Ubuntu News: Community Management, Convergence, Criticism, and Imminent LTS Release
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-08 08:30:10 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-08 08:30:10 UTC
Community
I just wanted to let you folks know that I am recruiting for a community manager to join my team at Canonical.
Mobile
Canonical has been working on its vision of complete OS convergence for quite a while now and the first results have already appeared, but it seems that Microsoft is also trying to do the same and it has called it Universal Apps.
The Ubuntu Phone is set to launch this year. With more and more major players getting on board as hardware suppliers, you can bet the darling of Linux mobility will slowly find its way into every market imaginable. The big question mark is the US market. With Android and IOS having a stranglehold on US customers, can this new mobile platform make it? I firmly believe that the Ubuntu Phone not only can be your next mobile device, it should be. I'll give you 10 reasons why.
Server
No, they're not kidding. As Sally Radwan, Canonical's cloud product marketing manager, recently explained, "A few years ago, the cloud team at Canonical decided that the future of cloud computing lies not only in what clouds are built on, but what runs on it, and how quickly, securely, and efficiently those services can be managed. This is when Juju was born; our service orchestration tool built for the cloud and inspired by the way IT architects visualize their infrastructure: boxes representing services, connected by lines representing interfaces or relationships. Juju’s GUI simplifies searching, dragging and dropping a ‘Charm’ into a canvas to deploy services instantly."
Integration
“An example of Ubuntu convergence in action. Here you see the Weather Channel powered Ubuntu weather app first the size of a phone, then a tablet, then desktop, and the content all re-aligns to make the very best use of the space. We then shrink the app back down and everything continues to adjust. All from a single code base,” wrote Jono Bacon on Google+.
I remember, when the good folks at Canonical introduced the Ubuntu tour feature on their website, I wished for there to be a way to access my Ubuntu desktop via a browser for real. Although it is possible to use VNC clients to remotely access your Ubuntu desktop from anywhere including your Android phone, it would be sure good to be able to access your desktop from any computing device without having to install a client side application.
Ubuntu One
Many of us had hoped it was an April Fool's prank. But Ubuntu One will, in fact, no longer be available as of June 1, 2014 and all data will be wiped July 31, 2014. This will leave a great number of Ubuntu users without a cloud service. Fear not, intrepid users, there are plenty of cloud services and tools available – each with native Linux clients – ready and willing to take your Ubuntu One data and keep it in the cloud.
Ubuntu One always struck me as Canonical's attempt to emulate Apple and other companies by offering a cloud-based file storage and music service. I've often wondered how well it was doing in terms of users and if it was making Canonical any money. Alas, Ubuntu One is no more according to the Canonical Blog. So I guess that answers those questions.
Criticism
Canonical got a lot of flak over the years for the decisions regarding its Ubuntu operating system, some of them justified, but most were just unfair. The truth is not in the middle as you might think because there are much bigger interests at play.
Canonical has had a rocky relationship at times with the rest of the open source community. The company has sometimes gone in its own direction and rather blithely disregarded criticism from others in free software. Datamation takes a look at the root of Canonical's problem and thinks that it's more about relationships than it is about specific software issues.
Ubuntu 14.04
Upgrading the Linux kernel and Mesa/X.Org graphics driver components past what Canonical shipped in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and other recent releases of Ubuntu Linux isn't actually that hard... Here's the Phoronix-recommended approach for Linux enthusiasts wishing to upgrade their key software components for yielding better open-source graphics driver performance and features.
For system administrators or those just wishing to dive into the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS kernel to see how it differs from a vanilla Linux 3.13 configuration, Leann Ogasawara of Canonical has posted a mailing list message with various resources that outline the patches they're carrying with their 3.13-based kernel, their kernel configuration, the configuration against Ubuntu 13.10, etc.
Stay tuned for the NVIDIA and Intel results that will accompany the AMD Radeon performance numbers in the days ahead. Overall, the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS open graphics experience is decent with Linux 3.13 and Mesa 10.2-devel although Linux gamers and enthusiasts are encouraged to either use the proprietary drivers or at least upgrade to the latest Linux kernel (3.14+) and Mesa 10.2-devel for the best OpenGL performance and best feature-set.
Ubuntu developers are making constant improvements to Unity8 and Mir, and they are also registering good progress towards implementing new features.
Due to Ubuntu 14.04 shipping with the Linux 3.13 kernel, a specially-crafted "i915_bdw" driver has been introduced for offering Intel Broadwell graphics support in this upcoming Ubuntu Linux release.
Download Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr here. For the first time, every flavour of Ubuntu 14.04 (Desktop, Server, Edubuntu, Lubuntu, etc) has been approved for LTS status, meaning they'll all be supported for a minimum of three years, and some of them will be supported for five.
Code-named Trusty Tahr, 14.04 will be a Long Term Support release, meaning Canonical will support what you get in April for five years.
