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Ubuntu Traffic #23 For 2005/01/28

By Benjamin Mako Hill

Table Of Contents

Introduction

Welcome to the twenty-third edition of Ubuntu Traffic. This issue covers the final week of January: January 22 - 28, 2005. Ubuntu Traffic summarizes the most important mailing list and IRC discussions involving the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution.

Ubuntu Traffic can be found on the web at http://people.ubuntulinux.org/~mako/ubuntu-traffic/. You can also receive in text form over email by signing up for the Ubuntu News mailing list at http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-news. There is now an RSS feed for traffic available as well! You can find information on turning that on at the Ubuntu Hompage.

You can sign up for any of the mailing lists summarized here at http://lists.ubuntu.com. You can also join the IRC discussion summarized here in #ubuntu and other channels on the Freenode network: irc.freenode.net. Please join in and maybe you will be featured in the next traffic!

First, the following bits and pieces didn't get a full story but are worth mentioning:

 

1. Testing Language Packs
2005/01/17 - 2005/01/24 (26 posts) Subject: "First set of language packs out for testing"
People: Martin Pitt, Danilo Segan, , Thtde, Matt Zimmerman

Martin Pitt sent a message to the development list announcing the first published sets of language packs for Ubuntu saying:

I'm happy to announce the first published set of Ubuntu language packs. They are now in a releasable state and the infrastructure for generating and updating them in a fully automatic way works.

The package structure is like this: for each language which we have at least one po file for, we have three packages:

  • language-pack-$LANG: Contains the bulk of translation files for the given language, usually created/updated at release time.
  • language-pack-$LANG-update: Contains translation files which were added/modified since the last update of language-pack-$LANG; these packages are supposed to be very small, and they will be automatically updated daily. If these packages become too large, we can release a new base package at any time.
  • language-support-$LANG: Empty metapackage that depends at least on language-pack-$LANG and language-pack-$LANG-update, and additionally on all Mozilla/FireFox/Thunderbird/OpenOffice.org/myspell/font/whatever packages that are appropriate and useful for this particular language. This is the package that is supposed to be installed by d-i.

To have maximum flexibility, every single deb has its own source package.

The source packages contain the po files as shipped by the application source packages. The build system of the source packages will generate the necessary mo files and put these into the debs.

Since Rosetta does not yet have the necessary export support, I cheated, though. Later these po files are extracted from source packages on the buildds, imported in Rosetta, and exported to langpack-o-matic, but right now the source packages only contain a msgunfmt'ed version of all debs in Hoary/main.

For now these packages are on:

deb     http://people.ubuntu.com/~pitti/langpack/  /
deb-src http://people.ubuntu.com/~pitti/langpack/  /

Before uploading them into the main archive, I would like to leave them there for a bit of public testing and commenting. So, try it out!

  • rename your /usr/share/locale directory; after this you will only have English program output
  • sudo apt-get install language-support-<yourlanguage>; after this, all hoary/main applications should have <yourlanguage> translations again. If you don't want the dependencies (OO.o, Mozilla, etc. locale packs), just install language-pack-<yourlanguage>-update instead.

Danilo Segan asked, "Does this integrate translations that go into XML files, GConf schemas, and .desktop files (and other similar intltool-merged stuff)?" Martin Pitt answered saying, "Not right now. In the future it would be nice to accommodate all kinds of translations into the language packs, but right now (i. e. for Hoary) this is confined to gettext translations and per-language dependencies."

The team also discussed the idea of making language packs depend on fonts which folks in the community and development team thought was a great idea. Thanks in part to Shlomi Loubaton who was the first one to throw the idea out onto the list although others have suggested this earlier as well.

Thtde made another great suggestion saying, "I think you should also build another meta-package like language-support that depends not on language-pack. That is very useful for people who write articles etc in different languages and don't need the full language pack. So they can install spell-checker, fonts etc for a language with one meta-package."

