Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #100!

By boredandblogging | Published: 2008-07-21

Digg It!

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 100 for the weeks July 13th – July 19th, 2008 is now available. In this issue we cover: UWN history, UWN Past & Present Staff Podcast, Mark Shuttleworth podcast, Comments from Past & Present Editors, Joining the UWN staff, New Ubuntu QA team, Call for nominations for Tech Board, Alpha 3 soft freeze, Next UDS, Peru LoCo gives Ubuntu presentation at San Marcos University, Ubuntu Ireland gets local press coverage, Ubuntu Nicaragua Continues with TV shows, New Leader for Ubuntu France, Ubuntu-UK podcast #10, and much, much more!

In this Issue:

  • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter History
  • UWN Past & Present Editors Podcast
  • Mark Shuttleworth podcast
  • Joining the UWN staff
  • New Ubuntu QA team
  • Call for nominations for Tech Board
  • Alpha 3 soft freeze
  • Next Ubuntu UDS
  • Ubuntu stats
  • LoCo news
  • Ubuntu Forums news
  • In the Press & Blogosphere
  • Ubuntu-UK podcast #10
  • UWN podcast transcriptions
  • Upcoming Meetings & Events
  • Updates & Security

This is a special Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter.

For our 100th edition, we cover the history of the UWN, a look back at previous UWNs, and discuss what the UWN has meant for people who have worked on it. Former and current staffers of UWN joined in for a podcast to discuss their experiences of contributing to the UWN and the impact of the UWN on the community. Mark Shuttleworth also provides his views on the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter.

Links to the UWN Editors Podcast:

Links to Mark discussing the UWN:

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!

The New and Improved Ubuntu QA

By boredandblogging | Published: 2008-07-18

For the last couple of weeks, Jordan Mantha been working behind the scenes on creating a community Ubuntu QA (quality assurance) team. For quite a while Canonical has largely driven QA efforts in Ubuntu. The community can and should step up in this area (see this wiki page for more background information).

In short, a new community-driven Ubuntu QA team is up and running! The IRC channel is #ubuntu-quality and the mailing list is ubuntu-qa.

From the team wiki page:

The Ubuntu QA team is focused on developing tools, policies, and practices for ensuring Ubuntu’s quality as a distribution as well as providing general advice, oversight, and leadership of QA activities within the Ubuntu project.

In general, QA in Ubuntu is broken down into the following areas:

  • Defect Management (Bug Triage)
  • Quality Control (Update, Application, and Pre-Release Testing)
  • Quality Assurance (Verification of Changes, Policy Compliance Review)
  • Product Improvement (Development)

Getting Involved

The main entry points for working on QA tasks are the BugSquad and Testing Team, however feel free to drop by #ubuntu-quality, if you are interested in Ubuntu QA.

Because Ubuntu QA is a coordination/development/working team the membership guidelines are:

  • Individuals, not teams may be members.
  • Memberships expire annually and can be renewed by members themselves.
  • People from all areas of QA are encouraged to join.

Requirements to join the team:

  • established record of contributing to QA in Ubuntu (such as BugSquad or Testing Team)
  • be an Ubuntu Member or ready to become one (i.e. significant and sustained contribution to Ubuntu)
  • an introductory email sent to the ubuntu-qa list introducing yourself, your previous QA work, and your plans for working in the team.

What kinds of things does Ubuntu QA do?

  • Coordinate between the various QA-related teams
  • Build communities around QA work and help them run smoothly
  • Provide lead-from-the-front leadership to Ubuntu’s QA projects
  • Assess and communicate Ubuntu’s QA needs
  • Develop tools and services needed in Ubuntu QA work
  • Work on creating consistent and efficient QA-related policies
  • whatever else comes up or people want to contribute

Huge props go to Emmet Hikory, Steve Beattie, Henrik Omma, and the rest of the team for helping this get launched.

So stay tuned for more exciting QA developments, feel free to contribute, and rock on!

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #99

By boredandblogging | Published: 2008-07-13

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 99 for the weeks July 6th – July 12th, 2008 is now available. In this issue we cover: special 100th issue of the UWN next week, Intrepid Alpha 2 released, MOTU news and videos, new Universe contributor, summary of UDS discussions, new Kubuntu website, Ubuntu Venezuela 2 year anniversary, Launchpod episode #7, Tutorial of the week, Technical Update, Ubuntu in US retailers, and much, much more!

  • Special 100th Issue of the UWN Next Week
  • Intrepid Alpha 2 Released
  • New MOTU
  • New Universe Contributor
  • MOTU Videos – “This is how I fix a bug”
  • Summary of UDS Discussions
  • New Kubuntu Website
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Ubuntu-Venezuela Celebrates 2nd Anniversary
  • Launchpod Episode #7
  • Ubuntu Forums Tutorial
  • Technical Update
  • In the Press & Blogosphere
  • Canonical & Valusoft bring Ubuntu Support to US Retailer
  • Upcoming Meetings & Events
  • Updates & Security

Special 100th Issue of the UWN Coming Next Week

Don't miss the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter next week as we celebrate our 100th issue with the Ubuntu community. There will be interviews with community members, a retrospect, and insights from past and present UWN staffers. You definitely won't want to miss this issue, so make sure your RSS feed is up to date, your email subscription is current, or the wiki bookmarked for a very special anniversary issue of the UWN!

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!

Ubuntu Intrepid Alpha 2 Released

By boredandblogging | Published: 2008-07-13

Pre-releases of Intrepid 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 2 is the second in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Intrepid 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 Intrepid. You can download it here:

See http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Mirrors for a list of mirrors.

Alpha 2 includes a number of software updates that are ready for large-scale testing. Please refer to http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/intrepid/alpha2 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: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/intrepid/alpha2

If you’re interested in following the changes as we further develop Hardy, have a look at the intrepid-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:

Summary of UDS-Intrepid Discussions

By boredandblogging | Published: 2008-07-10

It has been a month since Ubuntu Developer Summit Intrepid Ibex was held in Prague, Czech Republic. The track leads have collated all their reports from the UDS discussions and Jorge Castro has made a summary of them, available here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS-Intrepid/Report/Summary. This report is a combination of reports and specs:

The reports are meant to be a bird’s eye view of what’s to come in Ubuntu 8.10. Like all best-laid plans, these are subject to adjustment and/or changes, but should be general enough to give you a good idea of what’s being worked on.