The next version of the world’s preeminent Linux distro, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, is almost upon us. Late last night, the final beta of 14.04 Trusty Tahr (an African wild goat) was released, with the final build due on April 17. Trusty Tahr is the first long-term support (LTS) build of Ubuntu in two years, and is thus contains a lot of exciting features that thousands (millions?) of Ubuntu 12.04 users can’t wait to get their hands on.
There were hopes that the Linux 3.14 kernel would make it into Ubuntu 14.04 LTS given that it has much better Intel Broadwell graphics support, other new hardware enablement, and a ton of new features. Sadly, it looks like only the Linux 3.13 kernel will be shipped by default in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Fortunately, with the new hardware enablement strategy of Ubuntu Long Term Support releases, in 14.04.1 or 14.04.2 we will see a new kernel (along with Mesa/X components) back-ported from later release series.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- A Week After a Worldwide Windows Outage Microsoft is 'Bricking' Windows All On Its Own, Cannot Blame Others Anymore
- A look back at a week of lousy press coverage, Microsoft deceit, and lessons to be learned
-
- Links 26/07/2024: Hamburgerization of Sushi and GNU/Linux Primer
- Links for the day
- Links 26/07/2024: Tesco Cutbacks and Fake Patent Courts
- Links for the day
- Links 26/07/2024: Grimy Residue of the 'AI' Bubble and Tensions Around Alaska
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 26/07/2024: More Computers and Tilde Hosting
- Links for the day
- Links 26/07/2024: "AI" Hype Debunked and Elon Musk's "X" Already Spreads Political Disinformation
- Links for the day
- "Why you boss is insatiably horny for firing you and replacing you with software."
- Ask McDonalds how this "AI" nonsense with IBM worked out for them
- No Olympics
- We really need to focus on real news
- Nobody Holds the GNOME Foundation Accountable (Not Even IRS), It's Governed by Lawyers, Not Geeks, and Headed by a Shaman Crank
- GNOME is a deeply oppressive institutions that eats its own
- [Meme] The 'Modern' Web and 'Linux' Foundation Reinforcing Monopolies and Cementing centralisation
- They don't care about the users and issuing a few bytes with random characters costs them next to nothing. It gives them control over billions of human beings.
- 'Boiling the Frog' or How Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) is Being Abandoned at Short Notice by Let's Encrypt
- This isn't a lack of foresight but planned obsolescence
- When the LLM Bubble Implodes Completely Microsoft Will be 'Finished'
- Excuses like, "it's not ready yet" or "we'll fix it" won't pass muster
- "An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs"
- The lesson of this story is, if you do evil things, bad things will come your way. So don't do evil things.
- When Wikileaks Was Still Primarily a Wiki
- less than 14 years ago the international media based its war journalism on what Wikileaks had published
- The Free Software Foundation Speaks Out Against Microsoft
- the problem is bigger than Microsoft and in the long run - seeing Microsoft's demise - we'll need to emphasise Software Freedom
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 25, 2024
- IRC logs for Thursday, July 25, 2024
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- Links 26/07/2024: E-mail on OpenBSD and Emacs Fun
- Links for the day
- Links 25/07/2024: Talks of Increased Pension Age and Biden Explains Dropping Out
- Links for the day
- Links 25/07/2024: Paul Watson, Kernel Bug, and Taskwarrior
- Links for the day
- [Meme] Microsoft's "Dinobabies" Not Amused
- a slur that comes from Microsoft's friends at IBM
- Flashback: Microsoft Enslaves Black People (Modern Slavery) for Profit, or Even for Losses (Still Sinking in Debt Due to LLMs' Failure)
- "Paid Kenyan Workers Less Than $2 Per Hour"
- From Lion to Lamb: Microsoft Fell From 100% to 13% in Somalia (Lowest Since 2017)
- If even one media outlet told you in 2010 that Microsoft would fall from 100% (of Web requests) to about 1 in 8 Web requests, you'd probably struggle to believe it
- Microsoft Windows Became Rare in Antarctica
- Antarctica's Web stats still near 0% for Windows
- Links 25/07/2024: YouTube's Financial Problem (Even After Mass Layoffs), Journalists Bemoan Bogus YouTube Takedown Demands
- Links for the day
- Gemini Now 70 Capsules Short of 4,000 and Let's Encrypt Sinks Below 100 (Capsules) as Self-Signed Leaps to 91%
- The "gopher with encryption" protocol is getting more widely used and more independent from GAFAM
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 24, 2024
- IRC logs for Wednesday, July 24, 2024
- Techrights Statement on YouTube
- YouTube is a dying platform
- [Video] Julian Assange on the Right to Know
- Publishing facts is spun as "espionage" by the US government and "treason" by the Russian government, to give two notable examples
- Links 25/07/2024: Tesla's 45% Profit Drop, Humble Games Employees All Laid Off
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 25/07/2024: Losing Grip and collapseOS
- Links for the day