Issue01 / News

Dell partners with Ubuntu!

With many people speculating on whether Dell would ship a distro of Linux pre-installed on its laptops, it came as something of a surprise to see that Dell CEO Michael Dell uses Ubuntu 7.04 on his home laptop! (right)

Within days the worlds worst kept secret was out; Dell announced that it would indeed begin shipping some of its laptop and desktop machines with Ubuntu 7.04 : Feisty Fawn.

This was sparked by Dell asking its customers what they would like to see in future Dell machines. Much to Dell's surprise, many of its users asked for Linux to be preinstalled!

All respect to Dell for listening to its customers, following through on their promise to give the customer what they want and taking the bold move of using Linux. Bravo!

Sunnz - sunnzy@gmail.com

Linux: Violating Microsoft Patents?

Brad Smith, Microsoft's top lawyer, has stated that open source software violates 235 of the software giant's patents including 42 in the Linux kernel, 65 in the Linux interface and related design elements, and 46 in OpenOffice.org.

"What's fair is fair. We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property. [Open source needs to] play by the same rules as the rest of the business," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Prosecuting the violations could prove problematic for Microsoft as several major supporters of open source hold a number of patents which could possibly be used to attack Microsoft's own software including Windows.

DID YOU KNOW ?

Each Ubuntu release is named after an animal (eg: Hedgehog, Badger, Fawn). Prior to Feisty Fawn was Edgy Eft, what kind of animal is an Eft?

'During the time right after metamorphosis, many North American Newt species go through a phase called the 'eft phase'. In some cases their skin changes color, but efts always live their life on land. Only when the eft reaches adulthood will it begin to live its life in a more aquatic fashion' - (Wikipedia)

Ubuntu goes mobile

The BBC News website reports that :

A version of the increasingly popular Linux operating system Ubuntu will be developed for use on net-enabled phones and devices.

The Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded project aims to create the open source platform for initial release in October 2007.

The operating system will be developed by members of the Ubuntu community, along with staff from chip giant Intel.

Source - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6634195.stm

Ubuntu Tribe - The Movie

From the Press Release :

Ubuntu Tribe is a semi documentary cyberomantic comedy, filmed under the Dogme95 rules. The short movie, still in development, will be distributed on-line under the Creative Commons license.

The original version will be in Euskara with two subtitled versions; one in English and one in Spanish.

The project is still in development. And you can be active part of it. If you have an idea or wish to offer your point of view please let us know at info@ubuntutribe.com.

You can find out more, and view the trailer at the official page: ubuntutribe.com

OLPC OS UP FOR DOWNLOAD

If you've never heard of OLPC maybe the words One Laptop Per Child will ring a bell in your head, as this project has been covered by many news reports world wide, be they IT inclined or just your seven o'clock news.

OLPC is a US non-profit organization created by MIT Media Lab Faculty members aimed at developing a cheap and easy to use computer for the children of the third-world.

The operating system - or XO as it is called - is based on open-source software and it's applications will consist of a web browser, based on Mozilla Firefox's Gecko engine, a document editor - AbiWord, a RSS reader, an email client, music composition and graphics toolkits, games and even a shell for those who feel the need for a bit more freedom.

Probably the most innovating thing about the OS is the ease of use and intuitive interface. You can see some screenshots here.

The operating system, based on Fedora Core, can now be downloaded and burned on a disc which runs as a Live CD on a standard Mac or PC.

This is a great opportunity for people who like to experiment with strange flavors of Linux, but also for those who either don't have the time nor will, to understand how to operate in your typical desktop environment.

XO brings a ready to use system where commands like ./configure or sudo make install will be things the “grandpa” user - who doesn't use the computer for more than browsing the web and reading his emails - won't have to deal with.

There are of course some negative aspects to the operating system... such as the lack of audio/video handlers, the lack of PDF support, and probably the worst: the heavily modified and over simplified AbiWord saves the files in the .doc format by default.

It's a pity that this closed-source format is being used and without explaining to the user what the difference between doc and odt are, even if most people have MS Word installed and cannot open most FOSS documents.

Despite any shortcomings, this project has true potential. But I have to say that from looking at those screenshots it looks promising. I don't know how many people will use it for PC for other purposes than experimenting, but this could prove to be a real alternative to the constantly busy desktop environments – such as KDE or Gnome, for instance.

If you do decide to download the disc and give it a try, you may want to go and make a cup of tea, as it takes a long time for the page to load.

OPEN WEEK HIGHLIGHTS

Mark, will there exist in the future a certification relased by Canonical, like RedHat Certified Professional?

yes! along with training programs, and training materials

ShipIt is currently not available for Xubuntu... will that become available in the future?

i don't think so. xubuntu, as i understand it, is a more specialist environment, so we probably would not fund cd shipments for it.

I've seen some of the estimated numbers for *buntu, but I'm curious... how many unique IP addresses did the canonical servers see on th 19th of April?

wow, not sure i have that number, but there were 53 mirrors before we announced, and 130 by the end of the day, that we know of. so hits on canonical.com are a small fraction of total. i think we were serving 12 gigabits / second from ourselves and top 5 mirrors :-). probably 20 gbits/s in total. 3 cd's per second for 12 hours. pretty amazing. if you were in #ubuntu-release-party, you know it was quite a rush

Any rough numbers on how many *buntu machines there are running in the world currently?

4-16 million, my best guess including derivatives is around 10 million

Several ubuntu pages and also bug #1 in launchpad note that ubuntu is entirely free (as in free speech), however in the default install this is not true (drivers etc.), are there plans on making this more transparant to the user?

we should always qualify that as "only free applications". at least, i fix it that way in the wiki when i run into it. we have had the driver exception in place since the beginning, so it's not as though this has changed. hopefully, the new flavour will also carry the "pure free" flag

full circle was even mentioned, twice!

is full circle magazine also a marketing team project?

Jenda replied - it's been communicating with the Marketing Team, and it's very much supported. But it has never explicitly declared itself as such to my knowledge. some members from the Marketing Team participate in it, but it was started (and is run by) from someone outside the team

What can you say about the Full Circle magazine, Ubuntu community magazine released issue #0. Perspectives for the future?

Jono replied - I had a look at it and I think its interesting - I have been looking to get in touch with the authors about a few things - so if they can get in touch with me that would be great. I think an ubuntu magazine is a pretty nifty idea, although a lot of these kinds of magazines due due to production time. I hope this continues [Editors note: i've since emailed Jono]