[sf-lug] good overview of ubuntu, per recap of svlug meeting of thursday 20100107
jim
jim at well.com
Fri Jan 8 08:08:36 PST 2010
as seen on the svlug mailing list, written by grant bowman,
recapping the preceding night's svlug meeting. this strikes
me as an excellent summary of ubuntu in general, with links
to lots of ubuntu-related sites (forums, community, launchpad,
events...; note rick moen's pre-meeting announcement further
down with summary info and more links.)
(svlug is the silicon valley group that meets in the south
bay--links for svlug at bottom.)
-----------------------------------------------------------
Thank you Mark Terranova for presenting on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
last night at svlug! It was a well attended meeting. The information
you used is a great overview of the new features in this version of
Ubuntu released in October.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicKoala/TechnicalOverview
Some of the questions last night had to do with Linux adoption in
general. As Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distributions
right now it's understandable that these questions come up. As
volunteers we tried to field the questions as best we could.
Discussion on these lists is encouraged. Thank you to those from the
audience that helped field some of the questions.
There was a question about the Ubuntu Philosophy last night, what
makes Ubuntu special or different from other distributions. I wanted
to point out the "Ubuntu Promise" from http://www.ubuntu.com :
The Ubuntu promise
* Ubuntu will always be free of charge, along with its regular
enterprise releases and security updates
* Ubuntu comes with full commercial support from Canonical and
hundreds of companies from across the world
* Ubuntu provides the best translations and accessibility features
that the free software community has to offer
* Ubuntu core applications are all free and open source. We want you
to use free and open source software, improve it and pass it on.
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/philosophy
The Code of Conduct was given as a key component of the approach that
Ubuntu as a project takes to working together.
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct Contributors are required to
cryptographically sign this document.
Overall, I feel Ubuntu is the most vocal proponent right now for Linux
on the desktop globally. With it's outreach to end users (such as
translations) and contacts with hardware companies Canonical is
playing a key role. Despite advances, we still have few choices to
purchase computers with Linux preinstalled. US companies such as IBM,
HP, Asus and others are fully aware of Linux but respond to customer
demands more than abstract requests. As we are on the west coast of
the US, the wave of Microsoft business and marketing influence is
difficult to combat without significant resources. No one company
alone (for the foreseeable future) will be able to provide a
significant balancing influence even with more technically functional
solutions available as open source software.
With Ubuntu's roots in South Africa and based the UK the US presence
of Ubuntu has been mostly left to what Ubuntu and Canonical call "the
community" which is much larger in scale and structure compared to
other distributions and follows from Ubuntu's Debian heritage. There
is no US based company backing Ubuntu as there is in the case of
Fedora (Red Hat) and SuSE (Novell). That has effects. The Ubuntu
community has manifested itself in many forms.
* www.ubuntuforums.org is completely community driven, helping users
help other users. Groups of all sorts use the wiki.ubuntu.com pages
for all kinds of uses.
* www.launchpad.net (now running completely open source software)
tries to more effectively bridge software project gaps for hosted
projects and for Ubuntu itself. It has expanded in many ways as a key
technical and social advantage.
* Ubuntu Developer's Summit is a free event for any interested party
to participate. Canonical sponsors a limited number of attendees. It
is held just after each release to plan for the following release in
six months. The Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx release was held in
Dallas, TX from Monday 16 Nov - Friday 20 Nov 2009. All ssessions
have an IRC log and were shoutcasted. Some sessions were video taped.
* https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS-L
* http://summit.ubuntu.com/uds-l/
* http://ubuntu.mirocommunity.com/
* Ubuntu Developer Week - week long IRC event coming up in Feb, 2010
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek
* Ubuntu Open Week - end user week long IRC event coming up in May,
2010 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek
* Community Governance - While Canonical is a company, Ubuntu is an
open project that anyone can participate in.
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes One important part of this
is welcoming new "Ubuntu Members," recognized contributors.
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/newmember The council
structures are well described in (now) Bay Area resident & Canonical
Community Manager Jono Bacon's book available for download under a
Creative Commons license. http://www.artofcommunityonline.org/
Volunteer teams have formed in most US states and many countries world
wide, each with a slightly different focus depending on who's
involved. I think the largest Local Community (or LoCo as they are
called) is in France with legendary launch parties of over 2,000
attendees. In California the LoCo is found at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam on the web and in
#ubuntu-california on the www.freenode.net IRC network where we hold
our meetings every other week.
In talking about Ubuntu I find it hard to convey all these unique
aspects of Ubuntu clearly & quickly to people of different levels of
experience and knowledge of Linux in general and specifically Ubuntu.
Comments welcome.
Regards,
Grant Bowman, Ubuntu Member
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam
> From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 22:16:35 -0800
> Subject: [svlug] [svlug-announce] SVLUG Jan. 6th meeting (Wed.): "Ubuntu Linux"
> WHEN:
>
> Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
> 7pm-9pm
>
>
>
> TOPIC:
> Ubuntu Linux
>
> PRESENTED BY:
> Mark Terranova
>
> TOPIC SUMMARY:
> Mark Terranova will be giving a talk about what is new in Ubuntu
> Linux's newest release - version 9.10 AKA Karmic Koala, and about
> the upcoming 10.4 "Lucid Lynx" release due out in April. He will
> also speak some about his experiences with local tech stuff.
>
> ABOUT THE PRESENTER:
> Mark Terranova (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarkTerranova) is a "West
> Coast Community-Developed-Software guy". Mark has regularly taught
> many types of computer classes, specialising in the benefits of
> Linux and cross-platform software.
>
> He has been involved with spreading Ubuntu for a while, having
> helped organize Ubuntu release parties and other tech events
> that make it fun - using beer, BBQ, and other ways to create a
> fun community - and has spent much time in Portland, Oregon
> working with FreeGeek.org (http://www.freegeek.org/). Their
> unique style helped him learn how to involve more people in
> computing.
>
> This knowledge has helped him in his role as co-founder of
> Gidget Kitchen (GK, http://www.gidgetkitchen.org/):
> "Gidget Kitchen donates computers, generally using Ubuntu,
> to groups and individuals." GK strives to make modern technology
> simple, empowering, and easy for everyone to understand. The only
> requirement is "the ability to play well with others."
>
> Mark blames his interest in technical things and electronics on
> his father Michael: "He gave me a Commodore 64 and helped me get
> my amateur radio license (N6TBD) at an early age".
>
>
> LOCATION:
>
> Symantec
> VCAFE Facility
> 350 Ellis Street (near E. Middlefield Road)
> Mountain View, CA 94043
>
> Directions on how to get there are listed at:
>
> http://www.svlug.org/directions/veritas.php
>
> We've tried our very best for these directions to be accurate.
> If you have any improvements to make, please let SVLUG's volunteers know!
> webmaster at svlug.org
>
> POST-MEETING GATHERING:
>
> If you just can't get enough, a smaller group usually goes to a local
> restaurant/diner after the meeting. We'll announce the restaurant
> selection at the meeting.
>
> We look forward to seeing you there!
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