Click on the ‘Podcast’ to the right of the video to see our weekly podcasts.

Show Notes:

• Ubuntu Server Amazon EC2 Beta
• Ubuntu Global Bug Jam 20-22 February 2009
• Danish LoCo on fire!

Welcome to Ubuntu Podcast Episode #15.

Show notes:

• UDS Recap
  • roommate was Nicholas Deschildre, who did the Brainstorm site
    • He is also working on a Ubuntu Wanted site, so people who are looking to get involved and can find things to do
  • Spread Ubuntu might get its own official place in ubuntu.com domain
  • LoCo database, possibilities of mashups, like finding events
  • Most fascinating new thing for Nick: cloud computing with Ubuntu
    • Red Hat was certified for use with Amazon’s EC2 service early on
    • Ubuntu will be officially support on EC2 soon (beta is out)
    • Potential of building your own cloud infrastructure with Ubuntu starting in Jaunty
  • User Experience, UI improvements coming
  • Lots of videos: http://videos.ubuntu.com, http://www.youtube.com/user/ubuntudevelopers
  • Videos of sessions can be found at http://videos.ubuntu.com/uds/jaunty/.
  • Tracks updated on identi.ca
  • evan, who runs identi.ca, said there was a 20% jump in activity, more traffic than even election night!
  • Great to meet Dan Trevino and Chris Crisafulli from the Florida LoCo

• If you want to wear a shirt promoting your LoCo any project, leave us comment! We would be happy to discuss any Ubuntu related project!

• 4000 People at French Team release party!

• Ubuntu Hall of Fame: Alberto Milone
  • Envy dude
    • helps installing NVIDIA drivers
  • moderator on Forums

• System76 launches $899.00 Gazelle Ultra
  • 13.3″ WXGA Glossy, Ultra-Bright LED backlit (1280 x 800),Intel X4500HD, Intel High Definition Audio, Gigabit LAN (10/100/1000), 802.11 a/g/n, Express Card 34/54 slot, ports: VGA, 3 x USB 2.0, Headphone Jack, Microphone Jack, S/PDIF Output Jack, SD Reader, webcam, fingerprint reader (beta), 12.125″ x 9.125″ x 1.3~1.44″ (WxDxH),4.4 lbs

• IBM rolling out virtual desktops that are Microsoft free + Ubuntu + and include the Lotus Symphony and Lotus Notes apps

Welcome to Ubuntu Podcast Episode #14.

Show notes:

• Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase II
  • First round was done for 8.10
  • See the winners under /home/<username>/Examples/Ubuntu_Free_Culture_Showcase
  • Its about showing free culture and free software
  • Gives people a chance to show case their work to millions of people
  • Winner of this context will go into all shipped CDs and downloaded images of 9.04
  • Audio, 1MB max, in ogg vorbis
  • Video, 2.5MB max, in ogg theora
  • Photo/Graphics, 0.5MB, PNG or JPG
  • Must be licensed Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike
  • Submissions due February 6th, 2009

• UDS Jaunty Jackalop is next week at Google headquarters
  • UDS is where people talk about what will go into the next release
  • Currently there are about 145 blueprints, things that could get discussed
    • improving boot time seems like a real interesting one
  • obviously none of it is in stone
  • Keep your eyes open for ways to participate and see what is going to be going on

• Adobe releases alpha 64 bit Flash for Linux
  • Not Ubuntu specific, but its a big deal with most Linux users
  • Till now, 64 bit users had to use nspluginwrapper
    • nspluginwrapper is compatibility plugin, meaning it enables you to use plugins on platforms they were not built for.
  • Crash stats from Mozilla show 25% of all Linux Firefox crashes are Flash related
  • To test it out on your system, uninstall the flash-nonfree package, drop the libflashplayer.so that you download from Adobe in your ~/.mozilla/plugins/

• Handbrake gets a Linux GUI
  • almost the standard DVD ripping, multi-threaded, multi-platform, GPL
  • So far only Ubuntu binaries are available, hopefully more coming out soon
  • Previous attempted front-ends have been decent at best, hopefully this is better

• Phoronix continues with its benchmarks: 64 bit Ubuntu 8.10 vs FreeBSD 7.1 vs OpenSolaris 2008.11
  • Tested with Ubuntu 8.10 final and beta releases of FreeBSD and OpenSolaris
  • All OSs left in their default configuration
  • Tests included MP3 encoding, compression, GPG, Java, etc
  • Ubuntu won out most of the time
  • Java did the best on OpenSolaris unsurprisingly
  • If need disk performance, OpenSolaris did the best

• Phoronix does more tests: Fedora 10 vs Ubuntu 8.10 w/32 and 64 bit
  • Tests included OpenArena, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Gzip compression, MP3 encoding, Ogg encoding, Java, GPG, etc.
  • Performance difference between distros was neglible
  • Basically, go with whichever distro you are more comfortable with

• CrunchBang Linux
  • Based off Ubuntu
  • Uses the OpenBox window manager, but allows you to run all your GNOME apps
  • Created from a minimal Ubuntu install and adding layers on top of it.
  • Default theme is cool, all black and white
  • Not supported by Canonical, but if you are comfortable with Ubuntu, CrunchBang should be pretty easy to use

• Hardening the Linux Desktop
  • IBM tutorial that uses Ubuntu
  • Registration required
  • Shows to do the following things:
    • installing ClamAV
    • protection from rootkits
    • Setting up Firestarter as a firewall
    • backing up and restoring home directories
    • how to install the Ubuntu updates
    • password protecting the bootloader

• Vibuntu 1.0: A Customized Version of Ubuntu for Visually Impaired Users
  • Remaster of Ubuntu 8.10 Live CD customised to the needs of blind and partially sighted users
  • Designed to boot from a live cd or USB memory stick
  • Logs you in automatically and then start up the Orca screen-reader
  • Full-screen magnification can then be activated with a simple keystroke.

