Thierry Carrez: The 6 dimensions of Open Source 8 Sep 2010, 6:49 am

Why do people choose to participate in Open Source ? It’s always a mix of various reasons, so let’s try to explore and classify them.

Technical

The first dimension is technical. People like open source because looking directly in the code gives them the ability to understand the behavior of their software. No documentation can match that level of precision. They also like the ability to fix it themselves when it’s broken, rather than relying on usually-broken support contracts. Any non-Fortune500 that tried to report a bug to Microsoft and get it fixed will probably get my point. Sometimes, they like the ability to shape and influence the future of the software, when that software uses open design mechanisms (like Ubuntu with its free and open-to-anyone Development Summits). Finally, they may be convinced, like I am, that open source software development methods result in better code quality.

Political

Next to the technical dimension, we have a political dimension, more precisely a techno-political dimension. People like Free software as a way to preserve end-user freedom, privacy and control over technology. Some powerful companies will use every trick in the book to reduce your rights and increase their revenue, so its more and more important that we are aware of those issues and fight back. Working on free and open source software is a way to contribute to that effort.

Philosophical

Very close to the political dimension, we are now seeing philosophic interest in open source software. The 20th century saw the creation of a consumer class with a new divide between those who produce and those who consume. This dissociated usage of technology is a self-destroying model, and contributing models (or participative production models) are considered to be the solution to fix our societies for the future. Be a producer and a consumer at the same time and be associated with technology rather than alienated by it. Open source is an early and highly successful manifestation of that.

Economical

Back on the ground, there are strong and rational economic reasons for companies to opt to fund open source development. From most virtuous to less, we first find companies using the technology internally rather than selling it : sharing development and maintenance costs among several users of that same technology makes great sense, and makes very virtuous open source communities. Next you find companies selling services around open source software: being the main sponsor of a project gives you a unique position to leverage your know-how around software that is freely available. Next you find open core approaches, from companies making a business selling proprietary add-ons to those using open source as crippleware. Finally, at the bottom, you’ll find companies using “open source” or “community” as a venture capitalist honeypot. They don’t believe in it, they resist implementing what it takes to do it, but they like the money that pretending to do open source will bring them.

Social

A very important dimension of open source is the social dimension. Many people join open source projects to belong to a cool community that allows you to prove yourself, gain mastery and climb the ladder of a meritocracy. If your community doesn’t encourage and reward those that are in this social dimension, you’ll miss a huge chunk of potential contributors. Another social aspect is that doing work in the open (and in all transparency) is also great publicity for your skills and to get employment. The main reason I got hired by Canonical was due to my visible work on Gentoo’s Security team, much more than to the rest of my professional experience. Finally, the sheer ego-flattering sensation you get by knowing that millions of people are using your work is definitely a powerful drive.

Ethical

The last dimension is ethical: the idea of directly contributing to the sum of the world’s common knowledge is appealing. Working on open source software, you just make the world a better place. For example, open source helps third-world and developing countries to reduce their external debt, by encouraging the creation of local service companies rather than encouraging to buy licenses to US companies. That sense of purpose is what drives a lot of people (including me) to work on open source.

Did I miss anything ? What drives you to participate on open source ? Please let me know, by leaving a comment !

TurnKey Linux: TKLBAM: a new kind of smart backup/restore system that just works 8 Sep 2010, 6:32 am

Drum roll please...

Today, I'm proud to officially unveil TKLBAM (AKA TurnKey Linux Backup and Migration): the easiest, most powerful system-level backup anyone has ever seen. Skeptical? I would be too. But if you read all the way through you'll see I'm not exaggerating and I have the screencast to prove it. Aha!

This was the missing piece of the puzzle that has been holding up the Ubuntu Lucid based release batch. You'll soon understand why and hopefully agree it was worth the wait.

We set out to design the ideal backup system

Imagine the ideal backup system. That's what we did.

Pain free

A fully automated backup and restore system with no pain. That you wouldn't need to configure. That just magically knows what to backup and, just as importantly, what NOT to backup, to create super efficient, encrypted backups of changes to files, databases, package management state, even users and groups.

Migrate anywere

An automated backup/restore system so powerful it would double as a migration mechanism to move or copy fully working systems anywhere in minutes instead of hours or days of error prone, frustrating manual labor.

It would be so easy you would, shockingly enough, actually test your backups. No more excuses. As frequently as you know you should be, avoiding unpleasant surprises at the worst possible timing.

One turn-key tool, simple and generic enough that you could just as easily use it to migrate a system:

• from Ubuntu Hardy to Ubuntu Lucid (get it now?)
• from a local deployment, to a cloud server
• from a cloud server to any VPS
• from a virtual machine to bare metal
• from Ubuntu to Debian
• from 32-bit to 64-bit

System smart

Of course, you can't do that with a conventional backup. It's too dumb. You need a vertically integrated backup that has system level awareness. That knows, for example, which configuration files you changed and which you didn't touch since installation. That can leverage the package management system to get appropriate versions of system binaries from package repositories instead of wasting backup space.

This backup tool would be smart enough to protect you from all the small paper-cuts that conspire to make restoring an ad-hoc backup such a nightmare. It would transparently handle technical stuff you'd rather not think about like fixing ownership and permission issues in the restored filesystem after merging users and groups from the backed up system.

Ninja secure, dummy proof

It would be a tool you could trust to always encrypt your data. But it would still allow you to choose how much convenience you're willing to trade off for security.

If data stealing ninjas keep you up at night, you could enable strong cryptographic passphrase protection for your encryption key that includes special countermeasures against dictionary attacks. But since your backup's worst enemy is probably staring you in the mirror, it would need to allow you to create an escrow key to store in a safe place in case you ever forget your super-duper passphrase.

On the other hand, nobody wants excessive security measures forced down their throats when they don't need them and in that case, the ideal tool would be designed to optimize for convenience. Your data would still be encrypted, but the key management stuff would happen transparently.

Ultra data durability

By default, your AES encrypted backup volumes would be uploaded to inexpensive, ultra-durable cloud storage designed to provide %99.999999999 durability. To put 11 nines of reliability in perspective, if you stored 10,000 backup volumes you could expect to lose a single volume once every 10 million years.

For maximum network performance, you would be routed automatically to the cloud storage datacenter closest to you.

Open source goodness

Naturally, the ideal backup system would be open source. You don't have to care about free software ideology to appreciate the advantages. As far as I'm concerned any code running on my servers doing something as critical as encrypted backups should be available for peer review and modification. No proprietary secret sauce. No pacts with a cloudy devil that expects you to give away your freedom, nay worse, your data, in exchange for a little bit of vendor-lock-in-flavored convenience.

Tall order huh?

All of this and more is what we set out to accomplish with TKLBAM. But this is not our wild eyed vision for a future backup system. We took our ideal and we made it work. In fact, we've been experimenting with increasingly sophisticated prototypes for a few months now, privately eating our own dog food, working out the kinks. This stuff is complex so there may be a few rough spots left, but the foundation should be stable by now.

Seeing is believing: a simple usage example

We have two installations of TurnKey Drupal6:

1. Alpha, a virtual machine on my local laptop. I've been using it to develop the TurnKey Linux web site.
2. Beta, an EC2 instance I just launched from the TurnKey Hub.

On both I install and initialize tklbam:

apt-get update
apt-get install tklbam

# initialize tklbam by providing it with the Hub API Key
tklbam-init QPINK3GD7HHT3A

Note that in the future, tklbam will come pre-installed on TurnKey appliances so this part will be even simpler.

I now log into Alpha's command line as root (e.g., via the console, SSH or web shell) and do the following:

tklbam-backup

It's that simple. Unless you want to change defaults, no arguments or additional configuration required.

When the backup is done a new backup record will show up in my Hub account:

To restore I log into Beta and do this:

tklbam-restore 1

That's it! To see it in action watch the video below or better yet log into your TurnKey Hub account and try it for yourself.

Quick screencast (2 minutes)

Best viewed full-screen. Having problems with playback? Try the YouTube version.

Getting started

TKLBAM's front-end interface is provided by the TurnKey Hub, an Amazon-powered cloud backup and server deployment web service currently in private beta.

