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List: ubuntu-news
Subject: Ubuntu Weekly News: Issue #43
From: beuno () ubuntu ! com (Martin Albisetti)
Date: 2007-06-04 6:44:53
Message-ID: 2422be180706032344w37d61232g29ecf615e12591e2 () mail ! gmail ! com
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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #43 for the week May
28th - June 2nd, 2007. In this issue we cover an interview with Mark
Shuttleworth, newly approved Ubuntu Core Developer Sarah Hobbs, the
new batch of Ubuntu Members, an interview with Daniel Holbach, and
much much more.
* Deutsch - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue43/De
* Espa?ol - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue43/Es
* Fran?ais - Start one!
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue43/Fr
* Italiano - http://wiki.ubuntu-it.org/NewsletterItaliana
* Portugu?s - Start one!
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue43/Pt
== In This Issue ==
* Help Improve Usability!
* Newly approved Ubuntu Members
* Mark Shuttleworth Interviewed
* Sarah Hobbs is now Core
* New Kubuntu Council
* Swiss LoCo Team Approved
* Interview with Daniel Holbach
* Ubuntu Installer for Windows
* PowerPC Community
== General Community News ==
=== Help Improve Usability! ===
Paula Bach, a graduate student at Penn State College of Information
Sciences and Technology, is "researching the role of usability
expertise in Free/Libre/Open source Software (FLOSS) projects. This
includes looking at how usability issues are handled. Responses from
developers and usability engineers are essential, as well as from
other contributors, including users and user/developers." A short 20
minute survey has been created to "understand how open source
contributors approach usability in FLOSS projects." To read more, see
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/2007-June/001064.html
To take the survey, go to
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=gAODMj1MTFDFfAxhbOUXcg%3d%3d
=== New Members approved ===
* Ralph Janke
Ralph Janke is a bridge to Launchpad for the German Ubuntu
community. He is an active member of the kubuntu-de.org, working
mainly on translations of Kubuntu news. Ralph also translates the UWN
to German and hopes to be a MOTU in the future.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Txwikinger
* Michele Angrisano
Michele Angrisano is an active member of the Italian community who
helps out new member support, translations, and documentation. While
hoping to be a MOTU in the future, he has also starting fixing bugs in
PHP 4. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MicheleAngrisano
* Brian Murray
Brian Murray is Quality Assurance Engineer for Canonical who is
responsible for managing the Ubuntu QA team, He keeps an eye for high
profile bugs and creating systems for triaging and reporting bugs more
efficiently. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BrianMurray
* Efrain Valles
Efrain Valles helps run the Venezuelan Team and active in doing
translation and documentation. He has given three talks geared towards
building FOSS communities and organized a Feisty release party.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EfrainValles
* Sam Cater
Sam Cater works actively answering questions about Ubuntu and
applications on Launchpad and IRC. He has started the process of being
a future MOTU by doing basic packaging and bug fixes. Sam is also part
of Cubuntu, a command-line Ubuntu derivative.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/sacater
* Rafael Sfair
Rafael Sfair helped start and organize the Ubuntu Brazilian
Documentation team and is member of the Brazilian Portuguese
Translator team. He has contributed several wiki pages devoted to
explaining how to install scientific software. Rafael is also a
document manager for the APTonCD project.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RafaelSfair
* Alysson Neto
Alysson Neto is one of the administrators on Ubuntu Forum Brazil
and has developed the backup and maintencance tools to keep the system
running smoothly. Recently, he joined the Ubuntu Brazilian
Documentation team, where he provides integration between the wiki and
forum. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AlyssonNeto
* Wesley Stessens
Wesley Stessens is a member of the Netherlands and Belgium Ubuntu
teams. He is a moderator on the Dutch Ubuntu forums and webmaster for
the Dutch Ubuntu website. Wesley translates the Ubuntu Security
Notices to Dutch and is currently workin g on the upcoming Dutch
Ubuntu Magazine. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WesleyStessens
* Elizabeth Bevilacqua
Elizabeth Bevilacqua is a member of the Ubuntu-Women Project and
the administrator of the its website, wiki, and contact for
#ubuntu-women. She helped launch the Pennsylvania US LoCo team, has
helped organize and participated in several of its events, and is
responsible for its online resources. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Pleia2
* Luigi de Guzman
Luigi de Guzman is a staff member of the Ubuntu Forums and a
member of the NU LoCo. Along with helping on laptop testing, Luigi
started the Fluxbox documentation on the community help site..
