Keeping Ubuntu CDs Available

By boredandblogging | Published: 2009-10-21

One of the ways in which many people have been able to experience Ubuntu is via Canonical’s ShipIt program, which has shipped millions of CDs to new users. This has provided a valuable opportunity for new users to try Ubuntu and for our community teams to obtain CDs as part of their advocacy efforts.

Due to the sheer growth of Ubuntu, we are making a few changes to ShipIt which we wanted to ensure we share with you. For the details, we’re going to turn the mic over to everyone’s favorite Canonical COO, Jane Silber who updated us on the Canonical blog:

“The ShipIt program has been at the core of the Ubuntu project since its inception. The goal was to make sure that there are no restrictions, as far as was possible, to people having access to Ubuntu. In the last five years we have shipped millions of CDs and seen Ubuntu’s popularity and reach grow in ways that would be impossible without ShipIt.

And that aim continues. We need to make Ubuntu available to as many people who need it, particularly those for whom the download options are limited. The goal has not been to supply a CD to every Ubuntu user of every version of Ubuntu. Remember, one of the coolest things about Ubuntu is the way you can upgrade from one version of Ubuntu to another – without the need for a CD!

While these CDs are often referred to as “free CDs”, they are of course not free of cost to Canonical. We want to continue this programme, but Ubuntu’s growth means that some changes are necessary. Therefore we are adjusting how we handle CD requests to try to find the right balance between availability of CDs and the continued viability of the ShipIt programme.

We will continue to supply CDs to LoCo teams and Ubuntu members. And we hope to make CDs available to everyone who is just discovering Ubuntu. And we continue to search for additional ways to make Ubuntu and Ubuntu materials available to everyone. But we are limiting shipments to people that we think have alternative paths of getting Ubuntu. For instance,

We will change the language on the ShipIt site to make it clearer what we are doing. We hope that you support this effort and realise that the intent is to continue to make Ubuntu available on CD to everyone who needs it.

Jane Silber, Canonical”

Thanks for the update, Jane. 🙂

Source: Jono Bacon’s blog

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #164

By boredandblogging | Published: 2009-10-18

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #164 for the week October 11th – October 17th, 2009 is available.

In this issue we cover:

* Archive frozen for preparation of Ubuntu 9.10
* Unseeded Universe/Multiverse Final Freeze Schedule
* Ubuntu Open Week: November 2-6, 2009
* Ubuntu Stats
* Karmic release party Dublin
* Ubuntu-ie: change of LoCo Team Point of Contact
* New lpx project group for Launchpad extensions
* Launchpad’s status page
* Ubuntu Forums Tutorial of the Week
* Stefan Lesicnik: Debian 2 Ubuntu – Security FTW
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Ubuntu-UK Podcast: Beautiful Chaos
* 0 A.D. Promises Real Gaming for Ubuntu
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

* John Crawford
* Craig A. Eddy
* Dave Bush
* Amber Graner
* Sayak Banerjee
* Isabelle Duchatelle
* Liraz Siri
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, 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 LicenseAttribution 3.0 License

Ubuntu Open Week

By boredandblogging | Published: 2009-10-13

We are pleased to announce that this cycle's Ubuntu Open Week will be held the week after Ubuntu 9.10's release, from 2 November to 6 November in #ubuntu-classroom on Freenode. The sessions take place from 1500UTC to 2200UTC.

Ubuntu Open Week is a week full of IRC tutorial sessions on a range of subjects, designed to help people get involved in the Ubuntu community. It is given by many of the brightest, most capable members of the Ubuntu community, and covers a range of subjects including packaging, bug triage, translations, accessibility, automated testing, loco teams, mentoring, Launchpad, desktop team, training team and much more.

There will also be the always popular “Ask Mark” session (Wednesday 4 Nov @ 15.00UTC) in which you have an hour to ask Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, your burning questions. Jono will also be providing an Introduction and Community Q+A session (Mon 2 Nov @ 15.00UTC) in which you can ask your questions about the community, Ubuntu, Canonical and anything else.