If you don't have a Hub account already, either ask someone that does to send you an invite, or request an invitation. We'll do our best to grant them as fast as we can scale capacity on a first come, first served basis.

To get started log into your Hub account and follow the basic usage instructions. For more detail, see the documentation.

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below. But you'll probably want to check with the FAQ first to see if they've already been answered.

Upcoming features

• PostgreSQL support: PostgreSQL support is in development but currently only MySQL is supported. That means TKLBAM doesn't yet work on the three PostgreSQL based TurnKey appliances (PostgreSQL, LAPP, and OpenBravo).
• Built-in integration: TKLBAM will be included by default in all future versions of TurnKey appliances. In the future when you launch a cloud server from the Hub it will be ready for action immediately. No installation or initialization necessary.
• Webmin integration: we realize not everyone is comfortable with the command line, so we're going to look into developing a custom webmin module for TKLBAM.

Special salute to the TurnKey community

First, many thanks to the brave souls who tested TKLBAM and provided feedback even before we officially announced it. Remember, with enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow, so if you come across anything else, don't rely on someone else to report it. Speak up!

Also, as usual during a development cycle we haven't been able to spend as much time on the community forums as we'd like. Many thanks to everyone who helped keep the community alive and kicking in our relative absence.

Remember, if the TurnKey community has helped you, try to pay it forward when you can by helping others.

Finally, I'd like to give extra special thanks to three key individuals that have gone above and beyond in their contributions to the community.

By alphabetical order:

• Adrian Moya: for developing appliances that rival some of our best work.
• Basil Kurian: for storming through appliance development at a rate I can barely keep up with.
• JedMeister: for continuing to lead as our most helpful and tireless community member for nearly a year and a half now. This guy is a frigging one man support army.

Also special thanks to Bob Marley, the legend who's been inspiring us as of late to keep jamming till the sun was shining. :)

Final thoughts

TKLBAM is a major milestone for TurnKey. We're very excited to finally unveil it to the world. It's actually been a not-so-secret part of our vision from the start. A chance to show how TurnKey can innovate beyond just bundling off the shelf components.

With TKLBAM out of the way we can now focus on pushing out the next release batch of Lucid based appliances. Thanks to the amazing work done by our star TKLPatch developers, we'll be able to significantly expand our library so by the next release we'll be showcasing even more of the world's best open source software. Stir It Up!

Aaron Toponce: An Open Letter To Pastor Terry Jones 8 Sep 2010, 4:07 am

Dear Pastor Terry Jones-

I understand that on September 11th, you plan on carrying out the act of burning Qur’ans with your local church. Do you seriously realize the significance of the act you’re about to carry out? This will create all sorts of complications and security concerns for our troops in Afghanistan. This will cause and fuel much emotion throughout our own country as well. You say that you and your church plan on carrying firearms to the event, in the case your lives are threatened. Do you realize that there could be a shootout at your event? You could die, as well as members of your congregation, for burning Qur’ans. Is this something you’re willing to do? Put your own congregation’s lives on the line for your personal hatred towards Islam?

I would ask if this is the Christian thing to do, but I already saw an interview of you on ABC News, and know what your response would be. Except, what does it mean when Jesus Christ said:

12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

Or again, in Luke:

31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise

Even a lawyer asked Jesus what he should do to obtain eternal life:

25 ¶ And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

Most people, Christians and non-Christians alike, are familiar with this law knows as the “Golden Rule“. Even Islam, the religion you hate so much, teaches that a true Muslim must do good to others, and treat them as they would want to be treated. To be a Christian, that is, to follow the teachings of Jesus, means to actually follow the teachings of Jesus. Jesus never advocated war. He never advocated hate. He taught that you should

44. … Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

and further that

29. … unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also.

Do you understand what Christianity is about? Do you really?

It’s unfortunate that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon happened on September 11th, 2001. Not only did America mourn, but the world. The Council for American Islamic Relations, and other Islamic organizations, raised money and provided countless acts of service to help provide relief for those families that lost loved ones in the attacks. World leaders, including including those of Islamic faith, expressed their sincere condolences to our country. It’s been 9 years since the attacks, all of the rebuilding, all of the love and charity from others, all of the support from so many, you are willing to put on the line, for your own personal gratification and hate.

Even putting religion aside, I’m a member of the Ubuntu community. Ubuntu was chosen because of the philosophy it stands for and the meaning it conveys. It’s a philosophy everyone should stand for, and I’m proud to be a member of a community where such a high regard for human dignity and respect is held.

One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

– Archbishop Desmod Tutu

This past month, as a Christian, I’ve been fasting with Islam the entire month of Ramadan, from dawn to sunset. It’s been a difficult task, but I did it primarily to raise awareness that Islam is not a religion of terror. I’m fasting, because of prejudiced people like you and the radical, extreme actions they take and the views they hold. I’ve read the Qur’an, now four times. I know what it teaches. I know the basic tenets and beliefs of Islam. I have many, many Muslim friends. I understand what Islam stands for, and it’s not the message you are trying to convey. I hope, somehow, that my actions have an effect on others, and it would mean the world to me if they somehow changed your mind.

I know your upset. I know you have a lot of fiery emotions that have boiled over. You want to make a stand against terrorism, and you want to be heard. Well, you have been heard. You have had the spotlight. You have the world listening. Our own government is urging you to stop, and think what ramifications your act of burning Qur’ans could have on the American public, and the world stage at large. Don’t go through with it. Don’t put lives in danger, because of your feeling towards Islam. Your act of burning Qur’ans is no different than the terrorist act of those who flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Stand on higher ground.

If you do decide to continue with your act of terror, then I hope it rains in Gainesville, Florida, hard enough to prevent you from building your bonfire. Further, I hope that no one’s lives are taken by your decision to burn the Qur’an, both at your church, and around the world. Step down Pastor Jones, step down.

Sincerely, a loving Christian, praying for you,
Aaron Toponce

Canonical Design Team: Exciting things in the post! 8 Sep 2010, 1:45 am

A couple of months back Marcus and I got a call from a magazine in Japan who wanted to produce stickers for Ubuntu. We’d _just_ signed off the new logo and word mark and so we collaborated back and forth and finally yesterday the finished article arrived!

And here are the lovely stickers!

They look great! We’re very excited to see this stuff out there and being made by other people using the assets available in the design toolkit!

Maia Kozheva: A Tale of Two Houses 7 Sep 2010, 9:48 pm

Once upon a time, there were two houses standing across a street. They looked quite different, and their residents didn’t meet each other much — only a few times a year did they meet on the Freedom Square to discuss things like maybe painting entrances the same color, so passers-by don’t get confused about the different looks. Sometimes those discussions actually led somewhere.

One resident, whose name isn’t important to our tale, once lived in house one for a few years, and a year ago she went to house two. She heard, of course, that this old crumbling house on the other end of the town was recently renovated with blue glossy walls and all-new windows, but she left that particular one years ago and had no intention of going back. (And the last time she went there to visit her parents, she found out that on the inside it was mostly the same old smelly stuff, just hastily swept under the carpet in most places.) One day, after a vacation, our resident returned to house two to find out it was torn down and rebuilt, and now looked promising both on the outside and on the inside — however, she also saw that most of its rooms sported nothing but bare walls, so, joining a pack of similarly minded residents, she packed her belongings and went back to house one, where her heart always belonged anyway.

And thus, another year has passed. One day, however, after returning from work, she suddenly found the house surrounded with yellow tape and “Under Construction” signs. The chief architect gathered the residents and explained that they learned from the history of house two, and so they were going to renovate this house one patch at a time. He showed some mockups, which most people agreed looked promising, and so they went their own ways, careful not to trip over newly dug pits in the ground.

Since then, our resident grew more and more confused with every passing month. Everywhere she went, she saw builders bickering about the direction of the effort, with everyone insisting on things being done their way. One day, when passing through the house’s garden, she overheard the following conversation:

Designer #1: [Wearing an orange shirt] Look at this garden — it’s grown old and unattended. The bushes are all different, some have overgrown, some look sickly. I say we demolish this garden and make another one on the same spot, give each plant a strict square spot, and my gardeners would tend to them.
Designer #2: Actually, on our New and Improved plan, it clearly shows that after the garden is destroyed, this spot is going to be cobbled with flat black bricks. We’re planning to make an all-new different garden on the other side of the house, so we have to reject your plan.

