Natty Alpha 1 Released

By pleia2 | Published: 2010-12-02

defn Spy Hopping: “A form of cetacean behavior that consists of rising vertically out of the water, head first, and scanning the entire surrounding area while rotating.” (Source: Dor)

Natty Narwhal is doing a first bit of Spy Hopping, also known as Alpha 1, which will in time become Ubuntu 11.04.

Pre-releases of Natty 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 developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Alpha 1 is the first in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Natty development cycle. The Alpha images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Natty. You can download it here:

Additional ISOs and torrents are also available at:

Alpha 1 includes a number of software updates that are ready for wider testing. Please refer to http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/natty/alpha1 for information on changes in Ubuntu.

This is quite an early set of images, so you should expect some bugs. For a list of known bugs (that you don’t need to report if you encounter), please see:

If you’re interested in following the changes as we further develop Natty, have a look at the natty-changes mailing list:

We also suggest that you subscribe to the ubuntu-devel-announce list if you’re interested in following Ubuntu development. This is a low-traffic list (a few posts a week) carrying announcements of approved specifications, policy changes, alpha releases, and other interesting events.

Bug reports should go to the Ubuntu bug tracker:

Originally sent to the ubuntu-devel-announce mailing list by Kate Stewart on Thu Dec 2 21:44:54 GMT 2010

Announcing Ubuntu IRC Membership

By nhandler | Published: 2010-12-02

I am pleased to announce that the Ubuntu IRC Council is now ready to start accepting applications for Ubuntu IRC Membership. The Ubuntu IRC Members team represents the people who have made a significant contribution to Ubuntu through the IRC medium. Applications to join this team are done through a process very similar to what you might go through to acquire membership from any other board or council in the community.

Please remember, Ubuntu IRC Membership is a way for people to acquire Ubuntu Membership for IRC contributions. Some examples of what these might include are available on the wiki. For more general contributions, you should apply through a Regional Membership Board.

By becoming an Ubuntu IRC Member, you gain all of the benefits granted by normal Ubuntu Membership as well as the privilege of voting in various polls of the Ubuntu IRC community by becoming a member of the ~ubuntu-irc-members team on Launchpad. This includes voting for members of the Ubuntu IRC Council.

If you have any questions about Ubuntu IRC Membership, please feel free to contact a member of the Ubuntu IRC Council.

Originally sent by Nathan Handler to the ubuntu-irc mailing list on Thu Dec 2 14:36:39 GMT 2010

Natty Translations Plans I: Translations Stories

By pleia2 | Published: 2010-11-30

One of the projects we’re working on the translations community this cycle are Translations Stories.

We’d like to show how translations change people’s lives for the best, and how the work of translators has an impact on that. We’d like to share our excitement and highlight the awesome work translators do, and we thought that articles with translations stories would be the perfect vehicle for that.

In order to achieve this, we need your help. You don’t have to be a translator for this: you only need a few spare hours and be willing to give back to the project contributing on this effort to raise awareness on translations.

If you are a team coordinator, please help us by signing up for a story, or finding someone else in your team or LoCo who’d like to do it. I might also get in touch with you directly.

Contribute

Do you want to submit a story to let everyone know about the fantastic work the translation team in your language is doing? Well, that’s easy!

  • Sign up. Sign up for writing a translations story on this wiki page by adding your name to the list there: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/Stories#Contribute
  • Research. Think about what you want to write, and get some information. The Get inspired section below should give you a few pointers to get you started.
  • Write a Story. Write a short article highlighting an area of your choice related to translations. Don’t forget to add a picture!
  • Send the Story. Send me your story (david (DOT) planella (AT) ubuntu (DOT) com) adding the word [STORY] to the e-mail’s subject. I’ll then take care of publishing it to Ubuntu News, Ubuntu Planet and to the translators Facebook page.

Get inspired

Here are some ideas about what you can write about:

  • Schools with Ubuntu in your language: Check out the schools using Ubuntu in your language. Get in touch with them to get more information and write how they are using Ubuntu. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Education/UbuntuSchools
  • Translation Jams: Did you run a translation jam during the UbuntuGlobalJam or at any other time? Tell us how it went!
  • Statistics: Did your team had a whooping increase in translation coverage since the last release? Tell us how you dit it and promote some healthy competition among teams.
  • Interviews: Interview and tell us about people being able to use Ubuntu in their language
  • Workflow: Are you particularly proud about your successful translation workflow and would like to show it to other teams? Write an article and let everyone know!
  • Be creative: There are lots more of other subjects or areas where we can highlight the work of translators and their impact on people’s lives. Use your imagination as a source for stories!

