Today Starts The Ubuntu Women Month of Making

By pleia2 | Published: 2011-09-07

Hello everyone! Today begins the Ubuntu Women Month of Making! What’s that? It’s a competition that will showcase women’s fantastic projects that are about the wonderful world of Ubuntu. It’s in honor of Ada Lovelace Day, October 7 — a day to celebrate women in science, technology, engineering, and math.

These projects don’t have to have been made specifically for this and can have been created any time this year. They can be anything as long as you created it and there’s a tie-in to Ubuntu.

To enter, write about what you have done (with pictures) and email your entry to: competition at ubuntu-women.org We’ll then share your entry on the Ubuntu Women team blog.

The deadline is Ada Lovelace Day, October 7, but you can enter at any time!

For more information, please see the competition page: http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/Events/Competitions/AdaLovelace

We’re all really looking forward to seeing what you’ve created!

Originally sent to the ubuntu-women mailing list by Jessica Ledbetter on Wed Sep 7 16:54:40 UTC 2011

Technical Board is looking for nominations

By dholbach | Published: 2011-09-06

The term length of five of the six members of the Technical Board will end on 1st October. Elected members will stay on the board for two years.

The nomination period runs from now until 1500 UTC on 13th September 2011. After a quick deliberation period the election will be announced. All Ubuntu developers are eligible to vote. Voting will run for two weeks.

The Technical Board is the custodian of technical architecture, engineering processes and technology strategy in Ubuntu. We like to make sure it represents the best combination of experience and innovation from all of the Ubuntu development teams.

If you would like to put yourself forward for nomination, or would like to nominate a member of the Ubuntu Developer community who you think would make a fine member of the board, please mail Daniel Holbach about it privately.

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 231

By akgraner | Published: 2011-09-06

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is issue #231 for the week August 28 – September 4th, 2011, 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
  • Philip Ballew
  • Amber Graner
  • Nigel Babu
  • Penelope Stowe
  • 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 11.10 Beta 1 (Oneiric Ocelot) Released.

By pleia2 | Published: 2011-09-01

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 1.

Codenamed “Oneiric Ocelot”, 11.10 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 new features and fixing bugs.

This release introduces a new set images called Ubuntu Core. These include a minimal software and are can be used as the basis for customized Ubuntu distributions and products.

The DVD images have been slimmed down to 1.5GB, retaining a complete set of language packs, for faster downloading and use on USB drives.

With Ubuntu 11.10, we also welcome a new Ubuntu family member, Lubuntu! Lubuntu, together with Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Mythbuntu, and Ubuntu Studio also reached Beta 1 status today.

Ubuntu Changes

Some of the new features now available are:

DVD images have been revised into extended desktop images with additional language support and a few extra applications, and thereby reduced to a more manageable size of around 1.5 GB.

“Lenses” (formerly “Places”) now integrate multiple sources and advanced filtering like ratings, range, categories.

Thunderbird is included as default email client including menu and launcher integration.

Déjà Dup is included as the default backup tool, making it easy to create backups and upload them to Ubuntu One.

The new gwibber landed in Oneiric bringing improved performance and a new interface using the most recent GNOME technologies.

GNOME got updated to current unstable version (3.1.5) on its way to GNOME 3.2

LightDM now uses the new Unity greeter by default.

The indicators have been visually refreshed, including a refactoring of the session indicator and a new power indicator.

The Ubuntu Software Center adds new “top rated” views to the main category page and all subcategory pages, it allows you to edit or delete your own reviews, and has had a significant speedup for standalone deb file installation.

And we continue to improve the underlying infrastructure:

Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 enables support for installing 32-bit library and application packages on 64-bit systems

Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 has a new kernel based on v3.0.3.

GNU toolchain has transitioned to be based off of gcc 4.6 for i386, amd64, and ARM omap3/omap4 architectures.

