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 <[email protected]> > 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! -- Ubuntu-us-ca mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-ca
