Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 269
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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 269 for the week June 4 - 10, 2012.
Links to UWN
In This Issue
- 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) Alpha 1 Released!
- Ubuntu on Microsoft's Windows Azure IAAS
- Welcome New Members
- Ubuntu Stats
- Real collaborative design with open source software
- Launchpad for textual, graphical, and interactive browsers
- Scaling a 2000-node Hadoop cluster on EC2/Ubuntu with Juju
- Daniel Holbach: You can help: code review
- IRC Council: New IRC Operators
- Ubuntu App Developer Blog: Top 10 Ubuntu app downloads for May 2012
- Jono Bacon: 'Download for Ubuntu' Button Campaign
- Michael Hall: Contributing to Ubuntu: A better Pkgme
- Thorsten Wilms: Switches in Unity menus
- Ubuntu Classroom: A few instructor spots left for Ubuntu User Days on June 23-24th 2012
- Ubuntu Women: Ubuntu Women at UDS-Q
- Accessibility Team: The Year of GNOME Accessibility
- Ubuntu for smartphones may come next year
- Press coverage of Ubuntu on Azure
- Eight New Features in Ubuntu Linux 12.10 'Quantal Quetzal' Alpha 1
- In The Blogosphere
- In Other News
- Other Articles of Interest
- Featured Podcasts
- Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
- Upcoming Meetings and Events
- Updates and Security for 8.04, 10.04, 11.04, 11.10 and 12.04
- And much more!
General Community News
12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) Alpha 1 Released!
Kate Stewart announced Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) Alpha 1 release. Stewart reminds users that Quantal Quetzal pre-releases are not recommended for those users who want stability, and that are not comfortable with the occasional breakage. She highly recommends it for developers and everyone else who is willing to test and report bugs due to development improvements.
Images of Quantal Quetzal can be downloaded from the following links:
For more detailed informations about testing and Quantal Quetzal status Stewart recommends the following link: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/
She also recommends http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/list...devel-announce for following the Quantal Quetzal development and other events/news related to it.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ub...ne/000962.html
Ubuntu on Microsoft's Windows Azure IAAS
Mark Shuttleworth announces a partnership with Microsoft: Ubuntu is now available on Microsoft's IAAS Azure. Shuttleworth states: "Microsoft has built an impressive new entrant to the Infrastructure-as-a-Service market and Ubuntu is there for customers who want to run workloads on Azure that are best suited for Linux."
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1158
More information is also available on the Canonical blog: http://blog.canonical.com/2012/06/07...windows-azure/
Welcome New Members
Stefano Rivera announced that Jeremy Bicha (https://launchpad.net/~jbicha) has been accepted as a new MOTU by the Developer Membership Board at their meeting on June 4, 2012.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ub...ne/001573.html
Ubuntu Stats
Bug Stats
- Open (94521) -379 over last week
- Critical (67) -2 over last week
- Unconfirmed (48580) +125 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 Precise
- English (Australia) (1695) -76 over last week
- Spanish (11307) -130 over last week
- English (United Kingdom) (21093) -298 over last week
- Bosnian (37367) -51 over last week
- German (46571)
Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 12.04 "Precise Pangolin", see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise/ and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations
Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 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
Real collaborative design with open source software
Martin Albisetti shares news of the recent Ubuntu conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which they plan on now making a regional conference with the help of the Uruguay LoCo. Albisetti reflects upon a conversation he had with Guillermo Espertino about how a "small group of designers that used open source software to design professionally had gotten together and started a community called Grafica Libre." He also shares a video and some of the artwork made by Espertino and the group.
http://beuno.com.ar/archives/280
Launchpad News
Launchpad for textual, graphical, and interactive browsers
Curtis Hovey gives a thorough review of Launchpad visibility issues (textual, graphical and interactive) in different browsers. Hovey stated: "There are inconsistencies in pages you might visit. Some parts might not work because Launchpad does not have a 'proven way' to solve a problem." Hovey highly recommends that users should use interactive browsers since they provide information as needed, and best performance to complete the task.
http://blog.launchpad.net/general/la...ctive-browsers
Ubuntu Cloud News
Scaling a 2000-node Hadoop cluster on EC2/Ubuntu with Juju
Mark Mims and James Page share their scalability test framework on Hadoop using Juju Charms. They also share the steps of their scalability testing process in a very detailed manner.
Their framework plan includes:
- pick service that scales
- spin up a cluster of units for this service
- try to run it in a way that actively engages all units of a cluster
- repeat: instrument, profile, optimize, grow
http://markmims.com/cloud/2012/06/04/juju-at-scale.html
The Planet
Daniel Holbach: You can help: code review
Daniel Holbach puts out a call to the Ubuntu community for help with code review. Holbach states: "What we need most though is that if you can review code and upload changes you head over to the sponsoring queue and help reviewing."
http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/2012/06/...p-code-review/
Ubuntu App Developer Blog: Humble Indie Bundle: a few days later and Help Earn the Humble Indie Bundle More Money!
