Ubuntu Archive

Sometimes an app isn't there for your architecture. This happens now and then for AMD64. It can be handy to chroot into x86 and symlink to the x86 app afterwards. Also, despite Ubuntu's stability, catastrophic failures do happen, and when they do it is important to have a backup so that your data can be recovered. This HowTo goes over creating an image of your installation so that you can restore your system if needed with all the programs and updates already installed. Elsewhere, Kubuntu Flight 5 was released.

A major, critical bug and possible security threat has been discovered in Ubuntu Breezy. Apparently, the 'root' password (not actually the root password because Ubuntu uses sudo) gets written into the installer's log files in clear text, and can be read by any account on the Ubuntu machine. The bug was first discovered and reproduced on the Ubuntu forums. The bug does not seem to affect Dapper, however, users upgrading from Breezy to Dapper might still be at risk because the log files are not modified. Update: Bug is fixed. Please upgrade.

"I'm writing to propose a six week delay in the release date of Dapper, in order to do additional validation, certification, localisation, and polish. Work towards our feature goals for Dapper is very much on target. However, in some senses Dapper is a 'first' for us, in that it is the first 'enterprise quality' release of Ubuntu, for which we plan to offer support for a very long time. I, and others, would very much like Dapper to stand proud amongst the traditional enterprise linux releases from Red Hat, Debian and SUSE as an equal match on quality, support and presentation." And on a related note, Ubuntu now runs on Sun's UltraSPARC T1 (Niagara) processor too.

"Mark Shuttleworth is the founder of Thawte, the first certification authority to sell public SSL certificates. After selling Thawte to Verisign, Mark moved on to training as an astronaut in Russia and visiting space. Once he got back he founded Ubuntu, the leading GNU/Linux distribution. He agreed on releasing a quick interview to Free Software Magazine." One of the more interesting quotes: "With Ubuntu, it's still too early to say we've been successful. My personal goal is to make the distro sustainable - then there will be a team that pays its own way and can focus on producing the best free software desktop on the planet without my interference!"

"Ubuntu has become increasing popular amongst many Linux users, especially users trying Linux for the first time. Just why is Ubuntu so popular? I'll explore some of its features and distributions this month, including Kubuntu and Edubuntu, and try to find out."

Ubuntu Dapper Drake Flight CD3 has been released. I haven't received the email on ubuntu-devel yet, but the .iso files appear to be up (Ubuntu | Kubuntu). Improvements in this release include an updated installer CD boot splash, X11R7, GNOME 2.13.4, improved and simplified menus, new default desktop panel configuration, some new applications such as XChat-GNOME, a faster live CD, live CD persistence, and more. In addition to software improvements, Launchpad is now officially open for business for all bug tracking.

"With a message dated 14th December 2005 the Ubuntu server team was officially created. This group of programmers has the task of creating a server-specific version of Ubuntu Linux. This is particularly interesting, since up to now the Debian-based distro has been desktop-oriented. That's why I decided to ask some questions to Fabio Massimo Di Nitto, the server team leader."

Jeff Waugh is an employee of Canonical Limited, the firm behind Ubuntu Linux. In his spare time he works on the GNOME window manager program. Jeff formerly was the release manager for GNOME. On November 7, 2005, Jeff Waugh was far away from his native and current home in Australia. He was at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, as part of his BadgerBadgerBadger tour. Jeff offered his insights into GNOME and Ubuntu in a talk titled 'Running with Scissors'.

The second milestone of the development of Ubuntu Linux 6.04 "Dapper Drake" has been reached: There is now a new graphical x86 CD bootloader screen, using gfxboot; default vga16fb resolution changed to 640x400; new udev-based PCMCIA infrastructure supporting the new kernel etc.

"When looking at desktop Linux by itself, any analysis of the subject quickly leads to this question: why do users choose one version over another? There are as many answers for this question as there are users to give them, but ultimately it should boil down to just a few key decisions which must be made. Considering this, it may be surprising to some people to find out how successful Ubuntu Linux has been relative to other distributions."

"In this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, a new Ubuntu derivative called Gnubuntu is mentioned. A little earlier in the announcement a reference to Xubuntu is given. Xubuntu is news to me! I just had to try it. I headed over to the Xubuntu site to figure this thing out. Their Introduction statements is as follows: "The aim of the Xubuntu community project is to provide a nice Ubuntu desktop experience by using Xfce4 as the desktop environment and GTK+ 2 applications wherever possible."

"I have always wondered what is it that makes people embrace Ubuntu over other Linux distributions. After some pondering, it struck me that the unique selling point of Ubuntu is its user friendliness. Ubuntu is a distribution targeted at the non-techie crowd - those that want to get their job done and not spend time tinkering with the OS. And consequently, the developers at Ubuntu have bundled simple easy to use GUI front end tools to achieve common system administration tasks. Here I have put together 10 things in Ubuntu that make a new user's life that much simple."

"One day, while the boss was away, I shoved a spare hard-drive into my computer and installed Ubuntu 5.04. I managed to work for a month and a half before the Boss noticed I was using Linux - and that was only because he happened to glance at my screen. Half a year later, I am still using Ubuntu (now version 5.10) at work and I am more productive than ever."

The Ubuntu Below Zero conference is in full momentum this week and Kubuntu has been prominent throughout. In his opening remarks at the start of the conference Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth announced that he was now using Kubuntu on his desktop machine and said he wanted Kubuntu to move to a first class distribution within the Ubuntu community. Free CDs for Kubuntu through shipit should be available for the next release if the planned Live CD Installer removes the need for a separate install CD.