• Steam and Left for Dead games
  • Possible evidence of Linux versions
  • Were hiring a senior linux programmer

• Testing ads
  • We would like to buy a hi-def camcorder and some other equipment to make the podcasts better

Some of the intro pictures (including the cake) are from the Quebec City Ubuntu 8.10 Release Party. Lots of pictures of release parties can be found Flickr.

Audio files are coming soon.

Show Notes:

• Jaunty Jackalope Alpha 1 has been released
  • Obviously don’t run on production machines
  • Meant for developers or anyone who wants to help find bugs

• Ubuntu US shop is open for business
  • Had a “soft” opening before, but now its official

• Ubuntu Hall of Fame
  • The community is huge, lots of people doing great work, which is verifiable by stats
    • but the stats are all over the place
  • HoF brings it into nicely readable page and provides links to how to get involved in different parts of the community
  • Top contributors for:
    • 5-A-Day (confirming bugs, linking to upstream bugs, reviewing patches)
    • answering questions on LP
    • translators
  • Latest approved Ubuntu members and MOTU
  • Also a featured contributor section, a blurb about them, and letting people “thank” the contributor

• New theme on help.ubuntu.com
  • Pretty snazzy and clean
  • Gone away from the wiki look

• Lots of LoCos had 8.10 release parties
  • Iranian Team, Irish Team
  • Colombian Team will hold an UbuCon on Nov. 29th
  • Zimbabwe had its first release party
  • Peruvian Team was involved in a free software conference

• Linux Identity Magazine will cover Ubuntu 8.10
  • Each edition is devoted to something very specific, like Fedora 9, OO.o 3.0, FreeBSD, Debian
  • Their next edition is all about Ubuntu 8.10 (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Mythbuntu)
  • Included DVDs
  • Describes how to install, upgrade, personalize

• Canonical will be porting Ubuntu onto the ARM architecture
  • Not sure about pronunciation, used to stand for Advanced Risc Machine
  • ARM processors used widely on mobile devices and getting into netbooks
  • Devices should be available in April 2009

• Aaron Seigo – one of KDE’s main developers is doing is on podcast on UStream
  • Last one was about KDE 4.2, plasmoids, etc.

The lighting and sound might be a bit off on this show. We are learning as we go and it should be better in the future!

Thanks to Chris and Bryan from the Linux Action Show for stopping by during our Ubuntu Podcast Ustream broadcast.

Also, we may have accidentally referred to this episode as #13, our mistake.

Audio files are coming soon.

Show Notes:

• Ubuntu Georgia 8.10 Install Fest
  • About 20 people showed up
  • Quite a few new people
  • Got a few new Ubuntu installs going

• Spread Ubuntu 0.1 Alpha – codename “evan”
  • Awesome project to help individuals and LoCo create and share marketing material

• Dan Trevino of the Ubuntu Florida Team pointed out a bug where recovery for a RAID 10 system isn’t possible.
  • Swapping out a bad drive doesn’t start auto-rebuild.
  • Upstream kernel bug, which has been fixed, and committed in Intrepid
  • So kernel update should be coming for Ubuntu users soon.
  • https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/285156

• UDS Jaunty Mountain View, CA, USA Dec 8 – 12, 2008
  • After a release, time to start planning for the next release.
  • Chance to discuss specs or come up with new specs
  • Upcoming UDS will be held at the Google headquarters
  • There will be lots of coverage
    • people will blog about it
    • lots of pictures will be taken
    • can participate in sessions on IRC and listen in

• Ubuntu Open Week just ended
  • - IRC logs are available at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek
  • Covered wide range of ways everyone can get involved in the community
  • Mark did a session for a couple of hours -
    • Someone asked about having repository that was bleeding edge.
      • There is an intrepid daily builds PPA: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bzr-nightly-ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
      • For Jaunty, some of the big apps might have nightly builds available like Firefox, Open Office, X, and the kernel
    • Also got asked how much success has been had with the Dell relationship?
      • Ubuntu has 3 partnerships with Dell:
        • you can get one of their current top range of laptops or desktops with linux
        • In China, can get Ubuntu on pretty much any machine
        • Vostro and Minis which have a customized Ubuntu for a specific user experience
    • When will LaunchPad be open sourced?
      • Mark promises by November 2009, maybe earlier.
      • They are working on various issues like licensing.
    • New theme for Jaunty?
      • Designers and user experience people have been hired, team will be ready by January or February
      • Not sure there will be theme changes, but at least some user experience type updates

• A repo is being set up specifically for Dell Mini 9 and other netbooks for updates and security fixes.
  • Right now, trying to find out if there is any interest from current netbook owners in helping test the updates and fixes

• Matthew Garrett rips apart Ultamatix -
  • Matthew used to be on the Ubuntu Technical Board and had done an analysis about Automatix sucking
  • Matthew starts out with a bang:
    • “This isn’t constructive criticism. This is just criticism.”
    • “In summary, don’t bother. It’s crap. And dangerous. But mostly crap.”
  • What is Ultamtix?
    • Install apps that aren’t in the repos because of licensing or no one has gotten around to packaging it
  • Whats so bad about it?
    • Uninstalls packages that have nothing to do with Ultamatix without asking the user
    • Basically lots of technical things where they screw up.
  • DON’T LET ANYONE INSTALL IT!

