Xenial Xerus Alpha 1 released!

By lyz | Published: 2016-01-04

"You can’t be friends with a squirrel! A squirrel is just a rat with a cuter outfit."
– Sarah Jessica Parker

Our own squirrel, Xenial Xerus (to become 16.04 LTS), should be much better than your average rat. You can see for yourself, as Alpha 1 has now been released!

This alpha features images for Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, and UbuntuKylin.

Pre-releases of the Xenial Xerus are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu flavor developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting and fixing bugs as we work towards getting this release ready.

Alpha 1 includes a number of software updates that are ready for wider testing. This is quite an early set of images, so you should expect some bugs.

While these Alpha 1 images have been tested and work, except as noted in the release notes, Ubuntu developers are continuing to improve the Xenial Xerus. In particular, once newer daily images are available, system installation bugs identified in the Alpha 1 installer should be verified against the current daily image before being reported in Launchpad. Using an obsolete image to re-report bugs that have already been fixed wastes your time and the time of developers who are busy trying to make 16.04 the best Ubuntu release yet. Always ensure your system is up to date before reporting bugs.

Lubuntu

Lubuntu is a flavour of Ubuntu based on LXDE and focused on providing a very lightweight distribution.

The Alpha 1 images can be downloaded at: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/xenial/alpha-1/

More information on Lubuntu Alpha-1 can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/Alpha1/Lubuntu

Ubuntu MATE

Ubuntu MATE is a flavour of Ubuntu featuring the MATE desktop environment.

The Alpha-1 images can be downloaded at: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mate/releases/xenial/alpha-1/

More information on Ubuntu MATE Alpha-1 can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/Alpha1/UbuntuMATE

UbuntuKylin

UbuntuKylin is a flavour of Ubuntu that is more suitable for Chinese users.

The Alpha-1 images can be downloaded at: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/xenial/alpha-1/

More information on UbuntuKylin Alpha-1 can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/Alpha1/UbuntuKylin

Regular daily images for Ubuntu can be found at: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com

If you’re interested in following the changes as we further develop Xenial, we suggest that you subscribe to the ubuntu-devel-announce list. This is a low-traffic list (a few posts a week) carrying announcements of approved specifications, policy changes, alpha releases and other interesting events.

A big thank you to the developers and testers for their efforts to
pull together this Alpha release!

Originally posted to the ubuntu-devel-announce mailing list on Mon Jan 4 19:13:20 UTC 2016 by Walter Lapchynski, on behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 447

By lyz | Published: 2015-12-22

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is issue #447 for the week December 14 – 20, 2015, and the full version is available here.

Our next issue will be a two week issue covering December 21 – January 3rd. Happy Holidays!

In this issue we cover:

The issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

  • Elizabeth K. Joseph
  • Simon Quigley
  • Paul White
  • Walter Lapchynski
  • And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 446

By lyz | Published: 2015-12-15

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is issue #446 for the week December 7 – 13, 2015, and the full version is available here.

In this issue we cover:

The issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

  • Elizabeth K. Joseph
  • Chris Guiver
  • Paul White
  • Simon Quigley
  • And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 445

By lyz | Published: 2015-12-08

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is issue #445 for the week November 30 – December 6, 2015, and the full version is available here.

In this issue we cover:

The issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

  • Elizabeth K. Joseph
  • Daniel Beck
  • Paul White
  • Walter Lapchynski
  • Simon Quigley
  • And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

Google Code-In 2015: Student registration now open!

By José Antonio Rey | Published: 2015-12-07

Google Code-In starts today and Ubuntu is one of the participating organisations. Code-In is an annual coding competition hosted by Google. Students participate by contributing to a set of tasks outlined by the mentoring organizations. They are rewarded with certificates and t-shirts as prizes, along with grand prize winners who get a trip to Google’s HQ in California.

We’ve created a set of tasks for Ubuntu which cover coding, documentation, QA, outreach, and user interface designs. The tasks are designed for students of all interests and skill levels. If you’ve never been a part of an open source community before, now is your chance to learn more! Are you a high school student in the ages between 13 and 17, and curious about open source, Linux, or Ubuntu? We invite you to join us.

To sign up, head to the Google Code-In site and register as a student. From there, you will be able to select Ubuntu and browse through the tasks available. The contest will run until January the 25th.

Keeping in touch is easy via our mailing list or #ubuntu-google IRC Channel on freenode. You can find out more information at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GoogleCodeIn.

We welcome additional tasks from the Ubuntu community which meet the criteria set out in the Code-In project. If you have any further questions or comments get in touch with the Code-In Ubuntu Organisation admins (Nicholas Skaggs, Alan Pope and José Antonio Rey).