Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #84

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31 March 2008

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Welcome to the Ubuntu
Weekly Newsletter, Issue 84 for the weeks March
23rd - March 29th, 2008. In
this issue we cover: new MOTUs, Ubuntu
6.10 End-of-Life, Xubuntu refocuses,
Ubuntu countdown graphics,
Launchpad 1.2.3, Launchpad logo contest closing,
Ubuntu UK Podcast #2,
Reside@HOME: Linux Health Care, PWN To
OWN (Ubuntu wins), and much,
much more!

== In This Issue
==

* MOTU Team news
* Ubuntu Stats
* Launchpad
news
* Ubuntu Forum news
* In the Press &
Blogosphere
* Ubuntu UK Podcast #2
* Reside@HOME: Linux for Elderly Health Care
* Automatix
discontinued
* Full circle Magazine #11
* CanSecWest PWN2OWN
2008 - Ubuntu Wins!
* Meeting & Events
* Updates &
Security

== General Community News ==

=== MOTU Team
===

* Scott Ritchie patiently worked on Wine in Ubuntu for a long
time.
He has demonstrated he has all it takes to become a MOTU and
joined
the team. https://launchpad.net/~scottritchie

* After working for some time on Xubuntu, and recently
being
confirmed as project leader, Cody Somerville has further
demonstrated
that he meets the requirements for MOTU.
https://launchpad.net/~cody-somerville

=== Ubuntu 6.10 End-of-Life 26 April 2008 ===

Ubuntu 6.10 will
reach end of security and critical updates by Friday
April 25th, 2008. Ubuntu
6.10 was released on October 26, 2006, 18
months ago. So long,
Edgy!

=== Xubuntu Refocuses ===

Cody Somerville, a face we’ve all
associated with Xubuntu, made an
announcement on March 16th that an important
community meeting,
chaired by our community manager Jono Bacon, would be held
on March
26th. The objective: Bringing focus to Xubuntu’s community
and
development in an attempt to resolve the recent internal
conflict
resolving package selection which left the project
idling.

Today we’d like to report on the outstanding success of that
meeting.
Jim Campbell, Xubuntu documentation lead, wrote in an
e-mail:

We had roughly two dozen people take part (including old,
current,
and new faces) and a number of other individuals
who sent
in e-mails or left a quick IRC message to let us know that
they were unable
to attend but would be following
up with much interest. After just
under an hour of constructive
discussion led by Jono Bacon and several free
form
votes, I’m happy to present following mission statement for
Xubuntu:

     “To produce an easy to use
distribution, based on Ubuntu, using Xfce as
     the
graphical desktop, with a focus on integration, usability
and
     performance, with a particular focus on low
memory footprint. The
     integration in Xubuntu is at a
configuration level, a toolkit level, and
     matching
the underlying technology beneath the desktop in Ubuntu.
Xubuntu
     will be built and developed as part of the
wider Ubuntu community, based
     around the ideals and
values of Ubuntu.”

And with that new mission statement, the Xubuntu
community also voted
in the next Xubuntu Team Leader: Cody Somerville. Jono
tasked Cody
Somerville will taking the above mission statement and developing
a
strategy document. Once this document has been prepared, another
Xubuntu
meeting will take place to continue the impressive growth
we’re seeing in the
Xubuntu project.

The UWN contacted Cody Somerville who told us that he is
excited about
his new role.

”I’m excited. The meeting was full
of energy. People are *excited*
about Xubuntu and getting involved. We’re
going to build off of that.”

He also noted that the Xubuntu has undergone
a bit of a face lift and
encourages our readers to take a look
at
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu

Finally, we leave you with an excerpt from the
meeting:

19:40 <jono> in which case we have made
three important steps forward here:

19:40 <jono>
1) picked a leader

19:40 <jono> 2) agreed on a
general mission statement of goals

19:40 <jono>
3) agreed that cody-somerville will develop a
strategy based on that mission
statement

Full meeting log available at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/Xubuntu_2008-03-26

=== Ubuntu Countdown ===

A new countdown script is now
available for the upcoming Hardy Heron
8.04 LTS release. The script is meant
to be used on your blog or
website to further promote the upcoming release.
Don’t wait another
minute to start spreading the word.
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/countdown

== Ubuntu Stats ==

=== Bug Stats ===

* Open
(40989) +761 # over last week
* Critical (17) -2 # over last
week
* Unconfirmed (19683) +138 # over last week
* Unassigned
(31654) +627 # over last week
* All bugs ever reported (165515) +3015 #
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 Hardy ===