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Luigi_de_guzman
=== Mark Shuttleworth Interviewed ===
Phoronix has an extensive interview with Mark Shuttleworth. Mark
addresses the criticism he received when he invited OpenSuSe
developers to join Ubuntu after Microsoft and Novell announced their
partnership. He erred in judgment of OpenSuSe instead of Novell
management, since the OpenSuSe community was not involved during those
talks. Work between Ubuntu and OpenSuSe has improved as Microsoft's
real intentions have become more obvious.
Asked to compared the maturity of Linux if Windows is considered
"middle aged," Mark says that Linux is like a dorky teenager with
acne. While showing some rough spots, Linux has lots of flexibility
that allows for innovative products, a reason why vendors are using it
to build personal video recorders. Similarly, Ubuntu has earned such
credibility as evidenced by the interaction of the community on Planet
Ubuntu and the mailing lists.
Two of the important features for Ubuntu 7.04 are the Windows
migration tool and the easy-to-install codecs. The migration tool has
become very popular among users who want to run a dual-boot setup,
Since countries vary in intellectual property issues, the framework
allows for users, where it is perfectly legal, to install and use
restricted drivers.
Read more of the interview at
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=732&num=1
=== Sarah Hobbs Joins Ubuntu Core Team ===
Sarah Hobbs has joined the Ubuntu Core Development Team. As a MOTU,
Sarah maintains many KDE packages and is part of the Kubuntu Team and
Ubuntu-QA team as well. She also has ops on many of the popular Ubuntu
IRC channels and is part of the Ubuntu IRC team. Read more:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2007-June/023744.html
=== Dell and Ubuntu behind the scenes ===
Dell has produced a cool video with some of the people involved with
getting Ubuntu ready for shipment. Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjxVXKEJnM4
=== New Kubuntu Council ===
A Kubuntu meeting took place on IRC and half the Kubuntu Council were
changed for new faces. The new members are: Kennth Wimer (kwwii),
Richard Johnson (nixternal), Luka Renko (Lure) who will serve with
three existing members: Jonathan Riddell (Riddell), Sarah Hobbs
(Hobbsee) and Antony Mercatante (Tonio).
Many thanks to the retiring members, Tom Albers (toma), Achim Bohnet
(allee) and Raphiel Pinson (raphink).
At the meeting two new Kubuntu Members (who are also Ubuntu Members)
were accepted, Cyril Breuil (marseillai) and Stefan Skotte
(_StefanS_). Cyril is well-known for his packaging contributions,
while Stefan has gained fame by creating the new Kubuntu logout
dialog. Congratulations to both of them, for achieving membership
status.
Other items including widget style, a discussion with Konversation's
upstream and a one click fix feature were discussed and summarised on
the minutes.
Read more at https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu/Meetings/Minutes/2007-05-31
=== New Dell support sub-forum on ubuntuforums.org ===
Got any technical support questions regarding Ubuntu on Dell
computers? Want to discuss more general topics? Please visit:
http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=256. Welcome to the
community!
== LoCo News ==
=== Swiss Team Approved ===
The Swiss LoCo team provides support to members all official Swiss
languages and collaborates in translations into German, French, and
Italian. The team has thrown several release parties and install fests
and has appeared in a local IT newspaper. Participating in several
events such as Software Freedom Day and Journ?es du Libre, recently
they provided demonstrations and answered questions at The Open Expo
2007 in Bern. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SwissTeam
== Interview of the Week ==
This week we interview ''Daniel Holbach'', one of the recently
appointed Community Council members, and a member of the Ubuntu Utah
LoCo team.
UWN Reporter: '''Since when have you been member of the Ubuntu community?'''
Daniel Holbach: ''I started using Ubuntu in the no-name-yet.com days
and got heavily involved during Hoary (when I should have focused on
my thesis instead). I became a MOTU on February 15th, 2005 and member
a bit before that.''
UWN: '''What do you think the next year will look like for Ubuntu?'''
D.H.: ''We'll see more teams, more people within the community, more
people from other communites and groups who will work with us, lots of
participation, lots of community action and of course Ubuntu will be
better versatile than ever.''
UWN: '''What do you think can be improved in the Ubuntu community?'''
D.H.: ''We can all try to make our teams more inviting, more open and
make it as easy as possible to join in and get some work done. Also we
need to make sure we share the knowledge we have and make it
accessible to new contributors.''
UWN: '''What are you most active in the community?'''
