Like everyone else with their heart invested in Ubuntu, I am tickled pink to see that Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Beta has been released. Our global community of contributors and developers has worked tirelessly to get this Beta out, and there are lots of great features in there including Upstart switched on by default, improved boot experience, the new Ubuntu Software Center, new messaging indicator changes, and lots of EC2 and Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud awesomeness. You can download the furry little blighter here.

But wait…before you go and download it…I want to talk about the point of a beta…it is, in a word…

Unfortunately, nestled inside all of the lovelyness I described are some inevitable bugs. While we have an incredible bunch of people at Canonical and in the community that fix bugs, we are really looking to you good people to hunt these bugs down and report them so we (a) know about them and can (b) fix them and make Ubuntu the best Operating System it can be.

Of course, the whole system needs testing, but there are some key topics which some of us in the Ubuntu land would like you to give a solid test to. It is these features which are new to Ubuntu and need the most love and attention. So, let’s cover them…

Empathy Audio and Video Calls

Karmic ships with a new instant messaging client called Empathy, based on the tremendous Telepathy framework. Empathy is the right direction for IM in the GNOME and Ubuntu projects, and recent additions to it include screen sharing and audio and video calling. The audio/video side of Empathy has had some mixed results for different users, so this really needs your love.

This is how you test:

First, run Empathy from Applications->Internet->Empathy IM Client. Next add a Google Talk or Jabber account. If you see a contact with a microphone or video camera next to their name, right click them and click Audio Call or Video Call. It should call them, they will then accept the call and you can have an audio or video chat.

If this doesn’t work as expected, open up a terminal Applications->Accessories->Terminal and type in

ubuntu-bug empathy

Follow the instructions to file your bug. You can check to see if your bug has already been filed by looking at the Empathy Bugs List.

Another really useful thing you can do if you face problems is to first quit Empathy and then in the terminal type:

EMPATHY_LOGFILE=/tmp/empathy.log GST_DEBUG=\*fsrtp\*:5 EMPATHY_DEBUG=all empathy

This generates a log file and you should then attach the empathy.log file in the /tmp directory to the bug report.

Boot Experience

Karmic introduces a faster and more beautiful boot experience, but we are still trying to weed out some bugs here and there.

Testing this is simple: boot your system and after you see a message about GRUB loading, you shouldn’t see any other messages before you see the Ubuntu logo on a gray background. If you do see messages, you have found a bug.

We need you to let us know what the text says so we can eliminate the message from the boot process. There are a few ways you can do this:

• When you are logged into the desktop, use Ctrl-Alt-1 to flick to VT1 and see if the messages are there. If so, note them down or take a photo of the screen in which you can see the text clearly.
• Another approach is to remember a word or two from the boot message and then click System->Administration->Log File Viewer and click on either the dmesg or syslog entries and use Ctrl-F to search for the text you remembered. If you then see it, add that to a bug report.

If you think the bug is a kernel bug (typically when the message refers to a device or driver on your system), open up a terminal Applications->Accessories->Terminal and type in

ubuntu-bug linux

If you find that the gray graphic with the Ubuntu logo that shows while Ubuntu is loading doesn’t behave as you expect, run this command to report the bug:

ubuntu-bug xsplash

Finally, if you are having problems with the graphical login prompt, run this:

ubuntu-bug gdm

When you have filed your bug, view the bug report in your web browser, and under Bug Description there is a Tags line. Click the small yellow circle with a ‘!’ inside it and add the tag ubuntu-boot-experience. This will help our developers to find it and do their best to fix it.

EC2

All new Ubuntu releases (including Alphas and Betas) are now available as Amazon EC2 images. Thanks to the stunning work of Ara Pulido and Scott Moser, we have a great set of tests you can run to test out these images. First go and read this starters guide to EC2 and Ubuntu and then try the tests out here. You can leave your feedback on this wiki page and file bugs here.

Getting Help

If you have any questions or queries about testing and filing bugs, here are some resources:

• Reporting Bugs – this page provides more detail about how to file a bug with ubuntu-bug and other tools.
• General Testing Team Documentation – there is lots of help here on these pages about how to help with testing Ubuntu.

A great place to get is IRC too, in these channels (all on the Freenode IRC network):

• #ubuntu-bugs
• #ubuntu-quality
• #ubuntu-release
• #ubuntu-testing

Thanks again for taking part in testing Ubuntu and in helping to make it as great as possible!

Originally posted by Jono Bacon here on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 12:59 am

[Discuss Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Beta Released: Testers Needed! on forums]

We’re kicking off the regular series of LoCo stories with a great one which truly encompasses the spirit of Ubuntu.