* Spanish
(14441)
* French (39221)
* English-UK (43768)
*
Brazilian Portuguese (52094)
* Swedish (53562)

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

== Launchpad News ==

=== Launchpad 1.2.3 ===

* If
you run a team in Launchpad, you can request a mailing list
straight away on
your team’s overview page. Once the list is active,
each team member will
have the option to subscribe. If a loco moved
its list to LP, subscribers
would also require LP accounts, so its
usage may not be appropriate for
everyone yet.
* PPA searches now allow you to find a package by its
name or words
in its description.
* Each project’s files are now
available to download from its overview page.
* Code hosting now has a
“Last commit” column that shows revision
number, time since

commit, the revision author, and the start of the commit message.
* In
Bug Tracker, you can attach files to a bug report by email.
*
Translations can now use up to six plural forms.

See the list of all new
features at
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/launchpad-users/2008-March/003473.html

=== Logo competition closing soon! ===

The Launchpad logo
contest is set to end on March 31, 2008, so you
only have a couple of days
left to get your submission included in the
contest. This is a community
based competition to design a new logo
for Launchpad. If your submission is
chosen, you’ll receive a Ubuntu
Messenger Bag, and bragging rights to the
whole Ubuntu community.
There have been many new submission in the last week,
and everyone
should visit the logo link to see all the great community work
that
has been done. It won’t be easy for the judges to make a final
choice.

Contest rules: https://help.launchpad.net/logo

See the logo submissions here: https://help.launchpad.net/logo/submissions

http://news.launchpad.net/general/logo-competition-closing-soon

== Ubuntu Forums News ==

=== Ubuntu forums Interview
===

Frodon is a ubuntuforums moderator from France, a gamer,
documentation
and tutorials writer, musician and much much more. He agreed to
answer
the Nine Simple Questions this week, please read his interview
here:
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/an-interview-with-frodon/.

=== Tutorial of the Week ===

This week’s pick from
the Tutorials and Tips forum, actually isn’t in
Tutorials and Tips. This
week’s top dog is kevdog, who wrote the
massive, comprehensive and amazing
“How To: Manual Network
Configuration without the need for Network Manager”.
It’s a tutorial
that’s so good and so well composed that it lives as a sticky
in the
Networking and Wireless section. This is a tutorial that
everybody
should look at at least once, even if you never need to look at
it
again.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=684495

== In The Press ==

* Ubuntu 8.04 beta: an agile upgrade
- The beta of the next version
of Ubuntu has arrived, though judging by its
stability and polish
you’d be hard pressed to tell it’s a testing release.
Scheduled to be
an LTS (Long Term Support) edition, and you can tell its
developers
have worked hard to make it worthy of the title. The familiar
brown
and orange color scheme remains, as does the overall fit and finish
of
the windows and controls. Under the hood, however, Ubuntu 8.04
has
improved considerably. A new optional installation utility
called
Wubi, a new kernel, a new version of the Gnome desktop,
improved
window and graphics layers, and a number of default
configuration
tweaks, makes nearly everything about Hardy Heron feel snappier
and
more responsive than the previous version. If this first Beta is
any
indication, Ubuntu 8.04 is shaping up to be a worthy upgrade
for
existing users, and a good jumping-on point for new
converts.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/24/13TC-ubuntu-beta_1.html

* The silent Heron - Ubuntu 8.04, was released for beta
testing, with
promises of new features, cool software and better performance.
After
upgrading, Compiz-Fusion still worked, but Emerald window
decorations
were deactivated. The desktop widgets, called Screenlets,
crashed, and
the Nautilus file manager gave some video problems in icon view.
None
of these bugs were as serious as the loss of audio. Ubuntu 8.04
touts
the new PulseAudio standard as a way to bring order to the
chaotic
jumble of sound drivers in Linux. As noble as this objective may
be,
it is exactly the kind of thing that will send new users running
and
screaming to get away from Linux.
http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=business6_mar25_2008

* Ubuntu’s Shuttleworth: Linux server, client will be big in
the
cloud and mobile sectors - In a brief interview with ZDNet after
his
OSBC panel, Shuttleworth said the Ubuntu Linux server will be
a
significant platform for hosting thousands of web services and
the
desktop client will evolve as the best platform
for
software-as-a-service. “On the [Linux] server side, the cloud is
the
big thing. It needs connectivity, mobility, and ability to scale
up
virtual instances. The desktop has key value here. By having a
desktop
that is network aware, you get the best of both worlds. Linux will
be
at the heart of the cloud and mobile devices.” OSBC included top
open
source execs from Ubuntu, MySQL, SugarCRM, Ingres and
Acquia
discussing future opportunities.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/zdnet/open-source/~3/257857339/