• Mac OS X 10.5 vs. Ubuntu 8.10 Benchmark
  • Baseline
    • Stock installation, compiz turned off
    • Tests running Java
    • Macs running official supported Java, Ubuntu running IcedTea, which uses Sun’s open sourced java code and other OSS tools to create a java environment
  • Highlights
    • Urban Terror, which uses the open source quake engine, was almost 4 times faster under Apple
    • Possibly attributed to the fact that drivers in Linux are going through some changes and not quite optimized
    • Intel is working on some issues, so hopefully we will see improvement soon
    • Ubuntu did well when compiling code, encoding audio/video
    • Mac OS did well with disk benchmarking
    • Java benchmarks were split

• Phoronix redid some of their last tests where they found Ubuntu 8.10 slower than previous releases
  • For their previous tests, they used ATI binary blobs
  • Bryce Harrington, who maintains X for Ubuntu, asked them to test with the open source Mesa drivers instead
  • Phoronix found similar slow downs with the open source drivers

• IBM Symphony now available for Ubuntu
  • Also presented roadmap to using OO.o 3.0 codebase
  • Symphony will also support OpenDocument Format 1.2
  • Benefit of building with OO.o and supporting ODF 1.2 is pretty good compatibility with Office 2007 file formats and Visual Basic macros

• TimeVault – nice GUI tool for doing backups.
  • Takes snapshots of any directories
  • Can restore to previous versions, integration with nautilus
  • Supports automated snapshops
  • Can figure where snapshots are saved
  • Diff viewer

• Upgrading Ubuntu Via BitTorrent (mentioned on last podcast)

• Installing OpenVZ on Ubuntu 8.10

• Easily create USB Ubuntu Flash Drive with a Few Easy Steps

• The Matrix Runs Windows video from CollegeHumor – wait till after the credits

-

Audio files are coming soon!

Show Notes:

• Ubuntu 8.10 is out!

• Ubuntu Georgia 8.10 Installfest, November 8th, 2008, at Emory, Atlanta, GA.

• Order your Ubuntu 8.10 CDs from ShipIt

• Matt Zimmerman, Canonical CTO has an interesting post about bugs
  • In September, over 7800 bugs were filed
  • 99% were resolved, either duplicates, fixed, invalid, etc.
  • Of course, there are still 46,000 open bugs still
  • Funny comments left on the blog: some saying Windows and Macs do better
  • Of course, I would like someone to tell me what the bug count is in Microsoft and Apples bug trackers. Oh wait, they won’t release any of that info.
  • One comment was how there shouldn’t be upgrades, just updates. Like how people have XP on their machines for years.
  • The terms upgrades and updates are probably used too loosely.
  • Multiple service packs over the years are huge and make lots of changes.

• Ubuntu get slower?
  • Phoronix did some tests
    • But its not really Ubuntu’s fault, looks like some of the upstream projects are the issue
    • Might be related to some video driver issues, compiler changes, and general kernel stuff
    • Phoronix tested with Fedora and also a slow down between 7 and upcoming 10.

• Mark Shuttleworth does interview with media and analysts
  • Canonical isn’t in the black yet
  • Employees over 120 people
  • Will probably require a few more years of funding
  • But there is lots of revenue coming in
  • Can Ubuntu survive without Canonical?
    • Are the community processes in place if something like that ever happened?
  • 8 million users, but now knows for sure since there is no “call-home” option like some other OSs

• 8.10 includes a totem plugin to play BBC audio, has support for video as well when its available
  • Only plays the DRM-free stuff and some of it is restricted to the UK, but still pretty snazzy

• Spread Ubuntu Alpha .1 – a Do-It-Yourself marketing material repository

• Obama campaign using Ubuntu? (this is not meant to be political)
  • someone from Fox pointed out that they use Ubuntu widely and so do the McCain folks

• Dell 12″ Mini Inspiron released in Japan
  • $999
  • Comes with Vista, “looking into Ubuntu”
  • “Dell cites the lack of connection managers for its telco partners under the Mini 12’s forthcoming 3G mobile broadband module as the reason Linux remains a no-show.”

• 8.10 is frozen
  • Release Candidate should be out on Thursday
  • Final release Oct. 30th, 10 days

• Opinions on the new Ibex Wallpaper?
  • Preview: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubuntu-8-10-Has-a-Brand-New-Wallpaper-95451.shtml
  • Light one has a funny texture for me (Nick), someone said it kinda looks like a cave man drawing

• New Ubuntu US Store
  • No more paying crazy shipping charges
  • http://usshop.ubuntu.com/

• Looks like no Open Office 3.0 in 8.10 since it missed feature freeze deadline
  • There is already a PPA for Intrepid though: https://launchpad.net/~openoffice-pkgs/+archive

• Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.0 released
  • Package Cleaner – auto remove old packages and kernels, or you can keep the old kernel
  • More powerful Third Party source
  • Change the GNOME Panel Logo – Just prepare a .png file with size 24×24 and follow the instructions
  • Templates and Scripts support
  • New User Folder SettingsFor Ubuntu 8.10 change the source repository
    • deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/tualatrix/ubuntu intrepid main
    • deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/tualatrix/ubuntu intrepid main
  • For Ubuntu 8.04 the old source is still in use.

• Free “powered by Ubuntu” stickers – Sitt Services are sending free ubuntu stickers.
  • Just send SASE envelope to them to get it. Right now only available in:
    • Singapore
    • Australia
    • South Korea
    • Hong Kong
    • USA
• They are looking for other people to distribute their stickers in other countries as well.

• AUV using Ubuntu Server 8.04
  • AUV = Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
  • Cambridge University built one with Ubuntu 8.04 Server
  • AUV is supposed to navigate a course which has gates, drop zones, surface zones and AUV needs to identify them somehow visually or with sound.

• Dell Mini 9 Reviews
  • Craig Eddy:
    • 2 desktop configurations (similar to Eee)
      • One with big buttons and applications
      • Other is regular 8.04 desktop
      • Many apps are loaded by default to save space on the solid state drive
  • Chuck Frain from the Maryland LoCo:
    • 4 hour battery life
    • 16 GB hard drive where only 4 GB is formatted, WTF!!

