[News]

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #184 for the week March
7th - March 13th, 2010. In this issue we cover: Lucid Kernel now Frozen,
Ubuntu 10.04 beta 1 freeze now in effect, Intel, Eucalyptus and
Canonical join forces to help user build cloud infrastructures
confidently, Call for Testing: Cluster Stack – Load Balancing, Google
Summer of Code 2010: Ubuntu application, New Ubuntu Members: Asia
Oceanic Board & Americas Board, Request for input for Lucid Beta 1
technical overview, International Womens Day "How I Discovered Ubuntu"
Winners, Ubuntu Global Jam(LoCo Style), Getting started with
launchpadlib: Launchpad’s Python library, Ubuntu Global Jam – what’s it
all about, New stuff for the Ubiquity slideshow(Proposed), Alan Pope:
Why (I think) Ubuntu is Better Than Windows, Ubuntu hits HTC's Touch
Pro2, is any Windows Mobile handset safe, and much, much more!

== UWN Translations ==

* Note to translators and our readers: We are trying a new way of
linking to our translations pages. Please follow the link below for the
information you need.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Translations

== In This Issue ==

* Lucid Kernel now Frozen
* Ubuntu 10.04 beta 1 freeze now in effect
* Intel, Eucalyptus and Canonical join forces to help user build cloud
infrastructures confidently
* Call for Testing: Cluster Stack – Load Balancing
* Google Summer of Code 2010: Ubuntu application
* New Ubuntu Members: Asia Oceanic Board & Americas Board
* Request for input for Lucid Beta 1 technical overview
* International Womens Day "How I Discovered Ubuntu" Winners
* Ubuntu Stats
* Ubuntu Global Jam(LoCo Style)
* Getting started with launchpadlib: Launchpad’s Python library
* Ubuntu Global Jam – what’s it all about?
* New stuff for the Ubiquity slideshow(Proposed)
* Alan Pope: Why (I think) Ubuntu is Better Than Windows
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Ubuntu hits HTC's Touch Pro2, is any Windows Mobile handset safe?
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security

== General Community News ==

=== Lucid Kernel now Frozen ===

The Lucid Kernel is now frozen. This means that the kernel moves from
active development into its stabilization phase. All planned kernel
features are now set, included, and enabled and the kernel team focus
now moves from new enabling to testing, bug isolation, and fixing of
issues found in the kernel. The kernel will now transition over to the
stable maintenance team, they will be responsible for patch acceptance
from here on.

What does this transition mean for you. Now is the time to test things
you care about and report any issues in Launchpad against the linux
package. If you have bugs open found earlier in the cycle please retest
with the latest and greatest kernel and report back whether those bugs
are still present and where you tested. The upcoming Beta-1 release is
an ideal test platform.

Additionally this transition means that is will be much harder to make a
change the kernel. From today patches will need to meet the same
criteria as would be required for SRU[1] to a released kernel. That
means that the patch must have a Launchpad bug open, it must be a fix
for an actual bug being experienced in the field, it must be sent to the
kernel-team email list for review, it must receive two acknowledgements
from kernel team members, and finally you must test the updated kernels
and report back.

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/StableKernelMaintenance

Lucid will be with us for a long time so please help us make this the
best kernel possible. Please test beta-1 and report your issues. Thanks!

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2010-March/000689.html

=== Ubuntu 10.04 beta 1 freeze now in effect ===

We are now one week from the first beta release of 10.04, scheduled for
March 18 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidReleaseSchedule and have just
entered beta freeze.

During the freeze, all uploads to main must be approved by a member of
the release team [1], so if you have fixes which are important to get
in, please do get in touch as soon as possible. Uploads to universe
require a manual push through the queue, but are not subject to release
management approval.

Issues which are important for the beta release will be tracked by the
release team here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+bugs?field.milestone=21446

If you have bugs on this list, please fix them at the earliest possible
opportunity, or (in consultation with other developers and the Ubuntu QA
team) un-milestone them if they are not required for beta. If you have
bugs you think should be on this list, talk with the Ubuntu QA team or
the Ubuntu release team about having them milestoned.

