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Ubuntu 9.10: the koala is facing the cloud
Ubuntu 9.10, called Karmic Koala, brings a lot of small improvements and a couple of bigger features. GRUB 2 has become the default bootloader in Ubuntu 9.10, at least on a fresh install. Ext4 also got a promotion: it is the default file system now. The audio preferences give access now to the advanced possibilities of PulseAudio, such as an audio volume per application. And then there are prominent new applications like Ubuntu Software Center and Ubuntu One. But most of all, the distribution has shifted its focus to cloud computing: Eucalyptus has grown to maturity.
An encrypted home directory
The Ubiquity installer doesn't show much difference between Karmic and Jaunty, the previous release of Ubuntu. This is a sign of the maturity of Ubiquity, which is one of the most user-friendly operating system installers. But if we look more closely, there are some differences in the details. For example, in one of the last steps, users can enable an option to encrypt their home directory with their user password. This evolved from the Encrypted Private Directory feature in Ubuntu 8.10, which introduced an encrypted directory ~/Private within a user's home directory using eCryptfs. Ubuntu 9.04 extended this feature to cover the entire home directory, but it was only offered as an option in the alternate install CD.
As of Ubuntu 9.10, the option is available in the normal desktop installation as part of the user setup step. During a desktop session, the encryption and decryption of the user's home directory works almost completely transparently. However, there are a few caveats. If the user's encrypted home directory is not already mounted, then ssh public key authentication, cron jobs, and other programs that require access to data in the home directory will fail. Also, the encrypted file system does not yet work on top of a remote network file system such as SSHFS, NFS, or Samba.
A new software installer
A more visible "new kid in town" is Ubuntu Software Center, which replaces the "Add/Remove Applications" application to locate, install, and remove applications. Ubuntu Software Center introduces a new intuitive interface which, despite its simplicity, is already better than the previous one in a number of ways. For example, the user doesn't have to tick an application and click on Apply anymore, but is able to install an application in one click. Furthermore, while an application is installing, the user can continue browsing available software and select other applications for installation, which wasn't possible with "Add/Remove Applications".
Canonical's aim is to extend the functionality of Ubuntu Software Center gradually. The roadmap mentions some key goals. In Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, Software Center should be a viable alternative to Synaptic, allowing the same fine-grained package control and handling of error cases. Ubuntu 10.10 will provide the ability to purchase software from within Software Center and the ability to add PPAs (Personal Package Archives with user-contributed software packages). Ubuntu 11.04 will fine-tune the possibilities, for example with specialized interfaces for browsing and installing fonts, screen savers, or other particular classes of packages.
Empathy
After years of discussion, the Ubuntu developers have decided to change the default instant messaging client. Users of Ubuntu 9.10 will find that Pidgin has been replaced by Empathy. This application has been the official IM client of the GNOME desktop since version 2.24, and is built upon Telepathy, a universal messaging platform. Empathy supports all messaging protocols that Telepathy supports, such as MSN, Jabber, AIM, Yahoo!, IRC, etc. Even voice and video chats via Google Talk are possible.
The downside is that Empathy is still not on par with Pidgin with respect to functionality. While Pidgin offers a lot of preferences, options, and plug-ins, Empathy's preferences are rather spartan. The user just cannot personalize a lot in Ubuntu's new default IM client. For example, if someone sends a message, the notification icon at the right of the top GNOME panel shows an icon, on which the user has to click to see the window with the message. There is no possibility to have this message window pop up automatically on an incoming message. That may be fine for the average user that just wants to chat occasionally, but your author will stay with Pidgin for now.
Ubuntu One
With the Ubuntu One web service, Canonical has added the possibility to synchronize different Ubuntu computers. This is ideal for people that have an Ubuntu netbook or laptop that they use regularly in their garden or on a terrace. They can synchronize their mobile Ubuntu environment with their Ubuntu desktop at home. The first time a user launches Ubuntu One in the GNOME menu "Applications / Internet", the user gets referred to the Launchpad web site to create a free account. Then the computer gets added to the Ubuntu One account.
The free account gives access to 2 GB storage space on the Ubuntu One server (with proprietary server side software). By paying a monthly fee of $10, this is extended to 50 GB. After registration, an Ubuntu One applet appears in the top GNOME panel and Nautilus shows a directory Ubuntu One inside the home directory. Every file transferred to the Ubuntu One directory gets uploaded transparently to the Ubuntu One servers and synchronized with other Ubuntu computers added to the account. All in all, this seems to work, but there are alternatives that cost the same and provide the same functionality, while also supporting other platforms, such as Dropbox (though its server side is also closed source). With a bit of effort, Ubuntu One also synchronizes Tomboy notes, Evolution contacts, and Firefox bookmarks. Synchronization of these types of data is based on the open source document-oriented database CouchDB.
Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud
In Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), Canonical started focusing on cloud computing. For this purpose, the company collaborated with the Eucalyptus project, which brought an Amazon EC2-style private cloud within the reach of every Ubuntu user. Eucalyptus made it possible to investigate cloud possibilities inside a company, without the need to deploy the applications on external servers at Amazon. Half a year ago, we took a look at the development of Eucalyptus and how to create a private cloud in Ubuntu 9.04.
However, Eucalyptus was still a technology preview in Jaunty and it had some rough edges. Your author set up a private cloud with Eucalyptus on Jaunty successfully, but it was a rather laborious and not a trivial task. With Karmic Koala, Eucalyptus has been integrated neatly into the distribution and has received the name Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC). Users can even install Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud machines directly from the server CD with the option "Install Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud" in the boot menu. This install has to be done on at least two systems: a cluster (the master server that implements the virtual network and the EC2 and S3 APIs) and one or more nodes (servers with a KVM hypervisor running virtual machines). The server install asks the user about the type of UEC installation. When the cluster is already installed, the installer on the node should detect the running cluster and select "Node" as UEC installation type automatically. This is much more user-friendly than before.
While users had to build their own images for Jaunty, Ubuntu 9.10 includes the first official release of Ubuntu Server images for UEC. In addition, these images also run on Amazon EC2 and have been published to Amazon EC2, where they can be used immediately with no need to download anything. Canonical has even opened a "Cloud Store". From within the web interface of a UEC cluster, the administrator can check a list of official images that Canonical makes available to run on Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud. At the moment, this is limited to 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Ubuntu 9.10 RC Server and a MediaWiki Demo Appliance. An image can be downloaded and installed right from within the web interface.
The growing Eucalyptus tree
Eucalyptus Systems, the company that the Eucalyptus developers founded right after the release of Ubuntu 9.04, has been working closely with Canonical for the development of Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud. As UEC layers Ubuntu-specific technologies atop the generic Eucalyptus cloud platform, much of the collaboration from the part of Eucalyptus Systems focused on helping members of the Canonical UEC development team understand the mechanics of the system. Eucalyptus Systems CTO Rich Wolski gives an example:
However, Eucalyptus Systems doesn't shut out other distributions. They have been working with the Debian community recently to get Eucalyptus into their next release "Squeeze" (6.0). They have also spoken with some of the people associated with openSUSE, Wolski said, adding:
External contributions
Earlier this year Wolski said that the developers were restricting external contributions to bug fixes, because they wanted to keep the code base stable in that early phase of development. Because the project's wiki still mentions this restriction, your author asked Wolski when they would accept more external contributions. He answered that they are not quite there, but almost:
Some people have criticized Eucalyptus for a perceived unwillingness to work with outsiders, unless they are Ubuntu. However, Wolski, who stresses that he is speaking for himself and not for the project, strongly objects to this criticism:
Canonical's future in the cloud
It's clear that Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud is a central feature in the Server Edition of Karmic Koala. Beginning with this release, Canonical adds consultancy, online training, support, and management tools. So there's no shortage of professional services for people that want to implement Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud in their company. There are even commercial images on the roadmap for the Cloud Store. This whole cloud ecosystem is one way in which Canonical wants to monetize Ubuntu. However, the basics can all be done for free. Ubuntu One has the same business model: users have a basic storage capacity for free, and can pay for more.
Half a year ago, your author wrote "Canonical wants to do for
cloud computing just the same thing it has done with its desktop operating
system: make it work out-of-the-box and make it easy to deploy.
",
and expressed the hope that the technology would be mature in Ubuntu
9.10. With Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, this hope is definitely fulfilled: it
couldn't be easier to install. And thanks to the excellent online documentation, your
author only needed a couple of hours to run an experiment with his own
private mini-cloud with two Ubuntu machines.
New Releases
FreeBSD 8.0 released
The FreeBSD Project has announced the release of FreeBSD 8.0. "This next major release branch of FreeBSD delivers a large number of new technologies into the hands of an ever-increasing number of users. Key release focuses include wireless networking, virtualization, and storage technology." See the release notes for more information.
Linux Mint 8 released
The Linux Mint team has announced the release of Linux Mint 8 "Helena". "The 8th release of Linux Mint comes with numerous bug fixes and a lot of improvements. In particular Linux Mint 8 comes with support for OEM installs, a brand new Upload Manager, the menu now allows you to configure custom places, the update manager now lets you define packages for which you don't want to receive updates,the software manager now features multiple installation/removal of software and many of the tools' graphical interfaces were enhanced."
Mandriva presents Mandriva Flash 2010
Mandriva has announced the availability of Mandriva Flash 2010. "Mandriva Flash 2010 is the ideal companion for travellers. You can now take your desktop wherever you want with Mandriva Flash. Plug in the USB key, boot up your PC and within a handful of seconds the Mandriva Linux 2010 Operating System is ready for work, listening to music or surfing the Internet. Mandriva Linux 2010 is completely operational, needs no installation and fits into your pocket."