Matt Zimmerman replied to this saying, "This sounds like a pretty good idea actually, to separate localized applications from support for reading/writing documents in a particular language. Martin?" Martin replied saying:

I do not want to introduce yet another package, we already have 246 new packages right now. What I could do is to remove the dependency of language-support-XX to language-pack-XX-update, so the two can be installed independently.

That would mean that the installer would need to install both the language pack and the support package instead of just the support package, but I guess that is not a problem.

If there is a consensus to do it like this, I will update the packages soon.

Thtde replied saying he thought this was a good solution.

 

2. Fedora Plans and Ubuntu
2005/01/18 - 2005/01/30 (17 posts) Subject: "Fedora Core 4 Plans"
People: Jeff Waugh

Jeff Waugh posted a link to a great article on Linux Weekly News that listed some of the features of Fedora Core 4 which might be a good model from which Ubuntu can evaluate our own goals:

http://lwn.net/Articles/119500/

  • They have similar goals with Xorg, GNOME, KDE (as per the Kubuntu team) and OpenOffice.org 2.0 - we still have a maybe on that.
  • They're going to be doing Xen stuff, much along the same lines as we talked about at Mataró -> we probably won't have this for hoary, but we should plan to have Xen fully integrated into our kernel packages for bendy
  • Faster boot -> they should hope so, ours is rocking the casbah :-)
  • "Extras at launch time. Or else." -> it will take a while for them to gear up to the scale and usefulness of universe. ;-)

A little bit of friendly competition is healthy for everybody!

 

3. Array CD 3
2005/01/20 - 2005/01/23 (23 posts) Subject: "Array CD 3"
People: Colin Watson

Colin Watson announced the release of the third Array CD -- the CDs we're using to test Warty:

Array CD 3 is ready. This is the third in a series of milestone CD images, released when they're known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD-build or installer bugs, while representing very current snapshots of Hoary. You can download it here:

See http://www.ubuntu.com/wiki/Archive for access instructions. I recommend rsync if possible, as you can then download future images based on this one to save bandwidth.

Pre-release versions of Hoary are not encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional breakage. They are recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Some notable installer improvements and bug-fixes in this release:

  • End-to-end secure netboot installation: all our Release files are signed using the archive signing key [1] or the CD image key [2], and the installer verifies these signatures at each step. (The netboot kernel and initrd themselves are contained in the CD images, which are accompanied by MD5SUMS and MD5SUMS.gpg files).
  • Timezone and username/password questions moved to the first stage. The question about installing packages from the network remains in the second stage for now, but will eventually be moved as well.
  • Rudimentary rescue mode added: boot with the 'rescue/enable=true' parameter to use it. Its UI still needs significant polishing work.
  • Default debconf priority dropped from critical to high, and several questions adjusted; this fixes some automatic installation scenarios, makes it easier to merge changes back and forward with Debian, and makes it possible to share code between the first and second stages.
  • Example sources.list lines for security/universe fixed.
  • Support for Smart Boot Manager should work better now, although I haven't tested it personally.
  • Size requirement for a USB drive used to boot the installer reduced to 8 megabytes.
  • Fixed installation on large filesystems with long device names (#4875).
  • Much improved and more flexible kernel selection logic.
  • Fixed default hostname when network configuration is skipped in first stage (#2844).
  • Fix part of Array CD 2 erratum: the framebuffer should now reliably be loaded.
  • Several fixes to the ia64 installer; much work remains to be done.

Known installer issues:

  • On my AMD64 system, grub enters an infinite loop trying to load stage 1.5. I've never seen this before, and suspect hardware problems, but if it affects other people too I'd like to know about it.

