Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric) Development Update

By dholbach | Published: 2011-06-23

Ubuntu Development Update

Oneiric development is in full swing and with Feature Freeze still 7 weeks away, most of the intrusive changes are landing in the development release as we speak. Alpha 2 will be released in two weeks which should be a great time to check out what’s currently happening. As always: the status overview might give you an idea how each feature is progressing.

Today Ubuntu maintainers are having a dh_python2 porting jam. If you know something about packaging and python already and want to help out, this is a great opportunity to get involved. If you want to be part of the initiative

Last week I pointed out five different bitesize bugs. It seems like Alexander Fougner grabbed three of them and put up merge proposals for review. Awesome!

New Old Contributor

Each week, I’ll talk to somebody who just got their fixes into Ubuntu and ask them about their experience. It’s a while since my first steps into the Ubuntu world, but this time I’ll talk about my own experience.

In 2004 I had been using Debian for a couple of years already as my exclusive computing experience and enjoyed it very much. Looking back it’s a bit hard to say why I never got involved in Debian immediately. I filed bugs when I encountered them, sometimes even had a look at the source code, but seemingly overwhelming amounts of documentation and procedures never made it feel like a realistic option. It took a little bit of time and meeting Michael Vogt for me to understand that it’s actually not impossible to get involved and contribute making Open Source even better.

Michael Vogt was working on Ubuntu at the time already and after having had lunch with him a couple of times, I had a better idea of how all the things fitted together. At the same time I was working on a project for university and found out that I needed a newer version of a library. Looking back, I think that’s the point where I knew I wanted to get involved and not only fix the issue for myself on my own machine, but for hundreds if not thousands of users.

From then on I started fixing build failures and fixed small bugs here and there. I still remember the feeling when I got positive feedback on a bug report after I fixed the issue. It was just fantastic!

The most important lesson I learned back then was to not be afraid of making mistakes or asking questions. Truth to be told, I made many mistakes and learned a lot during the time. What I love about it is that I never felt like an idiot, but that my efforts were appreciated. That’s why I think it’s important to get in touch with developers on IRC and talk about what you’re doing and where you are stuck. Often enough it’s something really simple you missed or you’ll find that somebody else is already working on the problem.

Back then the Ubuntu world was much less organised, but also much smaller. There was one mailing list and one IRC channel in the beginning, so it was a little bit easier to keep track of what’s going on. On the other hand were the tools less powerful back then and specific documentation almost non-existent. Still I’d say that it’s as easy today as it was back then to get to know really great people and make good friends, friends for life.

Everything that came afterwards, like how I was invited to my first UDS or when I was at the center of a flash hug or when Jono and I bought costumes in a sex shop, I’ll probably leave as a story for another time. šŸ™‚

 

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. Here’s a few examples:

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.

The Unity Report – Carving away the Stone

By jcastro | Published: 2011-06-22

This is the Unity weekly report for 22 June. We’re sliding into the week before the Ubuntu Platform Rally in Dublin, Ireland, and after that we’re in Alpha-2 mode, so the team is getting a bunch of house cleaning out the way. In many ways, this should be the last super-boring Unity report as things will get more exciting from here on out, as such we continue to chip away at the rock.

Unity Contributor Activity This Week

Andrea Azzarone’s made the bottom of the launcher unfold where you left it last, which is a backlog bug from last week.Ā Daniel van Vugt added unmount/eject/remove quicklistĀ options for external drives in the Launcher, and lastly Marco Trevisan has proposed a bunch of miscellaneous fixes in BAMF. Other branches for incoming fixes are in the review queue.

The team also had it’s first team meeting where people made introductions and went through some reviews together to get them landed. Feel free to join us, every Wednesday at 1800UTC on #ayatana-freenode.

Things going on in Oneiric

There’s actually a ton of work going on in Oneiric. By the time you read this Unity 4.0 should be hitting the archive (if not, the day after). This includes a port to GTK3 by Gord Allott, Neil Patel, and Bilal Akhtar. Neil alsoĀ reorganized the source code a bit. And application indicators have also been ported to GTK3 by Michael Terry and others. Ā This will be the platform that 11.10’s Unity will be built on, so it’s all been mostly boring-looking plumbing work that needed to get done. Here’s a picture of my desktop with some of the changes:

You can find this and other stuff going on in Oneiric by checking out the desktop team report.

The Big List

Here’s a list of targeted bugs that the design team has picked out as a result of user testing and feedback that would make Unity nicer to use. Here’sĀ the full list if you want to dig in.

  • 676453 Launcher – Add ‘installing’ animation for when app is installed via drag & drop
  • 616866 Installation of apps by dragging them to the launcher
  • 750375 Dash – Cursor navigation allows the user to keep scrolling down indefinitely
  • 723866 Dash file Lens ā€“ Rename ā€œFavourite Foldersā€ category header to ā€œFoldersā€
  • 765715 Launcher – When a app icon de-couples from the Launcher a small shadow should appear on the bottom and right sides of the icon
  • 767272 Top bar menus – there should be a very quick and subtle fade out/in effect when a user shifts from one menu to another or closes a menu

How to Get Involved

1. Get the Code

Follow theĀ Step by Step Instructions andĀ Wiki Page. This will get the code from Launchpad, set up your development environment, and getting you used to the Launchpad workflow.

2. Pick a Bug

Here’sĀ the full list, or you can justĀ join the team and watch them roll in and pick what you’d like.

