Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) Beta 2 Released.

By pleia2 | Published: 2012-03-29

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the final beta release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Long-Term Support) Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products.

Codenamed “Precise Pangolin”, 12.04 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing a few new features but mostly fixing bugs.

With Ubuntu 12.04, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Mythbuntu and Ubuntu Studio also reached Beta 2 status today.

Ubuntu Changes

Some of the key new features available since Beta 1 are:

  • A new Ubuntu kernel (3.2.0-20.33) which is base on the v3.2.12 upstream Linux kernel. Changes to the default kernel flavours have been made for 12.04 LTS.
  • Updates to our new way to quickly search and access any desktop application’s and indicator’s menu, called the HUD, can be accessed by taping the Alt key and entering characters.
  • LibreOffice has been updated to 3.5.1.
  • Ubuntu One has a new control panel to provides an installer, setup wizard, ability to add/remove folders to sync, and more

Please see http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ for details.

Ubuntu Server and Cloud Images

  • 12.04 Beta 2 is shipping the latest milestones of OpenStack Essex (RC1), and will be upgraded to final before release.
  • Zentyal as well as OpenMPI 1.5 for ARM are now available in Universe.
  • KVM 1.0 on x86, which enables nested KVM by default, now allows a virtualisation experience within cloud instances.

Ubuntu Core

Ubuntu Core is a minimal rootfs for use in the creation of custom images, and now includes ARM hard float (armhf) images. Developers can use Ubuntu Core as the basis for their application demonstrations, constrained environment deployments, device support packages, and other goals.

Kubuntu

Kubuntu 12.04 Beta 2 introduces “Kubuntu Active” as a tech preview, which is a new Ubuntu flavour designed for tablet devices.

Please see https://wiki.kubuntu.org/PrecisePangolin/Beta2/Kubuntu for details.

Edubuntu

Edubuntu 12.04 Beta 2 ships with improved translations, and updates to the new epoptes and LTSP 5.3 releases.

For more details on what has changed in Edubuntu 12.04, please refer to http://www.edubuntu.org.

Xubuntu

Xubuntu 12.04 Beta 2 now has new branding and further appearance tweaks have been made. On i386 hardware, the non-PAE kernel is used to support a wider variety of machines. Pavucontrol is now used over xfce4-mixer.

For more information about the changes in Xubuntu 12.04, please go to http://xubuntu.org/.

Lubuntu

Lubuntu 12.04 has had its artwork updated, and updates made to LightDM.

For more information about the changes in Lubuntu 12.04, please go to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu.

Ubuntu Studio

Ubuntu Studio 12.04 Beta 2 live DVD now has a new low latency kernel installed by default. There is better Pulse Audio to JACK bridging, an improved ice1712 mixer and … the XFCE transition has finished!

Mythbuntu

Mythbuntu 12.04 Beta 2 contains a pre-release version of MythTV 0.25, which will be updated to final as soon as its available.

Please see http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/precise/beta2 for more details on the above products.

About Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a full-featured Linux distribution for desktops, laptops, and servers, with a fast and easy installation and regular releases. A tightly-integrated selection of excellent applications is included, and an incredible variety of add-on software is just a few clicks away.

Professional technical support is available from Canonical Limited and hundreds of other companies around the world. For more information about support, visit http://www.ubuntu.com/support.

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways you can participate at: http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate.

Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions really help us to improve this and future releases of Ubuntu. Instructions can be found at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs.

To Get Ubuntu 12.04 Beta 2

To upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 Beta 2 from Ubuntu 11.10, follow these instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PreciseUpgrades

Or, download Ubuntu 12.04 Beta 2 images from a location near you:

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/download (Ubuntu and Ubuntu Server).

In addition they can be found at the following links:

The final version of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is expected to be released on April 26, 2012.

More Information

You can find out more about Ubuntu and about this beta release on our website, IRC channel and wiki.

To sign up for future Ubuntu announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu’s very low volume announcement list at:

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

Originally sent to the ubuntu-announce mailing list by Kate Stewart on Thu Mar 29 21:02:02 UTC 2012

Ubuntu 12.04 Development Update

By Benjamin Kerensa | Published: 2012-03-29

Development Update

The Precise Pangolin Beta 2 is set to be released on Thursday, the 29th, If you feel comfortable testing beta releases, get the latest daily build and keep it updated. Don’t forget to report any bugs you find!

From now on it’s only one month until the release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Here’s the run-down of what is going to happen in the following weeks:

You know what this means: get your testing cap on or get ready to fix some last minute bugs.

Letting developers speak for themselves

Events

LibreOffice HackFest on April 14/15, 2012

Release Parties

And just a reminder to watch Ubuntu LoCo Directory for a Ubuntu 12.04 Release Party near you coming next month.

Things which need to get done

If you want to get involved in packaging and bug fixing, there’s still a lot of bugs that need to get fixed:

  • Also did John Lea from the Ubuntu Design team talk to us and mentioned that there are bugs up for grabs, where the design has been decided on and the implementation might need YOUR help. If you want to help improve Ubuntu’s UI, have a look at these!

First timers!

Adam Gandelman got upload rights for Ubuntu Server! Congratulations!

On their way to become Ubuntu developers, we had three folks who got their first uploads into Ubuntu. We have Vibhav Pant, who fixed bugs in gthumb, mercurial and kupfer. Also Vibhav synced ebook-speaker, jinput and calendarserver from Debian. Next up is Pasi Lallinaho who got a new version of xubuntu-artwork in. Charles Kerr got new versions of libappindicator, indicator-session, indicator-power and indicator-datetime into Ubuntu. Well done everyone!

Get Involved

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

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.