It all began in October 2007, and the players are the New Mexico Loco Team and the Endorphine Power Company. Let’s introduce them:

The Endorphin Power Company, or EPC in short, is a non-profit organization “dedicated to improving the lives of people, with special focus on the substance-dependent and homeless, thus alleviating many of the challenges faced by current emergency medical systems. Additional purposes are the promotion of mental and physical health through exercise, energy consciousness and volunteerism.”

The New Mexico LoCo team is a group of Ubuntu and Linux enthusiasts active in a state in the US in which they live and breathe computing history (Altair and Microsoft were founded there). As such, one of their main goals is to live up to and continue that tradition by actively cultivating and spreading the ideals behind Ubuntu, Linux and Open Source.

Not being known for sitting on their thumbs, one fine day some of their members, with Dave Thomas and Eric Krieger in the front, started thinking what they could do as a community to bring “Humanity to others”. It was only an idea, but they thought the natural step would be to use their computing expertise to help their equals.

Said and done, Eric spoke to his boss at Charter Bank of Albuquerque asking him if the company would be interested in donating some used computing equipment to a local non-profit organization. The New Mexico LoCo would then take care of administrating this material and helping with the installation.

Charter Bank agreed and generously donated 25 computers, a server and several network switches for the project. With the equipment sorted out, discussion started taking place in the LoCo’s mailing list to determine which organization would receive the donation, in which it was agreed that the EPC would be the worthy candidate.

Working as a true team, the New Mexico folks set up a page for the project in the Ubuntu wiki, defining milestones and getting organized through their mailing list. The first big milestone in the culmination of this amazing effort came in February 2008, where they met to install and set up some of the workstations in the EPC computer lab. Of course, with the operating system we all know and love. That installation was a success, and provided a solid foundation to base the subsequent efforts on.

Fast forward 2009: a functional Ubuntu network at EPC, wi-fi, a wealth of side-projects, ideas for other initiatives, regular updates on the project, negotiation of a support and training agreement, and the satisfaction of doing a good job while having fun and helping others.

This really is an example of what we are and what we can do as a community sharing the Ubuntu spirit. It is more than the operating system we use, promote and support. It is the ethos we share, what moves us to get involved and help other people in real-world projects to make the world a better place.

Links

• Endorphin Power Company: http://endorphinpower.org
• Project site: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Endorphin_Power_Company_Ubuntu_Install_and_Support
• New Mexico LoCo homepage: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NewMexicoTeam
• Contact
  • New Mexico LoCo Team contact: Michael Rimbert (mrimbert AT ubuntu DOT com)
  • EPC Project Lead: Eric Krieger (grammatoncleric AT ubuntu DOT com)
  • New Mexico LoCo IRC channel: #ubuntu-us-nm

Sources

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue82#Ubuntu%20New%20Mexico%20LoCo:%20Endorphin%20Power%20Company%20Ubuntu%20Install%20and%20Support
• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Endorphin_Power_Company_Ubuntu_Install_and_Support
• ttps://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-us-nm/2008-February/000582.html

A little while ago Nick Ali stepped down from the LoCo Council. We were of course very sad to see this happen, and would like to thank Nick for his great work on the Council. However, we are now down one person, and need to find a new member. I’m writing this mail to ask for volunteers to step forward and nominate themselves or another willing person for this position. There is only one position available, so if more than one person steps forward, there will be a
vote to decide on the successful candidate.

The LoCo Council is defined on the wiki. We meet up once a month over IRC to go through items on the team agenda. This typically involves approving new LoCo teams, resolving issues within teams, approving LoCo team mailing list requests, and anything else that comes along.

The process by which a new member of the Council is selected is defined by the Community Council is outlined on the wiki.

The first stage is for people to nominate themselves, or be nominated by someone else. We will confirm with each person whether they actually want to be put forward or not. We will give ~2 weeks for this process. Please pass this mail back to your own LoCo team so everyone is aware of the process. We welcome nominations from anywhere in the world, and from any LoCo team. Nominees do not need to be a LoCo Team Leader to be nominated for this post. We are however looking for people who are active in their LoCo Team.

** Please send nominations to loco-council at lists.ubuntu.com which is a private mailing list only for the LoCo Council members. **

The above mailing list is moderated, however all nomination mails will be approved before the end of the nomination period

If you’d like to ask any of the LoCo Council members questions privately then you contact us individually or use the above mailing list address.

** The nomination process starts now, and ends at 00:01 UTC on 7th October 2009. **

Once this period is over the LoCo Council will collate the nominations and double check that each person nominated is still happy to stand. We will then pass this list to the CC as per the process.