Six months passed, however, and the renovation was nowhere near finished, so the chief architect announced it was going to be delayed for another six months (and showed a different design for the final look, completely different from before). In the meantime, our resident thought she sort of liked the orange-shirted designer’s idea of bringing the old garden into shape, and went to ask what a well-known news announcer who lived in the same house thought of the idea. The response was:

“Pah! The only people who care about the new garden now are those wearing orange like you! Clearly, if I supported the idea I’d have to dress the same, and I like my grey and blue, so for now I’ll stick with the old garden.”

So our resident decided to wait again until the house was finished. However, a month before its new deadline, the chief architect gathered everyone yet again and said it was going to be delayed for six more months — and showed yet a third mockup, completely different from the other two, yet curiously similar to what the orange-shirted team was building a street away. Meanwhile, the construction effort continued to deteriorate. Keeping along with the “one patch at a time” motto, some floors of the house switched to using a newly-built different elevator, which was like the old one but different (and its cabin evidently had less attention put into decorations). So whenever she wanted to go to a floor, she had to learn, often by trial and error, which of the two elevators to use.

Finally, she decided that while the construction effort was still underway, she could as well redesign her own apartment to go along with the times. Seeing how her bedroom looked especially messy, she threw together a mockup for a new arrangement and wondered whom she could discuss it with. She was pointed to some big-name professional designers who helped renovate the exterior of the house, so she went to them with her plan. The following discussion ensued.

Resident: Look, I’ve got some plans for a new bedroom, and they’re shaping up nicely, so I wondered if maybe you could offer some suggestions to tweak it before I go along with it? I know you people are big on minimalism, so I kept it reasonably simple. Look, here’s a bed, a TV, a computer desk, and a closet. I tried to keep it in accordance to your Design Guidelines, but maybe I’ve missed something?
Designer: Well… [looks] First of all, do you really need a bedroom?
Resident: ?!
Designer: Many people don’t have a standalone bedroom, they just put the bed in one of the other rooms.
Resident: Well, as it stands, I like to sometimes keep the bedroom’s door closed when people are visiting, but it’s not like this is an issue — I can easily find my way there from anywhere in the apartment.
Designer: You could actually get rid of the TV.
Resident: Uh… as it stands I do watch TV, not often, but occasionally.
Designer: It’s extra clutter, and more electronics to take care of. You could just buy a bigger monitor and connect it to your computer.
Resident: Er… okay. Well, many people I know of have TVs in their rooms, but maybe it’s redunant in my case indeed.
Designer: And the computer desk can be merged with the closet.
Resident: What?!
Designer: Just make a shelf in the middle and put the computer on there, and keep your clothes and bedsheets in the compartments above and below.
Resident: [scratches head] Maybe…
Designer: You don’t need two doors, by the way. Scrap this one and reroute this other one to exit into your hallway.
Resident: Actually, that other door leads to the balcony, so I could breathe fresh air from that new garden.
Designer: Exiting from bedrooms directly to balconies is a bad paradigm, we discourage it. It confuses the residents — bedrooms are for sleeping.
Resident: But wait, all these people have balconies connected to their bedrooms… [lists a few big-name, well-respected residents]
Designer: Balconies will go away in the New and Improved house, to be replaced with slick smooth walls. We’ve talked to the guys in orange about this, and they agree with the change. They won’t be in the new edition of the Design Guidelines either.
Resident: [sigh]

At this point, a different designer starts talking about a mockup he has prepared for a new library room. Our resident, interested (she likes reading books), asks to see it. The mockup is on one half on the page, and shows one huge shelf stretched across the entire wall, with all the books on it. The other half has text about how having multiple shelves apparently interferes with the new planned “teleport around the house in two foot taps” feature. The design of yours shows that only a small portion of this new ubershelf is going to be shown at a time, and the user will have to press a button to make the slit slide and stop over books they want.

Resident: Why not just use multiple shelves like every other library out there? I use your current design exactly because it’s a traditional library with none of those newfangled ‘chromey’ features that all the libraries are adopting now.
Designer: Our research indicates that the frames of the shelves take valuable space that people would prefer to use for books.
Resident: I guess I’ll have to stick with my old library, then, or ask someone else to renovate it.

At this point, designer #2 turns around to show text written on the back of his blue shirt: “The construction industry is just a bunch of idiots hating each other”.

Resident: Erm… I realize it’s a joke, but that’s because I’ve grown thick enough skin over the years around you to let it pass. But imagine if someone completely new comes here and sees this — is it the impression we want to be promoting? Many neighbors give us weird looks as it is.
Designer: Well, that text is true.

Frustrated, the resident turns away and leaves, deciding to make her room over however she sees fit, and just let her guests judge.

The moral of this parable is left as an exercise to the reader.

Joe Barker: iPhone 4 – HDR Photo Feature 7 Sep 2010, 2:40 pm

I’m sure that, to a lot of the people reading this on Planet Ubuntu, this post will be of little interest. If you’re one of these people, I apologise, please glance over this post

To everybody else, what I’m about to discuss, and demonstrate, is some sample photos, and my thoughts, however brief, on the new HDR photo option coming in iOS 4.1 next week.

Sample 1

As you can see here, the image on the left looks…ok, it’s not to bad, especially for something taken on a mobile phone. However, I feel that my laptop screen is looking rather bright, and almost dominates the shot, given that it’s just a huge blob of white. The cupboard on the left of the image is quite dark, as is the space to the right of the cupboard in the centre of the shot.

When we compare this to the second image, we can see that the cupboard on the left is that little bit clearer, and you can see that the wall on the right hand side is, in fact, red. Further to this, that overly-intrusive laptop screen, which was previously bright white, is now much clearer, and far less intrusive, you can make out much more of the on-screen detail. The cupboard in centre-shot also appears lighter, especially in the areas surrounding the unit.

Sample 2

As we can see in the second sample image, the screen (funnily enough) dominates the image. Nothing wrong with that here, it was the point of the exercise. What we can see, is that it looks like I’m working in the lowest lighting conditions I could possibly find. This, I’m pleased to say, isn’t quite true. I did actually have a light on, as you can see more in the HDR example on the right. I have to say, however, that the HDR example makes the images on my screen look more washed out than those in the non HDR sample do, at least, in my opinion.

Summary

One thing I did notice, was the lack of flash on HDR photo’s. The software prevents the use of both at the same time, which, initially, I found somewhat odd and incredibly frustrating. I had a play around taking images with flash on, and HDR on, but still found no way to add the two together. It then dawned on me this morning, that when a photo is going to need a flash to provide the necessary lighting, chances are the HDR image would like almost exactly the same, and provide no benefits.

Nonetheless, I’d like to see the option, in a subsequent iOS update, for the ability to have both on, where it’s possible to set the flash to ‘Auto’ with HDR on, and if a flash is required due to low level lighting, don’t take a HDR photo. Something like this, in my opinion, would make the feature better than it already is. In all, I have to say, I’m pleased with the update – mainly because I don’t take photo’s all that often, so it doesn’t really benefit me to go out and purchase a proper digital camera, but a 5 megapixel camera with HDR functionality that’s on a device I carry around all day anyway, is perfect for me.

Kees Cook: cross-distro default security protection review 7 Sep 2010, 12:06 pm

The recent work by MWR Labs does a reasonable job showing Debian’s poor pro-active security and why I am so frustrated about it: we have not been able to move very quickly at getting it enabled. While my hardening-includes package is available to maintainers that want to turn on protections for their builds, it’s still a far cry from having it be distro-wide, and it doesn’t protect people that build stuff by hand. We were able to solve this in Ubuntu very directly a while ago by improving the compiler itself.

