Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 252
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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 252 for the week February 6 - 12, 2012.
In This Issue
- Ubuntu Global Jam: Call For Events!
- Ubuntu 12.04 Development update
- Remixing Ubuntu for the Enterprise Desktop
- Ubuntu Stats
- LoCo News
- Ubuntu Cloud News
- Jonathan Riddell: Kubuntu Status
- Chris Coulson: Why Ubuntu is not using the Firefox ESR
- Canonical Design Team: Ubuntu sound theme design
- Daniel Holbach: New Ubuntu developers in the making
- Will Unity win the battle of the Linux desktop?
- Trimble Yuma: a rugged Ubuntu-based tablet
- Privacy Controls & Minor UI Tweaks Land in Ubuntu 12.04
- Other Articles of Interest
- Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
- Weekly Official Ubuntu Flavors Team Meetings
- Upcoming Meetings and Events
- Updates and Security
- And much much more
General Community News
Ubuntu Global Jam: Call For Events!
Ubuntu Global Jam (UGJ) will take place from 02-04 March 2012. UGJ is a call to action for Ubuntu users to organize and participate in a local event designed to be fun and improve Ubuntu at the same time. Anyone is able to contribute to their local UGJ event and everyone is welcome and encouraged to get involved.
http://www.jonobacon.org/2012/02/07/...-for-events-2/
Ubuntu 12.04 Development update
In his latest Ubuntu 12.04 development update, Daniel Holbach highlights the Alpha 2 release, encourages users to test this release, and reminds the community that Feature Freeze is Friday, 17 February 2012.
Events in this update cover Ubuntu Global Jam to be held on 02-04 February, 2012, and Holbach links to a video to help get people started with organizing a local Global Jam.
As usual this update includes a list of items that still need to be accomplished, how first timers can get involved, and who to contact.
This update also includes interviews from various Kubuntu developers who look at where this distribution stands and its future.
http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2012/02/09/...ent-update-13/
Remixing Ubuntu for the Enterprise Desktop
Mark Shuttleworth announced the release of the Ubuntu Desktop Business Remix which is based on Ubuntu 11.10. The difference in this release over other Ubuntu releases is that Canonical tailors the Ubuntu Desktop Business Remix for enterprise environments. There is a special EULA (End User License Agreement) to sign before this can be used due to proprietary software additions like VMWare and others.
Full post here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1002
Canonical's announcement here: http://blog.canonical.com/2012/02/10...-by-canonical/
Ubuntu Stats
Bug Stats
- Open (88762) +203 over last week
- Critical (119) -22 over last week
- Unconfirmed (46574) +60 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 Oneiric
- English (Australia) (2) +/-0 over last week
- Spanish (8665) -26 over last week
- English (United Kingdom) (31311) -991 over last week
- Bosnian (37829) -717 over last week
- Brazilian Portuguese (43512) +/-0 over last week
Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Oncelot", see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/oneiric/ and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations
Ubuntu Brainstorm Top Posts this week
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/
Ask Ubuntu Top 5 Questions this week
Ask (and answer!) your own questions at http://askubuntu.com
LoCo News
Organizing a Memorable Ubuntu Global Jam
Benjamin Kerensa of the Ubuntu Oregon LoCo team shares several tips for teams seeking to organize an Ubuntu Global Jam in early March. He includes the following topics: picking a time, finding a venue, engaging potential sponsors for this event and more.
http://benjaminkerensa.com/2012/02/0...ntu-global-jam
New Ubuntu Brazilian Community Council announced
Tiago Hillebrandt announces that he, Andre Noel, Ayrton Araujo and Fabio Nogueira now make up the Ubuntu Brazilian Community Council.
http://tiagohillebrandt.eti.br/blog/...cil-announced/
Feb Ubuntu Hour Rondebosch
Maia Grotepass shares photos from the recent Ubuntu Hour in Rondebosch, South Africa.
http://my-ubuntu-day.blogspot.com/20...ondebosch.html
Ubuntu Cloud News
Automating Openstack Testing on Ubuntu
James Page highlights efforts made by the Canonical Platform Server Team in automating OpenStack testing in Ubuntu. In this post Page defines the scope of the work and use of gerrit and jenkins for pre-commit testing.