• Dell bought ads in a few newspapers pushing the Mini 9 with Ubuntu

• Possible Dell Inspiron Mini 12
  • Main improvement seems to be that it can play Hi-Def content well

• New ATI drivers for 8.10
  • “Whatever the official case is, Canonical is now providing an ATI Linux driver that isn’t yet available to ATI’s customers through their driver web-site.”
  • Still beta though

• Ubuntu 7.04 ended Sunday October 19th, 2008.
  • No more security updates
  • Upgrade to 7.10: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GutsyUpgrades.
  • If you want to upgrade to 8.04, need to upgrade to 7.10 first.

• Ubuntu Georgia LoCo Install Fest
  • Saturday, November 8th @ Emory Law
  • More details to be posted later.

• Wikipedia switches over to Ubuntu from various Red Hat and Fedora editions
  • On Fedora mailing lists, some people are asking about a Fedora LTS version
    • Some mentioned Brazilian government moving away from Fedora to Ubuntu LTS
  • Fedora is fast moving, cutting edge, thats its focus

• Ubuntu Wanted project under way
  • Within the Ubuntu community, a place to ask for help, and a place for volunteers to find projects they can contribute to.
  • For beginners, can be hard to figure out where to contribute
  • Some projects might lack man power
  • No paid work allowed.

• Appnr – webpage that lists applications that are available in the repos
  • Hit install and apt-get runs and installs apps from the repos (the repos that are already in your source.list).
  • Nice tools for new users

• Open Source Musician Podcast
  • Plugs Ubuntu Studio in their latest podcast

• Pre-installed Linux netbooks get returned a lot more than Windows netbooks
  • According to MSI Director of US sales, buyers don’t know what they are getting till they take it home.
  • Confirmed by Canonical: http://blog.laptopmag.com/ubuntu-confirms-linux-netbook-returns-higher-than-anticpated
  • A lot probably depends on the distro installed

• Lotta Linux Links – Josh got interviewed by Dave Yates after Atlanta Linux Fest

• Song of the Week by: J.Lang

Show Notes:

• Atlanta Linux Fest was a rockin’ success
• Do another one next year
• Tentatively for September 2009
• Links to presentations notes will be posted

• Intrepid Ibex Beta has been released
• Samba 3.2
• A lot of new features have been added in Samba 3.2 amongst them:
• clustered file server support
• encrypted network transport
• ipv6 support
• better integration with the latest version of Microsoft Windows© clients and servers.
• Final comes out Oct. 30th

• Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) reaches End-of-Life on October 19th, 2008
• 18 months of security updates and critical fixes will be over
• Upgrade path to 7.10 (Gutsy) is available on the wiki – https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GutsyUpgrades

• Ubuntu specifically blamed for bricking network cards
• 2.6.27-rc kernel is going into many of the upcoming distro releases
• bricks Intel e1000e network cards by overwriting the flash RAM where things like MAC addresses are stored
• Its a kernel issue, not an Ubuntu issue!
• Ubuntu Intrepid beta has blacklisted the module so it does not get loaded anymore
• But sites like Engadget and DownloadSquad post headlines like “Ubuntu alpha breaks hardware”
• Guess Ubuntu has to take the good with the bad in terms of popularity.

• Ohio Linuxfest – Oct 10th and 11th in Columbus, Ohio
• Joe Brockmeier, openSUSE Community Manager, Jono Bacon, Ubuntu Community Manager will be speaking
• Josh might be attending
• Going on since 2003

• NY Times mentioned Jaunty Jackalope
• http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/the-jaunty-jackalope-hops-aboard-ubuntus-ark/
• Mentions improved boot times and “weblications”
• Mentions Google using it internally and Dell selling macines with Ubuntu pre-installed

• Computer Music magazine reviews Ubuntu Studio
• Scanned pages available at http://luisbg.users.ubuntustudio.org/luisbg/computer_music/

• TurnKey Linux: new project builds installable Ubuntu based Live CD appliances
• TurnKey LAMP stack, TurnKey Drupal 5, TurnKey Joomla
• typically around 150MB

• Ubuntu Server survey
  • 10 to 20 minute survey
  • Trying to figure out how people use Ubuntu Server day-to-day

• Firefox WAS going require EULA to use it starting in Intrepid
• Some people are saying you can still use FF without agreeing to it, which makes no sense
• But if that behavior is changed, then there might not be a browser in the default install
• Use iceWeasel instead like Debian, which is basically FF without the logos
• Mozilla wants to protect their trademark (just like Ubuntu wants to), which is fine, but this is retarded
• EULAs also not legal in some countries
• Fedora had worked out some license thing too as well I think
• But it was eventually Ubuntu users raising hell that got Mozilla to change it.
• http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/21/2121243

• Greg Kroah-Hartman, a Novell kernel hacker complains about Canonical contributions
• http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/lpc_2008_keynote.html
• Matt Zimmerman, CTO for Canonical responds.
• Points out Greg only considers kernel, X, and compiler contributions, not Gnome, KDE, or anything else.
• Greg even gets his numbers wrong since it doesn’t consider the right email addressses
• Dustin Kirkland, who also works for Canonical, points out some interesting numbers:
• comparing number of years in existence, # of employees, revenues, Canonical is young and small
• points out that many Fedora and openSUSE users search Ubuntu resources for help because they are more comprehensive and informative.

• “Hottest” Ubuntu installation at T&A Lingerie, Moreno Valley, Calif
• http://www.thevarguy.com/2008/09/16/found-the-worlds-hottest-ubuntu-linux-deployment/
• one Ubuntu server, five Ubuntu desktops and two Ubuntu laptops/mobile devices
• T&A’s operations manager says they are running 8.04 and have been MS free for 2 years

• Ubuntu theme for Blackberry

• Miro feed, iTunes feeds working properly on the site

Show Notes

• Atlanta Linux Fest is September 20th, 2008!

• Ubuntu Intrepid Alpha 5 is out
  • https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IntrepidIbex/TechnicalOverview
  • Still some issues with running it in vbox, should be fixed for Alpha 6, which will be released Sept. 18th

• Jaunty Jackalope is Ubuntu 9.04
  • Mark again talks about leapfrogging Apple and Microsoft in terms of user experience
  • Faster boot up and resume
  • weblications = desktop app seamlessly integrating with the web, hopefully will hear more after UDS
  • make it easier for developers to branch any package, update it, and make PPAs available.