3. Fix your bug and then get your code into Unity

Don’t worry we won’t leave you hanging, you can get a-hold of a Unity developer through many different ways:

  • Join theĀ ~unity-community-hackers team and start digging in.
  • We now have a Weekly Meeting at 1800UTC on #ayatana on Freenode IRC if you feel like hanging with us and getting organized and ask questions
  • #ayatana on freenode IRC during European and American workdays. Or you can post toĀ the mailing list if you have a question.
  • We also have weekly IRC Q+A for any developer who wants to dive in and ask a Unity developer. 7pm-8pm UTC (That’s 2pm EST) every Friday!

 

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 221

By nhandler | Published: 2011-06-21

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #221 for the week of June 14 – 20, 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
  • Mike Holstein
  • Nigel Babu
  • Chris Druif
  • Cheri Francis
  • Alan Bell
  • Nathan Handler
  • 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 Oneiric Open for Translation

By David Planella | Published: 2011-06-20

After the first language packs have now been generated, we’re pleased to announce that our current development release, Ubuntu Oneiric, is now open for translation:

Translate Ubuntu Oneiric!

  • Translation schedule. Remember that according to theĀ release schedule translatable messages might be subject to change until theĀ User Interface Freeze on the week of theĀ 25th of August.
  • Language packs. During the development cycle, language packs containing translations will be releasedĀ twice per week except for the freeze periods. This will allow users and translators to quickly see and test the results of translations.
  • Test and report bugs. If you notice any issues (e.g. untranslated strings or applications), do check with the translation team for your language first. If you think it is a genuine bug, please report it.
  • Learn More. Learn how to start translating Ubuntu and enable millions to use it in their language.

open 19 image by loop_oh ā€“ License: CC by-nd 2.0

Originally Posted here on 2011-06-20

Interview with Alan Bell

By ubuntu-news-team | Published: 2011-06-16

Alan Bell is Team Leader for the UK Local Community Team.  I must admit I didn’t really know a lot about him before this interview, so I am glad he agreed to do one.  Thank you Alan!

1. Tell as much as you’re willing about your “real life” like name, age, gender, location, family, religion, profession, education, hobbies, etc.

Hi, I am Alan Bell, a 36 year old geek from Surrey in the UK, where I live with my family and pet chickens. My day job is helping organisations to use and get value from Free Software. As for education, I pursued a degree in Computer Science at Nottingham University, but never quite caught the thing.

2. When and how did you become interested in computers? in Linux? in Ubuntu?

My first home computer was a ZX Spectrum +2 (the one with the built in tape drive) which I loved, especially the manual which taught me programming and trigonometry and calculus and electronic logic circuits. I was quite disappointed when I got a Commodore Amiga and there were no circuit diagrams in the manual. Now computers just come with an EULA which doesn’t teach you anything useful. Kids these days don’t know what they are missing! When I first encountered Linux it didn’t have a GUI and I wasn’t that impressed (but I did like the GPL from the moment I read that). It was some years later when X worked on Linux and graphical toolkits became available that it started looking interesting to me, but it took quite a lot of additional years before I started using Ubuntu full time.

3. When did you become involved in the forums (or the Ubuntu community)? What’s your role there?

I met a bunch of folk from the Ubuntu UK loco team at an exhibition in London where we were demoing a range of Linux based computers, they dragged me on to IRC and I gradually got sucked in to the Ubuntu community.

4. Are you an Ubuntu member? If so, how do you contribute? If not, do you plan on becoming one?

Yes, I am a member, and quite pleased about that. I contribute to Ubuntu in a number of ways, I have recently been made the Point of Contact or Team Leader of the UK LoCo team (we are still figuring out which title it is) and with the UK team I am involved in organising events and keeping a steady stream of promotional and social activities running. In a more international scope I set up the Ubuntu-For-All project and team which provides continuity and support to a collection of other Ubuntu projects that address outreach and equality issues. In connection with that I am interested in getting more women engaged with technology and I produced and still maintain some interesting statistics on the number of women Ubuntu Members. With the Accessibility team I am working on a series of design personas, which are fictional characters designed to educate and motivate developers to ensure that their software works for everyone.

5. What distros do you regularly use? What software? What’s your favorite application? Your least favorite?

I only use Ubuntu really, it does everything I want. I keep intending to have a deeper dive into Debian in order to learn packaging and get some stuff I want into Ubuntu but I haven’t got round to it yet. My favourite application at the moment is OpenERP (sounds fun doesn’t it!) a python based system for doing pretty much everything imaginable in a business context, including finances, bill of materials, inventory, stock control, HR, warehousing etc. My least favourite application would probably be Gwibber, not because it is especially bad, but every time I use it I end up thinking I would have built it completely differently if I was writing it.

6. What’s your fondest memory from the forums, or from Ubuntu overall? What’s your worst?

I have great memories of the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Brussels and I have made some great friends in the community. As for worst memories, I tend not to dwell on negativity!

7. What luck have you had introducing new computer users to Ubuntu?

I tend not to go out looking for people to convert! If someone has decided that Ubuntu makes sense for them or their organisation we help them make it work in practice. It is the same process for all the Free Software we support, customers decide for themselves that they want it, we help make it work.

8. What would you like to see happen with Linux in the future? with Ubuntu?

I would like to see more of a business focus in innovations such as Unity, there has been quite a lot of focus on Ubuntu as a consumer operating system for getting to social networking sites and buying music etc. but not so much attention on using Ubuntu in the office environment.

9. If there was one thing you could tell all new Ubuntu users, what would it be?

Get involved in your local community team, you will meet all sorts of interesting people online or in person who are doing amazing things with Ubuntu.

Originally Posted here on 2011-06-16