Stay tuned for more news on this effort. We’ll soon be publishing some guidelines on how to write good translations stories to help you making them even more awesome.

Are you going to be the first to send one? Looking forward to reading them!

You will find more details and links here.

Originally sent to the ubuntu-translators mailing list by David Planella on Tue Nov 30 14:36:11 GMT 2010

Ubuntu LoCo Team Directory Updates

By pleia2 | Published: 2010-11-30

The LoCo Directory Developers have been hard at work in the past few weeks and this morning pushed out a new release of the LoCo Team Directory. One of the major changes in the new version of the LoCo Team Directory is that local times are finally displayed on event pages thanks to Michael Hall. The time zone displayed is based upon the time zone specified for the venue that is used. For example, if the venue you are using for your event is in Orlando, Florida, you would need to set the time zone for the venue to US/Eastern and the event will display the time in EST. To make this work though, all venues that are currently in the LoCo Team Directory need to be updated to reflect their correct time zone.

There were many other bugs fixed in this release which you can view in Launchpad. Another big feature is that you can “turn off” registration to an event in the LoCo Team Directory for instances where registration is being handled elsewhere and providing a link to that registration site. We have also fixed the search function on the LoCo Team Directory which is now a site-wide search.

Something else that I wanted to mention is that there is now a mailing list specifically for discussion about the LoCo Team Directory. You can sign up for the mailing list and join the discussions by sending an email to loco-directory at lists.ubuntu.com.

Originally sent to the loco-contacts mailing list by Chris Johnston on Tue Nov 30 20:48:20 GMT 2010

Interview with Zach Kriesse

By nhandler | Published: 2010-11-23

This week we have zkriesse in the interview series. In my opinion, zkriesse is one of the Ubuntu community members who may not be well known, but certainly keeps things going as smoothly as possible. He’s involved in a great number of things, including the Ubuntu Beginners Team.

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

Name: Zach Kriesse
Age: 19 (20 in March WOO!)
Gender: Male
Location: Western, Rockford IL
Religion: Non-Denomination Christian
Profession: Student, Ubuntu Wiki/Doc Admin/Editor, Potential Army Recruit
Education: Some College Biology/Environmental Science
Hobbies: Medical Stuff, Computers, Fishing/Reading, Writing
Marital Status: Single

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

I started using computers when I was about 12, my dad made me take a computer learning program before I was allowed to really “use” it though…in/around 2007/2008 I started getting into Ubuntu/Linux, been using it on/off as the situation demands since then!

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

Ah the Ubuntu Forums…my home away from home…started hanging out there when I started using Ubuntu so probably around 2008 or so…after that I found the Beginners Team, and from there the rest is history. (Or, so they say… :D )
I’m just a regular user but I’m hoping to become a forum admin eventually down the road…more into the documentation side of things though…

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

TOTALLY! I do a bit of work through various teams…the most notable are the Ubuntu Beginners Team, the Ubuntu Youth Team, (Which I lead), the forums, the Lubuntu Project, and some other stuff…

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

Don’t really have a least favorite…my favorite would have to be Thunderbird…great email client, works well and it’s pretty damn fast! Ubuntu would have to be my regular distro but I’ve tinkered with Fedora, Open Suse, and Lubuntu…

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

Don’t really have a worst memory from the forums but a favorite? Jeez, every moment really! The ability to provide answers and insight while learning in that same step? It’s amazing!

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

I’ve introduced a few kids I know at my college and they’ve begun to enjoy it!

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

Linux? Well I’d like to see better support honestly…same for Ubuntu…I say this as we are an open source community which means most, if not all, of us are volunteers…this isn’t a paying OR a full time job which means we have real lives, real jobs, real concerns other than Ubuntu itself…

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

Don’t give up right away…Ubuntu/Linux can be tough to get used to right away so don’t be immediately discouraged!

Originally Posted here on 2010-11-21