Please also do not lose sight of the list of bugs affecting the release
as a whole: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+bugs

Over the next few days, please pay attention to eliminating
inconsistencies in the archive, including:

* uninstallable packages in main and restricted -
http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/testing/lucid_probs.html
* obsolete packages which still have reverse-dependencies - and
http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/NBS/

Archive administrators should spend time ensuring that any pending
mainuniverse component changes have been processed
http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/component-mismatches.txt
Developers, if you are waiting for something on this list, please help
out by filing good main inclusion reports.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2010-March/000691.html

=== Canonical Blog: Intel, Eucalyptus and Canonical join forces to help
user build cloud infrastructures confidently ===

A few weeks ago myself and Dustin Kirkland had the privilege of
travelling to the Intel facility in Hillsboro, Oregon to work with Billy
Cox, Rekha Raghu, Paul Guermonprez, Trevor Cooper and Kamal Natesan of
Intel and Dan Nurmi and Neil Soman of Eucalyptus Systems and a few
others on developing a proof of concept whitepaper on the use of Ubuntu
Enterprise Cloud on Intel Xeon processors (Nehalem).
http://www.intel.com/software/cloudbuilder

The whitepaper is published today on the Intel site (registration
required) so it seems like a good time to talk about why we collaborated.

The Intel Cloud Builder program is intended to develop some best
practice information for businesses and institutions looking to take
advantage of the promise of cloud computing. As we do consistently with
UEC, we are being specific when we talk about cloud as the ability to
build Infrastructure as a Service behind a corporate firewall – that is
on your own systems, protected by your own security protocols.

In Portland we had access to some great hardware and as an ex-Intel man,
it was good to mess directly with the metal again. Intel defined a
number of use and test cases and the guys from Intel, Eucalyptus and
myself were able to have some fun putting UEC through its paces. And the
results were good. We documented them and the whitepaper gives numerous
code and scenario examples to help anyone new to cloud to get up to
speed really quickly and the make the most of the capabilities of the
Xeon processor in supporting an internal IaaS infrastructure. You can
find out how to get started on UEC with existing documentation. but this
whitepaper takes it to the next stage. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEC

Being able to test the software as part of the Intel Cloud Builder
program and jointly publish this whitepaper is a great endorsement of
what is still a young technology. And I hope it will give users
confidence to start building their own UEC deployment on x86 technology.

Nick Barcet, Ubuntu Server Product Manager

http://blog.canonical.com/?p=348

=== Call for Testing: Cluster Stack – Load Balancing ===

Continuing with the Ubuntu Cluster Stack testing, it is time now for
Load Balancing. During UDS, we discussed that we should based the Load
Balancing as part of the Ubuntu Cluster Stack using Keepalived due to
its speed. However, since the main Cluster Stack is based in Pacemaker,
we decided to do Load Balancing with Pacemaker/ldirectord too.

The wiki page showing the procedure is here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ClusterStack/LucidTesting#Load%20Balancing If
you find any bugs in the documentation, please let us know by leaving
your comments at the END of the wikipage in preparation for the
Documentation that might be included in the Ubuntu Server Guide.

All the packages are now in the archives. So please test the
configurations and if you find any bugs, please report them in LP.

http://www.roaksoax.com/2010/03/call-for-testing-cluster-stack-load-balancing

=== Google Summer of Code 2010: Ubuntu application ===

We are very excited to announce that Ubuntu has applied as to be a
participating organization in the Google Summer of Code 2010! We
submitted an organizational application, along with suggested ideas for
potential projects for students. We also encourage students to come up
with their own ideas.

If you're a student interested in Open Source (or if you know students
who are), now is the time to act to get involved in Google's wonderful
Summer of Code program. Also, if you are thinking about becoming a
student's mentor please visit: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GoogleSoC2010

Make sure you read all the necessary information carefully and join the