Page breaks the post into the following areas: Lab Set-up, Preseeded LVM Snapshot Installs, Management of Jenkins, Testing OpenStack Essex on Ubuntu Precise, Build, Deploy, Test, Reporting, Success So Far, Further Plans for the Lab, References and Credits.
http://cloud.ubuntu.com/2012/02/auto...ing-on-ubuntu/
Shipping best practice with juju charms
Jorge Castro looks at how to solve the problems which Patrick McKenzie outlines in his "Why I don't host my own blog anymore" post with a "turbo charged" juju charm to help deploy a more tailored version of Wordpress. "Interested in turning a plain boring charm into something sexy? I've filed the bug here, let us know if you're interested." concludes Castro.
http://castrojo.tumblr.com/post/1732...th-juju-charms
The Planet
Jonathan Riddell: Kubuntu Status
Jonathan Riddell, the sole paid developer of the Kubuntu project at Canonical, announced that Canonical will no longer offer financial support for the project after the 12.04 release. Canonical will offer infrastructure support in the same way as the other community flavors such as Edubuntu, Lubuntu, and Xubuntu, but future development will rely on the strength of the community.
Full post here: http://blogs.kde.org/node/4531
More information can also be found in Harald Sitter's "How Kubuntu Did Not Change" post: http://apachelog.wordpress.com/2012/...id-not-change/
Philip Ballew: We are Ubuntu: My interview with Mike Holstein
Philip Ballew talks to UbuntuStudio, NC LoCo, and community contributor, Mike Holstein in this 'Were are Ubuntu' interview series. Holstein lets readers know what he does outside the Ubuntu Community--he's a musician--, what areas of Ubuntu he helps in as well as how this helps the Ubuntu community. He also answers why he uses Ubuntu, what inspired him to join the Ubuntu community, what else he would like to help with, as well as what he brings to the Ubuntu to make it better.
http://philipballew.wordpress.com/20...iew-with-mike/
Chris Coulson: Why Ubuntu is not using the Firefox ESR
Chris Coulson of the Ubuntu Desktop Team explains why Ubuntu is not using the Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) in the upcoming Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release.
Coulson looks at the arguments both for and against using Firefox ESR and concludes his post with, "It is entirely possible that we might provide a Firefox ESR build for people who are managing large deployments of Ubuntu, although the details of this aren't decided yet. However, this isn't going to be the default browser for our LTS. If it existed, it would be shipped in a PPA (much like we have been doing for the Firefox Stable PPA), and we would have to be clear to users that it wouldn't receive the same level of support we give to the regular Firefox versions."
http://www.chriscoulson.me.uk/blog/?p=111
Canonical Design Team: Ubuntu sound theme design
The Canonical Design Team is asking for submissions for the Ubuntu Sound Theme.
The ideal length of the startup sound should be around 2 - 4 seconds, in ogg format at a rate of 320kbps. Additionally, this Ubuntu Sound Theme submission should encompass the following brand values: Reliable, Collaborative, Freedom, Precise. The deadline for submission is Monday, 13 February, 2012.
http://design.canonical.com/2012/02/...-theme-design/
Ubuntu App Developer Blog: Top 10 Ubuntu app downloads for January 2012
The top 10 commercial and free apps downloads from the Ubuntu Software Centre in January 2012 include:
- Commercial - TRAUMA, Oil Rush, Fluendo DVD Player, Family Farm, Steel Storm: Burning Retribution , Braid, Monster RPG 2, World of Goo, The Clockwork Man: The Hidden World, Uplink
- Free - Marble Arena 2, Ryzom, Crossover Games, Tribal Trouble 2, CoreBreach Demo, Full Circle Magazine, Vendetta Online, TreeSheets, CrossOver Pro (trial), Wunderlist
Descriptions and links to these app downloads can be found in the link below.
http://developer.ubuntu.com/2012/02/...-january-2012/
Daniel Holbach: New Ubuntu developers in the making
Daniel Holbach looks how outreach, documentation, TODO lists, feedback loop and joining the ranks play a part in attracting new developers to make Ubuntu even better.
http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/2012/02/...in-the-making/
Jeremy Bicha: Ubuntu Classic, Now With Indicators
Jeremy Bicha thanks Jason Conti (for the patch) and Ted Gould (for the merge) as he announces that indicators have now been ported to gnome-panel 3. Bicha says the themeing is a broken, but that should get fixed in the coming weeks and notes that patches are welcome.
He also admits that the Classic desktop in 11.04 had issues but now he'd be happy to recommend 12.04 to "fans" of the GNOME 2 style.
http://jeremy.bicha.net/2012/02/11/u...th-indicators/
In The Press
Will Unity win the battle of the Linux desktop?