For the very first time we're going to have a week of IRC sessions in Spanish in order to motivate community members from Spanish speaking countries to get involved in the Ubuntu community. More info here. Visita el vínculo y súmate para aprender más acerca de Ubuntu, la comunidad, como usarlo y aportar. Hay charlas para principiantes, usuarios avanzados y expertos https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek_ES

The schedule is up, so let's get started! (A few slots left open, if you want them, holler at Jorge [jcastro])

Per: Jorge Castro, 10-13-2009

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #163

By boredandblogging | Published: 2009-10-11

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #163 for the week October 4th – October 10th, 2009 is available.

In this issue we cover:

* 2009 Community Council vote complete
* Ubuntu Server Eucalyptus Testers Needed
* Developer Membership Board Meeting: New Approval Process
* Ubuntu Translation Templates Priority
* New MOTU’s
* Ubuntu Stats
* LoCo News: Catalan, Copenhagen, & Paris
* Bazaar 2.0.0: interview with Martin Pool
* Help us improve Launchpad’s icons
* Ubuntu Forums Interview & Tutorial of the Week
* The Planet: Joey Stanford & Roderick Greening
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Ubuntu 9.10 – Almost Perfect
* Hulu Desktop (Linux)
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

* John Crawford
* Craig A. Eddy
* Dave Bush
* Isabelle Duchatelle
* Liraz Siri
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, 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 LicenseAttribution 3.0 License

Ubuntu Server Eucalyptus Testers Needed

By boredandblogging | Published: 2009-10-09

Koalas love eucalyptus, they spend three hours a day munching away on the sturdy plant. Likewise, Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala loves Eucalyptus, the Open Source system for implementing on-premise private and hybrid clouds using the hardware and software infrastructure that is in place, without modification. This allows you to run your own private cloud on your own hardware and infrastructure. Sound interesting? It really is, and this a rocking new feature in the new Ubuntu Server edition.

As we build to release, we could really use your help to make sure that Karmic Koala’s Eucalyptus support is rock solid. This post outlines how you can test this functionality, and provide some valuable feedback.

What You Will Need

You need two machines, one of which has to be capable of handling [KVM](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KVM). The following command will check to see if your CPU has the correct VT extensions for running KVM (though you might have to additionally enable VT in your BIOS):

egrep '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

Each machine will also need 1GB of RAM and 80GB of free space. Documentation for all this is provided here.

You will also need to download the latest daily Ubuntu Server ISO image and burn it to CD.

Performing The Tests

Testing the *Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud* support with Eucalyptus involves three steps: setting up the cluster, the nodes and activating the cloud. Let’s look at it in three easy steps:

The Cluster Machine

This machine will control the nodes, it does NOT need KVM support. You can install it via the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud task in the installer and select Cluster as the type.

Step-by-step instructions are here.

The Nodes

After you have installed a controller you are ready to add *nodes*. This is the machine that needs the KVM support. Install it via the *Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud* task in the installer and select *Node* as the type.

Step-by-step instructions are here.

Activating Your Cloud

After you have got the cluster and the node all installed and ready to go you’re ready for the final steps which are available here.

Testing and Filing Bugs

Each of these steps should be relatively pain free, after that you’re ready to start testing Eucalyptus.

The Eucalyptus Getting Started Guide contains commands you may want to try. Please Note: the Getting Started Guide is for version 1.5.2. Karmic Koala includes version 1.6, so there are some differences involved. You can however take a look to the on going work of the version 1.6 documentation.

Bugs should be filed in Launchpad in the Ubuntu eucalyptus package. You can see this list of bugs at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eucalyptus. Bugs should be reported using the ubuntu-bug tool. This tool is shipped with Ubuntu Server. To file a bug, simply type in:

ubuntu-bug eucalyptus

This tool will send relevant debugging content to Launchpad to help identify and resolve the bug. More details on ubuntu-bug can be found here.

Discussion and Getting Help

Discussion about Eucalyptus can be posted directly to the ubuntu-devel mailing list and you are welcome to join the server development team in the #ubuntu-server IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.