• Design, user experience and development at Canonical
  • Mark talks about the next steps Linux and Ubuntu needs to take.
  • “are hiring designers, user experience champions and interaction design visionaries”
  • Mentions hiring people to help improve X, OpenGL, Gtk, Qt, GNOME and KDE

• Ubuntu Developer Summit (December 2008)
• Jono Bacon talks about the upcoming UDS will work
  • Usually involves Canonical employees and people that Canonical chooses to sponsor
  • Now, anyone can ask to be sponsored
    • Simply identify an idea in Brainstorm that they would like to lead a discussion about and submit a request

• Ubuntu Manpage Repository – This site contains nearly 300,000 HTML viewable manpages included in Ubuntu releases (Dapper, Feisty, Gutsy, Hardy, Intrepid) and across all of (main, universe, restricted, multiverse) and across all languages where manpages are available. It is automatically updated daily.

• Install ubuntu without an optical drive using UNetbootin
  • A utility that you can use to create a bootable Ubuntu NetInstall image on a USB stick is UNetbootin. This is available as a Windows app or a Linux app.

• Ubuntu in Pop Culture
  • Movie – They are students – at least that’s what their parents think – they are the disc-jockeys in the in-clubs in town, they party with no end, they fall in love, they have the best summer in their life in the coolest city of the world: “Berlin am Meer”

• Google unveils Chrome source code and Linux port – Google has made the Chrome source available under a permissive BSD license so that it can be incorporated into both open and proprietary software programs. Detailed build instructions are available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. The Linux port is still in early stages of development and is not yet fully functional.

Show Notes

• Intrepid Alpha 5 has been released since the podcast was done.
  • Will update OO.o to 3.0 when its released, 3.0 will support Office 2007 file formats
  • There are issues installing in VirtualBox
  • Shutdown button really logs out user instead of shutting down computer
  • Some Issues with manual partitioning + LVM, encrypting entire disk works
  • Theme is messed up, picking Human-Murrine will fix it.
  • Memory test falsely reports bad RAM.

• Atlanta Linux Fest update on scheduled demos
  • Things getting a bit straightened out
  • Virtualization
  • dual booting
  • IBM Symphony
  • ssh/gpg
  • gaming
  • Fedora 10

• Dell Inspiron Mini 9 with Ubuntu released.
  • Starts $349, 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, Ubuntu 8.04 + customized interface, 8.9″, 1024×600, 512MB RAM, 4GB SSD
  • Just costs $99 if you bought a Studio 15, XPS M1530 or XPS M1330 through Sept. 9th

• Sylvania to use Ubuntu Netbook Remix in their g line of notebooks.
  • 1.6 ghz Atom, 512 MB RAM
  • The 1 GB RAM version is available for pre-ordering at $449
  • Review by Laptop Magazine thought the device itself was ok, but gave props to the Remix
  • http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/sylvania-g-netbook-meso.aspx
  • http://sylvaniacomputers.com/products.php?p=meso

• Canonical joins Linux Foundation
  • Linux Foundation is a “nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux”
  • Linux Foundation:
  • Sponsors key developers like Linus
  • Legal services
  • Promotion
  • Promotes standardization though Linux Standard Base
  • Lots of sponsors like HP, IBM, Google, Dell, Adobe
  • Also usual suspects like Red Hat, Novell

• Lots of Birthdays
  • Linux birthday – Linus announced the existence of Linux on Usenet (comp.os.minix) on August 26th, 1991 (almost 17 years ago!)
  • Debian birthday – First release was August 16th, 1993

• Ubuntu Developer Week
  • Sessions included:
  • How to package applications
  • How to fix Ubuntu bugs
  • Personal Package Archives
  • IRC logs are available
  • MS hires Jerry Seinfeld to promote Vista – YouTube video of ad
    • Seinfeld will get paid up to $10M, part of a $300M ad campaign
    • Also plan to use images of Will Ferrell and Chris Rock
  • VirtualBox 2.0 (Personal Edition and OSE) came out today
    • Hopefully will get put into the repos soon.
    • new 64 bit guest support
  • Qumranet, makers of KVM, bought by Red Hat
  • PlayDeb is gaming repo based on the apps on GetDeb.
    • getdeb is a repo with apps that aren’t in the official repos or more up to date versions.
    • They don’t follow a strict quality control process, still it shouldn’t break anything on your system.
    • PlayDeb games: Alien Arena, Battle of Wesnoth, Urban Terror, Wolfenstein
  ]]> http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/09/05/ubuntu-podcast-episode6/feed/ 3 http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/09/05/ubuntu-podcast-episode6/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/UbuntuPodcastByTheUbuntuGeorgiaLoco/~3/XmDZ45cD2Us/ http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/08/17/ubuntu-podcast-episode5/#comments Sun, 17 Aug 2008 07:25:44 +0000 linuxcrypt http://ubuntupodcast.net/?p=15

