Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter - Issue 3

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter - Issue 3 for the week of June 11, 2006 - June 17, 2006

You can always find this and other Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issues at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter

Translations: (Romanian)

* Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Server for SUN Sparc64 released * Daily kernel builds for edgy * Bug fixes and security updates * GNOME 2.14.2 in Ubuntu 6.06 * Edgy Usplash testing * Feature Of The Week - Devhelp * and more

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Server for the SUN Sparc64 architecture was released this week. After some additional heroic work by Fabio, Adam and Celso Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Server for SUN Sparc64 is ready for the world. Ubuntu runs super fast on SUNs new Niagara T1000 and T2000 machines. The blog post below even has some very impressive stats:

http://www.stdlib.net/~colmmacc/2006/04/13/more-ubuntu-on-t2000/

For the official announcement see:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2006-June/000087.html

Ben Collins, Ubuntu kernel hacker extraordinaire, has started automated daily builds of the edgy kernel (2.6.17 based). These daily kernel builds will be used to get better results from IBM's ABAT test suite (a set of tests performed on Linux kernel builds using the Automated Basic Acceptance Test program) and enable users to help identify more precise points of regressions during Edgy development. More testing means even more stable kernels.

"No, these are not setup for APT, and never will be. The reason being that I always want people making an effort to use these kernels, not get/install/forget them like they would a normal kernel. You should not be following these kernels like a development cycle, but instead use them for specific testing/debug reasons." - Ben Collins

You can find the daily edgy kernels at:

http://people.ubuntu.com/~bcollins/kernels-daily/

See the announcement for more details about daily kernel builds for edgy:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2006-June/000150.html

"Edgy users may notice that the usplash artwork has changed to a "test card" image; this is to allow us to determine what hardware does with the displayed image.

The four arrows (top, bottom, left and right) of the image should neatly touch the sides of your screen with the image stretched to fill the space.

If this IS NOT what you see, could you take a picture (with a digital camera) and link to it from a reply to this mail.

If you cannot take a picture, please try and describe what you see, in particular note which colour has been picked for any space not used by the test card image.

Thanks," - Scott James Remnant

Security vulnerabilities found in the following packages have been fixed in all affected Ubuntu releases:

* [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-June/000336.html USN-297-1: Thunderbird vulnerabilities] * [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-June/000337.html USN-288-4: dovecot regression fix] * [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-June/000338.html USN-298-1: libgd2 vulnerability] * [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-June/000339.html USN-299-1: dhcdbd vulnerability] * [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-June/000340.html USN-300-1: wv2 vulnerability] * [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-June/000341.html USN-301-1: kdm vulnerability] * [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-June/000342.html USN-302-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities] * [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-June/000343.html USN-297-2: Thunderbird extensions update for recent security update] * [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-June/000344.html USN-303-1: MySQL vulnerability]

'NOTE:' Some security vulnerabilities for both Firefox and Thunderbird still exist in Breezy and Hoary at the moment. This is due to the fact that the code for these applications has changed significantly and the normal security patch process is not appropriate for this situation. We are currently investigating our options to derive the best solution. In the meantime, the Ubuntu Security Notifications for [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-June/000336.html Thunderbird] and [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2006-June/000335.html Firefox] have temporary workarounds that Hoary and Breezy users are recommended to take. Please see the ubuntu-devel thread:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2006-June/018506.html

for the discussion on a permanent solution for these vulnerabilities. We apologize for any inconvenience and will have the issue resolved as quickly as possible.

This week Ubuntu 6.06 LTS has received a fairly significant update in the form of GNOME 2.14.2. GNOME 2.14.2 brings with it a variety of bug fixes, improvements and translation updates. Many of you may have already received this update during the week. If not, go ahead and update your machine now, its a tasty update.

Jonathan Riddell will be talking at UKUUG's Linux 2006 conference in Brighton which runs from Thursday 29th June to Sunday 2nd July at the University of Sussex, Brighton

• http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2006/
• http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2006/programme/abstract-JRiddell-1.shtml

If you are a developer you may often times find yourself scouring the Internet looking for various API references and other technical information you may require while building your software. Sometimes this is the only way to find what you need but for many GNOME applications and libraries you can often find the information your are looking for is readily available via a neat little app called Devhelp. Devhelp consolidates various developer focused documentation into one convenient location so you always know where to find it. To install Devhelp simply install the package named 'devhelp'. Once installed Devhelp is available at Applications → Programming → Devhelp. In addition to the documentation available via Devhelp by default you can install more documentation and even register your own apps documentation for use in Devhelp. Give it a try, it is nice to have all of the information you need in one easy to use location whether you are online or off.

As always you can find more news and announcements at:

http://www.ubuntu.com/news

and

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/

Thank you for reading the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. See you next week!

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

* Matt Galvin * Jerome Gotangco * Jonathan Riddell * And many others

This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Documentation Team. Please feel free to contact us regarding any concerns or suggestions by either sending an email to ubuntu-doc@lists.ubuntu.com or by using any of the other methods on the Ubuntu Documentation Team Contact Information Page.