D.H.: ''I'm currently most active in the MOTU Mentoring program
(https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU) and in the Desktop Team
(https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam). We're looking for contributors
- join in on the fun!''
== In The Press ==
* Peter Griffin, at NZ Herald, writes how the New Zealand Ministry of
Education needs to make a coordinated effort to move to open source
software. Microsoft insisted the Ministry pay for licenses of Office
on all Macintosh's, even though Office was installed on half the Apple
machines. Peter thinks it is a good time to move to Linux since it has
so become so user-friendly, that Dell has started selling PCs with
Ubuntu 7.04. Edubuntu is listed as an option for New Zealand schools
as well as using OpenOffice as the main productivity suite. Read the
full article at
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10442422
* Linutop is a Xubuntu-based diskless computer for the purpose of
surfing the web. Its small form factor (9.3 x 2.7 x 15cm) and low
weight (280 grams) makes it ideal to use as an embedded PC, for public
information displays, and point-of-sale terminals, Linutop includes
Firefox, Gaim, and Abiword. For more information, see
http://www.linutop.com
== In The Blogosphere ==
* Mike Kupfer, at Sun, writes about Mark Shuttleworth's visit to the
Sun Menlo Park campus. Mike points out many difference between Sun and
Ubuntu, like how Ubuntu releases follow the train model, where if a
package is not ready, it is moved to the next release instead of
delaying the current release. Launchpad is discussed as an effective
way of managing third-party packages and how packages that might
infringe on patents are only available through downloads. Read more at
http://blogs.sun.com/kupfer/entry/what_i_learned_from_ubuntu
* Ugur Akinci, at American Chronicle, says Dell's partnership with
Canonical is perfect. He points out the benefits of Ubuntu: free, a
good productivity suite in OpenOffice, no viruses, no system crashes,
auto-updates, and "ever-growing collection of free, new and
interesting software available for instant downloads through
Synaptic." Ugur goes on to say "UBUNTU is a solution that makes sense
and works very well for me." Read more at
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=28349
* Ben, at ArsGeek, talks about the potential upside and issues that
may come up with Dell's partnership with Canonical. While computers
from Dell with Ubuntu pre-installed are cheaper than their Windows
counterparts, many potential customers may not understand that some
applications will not work in Ubuntu. For others who want to simply
surf the web and check email, the $50 difference is enough to sway
them towards Ubuntu. Children today are much more comfortable with
technology, so frequent upgrades for more features may be a reasonable
trade-off. Read more at http://www.arsgeek.com/?p=1819
* Sal Cangeloso, at XYZ Computing, talks about installing Ubuntu 7.04
on a Fujitsu P7230 notebook, which has a single core 1.2GHz Intel
processor, since Vista provided poor performance. Almost everything
worked properly right after the installation, while some required
tweaks found on the Ubuntu Forums. While not scientific, Sal's
observed that the battery lasted considerably longer with Ubuntu
compared to Vista. Read more at
http://www.xyzcomputing.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1062
* A blogger, at http://jyquentel.wordpress.com, writes his
impressions of using Ubuntu 7.04 for two months. He is impressed with
the speed, and lack of need to run anti-virus and anti-spyware
software. But above all, the best feature about Ubuntu is its social
nature which he believes "is a key strength of the distribution, the
amount of pro bono work being done by an army of volunteers on the
web." Read more at
http://jyquentel.wordpress.com/2007/05/30/60-days-with-ubuntu
* Wayne Beaton experiments with Ubuntu 6.10 and 7.04 on his brand new
Dell Latitude D820. The installation of 6.10 and upgrade to 7.04
worked flawlessly along with various development tools. Wayne expected
his biggest challenge to be moving two years worth of Outlook mail to
Thunderbird, but the import functionality copied all his folders,
messages, and addresses perfectly. Read more at
http://wbeaton.blogspot.com/2007/05/my-own-ubuntu-experiment.html
* Dr. Michael Dorausch, a chiropractor, discusses whether Ubuntu is
ready for office use. He thinks its a great idea to install Ubuntu on
machines that will be used by the staff to access the Internet because
of the lack of virus attacks. With OpenOffice providing most of the
productivity tools needed, and other OSS tools like Firefox, and
Thunderbird or Evolution, Ubuntu works well for a traveling
chiropractor. Read more at
http://www.planetc1.com/cgi-bin/n/v.cgi?c=1&id=1180636878
* Technocrat has a write-up of a newly purchased Dell E520N with
Ubuntu 7.04 pre=installed. The desktop has a Core Duo 4300 processor
with 1 gigabyte of RAM and 250 gigabyte hard drive, but no PS2 ports,
parallel ports, or serial ports. Peripherals must use the USB ports.