If you're interested in following changes as we further develop Hoary, have a look at the hoary-changes list: http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/hoary-changes

 

4. GTK2 CD Burning in Hoary
2005/01/21 - 2005/01/31 (61 posts) Subject: "annoncing gaveman in hoary universe"
People: Oliver Grawert

Oliver Grawert made an announcement on the -users list telling folks that there was now a GTK2 CD burning application that is uploaded into Ubuntu and that will be integrate well into the desktop:

I'm happy to announce that Ubuntu's universe finally has a GTK2 based burning application that is capable of doing common CD burning tasks (audio/data/iso/copy).

If you are on hoary just install graveman form universe. if your writer is a IDE device and isn't detected properly see the following lines from /usr/share/doc/graveman/README (kernel 2.6 uses no SCSI emulation):

--------------------- snip ---------------------
NON SCSI EMULATION:

If you don't use SCSI emulation, you have to put this configuration at
the last
of the file .graveman/graveman.conf :

[lecteur]
dev=/dev/hdc # your drive
name=CD Burner # whatever name you want
type=15 # 15 for cd writer, 1 for cd reader
vitesse=16 # max speed of your writer
-------------------- snap ---------------------

The thread got lost of feedback -- most of it of the positive kind.

 

5. Translating and Rosetta
2005/01/23 - 2005/01/24 (6 posts) Subject: "The Way Of Rosetta"
People: Emil Oppeln-Bronikowski, Matt Zimmerman

Emil Oppeln-Bronikowski asked the development list a couple of questions about the way that translations that are made in Ubuntu are integrated into the distribution and then moved back upstream. Emil said:

I was delegated by Polish Ubuntu Team to check out two things:

  • Rosetta: when we work with Rosetta, what happens next, after we reach 100% of project. Will it be included in Hoary, or it's committed to a project, that has been finished?
  • Polish Gnome: Warty has a Gnome 2.8, witch is, according to Gnome.pl translation effort completed in 100%. Yet, when you're using Gnome in Ubuntu, some parts of translations are missing. We would like to have fully translated Ubuntu for Grumpy release (there's not much of us now, so we can't be read for Hoary;-). We could join Gnome.pl effort and get access to CVS tree. But I guess they commit it back to Gnome. So, where all this went wrong?

Matt Zimmerman replied. He answered the first question saying, "Updated translations from Rosetta will be added directly to Hoary language packs on a periodic basis, regardless of whether they have reached 100%. The period has not been finalized yet, but it should be on the order of days." He answered the second question saying:

For Warty, there were some modifications made to UI text, relative to GNOME 2.8, for which updated translations were not available in time.

For Hoary, with Rosetta, language packs, and active local teams, we hope to be much more able to keep up with these changes.

If you want to make sure that Ubuntu 5.04 has the most complete translations for your language, then Rosetta is the best place to work, because the translations from Rosetta will enter Hoary very quickly.

 

6. Community Council Meeting
2005/01/25 (1 post) Subject: "Community Council 2005-01-25"
People: Benjamin Mako Hill

There was another community council this week and Benjamin Mako Hill summarized the results of the meeting and posted those to the list.

This tackled the very sensitive issue of the reply-to header on the Ubuntu-users list. You can read the summary linked below to get a sense of where things went:

I've written up a summary and have a provided a log for the meeting of the Ubuntu Community Council meeting today (January 25, 2005). You can get those here:

The two big issues discussed at the meeting were:

  • Changes to the processes through which people can become new members or new maintainers which I've been working on and which the group spent a good deal of time sorting through and debating.
  • The idea of instituting reply-to headers for the Ubuntu users mailing list. The short version is that while the council unhappy about the way the way the discussion transpired, we're willing to try switching to reply-to for two weeks to try to gauge feelings.

 

7. Graphical Partition Tool
2005/01/26 - 2005/01/28 (19 posts) Subject: "recommendation for graphical partition tool?"
People: Ben Miller

Ben Miller asked about a graphical partition tool that could be used to partition machines so that Ubuntu could be installed onto them saying, "Can anyone recommend good graphical disk partitioning tool?"

