news 28 Posted October 26, 2009 Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #165 for the week October 18th - October 24th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Release Candidate for Ubuntu 9.10 now available, October 21st America's Membership Board Meeting, Ubuntu IRC Council Elections, Keeping Ubuntu CD's Available, LoCo News, Launchpad: The next six months, Meet Matthew Revell, Launchpad offline 4:00UTC - 4:30UTC October 26th, The Planet, TurnKey: 40 Ubuntu-based virtual appliances released into the cloud, and much, much more! == 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 == * Release Candidate for Ubuntu 9.10 now available * October 21st America's Membership Board Meeting * Ubuntu IRC Council Elections * Keeping Ubuntu CD's Available * Ubuntu Stats * Ubuntu Zimbabwe LoCo Team at ICT Africa 2009 * Austin's Karmic Release Party * Launchpad: The next six months * Meet Matthew Revell * Launchpad offline 4:00UTC - 4:30UTC October 26th * The Planet * In the Press & Blogosphere * TurnKey: 40 Ubuntu-based virtual appliances released into the cloud * Upcoming Meetings & Events * Updates & Security == General Community News == === Release Candidate for Ubuntu 9.10 now available === The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the Release Candidate for Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop and Server editions, Ubuntu 9.10 Server for UEC and EC2, and the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Codenamed "Karmic Koala", 9.10 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. We consider this release candidate to be complete, stable, and suitable for testing by any user. Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop Edition improves on the work of 9.04 to get you going faster, with improved startup times and a streamlined boot experience. Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition integrates Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud setup in the installer and provides improvements to system security with AppArmor, including an AppArmor profile for libvirtd to further isolate virtual machines from the host system. Ubuntu 9.10 Server for UEC and EC2 brings the power and stability of the Ubuntu Server Edition to cloud computing, whether you're using Amazon EC2 or your own Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud. The Ubuntu 9.10 family of variants, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, and Mythbuntu, also reach RC status today. This release sees the first technology preview of Kubuntu Netbook. The final release of Ubuntu 9.10 is scheduled for 29 October 2009 and will be supported for 18 months on both desktops and servers. Users requiring a longer support lifetime on the server may choose to continue using Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, with security support until 2013, rather than upgrade to 9.10. Before installing or upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10 please review the instructions and caveats in the release notes: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910 In addition, there are a small number of known bugs in the release candidate that will be fixed before the Ubuntu 9.10 release, but warrant highlighting for your attention: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910overview#Known%20issues The purpose of the Release Candidate is to solicit one last round of testing before the final release. Here are ways that you can help: * Upgrade from Ubuntu 9.04 to the Release Candidate by following the instructions in the release notes referenced above. * Participate in installation testing using the Release Candidate CD images, by following the testing and reporting instructions at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/ISO To perform a new installation or try out 9.10 "live" from CD, download the Ubuntu 9.10 Release Candidate here (choose the mirror closest to you): Asia: * http://mirror.unej.ac.id/ubuntu-cd/9.10 (Indonesia) * http://ubuntu.qualitynet.net/releases/9.10 (Kuwait) * http://ftp.linux.org.tr/ubuntu-releases/9.10 (Turkey) Europe: * http://ubuntu.ipacct.com/releases/9.10 (Bulgaria) * http://ucho.ignum.cz/ubuntu-releases/9.10 (Czechia) * http://ubuntu.univ-nantes.fr/ubuntu-cd/9.10 (France) * http://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/ubuntu.iso/9.10 (Germany) * http://ie.releases.ubuntu.com/9.10 (Ireland) * http://releases.ubuntu.fastbull.org/ubuntu-releases/9.10 (Italy) * http://no.releases.ubuntu.com/9.10 (Norway) * http://se.releases.ubuntu.com/9.10 (Sweden) North America: * http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/CDs/9.10 (United States) * http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/ubuntu-releases/9.10 (Canada) * http://mirrors.cat.pdx.edu/ubuntu-releases/9.10 (United States) * http://ubuntu.media.mit.edu/ubuntu-releases/9.10 (United States) Oceania/Australia: * http://ftp.citylink.co.nz/ubuntu-releases/9.10 (New Zealand) South America: * http://mirrors.ucr.ac.cr/ubuntu-cd/9.10 (Costa Rica) Rest of the world: * http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10 (Great Britain) Please download using Bittorrent if possible. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BitTorrent for more information about using BitTorrent. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2009-October/000126.html === October 21st America's Membership Board Meeting === The following contributors were accepted as Ubuntu Members at our meeting this evening: Ken VanDine: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KenVanDine https://launchpad.net/~ken-vandine Ken VanDine works on the Ubuntu-Desktop team as an integration engineer. By day he spends his time working with Ubuntu One and the Desktop Experience folks. Some of his significant contributions in the karmic cycle have been gwibber development and Empathy messaging indicator support and AV chat work. Duane Hinnen: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/duanedesign https://launchpad.net/~duanedesign Duane Hinnen is the leader for the Oklahoma LoCo which boasts monthly meetings, a newsletter and events. He is also a member of the Ubuntu Beginners Team where he spends a lot of time doing wiki work, bug triage, IRC support and is the leader of the Beginners Team Launchpad Focus Group. Steve Woodruff: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/swoody https://launchpad.net/~swoody Steve Woodruff joined the Ubuntu Beginners Team earlier this year where is main focus is helping new users in the forums and on IRC. He co-leads the Beginners Team IRC. Locally he's active in the Ubuntu Chicago team He has also dabbled in package maintaining and is interested in going down the MOTU path in the future. The Americas Board sends congratulations and a big welcome to these new members! https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-October/000733.html === Ubuntu IRC Council Elections === Soon several members of the IRC Council (Joseph Price, Marek Spruell and Melissa Draper) will finish their terms of 2 years. The purpose of this email is to begin the process of electing new/re-electing members to the council. Currently, the wiki states the following regarding IRC Council members: * Be appointed by the Ubuntu Community Council in consultation with the IRC Council, IRC operators, and active contributors to the IRC channels. Nominations would be open and public and would be considered and evaluated by the CC. Each candidate should prepare a wiki page summarizing their nomination and their contributions and including and referencing testimonials (e.g., something similar to what is prepared for Ubuntu membership). The CC commits to evaluating all nominations on the following criteria, listed in order of importance: * The nominees active status as an Ubuntu Member (essential) * The nominees support from at least one active IRC Council member (essential) * Opinions and testimonials (positive and negative) from current members of the IRC Council * Opinions and testimonials from current IRC operators - Opinions and testimonials from Ubuntu Members, Ubunteros, and other active participants on IRC - Evidence of activity within IRC (quality, quantity and duration) * Serve terms of two (2) years. IRC Council members could serve multiple or repeated terms. Weight will be given to proved contributors and re-election of consistently active members should be both easy and common. " from: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IrcTeam/IrcCouncil We would like to invite Ubuntu members to nominate themselves if they wish to run for election for the Ubuntu IRC Council. Please only nominate yourself, do not nominate others. If you are nominating yourself, please prepare a wiki page as described above. A nomination should be in the form of an email to the Ubuntu IRC Council email address: irc-council at lists.ubuntu.com All nominations will be passed onto the Ubuntu Community Council. Thank you for your time and we look forward to seeing your nominations. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news/2009-October/000232.html === Keeping Ubuntu CD's Available === One of the ways in which many people have been able to experience Ubuntu is via Canonical’s ShipIt program, which has shipped millions of CDs to new users. This has provided a valuable opportunity for new users to try Ubuntu and for our community teams to obtain CDs as part of their advocacy efforts. Due to the sheer growth of Ubuntu, we are making a few changes to ShipIt which I wanted to ensure I share with you. For the details, I am going to turn the mic over to everyone’s favorite Canonical COO, Jane Silber who updated us on the Canonical blog: * The ShipIt program has been at the core of the Ubuntu project since its inception. The goal was to make sure that there are no restrictions, as far as was possible, to people having access to Ubuntu. In the last five years we have shipped millions of CDs and seen Ubuntu’s popularity and reach grow in ways that would be impossible without ShipIt. https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ And that aim continues. We need to make Ubuntu available to as many people who need it, particularly those for whom the download options are limited. The goal has not been to supply a CD to every Ubuntu user of every version of Ubuntu. Remember, one of the coolest things about Ubuntu is the way you can upgrade from one version of Ubuntu to another – without the need for a CD! While these CDs are often referred to as “free CDs”, they are of course not free of cost to Canonical. We want to continue this programme, but Ubuntu’s growth means that some changes are necessary. Therefore we are adjusting how we handle CD requests to try to find the right balance between availability of CDs and the continued viability of the ShipIt programme. We will continue to supply CDs to LoCo teams and Ubuntu members. And we hope to make CDs available to everyone who is just discovering Ubuntu. And we continue to search for additional ways to make Ubuntu and Ubuntu materials available to everyone. But we are limiting shipments to people that we think have alternative paths of getting Ubuntu. For instance, * you can upgrade to the new release without a CD: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading * you can download your own CD for free: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download * you will be able to download the CD wallet artwork: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DIYMarketing/#CD%20Distribution%20Materials * becoming an Ubuntu member by contributing to Ubuntu, and thereby