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

Ubuntu Server

Ubuntu Server now includes Orchestra, a collection of the best free software services for provisioning, deploying, hosting, managing, and orchestrating enterprise data center infrastructure services.

Ensemble is now available as well, it is a critical part of Ubuntu Server designed to handle service deployment and orchestration for both cloud and bare metal.

OpenStack has been updated to the latest Diablo-4 development release.

Ubuntu Core

Ubuntu Core is a new minimal rootfs for use in the creation of custom images. Developers will be able to use Ubuntu Core as the basis for their application demonstrations, constrained environment deployments, device support packages, and other goals.

Kubuntu

Kubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 sports the latest KDE software including KDE 4.7 Plasma Workspaces and Applications.

Along with KDE 4.7, 11.10 also introduces the new KDEPIM suite, which includes the new Kmail 2.

The new Amarok 2.4.3 music player has several improvements to make it easier to use.

Kubuntu has switched to providing the Muon Software Center and Muon Package manager by default.

Please see https://wiki.kubuntu.org/OneiricOcelot/Beta1/Kubuntu for details.

Xubuntu

Xubuntu has changed several default applications: Pastebinit is now included to make it easier to share information. Leafpad is now the default text editor. gThumb has been added to assist with digital

The onscreen keyboard, Onboard, is now included in the default Xubuntu menus, under Accessories. For those who require an onscreen keyboard, this will be much easier to access using only a mouse or touchpad.

Edubuntu

Oneiric Ocelot Beta 1 is the first release of Edubuntu to feature a fully translated installer. LTSP Live has been re-written and is now fully translatable and network-manager aware.

This beta also offers a refreshed look and feel with a new wallpaper and login screen.

For more details on what has changed in Edubuntu 11.10, please refer to http://www.edubuntu.org.

Mythbuntu

Mythbuntu Oneiric Ocelot Beta 1 has transitioned over to the quicker lightdm desktop manager and brings updated builds of MythTV.

Please see http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/oneiric/beta 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 11.10 Beta 1

To upgrade to Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 from Ubuntu 11.04, follow these instructions:

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

Or, download Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 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 11.10 is expected to be released on October 13 2011.

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-devel-announce mailing list by Kate Stewart on Thu Sep 1 21:29:32 UTC 2011

Ubuntu 11.10 Development update

By dholbach | Published: 2011-09-01

Ubuntu Development Update

The Ubuntu 11.10 release is coming closer and closer. Only six weeks left until release! So how are things looking?

This week Beta 1 will be released and testing efforts are going to ramped up. In two weeks the kernel and the documentation text will be frozen and in three weeks Beta 2 will get out the door. You know what this means: test Oneiric and file bugs. This is a good opportunity to get the last bugs ironed out and 11.10 in tip-top shape.

Another activity a lot developers put time into right now is NBS (Not Built from Source). This is an effort to clean the archive and make sure that there’s no packages that are no longer built by any source. Sometimes this mismatch is caused by packages that haven’t followed a library transition or were didn’t follow an upstream renaming. As you can imagine with several ten thousands of packages this is a hard task to tackle. The current TODO list looks much better than a few weeks ago, but still there’s a few things that need to be done. Unfortunately this is not suitable task for very new contributors, as it often requires adapting portions of the code to a new API, etc.

Related to this, you can see how the number of packages that failed to build was brought down considerably in the last weeks. Congratulations everyone!

There’s still a number of bugs on the radar for Beta 2, but most of them are assigned already, so we’re well on track. If you’re interested in any other aspect of Ubuntu Oneiric, I’d refer you to the oneiric-changes mailing list and the big picture specification status overview instead.

Events

Ubuntu Global Jam

Do you have plans for this weekend? No? Excellent! We have one of the coolest events of the whole cycle coming up: Ubuntu Global Jam. Local Community teams around the world are coming together to have a good time on work on Ubuntu directly: translations, bugs, packaging, documentation, testing, documentation – everything goes! Check out the list of participating events to find out where to go, or set up an impromptu event yourself! It will be a bit of last-minute organisation, but still it’ll be worth it and loads of fun!