[Discuss New LoCo Council Members Sought on the Forums]

Originally sent to the loco-contacts mailing list by Alan Pope on Wed Sep 23 11:26:04 BST 2009

The 2009 Community Council is up for election, and all members of Ubuntu are entitled to vote. The nominees for this round are below, together with links to their wiki pages which document their interests, experience, skills and goals.

The Council is responsible for community governance. They are the ultimate arbiter of community disputes, and they nominate candidates for leadership in key positions across the entire project. In selecting your candidates, please consider their ability to act in an independent fashion and exercise good judgement of character, values and tone. We have an enormous community now that spans many different media, regions, technologies and interests. The CC cannot include a representative of every constituency, so members of the CC need to be able to represent the interests of many different groups.

We are electing 7 members. Our amazing candidates are:

• James Troup
• Paul Sladen
• Christophe Sauthier
• Alan Pope
• Elizabeth Krumbach
• Richard Johnson
• Daniel Holbach
• Benjamin Mako Hill
• Emmet Hikory
• Nathan Handler
• Matthew East
• Mike Basinger

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this election! The winning candidates will form the core of the CC for two years. We may have other votes to add candidates during that time if we need to expand the CC, but it’s likely that this will be the primary team for 2009-2011.

[Discuss the Ubuntu Community Council Elections 2009 on the Forums]

With Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 6 now out the door and momentum building towards a rocking Karmic Koala release, it is time to name and share the direction and focus for the next step in the Ubuntu evolution that follows Karmic.

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of the Ubuntu project has announced the next version of Ubuntu:

Two years ago we announced the second LTS release, and what we hoped would become a standard practice of making LTS releases on a predictable two-year schedule, overlayed on our existing six-month schedule of desktop and server releases.

We are now giving a name to the next Ubuntu LTS: The Lucid Lynx.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will ship in April 2010 and is the culmination of significant work in Ubuntu, in Debian and across the free software ecosystem. LTS releases are maintained for five years on the server and three years on the desktop, so they are designed for those who are making larger deployments or who otherwise prefer to have a common platform for an extended period.

Lucid will continue our tradition of focusing an LTS on a quality, stable and consistent experience and will require a number of adjustments to the usual plan. Those are documented at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidLynxSchedule, the Lucid Lynx release schedule. In summary, we will be more conservative in the new code we bring into Ubuntu during the development cycle, and we will run a longer test period. Our focus will be stabilisation and bug-fixing across the platform with additional refinements in quality in key areas such as user interface improvements, boot experience, browsing and installing the incredible catalogue of software available for Ubuntu, and continuing our tradition of best-of-breed hardware support. We will maintain the health and security of our lynx with point releases.

The Lynx is a predator that depends on very considered tactical positioning for success. It’s a small cat, which fits nicely with the lean nature of Ubuntu on both the desktop and the server. It’s stylish and sleek, the bow-tie-adorned James Bond of the feline set, so you can bet we’ll make sure it’s dressed for the occasion. The lynx likes to keep things in perspective, sticking to high ground. So do we. And it’s the national animal of Macedonia, a country that has deployed tens of thousands of Ubuntu desktops in schools.

Speed is an essential ingredient in the attack of a lynx, and speed remains our goal. We have improved the boot time in each of the releases during this era of Ubuntu, and expect to complete some of the major improvements required for 10 second booting with Lucid. Fully harnessing Upstart, in collaboration with Debian, will get us even closer to the goal.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will be a round dozen Ubuntu releases. 12 great cycles, from a great community that continues to devote itself to the goal of bringing the best stable free software to an audience of people who don’t think of themselves as computer specialists – and shouldn’t have to, either. It’s a wonderful privilege to be part of making it happen. That should put a tuft on your ears.

Welcome to Karmic Koala Alpha 6, which will in time become Ubuntu 9.10.

Pre-releases of Karmic 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 6 is the sixth in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Karmic 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 Karmic. You can download it here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/alpha-6/ (Ubuntu)
http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/alpha-6/ (Ubuntu Server for UEC and EC2)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/karmic/alpha-6/ (Ubuntu ARM)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-6/ (Kubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-6/ (Xubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/karmic/alpha-6/ (UbuntuStudio)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/mythbuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-6/ (Mythbuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-6/ (Edubuntu)

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

Alpha 6 includes a number of software updates that are ready for large-scale testing. This is an early set of images so you should expect some bugs; in particular, there are a number of known issues related to recent boot performance changes that will be fixed between now and the Ubuntu 9.10 Beta. For a list of known bugs that you don’t need to report if you encounter, and that you might want to pay close attention to before upgrading, please see:

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/karmic/alpha6

If you’re interested in following the changes as we further develop Karmic, have a look at the karmic-changes mailing list:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/karmic-changes

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.