Folks offering answers seemed to be saying either "qtparted" or "gparted" (which would be the GNOME-like tool most familiar to Ubuntu users). Both programs are in universe. Devin Miller and others suggested the System Rescue CD which evidently has this software installed: http://www.sysresccd.org/

 

8. Announcing Local Community Teams
2005/01/27 (2 posts) Subject: "Announcing Ubuntu LoCo Teams"
People: Matthias Urlichs

Matthias Urlichs announced the formation of Ubuntu local community teams to coordinate advocacy, promotion, and localization of Ubuntu around the world. Here's the the text of the announcement:

Many people ask for ways that they can give back to the Ubuntu project or participate in the community. One great way to do this is through promote Ubuntu in your local community!

To help with this, we are pleased to announce the creation of Local Community Teams (LoCo Teams) to promote the use, adoption, and localization of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu's philosophy states that:

Every computer user should be able to use their software in the language of their choice.

This means that we need advocacy, promotion, documentation, support, and (of course) translations of Ubuntu, in individual languages. It also means a geographically distributed user community for coordinated promotion. LoCo Teams can help tackle all of these problems.

If you are interested in getting involved in a LoCo Team (or starting your own), we can go ahead and learn more at: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/LoCoTeams

We have set up a common set of domain names in the form of ubuntu-CC.org. CC stands for "country code" -- the last two letters on country-specific URLs. If necessary, we can also create other domains for communities which don't easily associate with a country or language. Most of those domains are just placeholder domains, waiting for someone to come along and take control. That could be you!

In other cases, there are already folks working on Ubuntu in a location, country, area, or language. We will happily point ubuntu-CC.org to those web sites and your mailing lists.

Please don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions or would like to get involved!

 

9. Ubuntu Live CD Milestone Release
2005/01/27 (1 post) Subject: "Announcing Ubuntu Live CD Milestone Release"
People: Benjamin Mako Hill

Benjamin Mako Hill announced the first milestone of a radically redesigned new Live CD for the next release of Ubuntu saying:

The Ubuntu development team have reached their first milestone in the production of the Live CD version of the upcoming release of Ubuntu codenamed "Hoary Hedgehog." This edition features a completely redesigned system for creating Live CDs.

While some people have tried rough previews, this is the first proper milestone for the live CD version. Anyone, especially folks who are using our previous release (4.10 "Warty Warthog"), are encouraged to try this out.

The Live CD runs completely off of the CD and will not touch any of the data on your hard drive so it is:

  • A fantastic way to get a preview of new features in the upcoming Ubuntu release without upgrading your system.
  • A chance to use the Ubuntu Live CD on systems which were not supported by the Ubuntu 4.10 Live CD. The new edition supports a wider variety of hardware, including PowerPC and AMD64 systems.
  • A great way to help test support for your hardware in the new release and give feedback.

You can get the latest version of the CDs here, via HTTP or BitTorrent: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/hoary/array-3.5-live/

Additionally, daily snapshots of the Live CD as it evolves between now and our release in April can be found here: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/

All feedback should be sent to the Ubuntu development list at: ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com

 

10. CD-Based Distro for Offline Users
2005/01/27 - 2005/01/28 (6 posts) Subject: "multiple-CD distribution for Internet-less users"
People: Sridhar Ratna, Jeff Waugh

At the moment, Ubuntu CDs are only a single CD and they only contain the most important software necessary for Ubuntu -- and specifically for a desktop installation. All other packages that are supported in Ubuntu must be pulled from the network.

Sridhar Ratna asked the development list about plans to make things easier for people who do not have the bandwidth to download all packages, "1 CD is not enough for users without Internet access. May be Ubuntu can be shipped in 2 CDs at least (with the 2nd CD not necessary, but labeled as 'extra')?"

Jeff Waugh replied saying, "DVD images containing all of main are available for hoary, but not multiple CDs."