Since SSP and FORTIFY_SOURCE can only be confirmed (it’s not possible without source analysis to see if it should have been enabled), it would be nice to see what binaries differed between distros on this. Most of the “SSP disabled” stuff are binaries that lack character arrays on the stack to begin with, and the FORTIFY_SOURCE stuff may have done all compile-time protections. The comments about “other distributions could potentially enable it for a few more binaries” is a bit misleading since, for all but Debian, both SSP and FORTIFY_SOURCE are enabled for all builds.

I did appreciate the nod to Ubuntu for being the only distro without by-default PIE that built Firefox with PIE. Given that Firefox is the #2 most vulnerable piece of software in a desktop distro, it was important to do it. (The #1 most vulnerable is the kernel itself — I’m counting number of fixed CVEs for this stat.)

The kernel analysis by MWR seems rather incomplete. Also, it’s not clear to me which distros were running a PAE kernel, which would change some of the results. I didn’t see any mention of several other userspace protections that the kernel can provide, for example:

• symlink and hardlink protections (Gentoo Hardened and Ubuntu 10.10 only)
• PTRACE protections (Gentoo Hardened and Ubuntu 10.10 only)

And a ton more that only Gentoo Hardened could boast, due to their use of grsecurity.

I’d also be curious to see performance comparisons, too. They compared 4 general-purpose distros against a tuned-specifically-for-security-hardening distro, which seems a bit unfair. How about comparing against vanilla Gentoo instead? I can tell you who would be best then. :)

Ubuntu QA blog: Announcing the Next Ubuntu Bug Day! - 2010-09-09 7 Sep 2010, 11:28 am

Fellow Ubuntu Triagers!

This week's Bug Day target is *drum roll please* apt!
* 100 New bugs need a hug
* 43 Incomplete bugs need a status check
* 100 Confirmed bugs need a review

apt is not the biggest name in packages, but it sure is important to
keep your system up-to-date. It gets involved whenever we use Synaptic
Package Manager, apt-get, and Software Center, to name a few places.

Bookmark it, add it to your calendars, turn over those egg-timers!
* Thursday, 2010-09-09
* http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBugDay/20100909

Are you looking for a way to start giving some love back to your
adorable Ubuntu Project?
Did you ever wonder what Triage is? Want to learn about that?
This is a perfect time!, Everybody can help in a Bug Day!
open your IRC Client and go to #ubuntu-bugs (FreeNode)
the BugSquad will be happy to help you to start contributing!

Wanna be famous? Is easy! remember to use 5-A-day so if you do a good
work your name could be listed at the top 5-A-Day Contributors in the
Ubuntu Hall of Fame page!

We are always looking for new tasks or ideas for the Bug Days, if you
have one add it to the Planning page
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBugDay/Planning

If you're new to all this, head to
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs

Christopher Denter: PyMT 0.5.1 Bugfix Release 7 Sep 2010, 10:48 am

OK, small news very quick: We released PyMT version 0.5.1 which addresses quite a bunch of problems that were discovered since the release of PyMT 0.5. See the changelog and the website.

Raphaël Hertzog: How to use multiple upstream tarballs in Debian source packages? 7 Sep 2010, 8:08 am

Since the introduction of the “3.0 (quilt)” source format, it is now possible to integrate multiple upstream tarballs in Debian source packages. This article will show you how to do the same with your own package shall you need it. It’s quite useful to easily integrate supplementary plugins, translations, or documentation that the upstream developers are providing in separate tarballs.

Step by step explanation

We’ll take the spamassassin source package as an example. The upstream version is 3.3.1. The main upstream tarball is named as usual (spamassassin_3.3.1.orig.tar.gz) and contains the top directory of our source package. We already have a debian directory because the package is not new.

Upstream provides spamassassin rules in a separate tarball named Mail-SpamAssassin-rules-3.3.1.r901671.tgz. We grab it, rename it to spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz and put it next to the main tarball. The “pkgrules” part is the component name that we choose to identify the tarball, it’s also the name of the directory in which it will be extracted inside the source package. For now that directory doesn’t exist yet so we must create it.

$ mv Mail-SpamAssassin-rules-3.3.1.r901671.tgz spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz
$ cd spamassassin-3.3.1
$ mkdir pkgrules
$ tar -C pkgrules -zxf ../spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz

This is already enough, the next time that you will build the source package, the supplementary tarball will be automatically integrated in the generated source package.

$ dpkg-buildpackage -S
[...]
 dpkg-source -b spamassassin-3.3.1
dpkg-source: info: using source format `3.0 (quilt)'
dpkg-source: info: building spamassassin using existing ./spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz ./spamassassin_3.3.1.orig.tar.gz
dpkg-source: info: building spamassassin in spamassassin_3.3.1-1.debian.tar.gz
dpkg-source: info: building spamassassin in spamassassin_3.3.1-1.dsc

The supplementary tarball is now part of the source package but we’re not making anything useful out of it. We have to modify debian/rules (or debian/spamassin.install) to install the new files in the binary package.

A special case: bundling related software

In very rare cases, you might want to create a bundle of several software (small perl modules for example) and you don’t have any main tarball, you only have several small tarballs. Rename all the tarballs following the same logic as above and when building the source package you can ask dpkg-source to create an empty (and fake) main archive for you with the option --create-empty-orig:

$ dpkg-buildpackage -S --source-option=--create-empty-orig

Use with care as the version number you give to the bundle is what users will see and it’s likely unrelated to the version number of each individual software.

Common mistakes

Forgetting to extract the supplementary tarball

If you forget to extract the content of the supplementary tarball in the pkgrules directory, dpkg-source will emit lots of warnings about those files being deleted. In fact, you did not delete them but you only forgot to create them in the first place.

dpkg-source: warning: ignoring deletion of directory pkgrules
dpkg-source: warning: ignoring deletion of file pkgrules/20_fake_helo_tests.cf
dpkg-source: warning: ignoring deletion of file pkgrules/60_shortcircuit.cf
[...]

Using a bad version number for the supplementary tarball

Sometimes the supplementary tarball has a version of its own that does not match the upstream version. You must still name the file in a way that matches the upstream version of the main tarball otherwise it will not be picked up by dpkg-source and it will generate a new patch in debian/patches/ containing the whole new directory.

It’s possible to encode the version number of the supplementary tarball in the component name (in our example above we could have picked “pkgrules-r901671″ as component name) but this means that the name of the associated directory will regularly change and you must adapt your packaging rules to cope with this.

However this last trick has the benefit of being able to update the additional tarball without bumping the upstream version. A sourceful upload of a new revision of the package will be accepted by the archive: the main tarball is ignored since it’s unchanged but the supplementary tarball is taken since it’s a new file for the archive (it has a different filename).

Be sure to move away old versions of the additional tarball when you do that if you don’t want to upload several versions of the same tarball by mistake!

Misextracting the supplementary tarball

dpkg-source is very smart when it extracts the supplementary tarball and you should be as well when you manually extract it.

If the tarball contains only a single top-level directory, that directory is extracted, renamed to match the component name and moved in the source package directory.
If the tarball contains several top-level files or directories, then the target directory is first created and the content of the archive is directly extracted into that directory.

Here are commands to install the files in both cases (we’re already in the source package directory):

$ mkdir pkgrules
# Archive contains a single top-level directory
$ tar -C pkgrules --strip-components=1 -zxf ../spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz
# Archive contains many top-level entries
$ tar -C pkgrules -zxf ../spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz

One comment | Support my work

Benjamin Mako Hill: Selectricity Source 7 Sep 2010, 8:04 am

After a semi-recent thread on debian-devel, I poked around and realized that I'd never actually gotten around to formally announcing the release of source code for Selectricity, a piece of web-based election software designed to allow for preferential decision-making and to provide "election machinery for the masses." Selectricity is useful for a range of decisions but it targets all those quick little decisions that we might want to decide preferentially but where running a vote would be overkill.

Things were delayed through a drawn out set of negotiations with the MIT Technology Licensing Office over how to release the code under a free software license of my choosing. I was swamped when things finally came through. Over time, I managed to forget that I never did a formal announcement, never setup a mailing list, and never did all those things that I have tried to teach other people in the Free Software Project Management HOWTO. Code just sort of appeared on my website under the GNU Affero General Public License. It was until the debian-devel thread that I remembered I'd never made a formal announcement. Sorry about that!

