Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 382

By lyz | Published: 2014-09-09

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is issue #382 for the week September 1 – 7, 2014, 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
  • Jose Antonio Rey
  • 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 381

By lyz | Published: 2014-09-01

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is issue #381 for the week August 25 – 31, 2014, 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
  • John Mahoney
  • Jose Antonio Rey
  • 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 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn) beta-1 released!

By lyz | Published: 2014-08-28

The first beta of the Utopic Unicorn (to become 14.10) has now been released!

This beta features images for Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, UbuntuKylin, Xubuntu and the Ubuntu Cloud images.

Pre-releases of the Utopic Unicorn 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.

Beta 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 Beta 1 images have been tested and work, except as noted in the release notes, Ubuntu developers are continuing to improve the Utopic Unicorn. In particular, once newer daily images are available, system installation bugs identified in the Beta 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 14.10 the best Ubuntu release yet. Always ensure your system is up to date before reporting bugs.

Kubuntu

Kubuntu is the KDE based flavour of Ubuntu. It uses the Plasma desktop and includes a wide selection of tools from the KDE project.

Kubuntu development is now focussing on the next generation of KDE Software, Plasma 5. This is not yet stable enough for everyday use, so our default option is the trusted Plasma 4 desktop. A tech preview of Plasma 5 is available for those who want to try out the future.

The Beta-1 images can be downloaded at:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/utopic/beta-1/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu-plasma5/releases/utopic/beta-1/

More information on Kubuntu Beta-1 can be found here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UtopicUnicorn/Beta1/Kubuntu

Lubuntu

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

Lubuntu development is currently focused on the transition away from GTK+ to the Qt framework. This is not stable enough for everyday use, so the focus this version is on fixing bugs.

The Beta 1 images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/utopic/beta-1/

Ubuntu GNOME

Ubuntu GNOME is a flavor of Ubuntu featuring the GNOME desktop environment.

The Beta-1 images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/utopic/beta-1/

More information on Ubuntu GNOME Beta-1 can be found here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UtopicUnicorn/Beta1/UbuntuGNOME

UbuntuKylin

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

The Beta-1 images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/utopic/beta-1/

More information on UbuntuKylin Beta-1 can be found here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Ubuntu%20Kylin/1410-beta-1-ReleaseNote

Xubuntu

Xubuntu is a flavor of Ubuntu shipping with the XFCE desktop environment.

The Beta-1 images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/utopic/beta-1/

More information on Xubuntu Beta-1 can be found here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UtopicUnicorn/Beta1/Xubuntu

Ubuntu Cloud

These images can be run on Amazon EC2, Openstack, SmartOS and many other clouds. Beta-1 images have been published to Windows Azure and Amazon EC2.

http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/utopic/beta-1/

Regular daily images for Ubuntu Cloud can be found at:
http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/daily/server/

Daily Images

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 Utopic, 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, beta releases and other interesting events.

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce

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

Originally posted to the ubuntu-devel-announce mailing list on Thu Aug 28 21:04:39 UTC 2014 by Stéphane Graber

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 380

By lyz | Published: 2014-08-26

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is issue #380 for the week August 18 – 24, 2014, 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
  • Diego Turcios
  • Jose Antonio Rey
  • 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

Interview with Svetlana Belkin

By lyz | Published: 2014-08-19

Elizabeth K. Joseph: Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Svetlana Belkin: I am Svetlana Belkin, an active Ubuntu Member since July 2013, and I gained my Membership on February 6, 2014. This month will mark my first year of working in the Ubuntu Community.

I am not a developer, I cannot code to save my life!

I am a biology major with a focus on Cellular and Molecular Biology who uses Ubuntu because it and the FOSS world match how I think.

EKJ: What inspired you to get involved with the Ubuntu Community?

SB: An idea for a multi-player online game that is based on Mario Party but instead of mini-games, players use cards that are either attack, defense, or traps to get coins. The one with the most coins wins but everyone can keep the coins that they gained to shop for more cards and avatar items.

This was about one year ago, and I wanted to find someone who could help develop it. Since I am a woman, I joined Ubuntu Women to seek one out. But I quickly found out that it was a bad choice and I started to work on improving the Ubuntu Women Wiki to have it up-to-date. That’s what led me into doing other things within the Ubuntu Community.

EKJ: What are your roles within the Ubuntu community and what plans do you have for the future?

SB: My main role within the Ubuntu Community is to help newcomers to find their place in the Community and to network with women (Ubuntu Women) and scientists (Ubuntu Scientists) alike to improve the FOSS world.

I also help the Ubuntu Documentation team to keep the Ubuntu Community Help Wiki up-to-date.

My future plans are to train new leaders within the Community so they know how to lead.

EKJ: Have you hit any barriers with getting involved and what can you recommend to newcomers?

SB: Newcomers need to remember that they do not need to be a developer to get involved – that’s the barrier that I hit.

I would recommend to newcomers that they should not think that they need to be developers, and they should take these steps: they should start out small, join the team/project and its mailing-list, make sure to read all of the documentation for that project/team, and introduce themselves to the team via the mailing-lists. The best route – if they do not know what skills they have or what teams/projects to join – is to go to their Local Community and ask on the mailing list or their IRC channel.

EKJ: Is there anything you feel the Ubuntu project could improve on when it comes to new folks coming to the project?

SB: The main thing is the lack of Ubuntu Recruitment/Promo/Comms teams where the new folks can join and ask what teams/projects they can put their skills into. The other flavors have these teams but Ubuntu does not.

EKJ: What other things are you interested in outside of open source and Ubuntu?

SB: I make art from time to time, and play my favorite and the only Multi-User Dungeon, Armageddon MUD.

Originally posted by Elizabeth K. Joseph in Full Circle Magazine Issue #87 on July 25, 2014