  Show Notes

  • Intrepid Alpha was released Thursday Aug 14th
    • Latest xorg is available
      • much better support for hot-pluggable input devices such as tablets, keyboards, or mice.
      • most users will be able to run without an “/etc/xorg.conf” file.
    • Encrypted Private Directory
      • You can always encrypt whole drives or partitions
      • But what if you just want to encrypt a folder in your home directory?
      • And don’t want to encrypt and decrypt continiously?
      • This new feature will encrypt a directory with your regular login/password and decrypt it whenever you login.
    • New Guest user session switching applet
      • Creates a temporary password-less user account with restricted privileges
      • it cannot access any regular user’s home directory,
      • cannot permanently store data.
      • useful to lend people to do quick email check or surf the web
    • Updated Network Manager
      • Managing 3G connection
      • no need to login to set up a connection
      • Managing PPP and PPPOE connections (which is used by lots of DSL providers)
    • Other interesting Intrepid news
      • Tomcat6 had been uploaded to intrepid and is waiting for testing.  It should be available for Intrepid
      • Current behavior when RAID fails is for the system to boot to a recovery console.
        • Server team is adding an option that would allow administrators to specify that the system should instead boot in the degraded RAID state.
        • This would allow systems with redundant disks to get back up and running without requiring human intervention.
  • Free IT Athens working with Clarke County School District to provide up to 2,000 computers to students and families who can afford them
    • Athens is about an hour NE of Atlanta
    • Very much needed in county where 80% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunches
    • Pilot program involved 130 used computers
    • 600 more to be refurbished in the fall
    • 1200 more next year
  • Empathy is a set reusable IM widgets, that could possibly replace Pidgin in Intrepid
    • Not meant to be cross-platform like pidgin
    • Has voice and video support
      • Some folks who tried it out said Empathy works flawlessly with Google Talk users.
    • Its uses the Telepathy framework in Gnome
      • Telepathy supports real-time unified IM, voice, and video communication over DBus
        • DBus is the way applications talk to each other
    • Can also use libpurple, the libraries the pidgin uses, for networks that aren’t implemented yet.
    • No final decision has been made yet!
  • How To Forge has a slick 2 page how to on installing openVZ on Ubuntu Server. Talking about more virtualization, this is an awesome way to run multiple environments.
    • We spend lots of time talking about vmware and virtualbox (like last week), don’t forget to try out openVZ
    • openVZ is in the repos
    • Ubuntu Florida LoCo website ran on OpenVZ until Aug, and will soon be running there again.
  • How To setup DHCP server on Ubuntu Hardy Heron in 3 simple steps!
  • Intrepid Ibex theme not getting that great of a response form the UI. This seems to be a common trend with a lot of bloggers on the Alpha releases of Ibex.
    • Remember, nothing is final yet!
  • Ubuntu Love Day Manila 2008 – On August 23, 2008, the Ubuntu Philippines LoCo, with University of the Philippines Department of Computer Science and Engineering, will hold an event for sharing experiences, learning, and meeting fellow enthusiasts
    • Invited 6 resource persons to share their experiences with Ubuntu in different areas of interest:
      • The Ubuntu 30 day challenge – Aileen Apolo (Google)
      • Ubuntu on virtualization and integrating to a Windows Network – Wallen Tan
      • Ubuntu: Saving lives (and then some) – Charo Nuguid
      • Choice is Good! Welcome to the Exciting, Productive and Wacky World of Ubuntu Derivatives – members of UP Linux Users’ Group (UnPLUG)
      • Ubuntu and the OLPC XO-1 – Rowen Remis Iral (OLPCPH)
      • Kubuntu & KDE: Contributing to an International Software Project – Juan Carlos Torres (KDE Project)
  • Ubuntu attracts the lion’s share of LinuxWorld’s smaller crowds!
    • Each Ubuntu presentation and training session throughout the three days of LinuxWorld was heavily attended, especially compared to similar sessions elsewhere where relatively few attended.
    • Even though attendance was a bit sparse during this year’s LinuxWorld Conference & Expo when compared to previous years, the Canonical booth — where the latest Ubuntu Linux software was being shown off — still managed to draw a crowd.
    • Cancellation of Ubuntu Live might been a good thing
    • LinuxWorld had people who use many different distros, Ubuntu got exposed to them, not a self-selected group
  ]]> http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/08/17/ubuntu-podcast-episode5/feed/ 2 http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/08/17/ubuntu-podcast-episode5/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/UbuntuPodcastByTheUbuntuGeorgiaLoco/~3/OKv3F3qxBZo/ http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/08/11/ubuntu-podcast-4/#comments Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:55:54 +0000 linuxcrypt http://ubuntupodcast.net/?p=10

  We recorded the podcast from the IBM conference center in Atlanta on 8/9/2008. Jim, Josh, and Nick discuss the upcoming Atlanta Linux Fest 2008 as well as what’s new in the Ubuntu community. There is a high res .avi download encoded in xvid, as well as the streaming flash, .mp3 and .ogg audio formats. I will try to post a lower resolution video for those with lower bandwidth, but I wanted to get this out.

  Show Notes

  • Atlanta Linux Fest plans
    • Multimedia on Linux
    • Dual-Boot your College PC and make it more useful!
    • Gaming
    • Symphony
    • Lunch: Pizza
    • Hands-on:
      • breakout sessions
      • one-on-one trouble shooting.
  • Ubuntu on subnotebooks
    • At OSCON, Canonical had Ubuntu running on Atom-based subnotebook.
      • Atom is Intel’s line of CPUs for ultra-mobile PCs, smart phones.
      • The CPUs are smaller than a penny.
      • Notebooks ran Ubuntu Netbook Remix
      • Touchscreens are becoming prevalent, so the finger-friendly UIs will be interesting

  Big week of applications going into the repos

  • IBM partnering with Canonical (see here and here) to make IBM Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS) availabe the repos.
    • Notes is their email platform
    • Smyphony is a fork of Open Office.
  • Alfresco – enterprise content management system being put into partner repos. 100% open source.
    • There are two editions: Alfresco Enterprise Edition and Alfresco Labs
    • The repos will have Alfresco Labs, which is the bleeding edge, GPL
    • Alfresco EE is certified on various systems, has professional support, partners and consultants can provide services, subscription service
  • Ubuntu 8.04 wins Best Desktop Solution at Linux World
  • Ubuntu restaurant
    • vegetables only restaurant in California.
    • Website features a video interview with Nelson Mandela and has an Ubuntu logo on it.
    • The video is also included in the Examples folder of all Ubuntu desktop installations
  • Ubuntu has become “noobified”? It’s a dated article, but still relevant.
    • Somehow, being easy to use is bad: “but Ubuntu has become so watered down as a Linux distribution that I can only classify it as having been completely n00bified”
    • He is used to Fedora: ” I use it 99% of the time while at the University (the other 1% is with Windows), and have had a Fedora Linux server sitting in my office for three and a half years.”
  ]]> http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/08/11/ubuntu-podcast-4/feed/ 1 http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/08/11/ubuntu-podcast-4/http://ubuntupodcast.net/podcasts/avi/Ubucast%20%234.avi http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/UbuntuPodcastByTheUbuntuGeorgiaLoco/~3/FduYnFKB3ag/ http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/08/02/ubuntu-podcast-episode-3/#comments Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:41:00 +0000 linuxcrypt http://ubuntupodcast.net/?p=9

  Josh is on vacation this week, down in Destin, probably having way too much fun.