The git repository has been online and accessible through searches for more than a year now. Most folks who wanted the code seem to have been able to find it there. Indeed, a number of people have set up their own instances and a few have submitted patches to the code! But more visibility for the source means more empowered users, more visibility for free software, and more developers.

So I've shipped all the code into a project in Gitorious (its like GitHub, except free), announced things on the Selectricity Blog, changed the Selectricity footer of to include a prominent link to the source. I've also created a mailing list. The Gitorious project page includes a wiki.

I also want to mention this all here because the attention of the current development team seems mostly to have moved on to other projects. The current team seems able to keep the hosted version up and running, and even gets around to little improvements now and then, but there's definitely room for new life and new leadership.

There are some nearly-complete and "complete minus further testing" features in the development tree that might provide low hanging fruit for folks interested in elections and decision-making who might want to get involved in Selectricity development. If you're interested and know (or want to learn) Rails, feel free to check out the code, introduce yourself on the list or contact team@selectricity.org to coordinate.

Gerfried Fuchs: flattr 7 Sep 2010, 8:01 am

I started to give flattr a try, too. It is a social micropayment site and the similarity of its name to the verb flatter is on intention. It is meant to say thanks in small amounts month by month to "things" you like. One such thing I created is my blog—you can find the link to it below every entry. To be able to flattr someone one needs to create an account on the site and put money into their account. After that it's possible to follow the flattr button links. If you are reading my blog on my site and have JavaScript enabled you just have to click the flattr part of the image (not the number) to do so. If you are reading it through my feed or with JavaScript disabled you will have to click a second time on the flattr site to make the flattring happen.

Another thing I've created is Debian BTS: cleaning up. I use this link in my mails to the Debian BTS for my stable RC cleanup efforts, or general proper closing of bugs that aren't getting archived. Through the help of UDD I've created me helpful overview pages of bugs that need attention for this.

The third thing I've created is Package Maintenance. If you are a fan of one of the packages I maintain and want to thank me for taking proper care of it, feel free to also click this one. Please be aware that this shouldn't be seen as an Upstream appreciation—if one of the projects I package for Debian uses flattr themself then you should definitely (also) consider flattring them for their own.

About Upstream projects that use flattr: One of the packages I invest quite a lot of effort into started using flattr: wesnoth. They have put the flattr button on their entry page at wesnoth.org, here is the direct link to their first and general thing: The Battle for Wesnoth.

Please be reminded that the things you did flattr in a previous month can again be flattred the next month. This is especially true for general purpose things like what I am using currently. Others might create things for every single blog entry, or very specific tasks, to allow people to flattr them more often in a month and get a bigger share of the cake. So keep in mind which things are general ones and consider returning to them.

Enjoy!

/debian | permanent link | Comments: 1 |

Andres Rodriguez: Masters almost done! Job searching again!! 7 Sep 2010, 7:17 am

After a year of being a full time student of the MS in Telecommunications & Networking at Florida International University, and having successfully finished my Google Summer of Code project for Ubuntu (TestDrive Front-end), is time for me to start job searching again!

Currently, I find myself in my last semester of class and I’ll be graduating this Fall 2010 (December 2010). This means that a new stage in my life begins and that I need to start looking for a job to start working as soon as I finish my Masters Degree!

I’m looking for a job in Open Source, Network Administration (given to my studies) or Linux System Administration/Engineering, but I’d really like to stay with Open Source, and stay really close to my passion, Ubuntu. Furthermore, I’d also like to continue to work with HA Clustering, loadbalancing, etc, or other technologies, such as Virtualization, Cloud Computing (even though that I might not have much experience, but I’m a quick learner), either on Implementation as a SysAdmin, or as a Developer, as long as it keeps me close to Ubuntu. That’s what makes me happy .

Anyways, if anyone knows of something, have any job offers, or want to know more about me, my CV can be found HERE, and don’t doubt to contact me.

Jorge Castro: UDS Sponsorship application deadline 7 Sep 2010, 6:55 am

Just a reminder that the sponsorship application deadline is 8th September if you haven’t already applied! For more information please see this page: http://uds.ubuntu.com/participate/sponsorship/

(There is a bug in the summit system that is telling people that the deadline is March 26, this is incorrect!)

Martin Owens: Please Poach Our Users 7 Sep 2010, 6:11 am

As a member of the Ubuntu community I consider myself as much a part of the Free Software community as any member of any other distro. Each distro has it’s strengths and I have absolutely no problem with users flowing out of Ubuntu and into other FreeDesktop systems such as Debian, Fedora or even closer distros like mint. I don’t even mind users leaving Ubuntu to compile their own distro:

Launchpad News: Launchpad unavailable 9th September 2010 08.00 UTC 7 Sep 2010, 5:53 am

On Thursday the 9th of September we’re rolling out the latest Launchpad code to our servers. At the same time we’re taking the opportunity to carry out some server maintenance.

This work will take around three hours from 08.00 UTC and will include a 90 minute period of complete downtime, followed by 90 minutes of Launchpad in a read-only* state.

Downtime starts: 08.00 UTC 9th September 2010
Launchpad returns in read-only mode: 09.30 UTC 9th September 2010
Launchpad expected to return to normal: 11.00 UTC 9th September 2010.

We’re sorry for the relatively short notice of this service disruption.

* In read-only mode, Launchpad’s web interface is available for browsing. Other aspects of Launchpad, such as uploading to PPAs and pushing to code branches, are offline.

Daniel Holbach: Who are your mentors? 7 Sep 2010, 1:04 am

Jorge and Allison blogged about their mentors and start into the Open Source world and I thought it would be a great way to thank at least some of the people who helped me get started. So I started thinking about who all helped me out in one way or the other in the last few years and I realised that there’s incredibly many people I should’ve been thanking years ago already.

• One person has constantly been there for me in the last 6 years: Michael Vogt. I got to know him in Dortmund, the city where we both studied. We quickly became good friends and although we now almost live 700km apart we stayed in touch and talk on the phone every second day. What I love about Michael is that he’s pragmatic, modest, thoughtful and generally a lot of fun. I’m incredibly glad he helped me out like he did.
• Sébastien Bacher was the first person I worked with on a daily basis. Luckily he was very patient with me and explained lots of packaging details to me. We both grew up close to the Franco-Allemande border, which probably was the reason why we instantly got on very well. We laughed a lot when working together.

There’s dozens of other people who helped me out, got me thinking and changed how I saw things, but I’ll probably save them for future blog posts.

Today it’s been almost exactly five years since I’ve been with Canonical and six years in the Ubuntu community. Everybody was fantastic to me and still is. Thanks a lot also to other folks who were there for me in the early days (Oliver Grawert, James Blackwell, Jane Fraser, and loads and loads of others).

You know who you are and thanks a lot for the time with you.

Nathan Haines: Ubuntu Hour Lake Forest, September 9th 6 Sep 2010, 10:26 pm

As school starts and summer ends, many of our lives get busier. Amidst this bustle, there's no better reason to take a break Thursday night and join other Ubuntu fans for Ubuntu Hour!

The next two Ubuntu Hours are:

Thursday, September 9th, 2010, 6pm - 7pm - RSVP
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010, 6pm - 7pm - RSVP

The general idea for Ubuntu Hour is that we meet up for an hour someplace public wearing with some Ubuntu stuff visible (some clothing or a sticker or something) and just chat for an hour. We want to be welcoming of those who notice us and are curious about Ubuntu. The next date is:

Not only is it fun to meet local Ubuntu fans, but we can also be a valuable introduction to Ubuntu for others. Wear that cool Ubuntu or Linux shirt or your laptop with the Ubuntu stickers. We'll also follow the Ubuntu Code of Conduct while we're there. Easily summarized as "be excellent to each other," we'll simply be examples of the wonderful Ubuntu community.

Panera Bread is a casual restaurant that has fresh bread, soups, and sandwiches and free wi-fi access. I'll have my laptop and an Ubuntu shirt, so please feel free to come up and say hi. It's also a good chance to bring along friends who are curious about Ubuntu.