 

11. Kernel Team
2005/01/28 (1 post) Subject: "Announcing Ubuntu Kernel Team"
People: Fabio Massimo Di Nitto

Fabio Massimo Di Nitto sent an announcement for a new team devoted to dealing with the Linux kernel in Ubuntu -- a highly important and difficult to manage package. Work on the kernel may provide a great way for technical skilled developers to begin working on Ubuntu and to get involved in the community:

The Linux kernel in Ubuntu has, up until this point, been primarily maintained by a series of different individuals. As Ubuntu takes on more architectures and more users, its needs a solid team to help maintain this essential piece of infrastructure. Ubuntu will not be able to do this without the community's support.

Through January, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto has been handling the kernel for Hoary. Ubuntu needs a group of community members to help fill in for Fabio as he is on vacation for the second half of February and on a more permanent basis.

If you have experience with the Linux kernel and would like to get involved in Ubuntu development, this is an excellent opportunity to make a meaningful contribution. Interested hackers should get in contact with us directly by emailing the ubuntu-devel mailing list: ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com

The job of maintaining the kernel is a complex one so help in a number of areas is appreciated. Currently the team has broken down the task into the following areas:

  • Tracking Upstream
  • Security
  • Bug Tracking
  • Porting
  • Maintaining External drivers/specific Subsystems (e.g., ACPI)
  • Ubuntu Packaging
  • Working on Kernel Configuration Tools

Help in these or other areas will be highly appreciated!

More information on the kernel team is here: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/community/teams/kernel/

 

12. Ubuntu Documentation Team Happenings
2005/01/22 - 2005/01/28 (23 posts) Subject: "Re: Switching video cards : "HowTo" ??"
People: Enrico Zini

The documentation team clocked in a slightly less active but still important week of work.

Enrico Zini, the secretary for the documentation team, announced that he would be traveling from Taiwan back to Italy during the week and would be difficult to reach. He also announced that he updated the page on building documentation to include information on build dependencies saying, "I updated DocteamBuildingDocumentation including build-dependencies (the packages needed to build the documentation) and the work-around needed at the moment to compile the docs without having xsltproc download DTDs from the net. A couple of days ago there's been problem with the lack of this information on the wiki pages: now it's there!"

Sean Wheller did some work on the build system and Enrico worked on autocompiling things to have them downloaded from the Internet. Sean moved the section of the Quick Guide into the queue for review. Sean also added a series of graphics and screen captures necessary for documentation's review of graphics applications.

Finally, Kevin Mulligan did a nice writeup on dual boot which he sent to the list and which was added to the userguide by Sean Wheller.

Thanks guys for the sustained work!

 

13. Ubuntu Security Notifications
2005/01/24 - 2004/01/25 (3 posts) Subject: "[many]"

Martin Pitt postqed another weeks worth of Ubuntu Security Notification to the list notifying folks of another rash of bugs and pointing to their fixes. These included the following:

enscript vulnerabilities

Ubuntu Security Notice USN-68-1 (CAN-2004-1184 CAN-2004-1185 CAN-2004-1186)

Affected Release: Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog)

Affected Packages Are: enscript

Fix: The problem can be corrected by upgrading the affected package to version 1.6.4-4ubuntu0.1. In general, a standard system upgrade is sufficient to effect the necessary changes.

More Information: http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2005-January/000070.html

evolution vulnerability

Ubuntu Security Notice USN-69-1 (CAN-2005-0102)

Affected Release: Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog)

Affected Packages Are: evolution

Fix: The problem can be corrected by upgrading the affected package to version 2.0.2-0ubuntu2.1. In general, a standard system upgrade is sufficient to effect the necessary changes.

More Information: http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2005-January/000071.html

libdbi-perl vulnerabilities

Ubuntu Security Notice USN-70-1 (CAN-2005-0077)

Affected Release: Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog)

Affected Packages Are: libdbi-perl

Fix: The problem can be corrected by upgrading the affected package to version 1.42-3ubuntu0.1. In general, a standard system upgrade is sufficient to effect the necessary changes.

More Information: http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2005-January/000072.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

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