As announced last week, the Humble Indie Bundle 5 has arrived at the Ubuntu Software Center, and nearly 10000 downloads has been made in the first 72 hours. You can help raising money for the Humble Bundle, simply by giving the games a Facebook "Like" at their apps.ubuntu.pages.
http://developer.ubuntu.com/2012/06/...ew-days-later/
http://developer.ubuntu.com/2012/06/...le-more-money/
IRC Council: New IRC Operators
Ubuntu IRC Council has published results from their recent call for operators and listed out and congratulated some of their new operators:
- kkathman (op at #kubuntu-offtopic)
- cproffit, bkerensa and djones (ops at #ubuntu)
- holstein, astraljava and scottl (ops at #ubuntustudio)
- darkwing (op at #ubuntu-devel)
http://ubottu.com/ircc/2012/06/05/new-irc-operators/
Ubuntu App Developer Blog: Top 10 Ubuntu app downloads for May 2012
Ubuntu App developers state on their blog: "If we were to choose a theme for the most downloaded Ubuntu apps in May it would have to be games."
They list out 10 most downloaded apps in May (paid and free):
- Paid: Braid, Oil Rush, BIT.TRIP RUNNER, World of Goo, Linux Format Magazine - Issue 158 - Beat the CIA, Steel Storm: Burning retribution, Fluendo DVD player, The journey down: chapter one, Linux Format Magazine - Issue 159 - Ubuntu vs. Windows and Family Farm
- Free: Lord of Ultima, Command & Conquer Tibberium Alliances, CrossOver (Trial), Ryzom, Full circle magazine #60, Venedetta online, Tropical Stormfront LITE, Marble Arena 2, PDF Studio 7 Demo and Tribal Trouble 2
Mentioned list above include "only those applications submitted through my My Apps and Ubuntu App."
http://developer.ubuntu.com/2012/06/...-for-may-2012/
Jono Bacon: 'Download for Ubuntu' Button Campaign
Jono Bacon shares the new "Download for Ubuntu" button campaign to make it easier for users to find the Ubuntu download option on game and developer websites.
http://www.jonobacon.org/2012/06/06/...tton-campaign/
Michael Hall: Contributing to Ubuntu: A better Pkgme
Michael Hall calls for back-end contributors to James Westby's pkgme utility, giving very detailed instructions for new contributors. Hall states: "Currently there is a support for apps using Python and Distutils, apps compiled by cmake and apps written in Vala. But there are still many, many applications out there that aren't covered with these back-ends, including: Qt apps, HTML5 apps, Flash apps and more. That's where you, dear contributor, come in."
http://mhall119.com/2012/06/contribu...-better-pkgme/
Thorsten Wilms: Switches in Unity menus
Thorsten Wilms shares plans considering switch widgets in Unity's network status menu. He notes that enabling/disabling could be handled differently in style and placement of the widgets and that the adoption of "light-switch" style widgets in point and click interfaces is a mistake as they are often unclear about whether labels refer to the current state or the state to change to.
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/2012/06...n-unity-menus/
Ubuntu Classroom: A few instructor spots left for Ubuntu User Days on June 23-24th 2012
Elizabeth Krumbach of the Ubuntu Classroom team reminds the community that Ubuntu User Days will be held on June 23-24th 2012 and that there are still some available spots left for instructors. Anyone interested in being an instructor at Ubuntu User Days can send an e-mail to lyz@ubuntu.com, ubuntu-classroom@lists.ubuntu.com or contact the team on irc.freenode.net in #ubuntu-classroom-backstage.
http://ubuntuclassroom.wordpress.com...-23-24th-2012/
More detailed information about Ubuntu User Days can be found at the following link: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays
Ubuntu Women: Ubuntu Women at UDS-Q
Elizabeth Krumbach shares notes related to the Ubuntu Women project, which held a session at UDS-Q on May 10th 2012. A video of the entire session is now online and can be viewed on Youtube. Ideas from that session are now in the blueprint for this cycle. Members of the team also attended an Ubuntu Women dinner in downtown San Franicisco that evening.
http://blog.ubuntu-women.org/2012/06...omen-at-uds-q/
Accessibility Team: The Year of GNOME Accessibility
The Ubuntu Accessibility team shares news of a new campaign launched by upstream GNOME Accessibility for improvements "including performance improvements when the desktop accessibility APIs are turned on, enhancements to the readability of WebKitGTK+ and improvements to automatic regression testing which ties in nicely with the renewed emphasis on QA and automated testing in the Ubuntu project." They go on to share an easy way you can help by fixing some bugs the "a11y" tag, which was recently added harvest.ubuntu.com.