  Show Notes

  • Alpha 3 released, Alpha 4 comes out August 14th
  • Mark Shuttleworth talk at OSCON got huge coverage: basically, Mark throws down the gauntlet: Make Desktop Linux Better than Apple
    • In 2 years, can the Linux desktop go from stable, robust, and not so pretty…to just blowing by Apple?
    • Journalists and bloggers are asking: Is it possible? Apple controls the whole stack, Linux/Ubuntu can’t
    • Journalists and bloggers are asking: Is it possible without someone taking charge?
    • Will be interesting to see what the ArtWork Team can come up with.
    • 8.04 was supposed to have some cool new themes, but it got pushed.
  • Ultamatix, successor to Automatix released – it basically installs applications and commonly-used audio and video codecs.
    • Some of the applications might not be free or might having licensing issues
    • Or sometimes no one has gotten around to putting them into the repositories yet.
    • AX was very controversial. When it started out, made it easier for new Ubuntu users. But it would tended to cause people lots of pain eventually during upgrades.
      • Matt Zimmerman, Ubuntu CTO, said “I cannot recommend the use of this program, and systems where it has been used cannot be supported with a clean and official upgrade path.”
      • Matthew Garrett, who was on the Ubuntu Technical Board at the time, took a look at AX: “In its current form Automatix is actively dangerous to systems – ranging from damage to small items of user configuration, through removing user-installed packages without adequate prompting or warning and up to the (small but existing) potential to leave a system in an unbootable state.”
      • They were asked to work with Ubuntu developers, but not much progress was made.
      • Eventually Automatix got sold off and there was no release for 8.04
    • Ultamatix – Not done by the AX people
    • Ultamatix creator says he tried to fix the problems that Automatix had -
    • Its been pointed out that Ultimatix uses apt force-yes options:
      • from man pages of force-yes: “This is a dangerous option that will cause apt to continue without prompting if it is doing something potentially harmful. It should not be used except in very special situations. Using force-yes can potentially destroy your system!”
    • It seems like when people are reviewing it, they are not looking under the hood. Specifically, a certain linux.com article which was a rave review of Ultamatix.
  • Linux pre-installed on 2.8% of machines sold in the UK since Vista has been released.
    • Might not seem like a big deal, but its big news since it jumped from .1%
  • Full Circle Magazine #15 is out.
    • Pretty cool magazine, kinda like Linux Format
    • Only available online in PDF format
    • First issue came out June 2007
      • The Ins and Outs of Directories.
      • How-To : Separate Home Partition, Create Your Own Server Part 7, Using GIMP Part 4 and GRUB 101.
      • MOTU Interview – Mathias Gug from Server Team
      • Also gets translated into several languages
  • Launchpad 2.0 Out – Its where a lot of Ubuntu-related projects are hosted.
    • What is LP?
      • Hosting service for open source projects
        • share code
        • file bugs
        • translations
        • New 2.0 release include:
          • APIs to access LP data without going through the web interface
          • code reviews
          • mailing lists
          • integration with bugzilla and trac, which are pretty common and widely used apps for filing bugs
    • Some other big name projects like MySQL and Zope
    • Source code for it has been closed so far, at OSCON, Mark Shuttleworth said code would be released in the next 12 months.
    • Good thing of having only one Launchpad is being able to file bugs properly. Say someone files a bug in Ubuntu that is really in MySQL, its easy to assign the bug over to MySQL.
    • Once open sourced, you’ll see lots of different Launchpads pop up and the collaborative nature will become tougher.
  • Ardour screencasts – Ubuntu UK team is in the process of doing a 13-part series on mixing a podcast with Ardour:
    • So far discussed:
      • setting up environment
      • arranging tracks
      • adding music, cool effects like fading in and out
      • compression
      • filters

  If you have problems listening to the ogg or mp3 on the webpage, please try downloading it.

  ]]> http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/08/02/ubuntu-podcast-episode-3/feed/ 4 http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/08/02/ubuntu-podcast-episode-3/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/UbuntuPodcastByTheUbuntuGeorgiaLoco/~3/IFn6mvkuA34/ http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/07/23/ubuntu-podcast-episode-2/#comments Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:44:42 +0000 linuxcrypt http://ubuntupodcast.net/?p=8

  Show Notes

  • We have a logo!
  • Ubucon! – Setting up to do one in November
    • Checked out a location over the weekend, lots of space
    • Should know soon if we can lock it up
    • Florida team will be joining us
  • Ubuntu Eee SD Cards available
    • $50
    • 4GB SD card
    • Nothing to install
    • Just select to boot from SD card
  • New community driven QA team: For quite a while Canonical has largely driven QA efforts in Ubuntu, and the community can and should step up in this area. On a high level, the Ubuntu QA team is about coordination and developments, 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.
    • To get involved, join the Bug Squad. Members:
      • assign bugs to packages
      • ensure that bug reports are complete
      • find duplicate bug reports
      • recreate bugs and forward bugs to their upstream authors.
      • All of these activities help the bug get fixed and subsequently
        making Ubuntu even better.
    • Also, join the Testing Team:
      • Structured testing of packages and ISO images.
      • Aim to detect as many bugs and issues as possible before CDs are
        released to the general public.
  • Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex Alpha 3 coming
    • Expected to be released Thursday, July 24th.
  • Ubuntu Massachusetts LoCo
    • Fourth “Exploration Ubuntu” event to demonstrate what this easy-to-use
      Linux system has to offer.
    • Saturday August 2nd at the MIT Media Lab