Ubuntu App Developer Week

Next week (5th-9th September) we will see yet another fantastic Ubuntu App Developer Week happening. If you love Ubuntu and want to develop great apps for it, this is exactly what you’ve been waiting for! Here’s a quick taster of what the event will cover:

  • Monday: Making Ubuntu a Target for App Developers, Introducing Bazaar Explorer: Version Control for your Apps, Your App & Launchpad best practice, Publishing Your Apps in the Software Center: the MyApps Portal, Universal GRUB Recovery
  • Tuesday: Creating a Grooveshark Scope for the Music Lens, The Making of Unity 2D, Making App Development Easy: Gedit Developer Plugins, Getting Started With Python: a Hello World App, Publishing Your Apps in the Software Center: The App Review Board
  • Wednesday: Unity Mail: Webmail Notification on Your Desktop, Launchpad Daily Builds and Rapid Feedback: Writing Recipe Builds, Using the Ubuntu One APIs for Your Apps: An Overview, Supercharging Your Apps with Unity Launcher Integration, Hello Vala: An Introduction to the Vala Language
  • Thursday: Creating an App Developer Website: developer.ubuntu.com, Rapid App Development with Quickly, Developing with Freeform Design Surfaces: GooCanvas and PyGame, Practical Ubuntu One Files Integration, Will it Blend? Python Libraries for Desktop Integration
  • Friday: Getting A Grip on Your Apps: Multitouch on GTK apps using Libgrip, Making Your App Speak Languages with Launchpad Translations, Making your app appear in the Indicators, Publishing Your Apps in the Software Center: The Business Side, Writing an App with Go.

Isn’t that fantastic? Sign up for the Facebook event and start discussing your app plans!

Things that still 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:

  • There’s packages that fail to build.
  • Also is the Ubuntu Mozilla team looking for help, so if you’re excited about Mozilla and what’s happening there, join IRC, talk to the guys on #ubuntu-mozillateam on irc.freenode.net.
  • 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!

We had two first-time contributors last week! Congratulations to these fine people: Alex Solanos and Gang Wei. Awesome!

New contributor

I had a chat with Oliver Sauder, here’s what he has to say about his experience developing Ubuntu.

Oliver SauderWho am I?
Well, I have been an open source and Linux user for quite a while. First few years dual booting Linux with Windows (for different reasons). However, since the first Ubuntu version has been released in 2004 I got rid of Windows altogether in favor of Ubuntu. Since then I haven’t missed any Ubuntu release .

In 2006 I’ve finished my Computer Science degree in Switzerland. Thenceforth working for several companies. First involved in low level programming such as implementing printer drivers and different network protocols in C/C++. From there on moving into the Web sphere and also diving into the world of Java and its surrounding technologies.

All the while long I have been involved in different open source projects, mainly bug fixing but also starting some projects such as Diodon. Unfortunately, as my job is very time consuming I can not spent as much time as I would like to. Hope to change this in the future.

The Ubuntu community:
Working in the Ubuntu community has been a real pleasure. Personally I benefit the most of the code reviews where experienced developers take a look at my changes and give constructive and helpful comments. Thumbs up. Furthermore, questions are allowed; even encouraged, which makes working in the community a pleasant experience.

What could be improved?
Some parts of Ubuntu are very fast moving targets which is great. However, it makes it difficult for occasional contributors to keep up the pace. Therefore good documentation and source code comments are essential.

In comparison to other projects Ubuntu has always had a big amount of good documentation. However it has been a bit cluttered which makes it sometimes difficult to find the right part. Some initiatives to clean up and summarize the documentation have been made which improved the situation a lot (e.g. “Improve packaging guide” to only mention one). Hope to see more of such initiatives in the future.

To close up I’m looking forward contributing more in the Ubuntu community and excited to see where Ubuntu is heading to.

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.

  • 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.