Brian Proffitt, ITWorld, writes about the fragmentation of Linux desktop environments. In this article Proffitt notes, there aren't single environments anymore, but desktops using common technologies. He also describes, with references from User Experience (UX) experts, why Canonical can (and should) win the Linux desktop battle.
http://www.itworld.com/it-management...-linux-desktop
A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Terry Relph-Knight, ZDNet, says, "Regardless of operating system, the user experience is always mediated through the user interface, or UI. Since Mint is based on Ubuntu, comparisons between the two OSs for desktop use come down almost entirely to the UI."
In this article Relph-Knight compares and contrasts Ubuntu and Linux Mint using screencasts and summaries to highlight the UI experience.
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/deskt...nt-40095012/2/
Canonical aims for enterprise desktop with Ubuntu business remix
Ryan Paul, Ars Technica, reviews the Ubuntu Desktop Business Remix announced by Canonical. This remix is customized for enterprise environments and is based on Ubuntu 11.10.
http://arstechnica.com/business/news...ness-remix.ars
In The Blogosphere
"We're Going to be Building Awesome Things" - Ubuntu TV Interview with Canonical's Will Cooke
Will Cooke, Engineering Manager for the Product Strategy Team at Canonical, sheds some light on what he thinks will contribute to the development of Ubuntu TV and the ultimate, simple TV experience. Cooke's "love for the telly" mixed with Canonical's recruiting strategy for the best developers and designers promises "awesome things" in store for Ubuntu TV. The community response has been amazing so far, and will continue to drive the success of the project with help from Jono Bacon's "Experience Teams" idea. Decisions regarding aspects of the design and hardware specifications will be kept in-house, but will stay focused on simplicity in an attempt to bringing back the lean-back experience to TV.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/02/w...ls-will-cooke/
Trimble Yuma: a rugged Ubuntu-based tablet
SDG Systems announced the release of a water and dust resistant tablet known as Trimble Yuma which is preloaded with the netbook edition of Ubuntu 10.04. The tablet features a 7-inch touchscreen display, a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0, a 32 GB or 80 GB SSD, SDIO and ExpressCard slots, two cameras and integrated GPS. The models are currently available for $3,695.
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/it...t-1429788.html
Privacy Controls & Minor UI Tweaks Land in Ubuntu 12.04
Joey Sneeden, OMG! Ubuntu!, reviews the latest features and changes that have landed in the Precise such as privacy controls and User Interface tweaks as feature freeze approaches.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/02/p...-ubuntu-12-04/
Gaming/Graphics Performance On Unity, GNOME, KDE, Xfce
Michael Labarel, Phoronix, uses a variety of OpenGL benchmark testing against Unity, Unity 2D, GNOME Shell, GNOME Classic, KDE Plasma, and Xfce. Labarel also notes that AMD and NVIDIA graphics were also tested using both open and closed source drivers as well.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...desktops&num=1
No More Dodge Windows in Unity? Global Menu to Become Optional in Ubuntu 12.04?
Manual Jose, Tech Drive In, looks at the option of the Global Menu in the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release. Jose looks at both the Ubuntu Design Team mailing list and comments posted by Mark Shuttleworth in Google+ thread to a post by Alan Pope [Product Strategy Team, Canonical].
"...Global Menu is kind of useless and sometimes even irritating. Now, we will have to wait and see if these proposed changes are going to arrive in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin release itself," say Jose in conclusion.
http://www.techdrivein.com/2012/02/n...ty-global.html
Other Articles of Interest
Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
Weekly Official Ubuntu Flavors Team Meetings
Upcoming Meetings and Events
For upcoming meetings and events please visit the calendars at fridge.ubuntu.com: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/calendars/
Updates and Security for 8.04, 10.04, 10.10, 11.04 and 11.10
Security Updates
Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
Ubuntu 10.04 Updates
Ubuntu 10.10 Updates
Ubuntu 11.04 Updates
Ubuntu 11.10 Updates
UWN Translations
- Note to translators and our readers please follow the link below for the information you need.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeekly...r/Translations
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Additional Ubuntu News
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Conclusion
Thank you for reading the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter.
See you next week!
Credits
The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:
- Elizabeth Krumbach
- Emma Marshall
- Chris Druif
- And many others
Glossary of Terms
Other acronyms can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/glossary
Ubuntu - Get Involved
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