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.

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.

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. ;-)

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:

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/hoary/array-2/
• rsync://cdimage.ubuntu.com/cdimage/releases/hoary/array-2/

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

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 ---------------------

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?

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.

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:

• Summary: http://people.ubuntulinux.org/~mako/cc-summary-20050125.html
• Full Log: http://people.ubuntulinux.org/~mako/cc-meeting_log-20050125.html

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.

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!

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

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/