Tiny Core Linux 2.6 Is Now Available (Softpedia)
Softpedia covers the release of Tiny Core Linux 2.6. "Tiny Core Linux is a very small (10 MB) minimal Linux GUI Desktop. It is based on Linux 2.6 kernel, Busybox, Tiny X, and Fltk. The core runs entirely in ram and boots very quickly. Also offered is Micro Core a 6 MB image that is the console based engine of Tiny Core. CLI versions of Tiny Core's program allows the same functionality of Tiny Core's extensions only starting with a console based system."
Distribution News
Debian GNU/Linux
Debian 6.0 Squeeze to be released in summer 2010 (The H)
While the headline overstates the commitment to a northern hemisphere summer release of Debian "Squeeze" (6.0), there is an interesting tidbit in The H's brief article: "Due to the postponement of the final release until the summer, the code freeze has now also been rescheduled for March 2010. This thwarts Mark Shuttleworth's efforts to synchronise the release cycles of Debian and the Debian-based Ubuntu distribution, at least for Squeeze — the release of the next version 10.04 of Ubuntu is planned for April 2010."
Invitation to the BSP in Mönchengladbach (Germany)
There will be a Bug-Squashing-Party in Mönchengladbach, Germany on the weekend of 22-24 January, 2010 to help squash release critical bugs in squeeze (Debian 6.0). "Even if you are not a Debian developer, but are interested in helping Debian to get all the open release critical bugs fixed, you're welcome at the BSP. There will be enough developers around to sponsor your NMUs."
Bits from the NM people
Click below for the latest news from the Debian New Maintainers team. "The NM process is always short of application managers. Applicants are waiting to get one assigned. As usual, we invite experienced DDs to join up and help out. Remember that AM work is a fun and interesting way to learn more about Debian and the people involved! It's always better to have AMs waiting rather than NMs."
Fedora
Callaway: Chromium: Why it isn't in Fedora yet as a proper package
Fedora engineering manager Tom "spot" Callaway looks at Chromium development on his blog. Specifically, he has been building Chromium from source and makes it available for Fedoras 10-12, but hasn't packaged it up officially; in the blog post, he outlines reasons why. "Google is forking existing FOSS code bits for Chromium like a rabbit makes babies: frequently, and usually, without much thought. Rather than leverage the existing APIs from upstream projects like icu, libjingle, and sqlite (just to name a few), they simply fork a point in time of that code and hack their API to shreds for chromium to use. This is akin to much of the Java methodology, which I can sum up as 'I'd like to use this third-party code, but my application is too special to use it as is, so I covered it with Bedazzler Jewels and Neon Underlighting, then bury my blinged out copy in my application.'. A fair amount of the upstream Chromium devs seem to have Java backgrounds, which may explain this behavior, but it does not excuse it. This behavior should be a last resort, not a first instinct."
Fedora Elections
Fedora elections are underway for seats on the Fedora Advisory Board, Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee and Fedora Engineering Steering Committee. Voting will open from December 8 - 15, 2009. A questionnaire with answers from the candidates is now available.Fedora's upcoming multi-day outage
The Fedora Project has announced a multi-day outage for some services. "Starting on December 12th The Fedora Project will start to move several servers, disk trays and related hardware from our current hosting location to another. This move is planned to be completed on December 15th and will ultimately provide better hosting facilities and room for growth."
Mandriva Linux
Noteworthy changes in Mandriva Cooker
Frederik Himpe takes a look at some changes in Mandriva Cooker (the development branch). "The Sysklogd system log daemon has been replaced by rsyslog. Rsyslog is a very modern system logger with very active development. It includes advanced features such as storing logs in SQL databases, e-mail warnings on certain log messages, support for sending syslog messages over TCP and many more. Users of sysklogd will be automatically migrated to rsyslog."
SUSE Linux and openSUSE
OpenSUSE sacks SaX2
Novell has announced that its much-loved "SaX2" tool for the configuration of the X Window System will be retired as of the openSUSE 11.2 release. "Novell has decided to no longer invest in development maintenance of SaX2 but instead rely on the new automatic and dynamic configuration features and invest in desktop applets to perform dynamic changes." Some members of the openSUSE community are rather vocally unhappy with this decision. Novell seems determined to follow this course (similar to what other distributors are doing), but points out: SaX2 is free software and others are welcome to keep it going.