Panera Bread - 23592 Rockfield Blvd., Lake Forest, CA
http://www.yelp.com/biz/panera-bread-lake-forest

Sometimes Google Maps doesn't like the address itself, so you can use this link to see the correct location on Google Maps - http://ur1.ca/0cec5

Benjamin Humphrey: OMG! Ubuntu! interviews GNOME co-founder, Frederico Mena 6 Sep 2010, 8:50 pm

The OMG! team sit down for an exclusive interview with Frederico Mena, one the founding fathers of GNOME.

Federico along with Miguel de Icaza worked together in the late 90s to start the GNOME project – the desktop environment that Ubuntu and many other distros use.

Everyone knows and loves it, but how did it all start?

Check out the full interview (well worth a read) over at OMG! Ubuntu!

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/09/omg-exclusive-interview-with-gnome-co-founder-federico-mena/

Seif Lotfy: My sexy desktop II 6 Sep 2010, 6:05 pm

Every couple of weeks I get sick of my desktop look and decide to got with a new one.

This was my desktop 15 minutes ago…

Now the only thing I kept the same besides the font and the panel transparency are the Faenza Icons. What makes me like them is that their squared shape gives them the feeling of good organization.

Now this is my new desktop.

I am using the new Ubuntu wallpaper. I know a lot of people don’t like it but IMHO if you give it time its kinda takes you in. It has some depth to it if you give it enough space. Thus I changed Docky to be 3D and removed the side dock. The top panel is semi transparent. This is my personal opinion about my desktop so please no offensive comments.

Here is another picture of a modified elegant gnome theme…

Hope you like it…

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Joe Barker: He’s Waving…. 6 Sep 2010, 2:51 pm

I’m sure most of the people reading this will, at some point in time, have heard of Google Wave. The subject of discussions I’ve seen surrounding Wave have been…opinionated…to say the least. I’ve spoken to people who love it, and to people who hate it. Personally, I’m one of the people who loved the idea of it rather than Wave itself.

Sure, I clamoured with the rest of us to get my invite and see what wave was all about. Then I checked it daily for about 2, maybe even 3 weeks. After that, I think I did the same as most people – realised I had no real use for it, and ignored it. I might have check it 3 or 4 times since then, but that’s about it. I think I was made part of 1 new wave in all that time. For me, this is a real shame. I’m actually of the opinion that Wave has a potential to be awesome. If you don’t agree, please, hear me out.

Imagine you’re working on a small project with 2 or 3 people, Wave provides a brilliant way to collaborate and share ideas with each other throughout the development of the project. The problem, I imagine, for a lot of people was the fact that the entire thing was hosted on Google, and we all know at least 1 person who is genuinely concerned about using any Google product for privacy reasons (I’ll be honest, for me, this is less of an issue as they have the last 5 years worth of emails I’ve ever received on a personal account) which is fine.

With Google announcing the cessation of Wave development, I was concerned that some of the ideas it brought would simply die out. Luckily, they’ve also announced ‘Wave in a Box‘, which essentially means that Wave will be open-sourced, and people will have the ability to run their own Wave server. I find the idea of this rather exciting, partly because it will be interesting to see what kinds of directions it may take in development from whoever picks up the project, and partly because it means I get to play around with something on the server again.

If possible, I’ll try and actually get some use out of a Wave server, however, I can’t guarantee that’ll be possible. In fact, it’s far more likely that the install would be just that, an install, after which, I’d ignore it Either way, I – personally – am looking forward to the release of ‘Wave in a Box’, it might even increase the uptake of the project so more people can use it. Certainly, some of the things Google are putting into it before releasing it mean that it will have a solid base upon which to build.

Thorsten Wilms: Quickshot Icon and Logo 6 Sep 2010, 1:17 pm

Quickshot’s goal is to streamline the process of taking a series of screenshots with specific setups and in varying languages for documentation purposes. It’s a spin-off of the Ubuntu Manual project and currently being rewritten to better meat the needs of other projects.

I first created an icon. Combining a camera liked used for generic screenshot tools with any other parts proved to be problematic in composition and recognizability. So I went with a more abstract approach, with a one out of a series concept to represent what Quickshot is about:

While an icon could make for an acceptable symbol for a logo, I felt this isn’t the case here. The contrast and coloring of the dark version is inspired by a camera flash. The bright version is for in-application use, where the other would feel too heavy.

Filed under: Icons, Logos, Planet Ubuntu, Ubuntu Manual Project

Martin Owens: Microsoft: Battle the Norm 6 Sep 2010, 1:02 pm

When I ask Microsoft Windows users to try out Ubuntu should I be telling them that using Ubuntu is socially harder than using Windows? Sure Ubuntu is awesome technically, very easy to use and much better than windows, plus it’s FOSS, moral, science and all. But none of that helps the social barriers.

So I am more aware now that I’m not only pushing a technology but also perhaps a fight. Something that many users just don’t want to have to deal with. Some new users are enthused, well armed and well prepared to go into fight for their ecosystem and we welcome these new early adopters.

But Microsoft windows is normal and using anything else isn’t normal. We have a long way to go before Ubuntu is more recognised as a good technology, well made and not just used by social misfits and people who want to use obscure products to look cool.

Even if you just think about the technical aspects there is just a barrier from service providers, shops and the media.

One of the really nice things about Ubuntu is that it’s managed to improve (slightly) this by replacing the Linux brand in a lot of people’s minds¹. More people seem to know about Ubuntu and FOSS by extension because of the work we do to be welcoming and accommodating to new users. But are we doing enough? What more could we do to reduce some of the social stigma of using none Microsoft products?

Thoughts?

¹ I’ve come to see Linux as an ingredient, like flour. You can’t sell flour to a person wanting to buy cakes.

The Fridge: Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #209 6 Sep 2010, 11:42 am

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #209 for the week August 29th - September 4th, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

• Farewell Ian
• Ubuntu 10.10 Beta (Maverick Meerkat) Released
• Xubuntu Winning Artwork
• New Ubuntu Lucid Proposed Kernel
• Announcing Ubuntu App Developer Week!
• Welcome New Members
• Why do you use Ubuntu?
• First Kernel Triage Summit
• Ubuntu in Education
• Ubuntu Stats
• LoCo Team Banners for Approved Teams
• LoCo Testing Team HowTo
• Ubuntu 10.10 Installfests
• Ubuntu Global Jam - Another Success Due to LoCo Teams Participation
• Testing your multitouch device
• Incredible Stories Of Free Software and Open Source
• Why I Have Nothing Interesting to Say
• Understanding Membership Structures in Debian and Ubuntu
• What I do
• How My Work Benefits Free Software
• Multitouch testers in the Hall of Fame
• Using the Ubuntu Stack Exchange
• Ubuntu 10.10 Countdown
• In The Press
• In The Blogosphere
• HCI at Canonical
• Thinking different at Canonical
• Building Apps for the Cloud: How KnowledgeTree Used Ubuntu for Rapid Development of Its SaaS Offering
• GUADEC 2010 Videos
• IBM DB2 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
• Canonical: Take 60 seconds with Henrik Omma
• Embedded Linux Conference, April 2010 Videos
• Ohio LinuxFest Proves Real FOSS Diversity
• Featured Podcasts
• Monthly Team Reports: August 2010
• Upcoming Meetings and Events
• Updates and Security
• UWN Sneak Peek
• And Much Much More

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

• Amber Graner
• J Scott Gwin
• Liraz Siri
• Nathan Handler
• Penelope Stowe
• Mike Holstein
• Nigel Babu
• And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

The Fridge: Xubuntu Winning Artwork 6 Sep 2010, 10:13 am

AND THE WINNER IS …

I want to thank all the artists that submitted artwork for Xubuntu Maverick Meerkat, soon to become Xubuntu 10.10. We certainly got some great images from you. The artwork was selected by vote of the Xubuntu Team after some discussion. The actual wallpaper is now in Maverick Meerkat.

All of the submitted art is on display at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu/Artwork/Maverick. The winning wallpaper is Xubuntu 10.10 / Balls/Curve. We also selected the GTK Theme that was submitted, Zuki Blues.