becoming eligible for more CDs: http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/newmember * And finally, you can purchase CDs: http://shop.canonical.com/ We will change the language on the ShipIt site to make it clearer what we are doing. We hope that you support this effort and realise that the intent is to continue to make Ubuntu available on CD to everyone who needs it. Jane Silber, Canonical http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/10/21/keeping-ubuntu-cds-available/ == Ubuntu Stats == === Bug Stats === * Open (67983) +1401 # over last week * Critical (29) 0 # over last week * Unconfirmed (32933) +1105 # over last week * Unassigned (59252) + 1331 # over last week * All bugs ever reported (332397) + 3843 # 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 Jaunty === * Spanish (10077) -181 over last week * French (36303) -65 over last week * Brazilian Portuguese (41453) -4379 over last week * Swedish (52520) -751 over last week * English (United Kingdom) (53068) -263 over last week Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope," see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/jaunty/ === Translation Stats Karmic === * Spanish (14878) -148 over last week * Brazilian Portuguese (49668) -15423 over last week * French (50840) -9375 over last week * Swedish (68581) -660 over last week * English (Uk) (78225) -9880 over last week Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala", see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/ === Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week === * Mounting ISO images should be easier - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/21937/ * Audio CD icon on the desktop is not very descriptive - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/21989/ * Make the Software Center social - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/21923/ * Icons preview standardisation - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/21988/ * Make it easier to restart the network - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/21953/ 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 == === Ubuntu Zimbabwe LoCo Team at ICT Africa 2009 === The Ubuntu Zimbabwe LoCo Team recently took part in the ICT Africa 2009 expo, held in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was a great event and well worth the effort. Full report and photos available on our site: * Report: http://www.ubuntu.org.zw/node/24 * Photos: http://www.ubuntu.org.zw/node/23 https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-October/000729.html === Austin's Karmic Release Party === Join the team in Austin between 6pm - 9pm on Thursday, October 29, 2009 at Aussie's Grill and Beach Bar, at 306 Barton Springs Road, just east of the corner of Riverside and Barton Springs Road, south of the river. I figured an Australian-themed bar would have to work, in honor of the home of our lovely mascot, the Karmic Koala! * Aussie's Grill and Beach Bar: http://www.aussiesbar.com/ * 306 Baron Springs Road: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&f=d&daddr=306%2BBarton%2BSprings%2BRd%2BAustin,%2BTX%2B78704&fb=1&geocode=5447858427608913353,30.258795,-97.747836&cd=1&z=16 Burning CD's is so '90s... If you'd like a bootable/installable copy of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, bring an empty USB stick, 1GB or bigger, and we'll gladly burn an image for you. There should be a couple of laptops to demo the new release. I'm planning on bringing two, to demo the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC), powered by Eucalyptus, which I've been working on for the last few months. http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2009/10/austins-karmic-release-party.html == Launchpad News == === Launchpad: The next six months === A couple of weeks ago, the Launchpad team leads at Canonical gathered in Millbank Tower to talk about what we’ll be doing over the next six months. We talked with each other, we talked with Martin Pool from Bazaar, we talked with people on the Ubuntu Platform team, we talked with Mark Shuttleworth, we talked a lot. Over the week, two very important things slowly began to dawn on us. I’ll talk about one of them now, and leave the other one to hang tantalizingly in the air like some forbidden fruit that’s learned how to hover. The first important thing we realized is that Launchpad was originally conceived as a way of helping better connect the Ubuntu operating system to the upstream projects on which it depends. We further realized that could do that much better than we are right now. A flood of bugs: Zillions of bugs get filed against Ubuntu every day. While some of them are introduced when the Ubuntu community packages software, many are really bugs in the underlying upstream code.[citation needed] And quite often they’re already fixed in the latest upstream version — it’s just that the Ubuntu package doesn’t have the fix yet. Yet even though Ubuntu is drowning in this sea of bugs, it can’t simply forward them upstream indiscriminately. Upstreams shouldn’t be bothered with old bugs; they only want to hear about bugs that are still in their code. And Ubuntu needs to know when such a bug has been found, both to tell users that a fix is coming and to help plan packaging updates. Package of the day: Launchpad should be doing much more to help rescue Ubuntu from this deluge. With PPAs and source package branches, Launchpad ought to be able to make it really easy to create a packaged version of the tip of any upstream, to test against, and to file bugs and provide patches directly to that upstream. That is, Launchpad needs to make Ubuntu Daily Builds rock. That’s going to be our overall focus now. At the same time, we’re also aware that we need to spend time polishing what we already