Ubuntu Development Update
One week left! Are you excited already? The release candidate is going to get out soon and we will have days full of testing the installation on all architectures, in all kinds of installations scenarios. If you want to help out with the testing, it will be much appreciated.
So what’s still happening? It’s interesting to note that still quite a number of fixes is going in. Also has the planning for the 12.04 (“Precise Pangolin“) cycle been started. Matthias Klose sent out an email about the preparation of the P-cycle archive: the wiki page lists a number of significant changes for ‘precise’, like updates to gcc, binutils, swig and other core components and dropping python2.6.
Another great update was Colin Watson’s review of the most popular ideas on Ubuntu’s Brainstorm site. He gave an update on the following ideas:
- Contact lens in the Unity Dash
- Displaying Ubuntu version information
- Volume adjustments for headphone use
- Making it easier to find software to handle a file
- Show pop-up alert on low battery
It was great to see that he got feedback from a number of lead developers working on this.
Also lots of people are already thinking about the discussions at UDS, so a few discussion topics already found their way to the summit page.
Events
Ubuntu Release Parties
We’re still looking for people who can organise Ubuntu release parties! The Ubuntu Oneiric 11.10 release will get out on 13th October. This is a great reason to celebrate, so why don’t have a release party? Here’s how to organise it and here’s how to register it. There’s 29 events listed right now, these cities are participating:
- Asia: Bangkok (Thailand), Khon Kaen (Thailand)
- Africa: Capetown (South Africa)
- Australia/Oceania: Brisbane (Australia), Sydney (Australia)
- Europe: Hradec Králové (Czech Republic), Dublin (Ireland), Šiauliai (Lithuania), Vilnius (Lithuania), Podgorica (Montenegro), Belgrade (Serbia), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Lloret de Mar (Spain), Göteborg (Sweden), Blackpool (UK), London (UK), Leeds (UK)
- North America: Kitchener (Canada), Toronto (Canada), Mexico (Mexico), SeaTac (USA), Lakeland (USA), Melbourne/Viera (USA) and Philadelphia (USA), Tempe (USA), Plymouth (MI, USA), Nashville (USA), Jenison (USA). (Also there’s the Panama team still looking for a venue.)
It’s just amazing to see how distributed the parties are and how excited folks get together to have a great time together and celebrate this great release.
Ubuntu Open Week
Not finalised yet, but it’s clear that we’re going to have Ubuntu Open Week after release, where we’ll have a very broad spectrum of talks and workshops which showcase all the areas in Ubuntu where you could get involved. Watch out for the official announcement. Leave a comment for a session that you’d like to see! Watch out for the development-related sessions. The editor of this post is looking into getting one set up.
Things that still need to get done
It’s late in the release cycle, but if you want to help fixing things in the release and the fix is sufficiently important, here’s how to get involved in packaging and bug fixing, there’s still a lot of bugs that need to get fixed:
- There’s packages that fail to build.
- There’s bugs with debdiffs.
- Triage Debian RC bugs we’re still lacking in Ubuntu.
- And then there’s Security bugs you can take a look at, the team is a friendly bunch and they’re incredibly helpful in getting your patch reviewed.
- Also is the Server team interested in your help: merges from Debian is one possibility, fixing important bugs another.
First timers!
You wouldn’t believe it because we’re so late in the release cycle already, but we’ve had a number of people who got their first upload into Ubuntu last week still. Here’s to five great contributors: Jessica McKellar, Brandon Snider, Samuel Taylor, Manish Sinha and Pion. Thanks a lot everyone!
Get Involved
- Read the Introduction to Ubuntu Development. It’s a short article which will help you understand how Ubuntu is put together, how the infrastructure is used and how we interact with other projects.
- Follow the instructions in the Getting Set Up article. A few simple commands, a registration at Launchpad and you should have all the tools you need, and you’re ready to go.
- Check out our instructions for how to fix a bug in Ubuntu, they come with small examples that make it easier to visualise what exactly you need to do.
Find something to work on
Pick a bitesize bug. These are the bugs we think should be easy to fix. Another option is to help out in one of our initiatives.
- Help out with fixing packages that don’t build anymore.
- Help out with security bugs.
- Help out with NBS (a more advanced task).
In addition to that there are loads more opportunities over at Harvest.
Getting in touch
There are many different ways to contact Ubuntu developers and get your questions answered.
- Be interactive and reach us most immediately: talk to us in #ubuntu-motu on irc.freenode.net.
- Follow mailing lists and get involved in the discussions: ubuntu-devel-announce (announce only, low traffic), ubuntu-devel (high-level discussions), ubuntu-devel-discuss (fairly general developer discussions).
- Stay up to date and follow the ubuntudev account on Facebook, Identi.ca or Twitter.