The Shimmer Project team did the final polishing of the theme for Xubuntu, including the Elementary Icon set. The final package is called Bluebird, and is really good. With the addition of Bluebird, Xubuntu has both an excellent dark theme, named Albatross, and an excellent light theme, called Bluebird. Albatross will remain a working, usable theme in Xubuntu.

Back to the title, the real winner here is all the Xubuntu users, who will once again have great artwork in the new release. With the addition of Bluebird, users have a real choice between light and dark. Again, many thanks to those who did submit art and to the Shimmer Project (http://shimmerproject.org/) for their fantastic work.

[Discuss the Xubuntu Winning Artwork on the Forum]

Originally sent to the ubuntu-news-team mailing list by Charlie Kravetz on Fri Sep 3 01:32:47 BST 2010

Ronnie Tucker: Survey and Notifier 6 Sep 2010, 9:49 am

Reader Survey 2010 Hi folks, just a quick post to remind you that the Full Circle 2010 Reader Survey is still open! If you haven’t filled it in, it’s at: http://goo.gl/xMP0 – won’t take you more than a minute or two to fill it in and you’ll be helping us fine tune FCM for the [...]

Dirk Deimeke: Taskwarrior (3) ... 6 Sep 2010, 9:49 am

German text below. / Deutscher Text weiter unten.

This new part of my mini series about Taskwarrior is about recurring tasks and priorities.

- Installation and basic operation
- Dates, dateformat, due dates and wait dates

Task supports currently up to three (four) priorities High, Medium and Low (and none), you can set them by adding a "pri:h" or "pri:m" or "pri:l" or "pri:" to your task.

This affects the display of your task list, higher priority tasks are appearing first if due dates are the same. As ever, you can change this behaviour by editing your config file. If you complete a task and you have higher priotity ones, you see a nag message, which can be configured in the config file as well.

Please check all lines containing "pri" in upper or lower case in your .taskrc.

Recurring tasks are a good possibility to organise repeating duties.

Example:

task add pri:h due:eom recur:monthly pay rent

This adds a high priority "pay rent" task which will be repeated every end-of-month. In fact it adds two (!) tasks, one is invisible and contains the "meta-data" of the task you are creating. And another one which is the due task to be done. If you try to remove the current due task you will be asked if you want to delete the due task and later on, if you want to delete the "master task" as well (this only happens, if you finished the recurring task at last one time).

task recurring

Shows all recurring tasks in one view.

The general command is

task add recur:frequency until:enddate

From the man-page:
due:due-date
Specifies the due-date of a task.
recur:frequency
Specifies the frequency of a recurrence of a task.
until:end-date-of-recurrence
Specifies the Recurrence end-date of a task.

Frequencies:
daily, day, 1d, 2d, ...
Every day or a number of days.
weekdays
Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and skipping weekend days.
weekly, 1w, 2w, ...
Every week or a number of weeks.
biweekly, fortnight
Every two weeks.
quarterly, 1q, 2q, ...
Every three months, a quarter, or a number of quarters.
semiannual
Every six months.
annual, yearly, 1y, 2y, ...
Every year or a number of years.
biannual, biyearly, 2y
Every two years.

To be continued ...

Deutscher Text. / German text.

Dieser neue Teil meiner Miniserie über Taskwarrior handelt von sich wiederholenden Aufgaben und Prioritäten.

- Installation und einfache Aufgaben
- Datum, Datumsformat, Zieltermine und Wartedatum

Task unterstützt bis zu drei (vier) Prioritäten Hoch, Mittel, Niedrig (und keine), Ihr könnt durch Hinzufügen von "pri:h" oder "pri:m" oder "pri:l" oder "pri:" zur Aufgabe setzen.

Das beeinflusst die Darstellung der Aufgabenliste, höher priorisierte Aufgaben erscheinen zuerst, wenn die Fälligkeitsdaten die gleichen sind. Wie immer, so kann auch dass durch Veränderung der Konfigurationsdatei geändert werden. Wenn eine Aufgabe erledigt wird und höher priorisierte Aufgaben vorhanden sind, gibt es eine nervende Nachricht ("nag message"), die auch konfiguriert werden kann.

Bitte prüft einmal alle Zeilen in der .taskrc, die "pri" in Gross- oder Kleinschreibung enthalten.

Sich wiederholende Aufgaben sind eine gute Möglichkeit, wiederkehrende Tätigkeiten zu organisieren.

Beispiel:

task add pri:h due:eom recur:monthly Miete zahlen

Das fügt eine neue "Miete zahlen"-Aufgabe mit hoher Priorität hinzu, die an jedem Monatsende (eom = end-of-month) wiederholt wird. Tatsächlich werden aber zwei (!) Aufgaben hinzugefügt. Eine ist unsichtbar und enthält die Rahmendaten der erzeugten Aufgabe. Eine weitere Aufgabe ist die terminierte Aufgabe, die zu erledigen ist. Wenn Du die Aufgabe löschen willst, wirst Du gefragt, ob Du die Aufgabe mit den Rahmendaten auch löschen möchtest (das passiert aber erst, wenn wenigstens eine Wiederholung erledigt worden ist).

task recurring

zeigt alle sich wiederholenden Aufgaben.

Das generelle Kommando ist

task add recur:frequency until:enddate

Aus der man-page (Handbuch-Seite):

due:due-date
Spezifiziert das Fälligkeitsdatum der Aufgabe.
recur:frequency
Spezifiziert die Wiederholungs-Frequenz der Aufgabe.
until:end-date-of-recurrence
Spezifiziert das Enddatum der Wiederholungen.

Frequenzen:
daily, day, 1d, 2d, ...
Jeden Tag oder alle Anzahl von Tagen.
weekdays
Montags, Dienstags, Mittwochs, Donnerstags, Freitags, Wochenende wird übersprungen.
weekly, 1w, 2w, ...
Wöchentlich oder alle Anzahl von Wochen.
biweekly, fortnight
Alle zwei Wochen.
quarterly, 1q, 2q, ...
Alle drei Monate oder alle Anzahl von Quartalen.
semiannual
Alle sechs Monate.
annual, yearly, 1y, 2y, ...
Jährlich oder alle Anzahl von Jahren.
biannual, biyearly, 2y
Alle zwei Jahre.

Fortsetzung folgt ...

Canonical Design Team: We are hiring: Design Engineer 6 Sep 2010, 9:21 am

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are looking for a Design Engineer with superb technical and communication skills to join the Design Team.

Are you comfortable writing code in Python or Ruby, CSS, JavaScript Ajax? Do you have a strong sense of the aesthetic and appreciate software that is beautiful, usable AND well architected? Do you enjoy working with free software tools like the GIMP and Inkscape, and combining your knowledge of programming with design and artistic interests? If so, come and join us! Your tasks will include: packaging, integration of new code and visual assets, bug-fixing and maintenance of design and artwork assets.You will handle communication and coordination between the design team, the core Ubuntu engineering team and external partners.

Find out more and get in touch here.

Paul Tagliamonte: Synaptic Part Deux 6 Sep 2010, 8:56 am

Hello, World!

So, I was pointed to this link this morning by some folks on IRC.

Well, as open as I am about this stuff ( I don’t mind being quoted ) next time one of ya’ll redditors wants to quote me, just PM and let me know.

Some points i’d like to make clear –

Synaptic will never be blacklisted from the repos, as far as I can tell. If it’s still in Debian, it’s still in Ubuntu. No one is trying to remove your favorite tool. It’s just no longer default.

If you still think this is a stupid move, please test the Software Center, and report the problems you see with it. This is F/OSS, not some stone-walled company, after all!

John Baer: GTK Impression – Nautilus Breadcrumbs 6 Sep 2010, 8:06 am

The term “breadcrumb” comes from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale in which the children drop breadcrumbs to form a trail back to their home. Just like in the tale, breadcrumbs in real-world applications offer users a way to trace the path back to their original landing point.

