Ubuntu Archive

"While still far from perfect, Ubuntu 6.10 'Edgy Eft' is both an improvement over the so-called 'long-term support' release and a decent operating system in its own right. It's in a much better place than any other free-of-charge operating system has been before now, but I don't think it'll give any commercial operating systems a run for their money."

Mark Shuttleworth is trying to entice OpenSUSE developers to join Ubuntu. "Novell's decision to go to great lengths to circumvent the patent framework clearly articulated in the GPL has sent shockwaves through the community. If you are an OpenSUSE developer who is concerned about the long term consequences of this pact, you may be interested in some of the events happening next week as part of the Ubuntu Open Week."

"Casual Ubuntu users may have registered surprise when they first booted the distribution's Edgy Eft release this past October. Back at the beginning of the Edgy development cycle, much was made of the formation of a new, dedicated Art Team to develop a fresh look for the backgrounds and splash screens of the startup process. But when Edgy hit the shelves, the artwork was scarcely different from that of its predecessor, Dapper Drake."

Ubuntu developers and other interested parties from all over the world have swarmed to Google's offices in Mountain View this week for the Ubuntu Developer Summit to plan out the next release of Ubuntu. In total, about 140 people have registered for the summit. According to Jane Silber, Canonical's COO, only 30 of the attendees are actually employed by Canonical, the company that sponsors Ubuntu. The remainder of the participants include members of the Ubuntu community, representatives of upstream projects, and other parties who have an interest in how Ubuntu is developed.

Edgy. Eft. Review. "Dapper Drake was a huge step forward since Breezy Badger. Edgy Eft doesn't impress as much but still brings its lot of innovations and improvements over its predecessor; its artwork is a tiny bit better, its software selection is more up to date, its package manager is better than ever and its new upstart makes it really fast to boot. Of course it doesn't have the desktop and the artwork of Fedora Core 6, or the integrated 3D effects of Mandriva 2007, but it's still in my opinion the best Linux distribution there is and as with every single one of its releases, it just proved it once more."

For you review freaks out there: "All the Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) reviews you can dream of. So far reviews from Linux.com, Arsgeek, Lunapark6, Element14, mo79online, sencer.de, Manufactured Enviroments, first impressions at Technical Itch and the Ubuntu forums and screenshot tours at TheCodingStudio and several blog entries."

Another review of Ubuntu 6.10: "While using Edgy Eft during the RC series and now the final version, I can say that Edgy Eft is a sweet little operating system that gets the job done. Unfortunately there isn't anything in the standard install of Edgy Eft that will make people drool with delight or think it is truly 'Edgy'. Nevertheless Ubuntu 6.10 is noteable for its solid group of features and consistent amount of polish throughout." Update: One more review, here.

The Ubuntu team announced the release of Ubuntu 6.10, codenamed 'Edgy Eft'. Highlights for the desktop include GNOME 2.16, Firefox 2.0, OpenOffice.org 2.0.4, Gaim 2.0 and two new applications, F-Spot and Tomboy. This release also features a pre-release of the upcoming LTSP-5, as well as the usual updates of the base system, with GCC 4.1.1, Glibc 2.4 and Linux 2.6.17. There's a screenshot tour already, while Mark Shuttleworth commented on the news concerning Oracle and Linux. Update: The first review in what will probably become a long list. Update II: Kubuntu 6.10 is released as well.

Canonical is the 65-employee start-up behind a popular version of Linux called Ubuntu. The company is betting that it can win a place in the market using a strategy that dominant Linux seller Red Hat has dropped. Red Hat offers two versions of Linux: Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Fedora Core is free, but relatively untested and unsupported by Red Hat, while RHEL is supported and certified, but must be purchased. With Canonical's Ubuntu, however, the free and supported versions are identical - the approach Red Hat abandoned in 2003.

"Is Ubuntu an operating system? Last week at EuroOSCON, Mark Shuttleworth gave the closing keynote outlining what he believes are the major struggles faced by the open-source/free-software community. During his talk, it became clear that Ubuntu is trying to achieve a radical shift in the software world. Ubuntu isn't trying to be a platform for mass-market application software: it is trying to be the primary provider of both the operating system and all the application software that a typical user would want to run on his machine. Most Linux distributions are like this, and I think it is a dangerous trend that will stifle innovation and usability."

"This tutorial shows how to install and configure the Zenoss network monitoring tool on a Ubuntu 6.06 system. Zenoss is a free open-source tool that allows you to monitor servers, applications, networks, power, etc. regarding their configuration, availability, performance, and so on. It can also alert you by email if it finds inappropriate actions."

The Ubuntu team has released the first beta of Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft. It includes GNOME 2.16, OpenOffice.org 2.0.4 RC2, Xorg 7.1, Linux kernel 2.6.17, and a new init system. Download locations are listed in the release announcement. Update: Kubuntu 6.10 beta 1 has been released as well. Other than that, Ubuntu is taking over the BBC. And all they show is underwear. I don't get it.

With a slight delay, the next development snapshot of Ubuntu Edgy Eft has been released. As usual, it is available for x86, PowerPC, and AMD64. Edgy Eft's final release is scheduled for coming October. The proposed goals for Edgy Eft are listed on Ubuntu's Launchpad.

MadPenguin takes a short look at Automatix, and concludes: "While we would use Automatix on a regular basis, we think this utility is taking new steps into a much needed territory. In the ease of today's latest program managers, we still run into those that still can’t seem to use these simple package installation solutions. With any luck, endeavors such as Automatix will help to address this need, and once again prove just how far desktop Linux has actually come."