== In The Blogosphere ==

* First look at Ubuntu 8.04
“Hardy Heron” beta - A screen shot tour
of the Beta release of Hardy Heron,
including Gnome 2.22, Firefox 3,
Brasero, International clock, Transmission,
Remote desktop, System
monitor, Authorizations, and System services. You
might also want to
notice the new wallpaper shown in several of the
screen
shots.http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1557&page=1

== In
Other News ==

=== Ubuntu UK Podcast episode two: Stuck on you
===

Ciemon Dunville, Alan Pope, Dave Walker, Tony Whitmore with
Dave
Murphy present the second episode of the Ubuntu UK Podcast.
Available
in OGG or MP3 formats, this second episode includes:

* Ubuntu Demo day organiser Dianne Reuby talks about what’s planned
for the
26th April.
* Dave Murphy -talks about Cumbria LUG, schwuk, Canonical,
authoring
and hardware.
* How low can you go - putting Ubuntu on
small or low resource hardware.
* Pronouncing names associated with
Linux.
* Would you go back? What would you do if there was no more
Ubuntu.
* Feedback from the first show.
http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2008/03/24/s01e02-stuck-on-you/

=== Reside@HOME: Linux For Elderly Healthcare
===

With the projected increase in the elderly population, the rising
cost
of health-care, and the lack of available resources to those
with
Alzheimer’s and other neuro-degenerative diseases, a new
technology
start-up is hoping to alleviate some of this burden and create a
new
opportunity for Linux in the next-generation tele-health
market.
Reside@HOME is an “aging in place”
solution that’s designed to keep
those with diminished cognitive ability
independent and in their own
residence for as long as possible. Part of what
makes this
interesting, however, is that the device is Linux-based —
Ubuntu
Linux to be exact. Blue Heron Network LLC, the company
behind
Reside@HOME, will be formally introducing
this solution in the first
quarter of 2008, but in this article are some
details about this
unique Linux-based health-care product.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=904&num=1

=== Development of Automatix has been discontinued ===

To
clarify, Automatix isn’t entirely dead yet. Only development of
Automatix2
for Ubuntu has ended. Automatix3 may still be developed at
a later date,
however it would be a whole new application for the
exclusive use of Pioneer
Warrior. The reasons for the exclusiveness
are, 1. because Technalign has
paid for Automatix’s server and hosting
for the past year and 2. because
Automatix can easily work with
Technalign’s developers.
http://www.getautomatix.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2424
* See “Automatix: Package Architecture Could Lead to
Serious System
Problems” https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue51

=== Full Circle magazine: Issue #11 ===

Included in this
issue:
   * Linux Mint vs. Ubuntu
   * TrueCrypt on
Ubuntu, iPod Classic + Amarok, Introduction to
LaTeX, and
more!
   * Lenovo 3000 C200 and Ubuntu
   * Top 5, My
Desktop, and more!
http://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-11/

=== CanSecWest PWN2OWN 2008 - Ubuntu Wins! ===

CanSecWest
PWN2OWN 2008 contest had laptops with various operating
systems: VAIO
VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.10, Fujitsu U810 running
Vista Ultimate SP1, and
a MacBook Air running OSX 10.5.2. All in
typical client configurations with
typical user configurations. Anyone
who could expose vulnerabilities on one
of the machines, could keep
it. On day two of the contest, the MacBook Air
was the first to
successfully compromised. That left only the Vista and the
Ubuntu
laptops still unscathed. Beginning on day three, the contest scope
was
opened up beyond the default rules, and by 7:30 PM, the Vista
laptop
was compromised. At the end of the last day of the contest, only
the
Sony VAIO laptop running Ubuntu was left standing, and
unhacked.
http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/03/28/pwn-to-own-final-day-and-wrap-up

== Upcoming Meetings and Events ==

=== Friday, April 4, 2008
===

==== Server Team Meeting ====
* Start: 21:00 UTC
*
End: 22:00 UTC
* Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
*
Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam/Meeting

== Updates and Security for 6.06, 6.10, 7.04, and 7.10 ==

===
Security Updates ===

=== Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates ===

=== Ubuntu 6.10 Updates ===

=== Ubuntu 7.04 Updates ===

=== Ubuntu 7.10 Updates ===

== Archives and RSS Feed ==

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

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:

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:

* Nick Ali
* John
Crawford
* Isabelle Duchatelle
* Craig A. Eddy
* And
many others

== Glossary of Terms ==

1. MOTU - Master Of The
Universe. Those responsible for the
maintenance of the
repositories.

== 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.