Ubuntu family
Giving up the GIMP is a sign of Ubuntu's mainstream maturity (ars technica)
ars technica looks at a decision from the recent Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) to remove the GIMP from the default install. "An important part of the 10.04 roadmap that emerged during UDS is a tentative plan to remove the GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Tool, from the default Ubuntu installation. Although this decision is viewed by some as controversial, the reasoning behind it is valid. The removal of a niche professional graphics editing tool reflects Ubuntu's growing maturity as a mainstream platform for regular users."
Distribution Newsletters
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 331
The DistroWatch Weekly for November 30, 2009 is out. "Small-screen displays have become an interesting playground for developers of Linux-based systems where creative engineers let their imagination run freely. Whether this is good or bad depends on many factors, but the fact remains that this freedom has already resulted in plenty of experimental interface designs which are exciting to check out and test. They diverge significantly from that "standard" desktop design pioneered by a large software company and provide a surprise or two along the way. Read our first-look review of Kubuntu Netbook Edition 9.10 for one such promising, though still incomplete, netbook interface design. In the news section, FreeBSD brings a variety of new features in the latest version of its popular operating system, Mandriva worldwide user communities complement the official products with a range of additional options, and Debian project leader hints at a possible release of "Sqeeze" in the middle of next year. Also in this issue, a link to an Ubuntu Netbook Remix optimisation guide, a preliminary development and release roadmap of openSUSE 11.3, and an update to the latest changes in Mandriva's development branch. Happy reading!"
Fedora Weekly News 204
The Fedora Weekly News for November 29, 2009 is out. "We start this week's issue off with a couple additional Fedora 12 reviews to highlight, and also lots of Fedora Project Election information to inform and engage the user community! In news from the Fedora Planet this week, comparing the Nokia Maemo and Google Android platforms, thoughts on sustainable open source engineering, and a review of the 0.4 Eclipse Linux Tools. In the Quality Assurance beat, much detail on this past week's QA team activities, and an interesting Fedora 12 QA retrospective. Ambassadors news this week gives us an event report from the recent New York State Association for Technology and Computers in Education meeting. In Translation happenings, 0-day Fedora 12 translation polishing, and new members to the Fedora Localization Project for Italian, Sinhala and German. The Art/Design beat shows off discussion on an interactive design hackfest and wrapup of screenshots for a Fedora Game Spin. This issue wraps up with security patches released last week for Fedora 10, 11 and 12. Please enjoy FWN 204!"
Openmoko Community Updates
The Openmoko Community Updates for November 25, 2009 are available. Topics include tangogps 0.9.9, mokopod 0.1.5.1, Babiloo 2.0.9-3, and more.OpenSUSE Weekly News/99
This issue of the OpenSUSE Weekly News covers Dominique Leuenberger: Compiz 0.8.4, Michal Hrusecky: Status Report - Media Wiki Theme, Linux.com/Joe Brockmeier: Vim 101: A Beginner's Guide to Vim, Pavol Rusnak: Fedora and openSUSE Community Engagement, Nmap 5.10BETA1 released, and more.Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #170
The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for November 28, 2009 is out. "In this issue we cover: Jono Bacon: Introducing Lernid, Mackenzie Morgan Interview, New Developers, LoCo News: Maryland, Massachusetts, Chile & Nicaragua, Ubuntu Forums Tutorial of the Week, The Planet: Laura Czajkowski, Andres Rodriguez, Amber Graner, & Harald Sitter, Full Circle Magazine #31."
Distribution meetings
FOSDEM 2010
There will be a 'distribution mini-conference' at FOSDEM 2010. "For those of you who were waiting for a call for talks from me on this subject, it's not really coming. However, if you think your talk may be of some interest to people working on distributions (Debian or non-Debian), your talk should be welcome."
Distribution reviews
Linux Mint 8 (Helena) Released (ZDNet UK Blog)
J.A. Watson covers the release of Linux Mint 8. "It is important to note that a good part of Linux Mint could be reproduced by a moderately experienced user installing Ubuntu and then adding the appropriate packages from Synaptic or whatever software repository or services - but that is exactly one of the major advantages of Linux Mint, you install it, and you have a system that includes many/most/all of the most popular packages."
Linux Mint 8 - Review and Commentary (Linux Critic)
Linux Critic has a review of Linux Mint 8 with plenty of screenshots. "Founded by Clement Lefebvre, this Irish based distribution has taken the linux world by storm and turned into one of the most popular user friendly distributions on the market. Linux Mint has turned into such a popular system, in fact, that a lot of people wait for it to come out as opposed to adopting the latest Ubuntu release."
Concurrent unhoods RedHawk Linux 5.4 (The Register)
The Register takes a look at RedHawk Linux 5.4. "With RedHawk Linux 5.4, announced Tuesday, Concurrent is slipping into Linux 2.6.31 and offering full compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 update 4. That's because RedHawk is a tweak on Red Hat, adding real-time extensions and other goodies cooked up by Concurrent to make it different from Red Hat's own Enterprise MRG real-time Linux."
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