In The Press
Ubuntu for smartphones may come next year
Ubuntu for smartphones might arrive as early as later this year or early next year, Computerworld says. No official date has been set, but the global marketing manager at Canonical, John Barnard, has hinted that an announcement will come later this year.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...come_next_year
Press coverage of Ubuntu on Azure
The biggest news this week was the announcement that Microsoft would be offering SUSE and Ubuntu on their cloud service, Windows Azure. The following are a small selection of the articles discussing the news.
Eight New Features in Ubuntu Linux 12.10 'Quantal Quetzal' Alpha 1
Katherine Noyes pointed out new features that Ubuntu 12.10, (Quantal Quetzal), brings. These features include:
- Linux kernel 3.4
- A single 800 MB image
- A new look for update manager
- GNOME updates
- Firefox and Thunderbird
- No more migration assistant
- GCC 4.7
- Python 3.0
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...l_alpha_1.html
In The Blogosphere
Ubuntu 12.10 Sets To Make ARM Even Stronger
Michael Larabel, Phoronix, reports that there are already improvements to ARM for 12.10 based on results from their test suite, speculating that the Linux 3.4 kernel (rather than 3.2) and moving to GCC 4.7 may be influencing the improvements. Larabel shares results run on a OMAP4460 PandaBoard ES and writes "Ubuntu 12.10 is still very early in development with its first testing milestone not having surfaced yet, but so far the ARM performance -- at least as it concerns the Texas Instruments OMAP4460 -- is looking extremely positive."
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...210_arm1&num=1
Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon Talks About Ubuntu for Android, Humble Bundles, Steam, Gaming and More
Nitesh at Ubuntu Vibes covers some of the highlights of Jono Bacon's recent 'Ask Me Anything' session at Reddit. Questions highlighted include:
- Are you still actively trying to push Ubuntu to Android manufacturers/developers?
- How did the Humble Bundle thing go?
- What type of communication is there between Ubuntu/Canonical and the major PC game developers in regards to promoting more native Linux/.deb version of games?
- Do you have someone on your team that is focused on the business desktop users community?
http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/06/u...ono-bacon.html
Ubuntu 12.10 Looks To Use Intel SNA Acceleration
Michael Larabel, Phoronix, covers a recent Ubuntu Development meeting where they discussed that "they'll be trying to go with Intel Sandy Bridge New Acceleration by default with the xf86-video-intel DDX driver for the Quantal Quetzal."
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...tem&px=MTExNjA
Ubuntu 12.10 Will Have OpenJDK 7
Marius Nestor, Softpedia, covers the announcement by James Page that they plan to move to OpenJDK 7 as the default Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubunt...7-274559.shtml
In Other News
Canonical Success at Computex
John Bernard writes about the success of Ubuntu and Canonical at the recent Computex event in in Taipei, where they were an exhibitor. Bernard includes a photo of the booth which at the time of writing had over 1000 visitors and 25 media interviews about Ubuntu for Android, Ubuntu Cloud and Ubuntu TV.
http://blog.canonical.com/2012/06/06...s-at-computex/
Other Articles of Interest
Featured Podcasts
Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S05E08 - Queen of the Flaming Diamond
"Alan Pope, Mark Johnson, Tony Whitmore, and Laura Cowen are back for the eighth episode of Season Five of the Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo Team!"
- We talk about upgrading to Quantal Quetzal, upgrading a router, updating a blog theme, and going to a beer festival.
- We interview Elizabeth Krumbach from the California LoCo team, Ubuntu Women, and the Community Council. And we interview Charles "Dr. Chuck" Severance at the Dev8eD conference.
- In the news this week
- Events: OggCamp - 18th-19th August - Liverpool
- Robin Catling and Victoria Pritchard dig up another audio recording of an episode of 'Tomorrow's Technology Today' from the Herbert Maxwell Fosdyke Curmudgeon Memorial Sound Archive.
- We have a new Command Line Lurrrrve...
- rmadison
- We mention some Ubuntu related news in the bit-about-Ubuntu
- And Not-about-Ubuntu
More, including download links for ogg and mp3 here: http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2012/06...aming-diamond/
Weekly Ubuntu Development 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, 11.04, 11.10 and 12.04
Security Updates
Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
End of life - April 2013 (Server)
Ubuntu 10.04 Updates
End of Life - April 2013 (Desktop) - April 2015 (Server)
Ubuntu 11.04 Updates
End of Life - October 2012
Ubuntu 11.10 Updates
End of Life - April 2013
Ubuntu 12.04 Updates
End of Life - April 2017
Subscribe
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Archives
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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:
- Elizabeth Krumbach
- Jasna Bencic
- Mathias Hellsten
- Matt Rudge
- And many others
Glossary of Terms
Other acronyms can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/glossary
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
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/lis...untu-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.
http://fridge.ubuntu.com/wp-content/...011/07/CCL.pngExcept where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Re: Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 269
Awesme.
Thanks elizabeth.