The breadcrumb trail serves two purposes:

1. provides information to users as to where they are located within the site
2. offers shortcut links for users to “jump” to previously viewed pages without using the Back button, other navigation bars, or typing in a keyword search

Breadcrumbs give location information and links in a backward linear manner; whereas, navigation methods, such as search fields or horizontal/vertical navigation bars, serve to retrieve information for the user in a forward-seeking approach.

Traditional Breadcrumbs

Flickr Preview

The traditional Nautilus breadcrumb is a button. The current location is indicated by a depressed button and the button title is displayed in a bold font.

Impression Breadcrumbs

Flickr Preview

The Impression themes ( and others ) use a lighter design approach to breadcrumbs. The trail consists of text hot links separated by arrows, When the mouse hovers above the link the text changes color to either Impression orange or Night Impression aubergine.

Impression Breadcrumb Prelight

Flickr Preview

File Dialogs

In addition to Nautilus, breadcrumb trails persist to other dialogs such as “Open File”.

Flickr Preview

The text hot links blend well with other elements on the form and satisfies the design requirements stated above.

Providing consistency with Nautilus, the prelight event changes the text color to either Impression orange or Night Impression aubergine.

Flickr Preview

Another interesting action to the prelight event is the right arrow changes direction bringing additional focus to the breadcrumb.

	Download Impression GTK themes for Maverick: Ubuntu Wiki
	View (Lucid): Flickr Slide show

Benjamin Humphrey: Christchurch gets a shake up 6 Sep 2010, 5:59 am

On Saturday morning at 4:30am my home city of Christchurch, New Zealand experienced a 7.3 magnitude earthquake 40km from the city centre. Christchurch has almost 300,000 people there, it’s New Zealand’s second largest city.

Amazingly, only one person died from a heart attack and a few people were injured. My family and friends are all safe and my house amazingly isn’t damaged apart from a few cracks.

Anyway, the cleanup is going to be huge and a lot of old buildings are condemned and due to be pulled down since they are damaged beyond repair. A state of emergency has been declared and the army arrived to help out. There’s even a curfew in the evenings!

Apparently around 500 buildings have been destroyed with hundreds more damaged.

Being Kiwis, everyone still has a sense of humour. My old high school got “dramatically improved ventilation” too.

The aftershocks have been going for about 3 days now. I’m in Dunedin so I missed the actual earthquake but of course I have seen facebook updates from friends!

The aftershocks even have their own theme song.

Here are some photos (not taken by me). You can see more here and some sweet aerial footage here.

Here’s the Associated Press report.

Nigel Babu: Cleansweep Updates 6 Sep 2010, 1:23 am

Total bugs with patches: 2196 (-37)
Reviewed patches: 420 (+11)
—
Bugs with ‘patch-needswork’: 99 (+5)
Bugs with ‘patch-forwarded-upstream’: 177 (+3)
Bugs with ‘patch-forwarded-debian’: 62 (0)
Bugs with ‘indicator-application’: 39 (-2)
Bugs with ‘patch-accepted-upstream’: 56 (-1)
Bugs with ‘patch-accepted-debian’: 10 (0)
Bugs with ‘patch-rejected-upstream’: 18 (0)
Bugs with ‘patch-rejected-debian’: 3 (0)
—
Last updated: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:05:33 +0200

Ralph Janke: Software Freedom Day in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario 5 Sep 2010, 9:33 pm

It is again the time of the year when we celebrate software freedom day!

This year the Software Freedom Day 2010 will occur in the Kwartlab. This event is a cooperation between Ubuntu Canada (Kitchener/Waterloo Chapter), KWLUG and the Working Centre.

read more

Ralph Janke: Software Freedom Day in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario 5 Sep 2010, 9:33 pm

It is again the time of the year when we celebrate software freedom day!

This year the Software Freedom Day 2010 will occur in the Kwartlab. This event is a cooperation between Ubuntu Canada (Kitchener/Waterloo Chapter), KWLUG and the Working Centre.

read more

Jorge Castro: DASes and Drobos 5 Sep 2010, 8:01 pm

I need to plop on a few Terabytes at home.

I am looking for a Direct Attached Storage device. I already have a home server, but due to lack of space in the case and the fact that it’s doing a great job being an NFS and Samba box that I don’t need a NAS. I’d like something I can just eSATA right to my existing box.

I am about 85% sure that I need a Drobo S to fill my needs. However it is quite expensive, so before I decide to commit I want to ask around. 

I know some people have built alternatives to the Drobo, but I’m not looking to replace my ubuntu-server OS (since it’s rocking) or run a speciallized OS. I want a box I can just plug in and get Drobo-like behavior. I want to be able to use drives I might have laying around, and be able to just replace them when they die, and if the drive that died is a small one I want to be able to plop in a larger one and Just Work(tm).

From talking to people like Scott James Remnant and others at Debconf I know it should be possible to build such a beast with btrfs that will do what I want, the question is, how does one set this up? Ideally just add on a dumb expansion bay with a bunch o’ drives that does what I want. Has anyone tried to make a drobo-like setup with btrfs yet?

Shane Fagan: 2 days left…. 5 Sep 2010, 7:33 pm

Ive been looking forward to this game for months now its looking good and is on linux. Have a look its really scary though. http://www.amnesiagame.com/

Seif Lotfy: GNOME Activity Journal gets major performance improvements 5 Sep 2010, 5:16 pm

One of the big issues we had in with the Activity Journal was startup time and navigation time. After Michal Hruby kept nagging us on fixing the issue (we used him as the benchmarking measurement and performance profiling), Siegfried and I started working on these issues.

First Siegfried managed to fix the startup time by creating an extension for Zeitgeist that populates the histogram in the bottom. Querying events for 90 in days in one query per day makes itself noticeable, so his approach of a dedicated API from zeitgeist was the best solution. However it did not improve the navigation time.

After 2 days of work motivated by the romantic dinner Michal wants to buy me to fix the issue, we reached our goal. Here is what I did to improve the navigation:

• Apply singleton pattern on GIO Files on each URI to reduce initializing a new ones for each event.
• Lazy loading of UI elements. So if the category is not collapsed we don’t draw the elements.
• Redraw only days that changed.
• Unparent reuse gtk widgets when navigating.

Now the speed improvement is really remarkable. Here is a quick comparison. Each row represents the time in seconds to load a day view.

The new Activity Journal is at least 7.3 times faster than what we released last week. Funny enough even the memory consumption is less, due to the singeltons and lazy loading.

For a quick video check out this video

There will be a new release soon with the speed enhancements. Hope you like it.

Cheers

Seif

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Martin Pihl: Love and Marriage 5 Sep 2010, 11:54 am

So, I actually managed to get married. Yeah, can you believe that?

It wasn’t without hazzles though, and the missy was not happy with me all the time either.

You know, I juuuust had to check my e-mail before the ceremony…:

(Click to enlarge)

I’m running my own Ubuntu Solution Provider company in Denmark, but managed an incredible three days off for our honeymoon. I’m so romantic…

(Photography by Rune Mokastet)

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Harald Sitter: Qt Graphics System KCM 5 Sep 2010, 11:41 am

Long we have waited for it. A way to set the Qt graphics system backend without recompiling Qt. In Qt 4.7 this is finally available.

You can configure the backend using the environment variable QT_GRAPHICSSYSTEM.

Now, since the topic of switching graphics backend in Qt is coming up now and then, I thought it would be a good idea to create a nice graphical interface. Actually I wanted something nicer to use for me personally

So I created a really simple KCM. You have 3 switches, of which two will write a .sh file to $HOME/.kde/env/. The content of this folder gets loaded at startup (via startkde), and that way you will globally end up with another graphics backend. That said, since the environment variable has lowest priority, it is still possible to override this on a per-application level (e.g. kolourpaint has problems with the raster backend I have been told).

Have fun!

Collin Pruitt: Ubunchu Episode 7: “The Ultimate Installfest” is out 5 Sep 2010, 10:59 am

Episode 7 of Ubunchu, the Creative Commons Attribution/Non-Commercial licensed, Ubuntu-themed Japanese manga is out. English translation is still in progress, but expect it to be finished soon.

Download links:

• Japanese
• Japanese Source
• English (Coming Soon)

Author’s blog post: http://seotch.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/ubunchu07/