source community conference in person? Online workshops like last week's Ubuntu Open Week [1], where upwards of 300 participants per session showed up to learn more about the popular Linux distribution, the community, and its teams. http://www.linux.com/feature/134683

[1] Session logs - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek

  • The heron has landed: a review of Ubuntu 8.04 - Ubuntu spreads its wings. Ubuntu 8.04, codenamed Hardy Heron, spread its wings and flew out of the nest last month. This is the second Ubuntu release to offer long-term support, which means that critical updates will be available on the desktop for three years and on the server for five years. The extended lifespan makes this release an important one for Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, because it is a key part of the company's strategy to bring its Linux distribution into enterprise environments. The author evaluates a number of changes and upgrades, itemizing what he likes and doesn't like about each. The review can be seen at http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/hardy-heron-review.ars/1

  • Meet The Hardy Heron: What's New in Ubuntu 8.04 - This newest version was developed under the codename "Hardy Heron". The previous version, 7.10 (once known by the code name of "Gutsy Gibbon") was a rock-solid release that launched in October 2007. Numerous incremental improvements have appeared since – with all the updates freely available and automatically installable. Ubuntu has continued to develop momentum as a reliable, fun to use operating system. http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2008/05/06/meet-the-hardy-heron-whats-new-in-ubuntu-804.html

  • Time to choose, Ubuntu fans: rage or reason? - His post last week about Ubuntu's embrace of the profit motive (exemplified in sponsor Canonical's release of a proprietary and non-free management tool) triggered a pretty remarkable flood of venom and invective in his direction. Jeff Gould goes on to defend his position concerning Ubuntu's offering the availability of some proprietary software to users. http://www.interopnews.com/news/time-to-choose-ubuntu-fans-rage-or-reason.html

  • Linux Shootout: 7 Desktop Distros Compared - In this roundup he's looked at seven Linux distributions, all mainly aimed at desktop users. Some ought to be household names; some are less widely sung but still worth looking at. All are meant to be top-of-the-line, "throw-and-go" distros for general use, so he paid careful attention to how they behaved on a fairly broad range of hardware -- how display, networking, or other default configurations were set to behave both out of the box and after an update (if one was available). http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/linux/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207200145&pgno=1&queryText=&isPrev=

  • Review: Hardy Heron converts an Ubuntu skeptic - Sigh -- it's rough when you have to change a long-standing opinion. http://www.linux.com/feature/134672

In The Blogosphere

  • Moving to Ubuntu - He installed Ubuntu and now for the past 1 week he has not looked at Windows Vista even once on his laptop. It’s not that he hasn’t worked on linux before, he has worked on several distros for experimenting and learning purposes in the past, but after having worked on Windows Vista for about a year and then shifting to Ubuntu truly helped him see the incredibly huge difference himself. Ubuntu is simply miles ahead of Windows Vista (this is only a matter of personal belief), it is really cool and so swift, It’s almost as if he had upgraded my memory!!! http://www.dhruvasagar.com/blog/index.php/2008/05/06/moving-to-ubuntu/

  • Ubuntu's OpenGL face browser will bring bling to GDM - The GNOME Display Manager (GDM) is a component of the GNOME desktop environment that provides a graphical login prompt. It is used on many Linux distributions and is often the first interactive part of the desktop that users experience after the computer finishes booting. GDM is themable, and is often customized by distributors to include branding, but has changed little over the years. GNOME eye-candy expert Mirco Müller, who is employed by Canonical, is currently working on refining the login experience to make it aesthetically richer and more interactive. He is designing an animated face browser for the next generation GNOME display manager, which will be used in a future version of Ubuntu. Although the functional details and visual design haven't been finalized yet, the basic experience is documented in a specification at the Ubuntu wiki. http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/04/29/ubuntus-opengl-face-browser-will-bring-bling-to-gdm

  • Ubuntu Hardy Heron: Beyond the Hype and into the Dilemma - As the Ubuntu team would undoubtedly be the first to admit, some of the credit that Hardy Heron is receiving is not due to any action on its part beyond the wish to package the latest free software. When reviewers praise Ubuntu for the ability to display clocks for multiple timezones, for example, they really should be praising GNOME for its 2.22 release. Similarly, improved sound capability is due to the option to use PulseAudio rather than ALSA to manage sound, while improved integration of the browser into the desktop is due to the joint efforts of GNOME and Mozilla. However, just as defragging and anti-virus software never existed until they were first bundled with Windows, for many people, these enhancements never existed until bundled with Ubuntu. http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3744341

In Other News

Ubuntu UK Podcast Episode 5: Everybody Come Aboard

In this episode:-

  • Discussion:
    • o An interview with Pete Savage.
      • + progbox.vid
      o A chat with Phil Newborough.
      • + Random Ubuntu Advocacy + Crunchbang Linux
      o We rate our Hardy upgrade experiences. o Following up with our CLI vs GUI discussion with Laura Cowen.

And much more. http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2008/05/07/s01e05-everybody-come-aboard/

Meeting Summaries

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Community Spotlight

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

UWN #: A sneak peek

Archives and RSS Feed

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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
  • 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.