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 258

By akgraner | Published: 2012-03-26

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is issue #258 for the week March 19 – 25, 2012, 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 Krumbach
  • Emma Marshall
  • Charles Profitt
  • Chris Druif
  • Benjamin Kerensa
  • Matt Rudge
  • 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 Cloud Day India

By pleia2 | Published: 2012-03-26

Ubuntu Cloud Day will be the largest event in Bangalore in 2012 that focuses on getting developers productive on Ubuntu Cloud, a platform that is growing in popularity every day. Ubuntu Cloud Day is sponsored by Intel.

With keynote speeches from various members of the Canonical team, as well as hands-on technical sessions it is designed to deliver a great way for any developer to rapidly get up-to-speed on Ubuntu Cloud.

When: April 4, 2012
Where: Bangalore India
More details : http://ubuntucloudday.in

Originally written by Prakash Advani to the ubuntu-news-team mailing list on Mon Mar 26 13:14:16 UTC 2012

Ubuntu 12.04 Development update

By dholbach | Published: 2012-03-22

Development Update

We are only five weeks away from the release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Next week we expect the Beta 2 release to go out and afterwards only important fixes will go in. 26th April will be the day when we all can celebrate our hard work and enjoy this fine piece of work which will be supported for five years on the desktop and on the server.

If you haven’t yet upgraded to 12.04 you might want to consider this and test the hell out of it.

For everyone who wants to get their hands dirty and fix bugs, you might want to consider if your bug in question is important enough to be fixed in this release or if it better waits until 12.10. The next release is still going under the code name of ‘Q’, although we all hope our favourite cosmonaut announces the new name soon.

Here is a list of task which might interesting to investigate over the next days. Feel free to jump in and help out (instructions and documentation are linked to below)

  • investigate if the new version of fsprotect should go into 12.04
  • investigate if a new version of phpladpadmin should be merged from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of stopmotion should be merged from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of ffmpeg-php should be merged from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of guile-gnome-platform should be merged from Debian
  • investigate if the new version of heroes should go into 12.04
  • investigate if a new version of icecc should be merged from Debian
  • investigate if the new version of insighttoolkit should go into 12.04
  • investigate if a new version of jifty should be merged from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of libloader should be imported from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of libmail-imapclient-perl should be imported from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of lsb-pkgchk3 should be merged from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of net-applet should be imported from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of ossim should be merged from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of parcimonie should be merged from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of qtiplot should be merged from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of scidavis should be imported from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of sdlbasic should be imported from Debian
  • investigate if a new version of sisu-ioc should be merged from Debian

If you are new to the docs and everything, consider joining our User testing effort (give feedback, get help).

Letting developers speak for themselves

Events

Late today the release managers will announce Beta 2 Freeze.

Release Parties
The LoCo community is ramping up efforts to get more release parties up and running around the globe and 12 events have already been added to the LoCo Team Portal. On their list are: Palestine Territory, Australia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Switzerland, Canada and USA. If you can’t find your city or country in the list, check out our instructions for adding your own party.

Things which need to get done

If you want to get involved in packaging and bug fixing, there’s still a lot of bugs that need to get fixed:

  • Also did John Lea from the Ubuntu Design team talk to us and mentioned that there are bugs up for grabs, where the design has been decided on and the implementation might need YOUR help. If you want to help improve Ubuntu’s UI, have a look at these!

First timers!

We have three folks who managed to squeeze their first fixes into Ubuntu last week: JC Hulce synced apt-build from Debian, Aditya Vaidya fixed a bug in a manpage of vorbis-tools and Lars Duesing fixed a race condition in aiccu. Good work everyone!

Rohan Garg received upload rights to Kubuntu! Congratulations! Also on our list of applicants are: Adam Gandelman (server + MOTU), Bjoern Michaelsen (LibreOffice) and Kilian Krause (MOTU). Good luck and all the best to the three of you!

Spotlight/Interview

This week we reached out to Ubuntu Developer and Ubuntu Desktop Team Member Martin Pitt for a interview.

Martin PittBenjamin Kerensa: What do you generally work on?
Martin Pitt: These days, mostly on improving pygobject and making libraries introspectable, and then GNOME/desktop related bug fixing all over the place. I have also done a fair share of work on power usage reduction in Precise, as well as some foundational work in PackageKit/aptdaemon for an upstream friendly way of installing missing language support and driver packages.

Benjamin Kerensa: Do you still remember how you got involved in open source?
Martin Pitt: That was during school, around ’96 or ’97. Our school got a new computer lab, and with it we set up a Linux (SuSE 5.0, as far as I remember) box to do the ISDN connection handling and routing and some other network services. A friend of mine was working on this, and the other day I sat on that machine and played around with it a bit. I was quite fascinated about real 32 bit support (so far I was only used to that clunky 16 bit programming under DOS), real multitasking, and the utter stability that Linux desktops provided back then, and really astonished when I learned about this “free as in freedom/beer” thing. So I took that SuSE box home with me, spent a week reading the manual and setup, and have fallen in love. From then on I booted back to DOS only for playing games, and were otherwise taking Linux apart.

It still took until 2001 before I got my first patch accepted into Debian, and shortly after I became a Debian developer.

Benjamin Kerensa: What do you like most about the new release?
Martin Pitt: That we finally got serious about quality. The automated Jenkins tests, the acceptance criteria, and most importantly the changed mindset of “never break precise” and taking much more time for bug fixing really changed things for the better. It shows, both for myself in daily use, as well as that we seem to have had at least one magnitude more precise users, even in early alpha-2 times.

Benjamin Kerensa: What do you like most about Ubuntu development?
Martin Pitt: The generally friendly and focused spirit in the community, and that both Canonical employees and volunteer contributors have the same rights, privileges, and processes to follow. I’m aware that we don’t always do this 100%, but at least from my perspective it generally works.

Get Involved

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

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.