The first boot starts the installation process asking the user to
select a languate, keyboard, time zone, a user name and password.
Afterwards, networking worked without any configuration, as well as
two networked printers. NVU and Opera installed quickly and
flawlessly. Read more at http://technocrat.net/d/2007/6/1/20868
== Meetings and Events ==
=== Sunday, June 3, 2007 ===
==== Georgia US LoCo meeting ====
* Start: 19:00
* End: 20:00
* Location: #ubuntu-georgia
* Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GeorgiaUSTeam/Meetings
==== Catalan LoCo meeting ====
* Start: 20:00
* End: 21:00
* Location: #ubuntu-cat
* Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CatalanTeam/Reunions
=== Monday, June 4, 2007 ===
==== Scribes Team Meeting ====
* Start: 20:00
* End: 22:00
* Location: #ubuntu-scribes
* Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ScribesTeam
=== Tuesday, June 5, 2007 ===
==== Technical Board Meeting ====
* Start: 19:00
* End: 21:00
* Location: #ubuntu-meeting
* Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TechnicalBoardAgenda
=== Wednesday, June 6, 2007 ===
==== Edubuntu Meeting ====
* Start: 20:00
* End: 22:00
* Location: #ubuntu-meeting
* Agenda: https://wiki.edubuntu.org/EdubuntuMeetingAgenda
=== Thursday, June 7, 2007 ===
==== Gutsy Tribe CD 1 Release ====
* Start: 00:00
* End: 23:59
* https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GutsyReleaseSchedule
==== Ubuntu Development Team Meeting ====
* Start: 20:00
* End: 22:00
* Location: #ubuntu-meeting
=== Saturday, June 9, 2007 ===
==== Ubuntu-Women Team Meeting ====
* Start: 21:00
* End: 22:00
* Location: #ubuntu-women
* http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/Events
== Community Spotlight ==
=== Spotlight on Ubuntu Installer for Windows ===
A specification has recently been approved for the next release, Gutsy
Gibbon, involving a very cool feature which would allow Ubuntu to be
installed directly from Windows. The main advantages that pop up
pretty quickly are:
* No disk resizing or partitioning required
* No CD burning required, works on laptops without CD drives
* Easy to remove Ubuntu from the system, restoring the system to its
previous state
* The bootloader is not replaced, an additional boot option is added to it
* Ubuntu is installed/uninstalled as any other application, which is
comfortable for the user
The specification is registered in Launchpad at:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/installer-for-windows
and you can take a look at the wiki page for more information:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/InstallerForWindows
=== The PowerPC Community still Rocks ===
After being announced in February that the PowerPC platform would no
longer be officially supported, the community picked it up and
continued to support it. A FAQ is being built, and pretty complete at
the moment, located at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCFAQ. A very
active sub-forum is also available:
http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=133
== Updates and security for 6.06, 6.10, and 7.04 ==
=== Security Updates ===
* USN-468-1: Firefox vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-468-1
* USN-467-1: Gimp vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-467-1
* USN-466-1: freetype vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-466-1
=== Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates ===
* freetype 2.1.10-1ubuntu2.4 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-May/012430.html
* gimp 2.2.11-1ubuntu3.2 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-May/012431.html
=== Ubuntu 6.10 Updates ===
* freetype 2.2.1-5ubuntu0.2 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-May/008339.html
* gimp 2.2.13-1ubuntu3.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-May/008340.html
=== Ubuntu 7.04 Updates ===
* freetype 2.2.1-5ubuntu1.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/feisty-changes/2007-May/008617.html
* aircrack-ng 1:0.6.2-7ubuntu1.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/feisty-changes/2007-May/008618.html
* gimp 2.2.13-1ubuntu4.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/feisty-changes/2007-May/008619.html
== Bug Stats ==
* Open (30508) +58 # over last week
* Critical (29) -4 # over last week
* Unconfirmed (15350) +61 # over last week
* Unassigned (22936) -19 # over last week
* All bugs ever reported (103899) +1052 # over last week
As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started,
please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpingWithBugs
Check out the bug statistics: http://people.ubuntu-in.org/~carthik/bugstats/
== 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:
* Martin Albisetti
* Nick Ali
== RSS ==
You can subscribe to the UWN feed at: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/uwn/feed
== 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 at 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 at 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 at lists.ubuntu.com.
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