Ubuntu has won Distribution of the Year in the 2005 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards, an annual poll of the user support website's forum members.

We'd like to thank the academy– wait, no, that's a totally different award. We'd like to thank the readers of LinuxQuestions.org for supporting Ubuntu!

Michael Dell, chairman and founder of Dell, mentioned Ubuntu in a number of contexts in a recent interview on DesktopLinux.com. Of great interest was his comment that, “Ubuntu is now the most popular desktop distribution on Dell PCs”. Rock and roll!

“If we say we like Ubuntu, then people will say we picked the wrong one. If we say we like and support Ubuntu, Novell, Red Hat, and Xandros, then someone would ask us, 'Why don't you support Mandriva? The challenge we have with picking one is that we think we'd disenchant the other distributions' supporters.”

Dell offers an range of workstations and laptops called the nSeries which do not include Windows, opting instead for a very basic FreeDOS. These machines are intended for buyers who are keen to run Linux without paying for an operating system they won't use.

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Pascal Klein writes in to announce a new effort brewing from the Art Team:

This weekend, coinciding with the Ubuntu UI sprint happening in London, might as well be a nice time to catch up, get some decisions and work done, so I suppose let us dub it the 'Artwork Weekend'. This has several implications, especially meeting wise. Please note (!) there is no set discussion time set for this. Come and go to the artwork IRC channel (#ubuntu-artwork) and catch up with what is happening, show the work you've worked on and overall, help cover the agenda items.

Showing up unprepared isn't fun for anyone, so Pascal was kind enough to submit some preparation links before you dive in:

• Meeting Schedule
• Meeting Agenda
• Meeting Notes and Minutes
• Voting Page – to be used if any issue needs to be voted on by the community. (Please keep the results on the page so others can keep track of it!)

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For the last few months, Jono Bacon has been working with Benjamin Mako Hill, Corey Burger, Ivan Krstic, Jonathan Jesse and some other authors to write the Official Ubuntu Book. The book will be published by Prentice Hall PTR and available for sale in shops as well as being available online under the CCL license.

One of the chapters of the book provides a range solutions to common problems in the form of recipes. Each recipe describes a specific problem complete with a concise solution. Although a range of recipes have already been written, Jono is looking for your contributions to make it even better. With your contribututions of recipes, the chapter becomes far more expansive and will cover a greater range of areas.

If you are interested in contributing, you should first take a look at this wiki page to see which recipies have already been written. If your idea is not already there, write it up and send it to Jono at ubuntubook AT jonobacon DOT org. Those recipes selected for inclusion in the book will get a free signed copy of the book.

When writing you recipe, bear the following points in mind:

• Each recipe should be under 700 words
• Recipies should be submitted in plain text
• Keep your language direct and active. Don’t tell the reader what you are going to do, just do it. A great way of avoiding indirect writing is to strip the word ‘will’ out of everything that you write.
• Each recipe should have a title such as ‘My USB key does not work’. Keep this short and to the point.

The deadline for all submissions is Wed 8th March!

Good luck! See below for the terms and conditions.

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