  Ubuntu blogsphere Trends:

  • Configuring Linux Terminal to work as a transparent wallpaper:
    • Uses devilspie is a non-gui utility that lets you make applications start in
      specified workplaces, in specified sizes and placements, minimized or
      maximized and much more based on simple config files.
  • Installing new fonts easily
  • Dell is upgrading Ubuntu machines to ship with 8.04 LTS.
    • Wonder if they will release 8.04 ISO like they had for 7.10.
    • Dell does have its own PPA (Personal Package Archive) on Launchpad and it does get added to package source lists if you buy an Ubuntu Dell machine.
  • Intel Snubs Microsoft, offers Linux certification: Intel’s enthusiasm for open source is gathering speed: now it is endorsing professional Linux certifications, snubbing the old Microsoft certification program.
    • Attendees at the Intel Developer Forum get discounts for taking open source exams from Linux Professional Institute.
    • No such deal for Microsoft certifications.
    • At one of last years Intel Developer Forum, Intel embraced Linux, instead of Microsoft, for its mobile Internet devices
    • At another Intel Developer Forum last year, Mark Shuttleworth gave one of the keynote speeches.
    • Intel sponsors the Moblin project for developing a standardised open source platform for MID products:
    • Ubuntu provides two builds for it: Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device Edition for MIDs and Ubuntu Netbook Remix for mini-notes.
  • 10 + 2 things you’ll get with Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex”
    • This is just a certain bloggers thoughts.
    • These come from blueprints on Launchpad, so there is no guarantee that these features will be implemented in the final version.
    • 1. faster login
    • 2. better Flash experience

    Intrepid will ship improved plugin finder wizard experience, better experience for sites that use the flash detection kit and improved user- experience for selection of available alternatives.

    • 3. 3G networking

    Title says it all, Intrepid will have built-in support for 3G networking with the new NetworkManager.

    • 4. guest account

    It is very common to lend someone else a laptop for a quick email check, or having one’s computer play music and be a surf station on a party.

    • 6. Automatic download of printer drivers through the internet

    The printer setup tool of Ubuntu 8.10 and later will automatically download LSB-packaged printer drivers from the OpenPrinting database.

    • 7. font selector

    Fontconfig offers a variety of font related settings, which can currently only be modified by hacking a XML file together. Intrepid will have a GUI for this task, taking common settings like font ordering, antialiasing, hinting and embedded bitmaps into account, as those settings vary greatly depending
    on different users’ preferences.

    • 9. installation from USB stick

    An application will be developed to convert and write Ubuntu CD images to USB disks. In addition, Ubuntu’s existing tools will be modified to better handle installing from a removable disk.

  • Linus is a P.I.M.P – Linus calls the OpenBSD crowd a bunch of masturbating monkeys.
  ]]> http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/07/23/ubuntu-podcast-episode-2/feed/ 4 http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/07/23/ubuntu-podcast-episode-2/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/UbuntuPodcastByTheUbuntuGeorgiaLoco/~3/j2SBJIM_EAE/ http://ubuntupodcast.net/2008/07/12/ubuntupodcast-episode-1/#comments Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:33:44 +0000 linuxcrypt http://ubuntupodcast.net/?p=7

  Show Notes

  • 8.04.1 – Release announcement. Some highlights:
    • Firefox has been upgraded to the final 3.0 release
    • The Samba client allows LANMAN authentication again, correcting problems connecting to some NAS and older Windows servers (#209520).
    • Various problems with the FUSE interface to GNOME’s new virtual file system (gvs) have been fixed, correcting certain problems accessing network file shares (#211205, #212789).
    • The “Hardware Drivers” application no longer reports the proprietary nVidia driver as being enabled when it isn’t installed (#216650).
    • While we have fixed a number of audio-related issues, including a scheduler problem that caused audio stuttering under load (#188226), other audio playback problems may still exist, because so far we have been unable to verify a targeted fix that does not cause regressions for other users. We will continue to investigate this  See https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/191027 for details.
    • Images updated for Kubuntu, the Kubuntu KDE4 remix, Gobuntu, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu Studio. Mythbuntu to follow soon.
    • ISOs also have OpenSSL fixes
  • Alpha 2 out – Release announcement. Remember, this isn’t production ready yet!
    • Updated X.org 7.4, video might break.
    • Only Alternate CDs available, Live CDs coming for Alpha 3
  • GUADEC- GNOME conference in Istanbul, Turkey, July 7-12th.
    • plans involving moving on and creating GTK 3.0 and Gnome 3.0. More news should be coming out this week.
  • Terminator Terminal – multiple terminals in one window.Can split horizontally and vertically.
    • Tab support
    • Drag & Drop support
    • Support terminal zooming – now you can quickly hide all terminals apart from one and either scale the fontsize or not.
  • UDS-Intrepid Discussions: Jorge Castro, who works for Canonical and deals with upstream projects, put together a summary of the UDS discussions.  Highlights:
    • 3G networking
      • Assemble a list of frequently used hardware and 3G providers in the markets with the highest 3G penetration.
      • Get most important hardware and subscriptions early in the release cycle to ensure that as many options as possible can be verified and get fixed.
    • Better FF 3 and KDE integration
    • Better flash integration, even though Gnash is the long term goal
    • More options for the Ubuntu Firewall
    • These are just discussions, there is no guarantee these will show up in the final release.
  • Best Buy Selling Ubuntu – providing 60 day support and a quick start guide.
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