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce

Bug reports should go to the Ubuntu bug tracker:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

[Discuss Karmic Alpha 6 on the Forums]

Originally sent to the ubuntu-devel-announce mailing list by Steve Langasek on Thu Sep 17 22:20:03 BST 2009

You can make a highly visible contribution to Ubuntu 9.10 by helping to create the release countdown banner… but only if you get your submission in soon! By noon UTC on Sept 22nd you need to post your concept to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Website/KarmicCountdownBanners so that a banner can be chosen. You do not have to complete your banner by the 22nd but you do have to submit a design for review. Anyone is welcome to participate. Discussions will take place on the Ubuntu Web Presence team’s mailing list and chat room at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Website#Mailing%20List

[Discuss the Countdown Banner Deadline on the Forums]

Originally sent to the ubuntu-news-team mailing list by Matthew Nuzum on Tue Sep 15 16:43:57 BST 2009

As a part of the Increase Apport Adoption specification we are going to kick off an experiment and redirect all of Ubuntu’s /+filebug links in Launchpad to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs. This change has been tested on staging.launchpad.net already and will be landing shortly on edge.launchpad.net (There will be a +filebug?no-redirect if you really really need it).

If you review the specification and the documentation bug reporters will be redirected to, you will notice that we spent a lot of time and energy on ensuring that we improve the quality of bugs when they are reported. The time many of us spend on triaging very incomplete bugs is not sustainable given the volume of bug reports. Having reporters use ubuntu-bug (apport more specifically) to report bugs will reduce many of these problems for us.

In order to make the transition for our users smoother, we’d like to ask you to help out with a few things:

1. If you take care of a high-profile package, consider adding it to
   https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage which is linked to from
   https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs.

2. Please consider writing an apport hook for the packages you take care of, if you need special information in bug reports - it’s REALLY easy: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport/DeveloperHowTo#Package%20Hooks
3. If the area of Ubuntu that you take care of is better suited by symptom based bug reporting (“storage”, “boot”, “install”, “sound”, etc.), consider contributing to the apport-symptoms package - it too is REALLY easy: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport/DeveloperHowTo#Symptoms

By helping us receive higher quality bug reports, we will help to make Ubuntu even better!

[Discuss the Launchpad Bug Filing Changes for Ubuntu on the Forums]

Originally sent to the ubuntu-devel-announce mailing list by Brian Murray on Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 5:53 PM

I just wanted to provide everyone with a quick update on where we are with planning for the Ubuntu Developer Summit.

The twice-annual Ubuntu Developer Summit is the event in which we get together to design, discuss and plan the next version of Ubuntu. It is a critical event in the Ubuntu calendar not only for assessing what we would like put into the next release, but also getting many facets of our community together to bond, share ideas and thoughts and have some valuable face-time for a community so thoroughly distributed.

We are putting the organizational wheels in motion for the next UDS and while some details are still yet to be finalized, I didn’t want this to hold me back giving you an update on where we are. So, let’s cut to the chase:

* The next UDS will take place from Monday 16 Nov 2009 – Friday 20 Nov 2009 in a location that is yet to be confirmed but will certainly be in the USA.
* This will be the L release and while Mark has picked the name, it has not been announced yet. I will wait for him to get that juicy nugget of information out for you.
* Each year we (Canonical) provide travel and accommodation assistance for a limited number of community members. Again, I want to remind the many Ubuntu community rock-stars that we can only sponsor some community rock-stars due to limited resources. If you have a lot to offer the next UDS, go and find out details of how to apply here.
* Details as they emerge will appear on the UDS wiki pages

More details as I get ‘em!

[Discuss this UDS Update on the Forums]

Originally posted by Jono Bacon here on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 1:56 am

Welcome to Karmic Koala Alpha 5, which will in time become Ubuntu 9.10.

Pre-releases of Karmic 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 5 is the fifth in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Karmic 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 Karmic. You can download it here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/alpha-5/ (Ubuntu)
http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/alpha-5/ (Ubuntu Server for UEC and EC2)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/karmic/alpha-5/ (Ubuntu ARM)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-5/ (Kubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-5/ (Xubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/mythbuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-5/ (Mythbuntu)

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

Alpha 5 includes a number of software updates that are ready for large-scale testing. 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/karmic/alpha5

If you’re interested in following the changes as we further develop Karmic, have a look at the karmic-changes mailing list:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/karmic-changes

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.

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce

Bug reports should go to the Ubuntu bug tracker:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

[Discuss Karmic Alpha 5 on the Forums]

Originally sent to the ubuntu-devel-announce mailing list by Steve Langasek on Thu Sep 3 17:24:42 BST 2009