have. So, for this month and for UDS, we’re going to be focusing only on reducing technical debt, fixing OOPSes and cleaning up the UI. Where to now: The Canonical Launchpad team are going to be focused on “bridging the gap” between Ubuntu and its upstreams. We’ll focus on better, faster bug triage, on making it really easy to get upstream tip on the Ubuntu desktop and really tight translations integration between Ubuntu & its upstreams. Early next week, we’ll email out a high-level roadmap of where we want to go. We are interested in getting real-user feedback about our solution to better integrating upstreams and Ubuntu developers. If you are an upstream or Ubuntu developer interested by that problem, please contact us. PS. If you’ve read this far, you are probably wondering what the second Very Important Thing was. I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait. http://blog.launchpad.net/general/launchpad-the-next-six-months === Meet Matthew Revell === Julian Edwards has turned the tables on Launchpad's communications expert Matthew Revell by interviewing him. As you may well know, Matthew is the one usually asking the questions and letting the Ubuntu community know what is going on with Launchpad. This time however, we get a little look into what is going on in Matthew's life. Read the full interview at the link below. http://blog.launchpad.net/meet-the-devs/meet-matthew-revell === Launchpad offline 4:00UTC - 4:30UTC October 26th === Launchpad will be offline for roughly 30 minutes from 04.00 UTC on Monday October 26th, 2009 for database maintenance. http://blog.launchpad.net/notifications/launchpad-offline-04-00-04-30-utc-26th-october == The Planet == === Meet the Platform Team Managers === Amber Graner brings us 5 new interviews from her "Where Karmic's Karma comes From" series. The Platform Team is made up of the following teams: Foundations, Kernel, Desktop, QA, Mobile, Community, and Server teams. * Rick Spencer - Engineering Manager for Canonical's Desktop Team: http://www.ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Amber-Graner-You-in-Ubuntu/Meet-the-Platform-Team-Managers-Rick-Spencer * David Mandalla - Canonical Mobile Team Manager: http://www.ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Amber-Graner-You-in-Ubuntu/Meet-the-Platform-Team-Managers-David-Mandala * Robbie Williamson - Ubuntu's Foundations Team Manager: http://ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Amber-Graner-You-in-Ubuntu/Meet-the-Platform-Team-Managers-Robbie-Williamson * Canonical Kernel Team Manager – Pete Graner: http://www.ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Amber-Graner-You-in-Ubuntu/Meet-the-Platform-Team-Managers-Pete-Graner * Ubuntu Community Manager - Jono Bacon: http://www.ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Amber-Graner-You-in-Ubuntu/Meet-the-Platform-Team-Managers-Jono-Bacon http://amber.redvoodoo.org/2009/10/you-in-ubuntu-meet-platform-team_3230.html === Jono Bacon: Wild and Wicked Wolverhampton Weekend === I'm fly to England back to Wolverhampton for LugRadio Live 2009. I have been over in California now for over a year and it will be the first time I have got to see many of my friends since I moved. It will also be the final re-union of the LugRadio team for the last ever live show and last ever LugRadio Live. It is going to be a blast! Tomorrow I fly to England back to Wolverhampton for LugRadio Live 2009. I have been over in California now for over a year and it will be the first time I have got to see many of my friends since I moved. It will also be the final re-union of the LugRadio team for the last ever live show and last ever LugRadio Live. It is going to be a blast! http://www.lugradio.org/live/2009/ Although LugRadio Live is entirely sold out of tickets, there is going to be one hell of a party on the Friday night at The Hogshead, 186 Stafford Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1NA from 7.30pm and also on the Saturday night at the The Connaught Hotel, 40-50 Tettenhall Rd, Wolverhampton, WV1 4SW from 8pm. On the Saturday there will be Karaoke. Oh yes. Everyone is welcome to both parties, and I would love to see you all there! The fun doesn’t end there though, oh no! On the Sunday, the first ever OggCamp is going to take place at The Connaught Hotel in Wolverhampton, and it is shaping up to be an incredible event. The organizers behind it, the venerable Ubuntu UK and Linux Outlaws podcasts, have worked hard to make it a rocking event and I can’t wait for it! I really hope it becomes a staple in the UK Open Source event calendar. What a rollicking weekend of Open Source goodness, firmly seated in the great British heartlands: * Friday 23rd October – Party at The Hogs Head in Wolverhampton. * Saturday 24th October – LugRadio Live 2009 and party at The Connaught Hotel in Wolverhampton. * Sunday 25th October – OggCamp at The Connaught Hotel in Wolverhampton. http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/10/22/wild-and-wicked-wolverhampton-weekend/ === Dustin Kirkland: Linux Magazine: Ubuntu Encrypted Home === Back in April, Linux Magazine ran what I considered to be an inaccurate account of the OS-level security provided by our Ubuntu Distribution. Your Distro is Insecure: Ubuntu. http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7297/1 Frustrated with the piece, I blogged this in return: Your Article is Incorrect: Linux Magazine. http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2009/04/your-article-is-incorrect.html Following that post, I had a very constructive, private email conversation with Linux Magazine editor, Bryan Richard. We discussed a number of different ways that Canonical/Ubuntu might be able to respond to their previous article, which caused quite a stir on Ubuntu's public Share this post Link to post
