Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 869

Ubuntu Weekly News
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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 869 for the week of December 1 - 7, 2024.

In this Issue

  • Ubuntu Forums Migration
  • Ubuntu Foundations 25.04 - Plucky Puffin Roadmap
  • Ubuntu Membership Board 2024 elections are open!
  • 2024 Ubuntu Technical Board - Voting Cycle Extension
  • Welcome New Members and Developers
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Hot in Support
  • LXD: Weekly news #374
  • Rocks Public Journal; 2024-12-06
  • Other Meeting Reports
  • Upcoming Meetings and Events
  • Ubuntu Portugal: November 2024 activity report
  • UbuCon Asia 2025 (Aug 30-31) is now looking for sponsors
  • LoCo Events
  • LXD: Time to pick a snap channel
  • Landscape: Feedback on the new web portal
  • Call for testing: ubuntu-frame, mir-test-tools (Mir 2.19 update)
  • PSA: updating the default tracks to 24 (ubuntu-frame*, *-test-tools)
  • Introducing Launchpad Bug Templates
  • Documentation, development and design for technical authors
  • Other Community News
  • Canonical News
  • In the Blogosphere
  • Other Articles of Interest
  • Featured Audio and Video
  • Updates and Security for Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04, 24.04, and 24.10
  • And much more!

General Community News

Ubuntu Forums Migration

“The Support and Help Section of Ubuntu Discourse is now officially alive and open for business. If you wish to start a support thread, please click on this link: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/welcome-to-support-and-help/49951. The first two links lead to wiki pages. Or, click on whichever of the other links is most appropriate for your issue, and a new page will open with a “Create a new Topic” message editor already open for you. Other useful links to Ubuntu Discourse are: Ubuntu Discourse home page (https://discourse.ubuntu.com/) and Ubuntu Discourse Support and Help section (https://discourse.ubuntu.com/c/support-and-help/306). You are reminded that it will no longer be possible to start new threads on this old site with effect from December 9th 2024 or thereabouts. However, forum members will still be able to post to existing threads for a short period so that those starting threads just before the transition are not left without support. Thereafter, this site will become read only on January 9th 2025.” A special thanks to all Staff (past and present) which include: ajgreeny, Bashing-om, CharlesA, coffeecat, deadflowr, DuckHook, Frogs Hair, howefield, Irihapeti, jeremy31, oldfred, QIII, slickymaster, wgarcia, wildmanne39, and all past staff. Thank you all.

https://ubuntuforums.org/forum.php | https://fridge.ubuntu.com/2024/12/08/ubuntu-forums-migration/

Ubuntu Foundations 25.04 - Plucky Puffin Roadmap

Matthieu Clemenceau, the Engineering Director of the Foundations Team, writes about Ubuntu 25.04 Plucky Puffin and what the Foundations team is working on. First up are performance improvements, LLVM, dracut, apt, and more updates. This is a detailed post that includes some screenshots, and gives us additional specific details other than those we’d been given by Oliver Smith of the Desktop team.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-foundations-25-04-plucky-puffin-roadmap/50695

Ubuntu Membership Board 2024 elections are open!

Merlijn Sebrechts announces the elections for the Ubuntu Membership Board are now open. We’re told all Ubuntu members are eligible to vote, and registered users should have received an email. Voting ends December 22, 2024. More details, including how to seek help with issues are provided.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-membership-board-2024-elections-are-open/50803

2024 Ubuntu Technical Board - Voting Cycle Extension

Merlijn Sebrechts tells us the voting cycle for the Ubuntu Technical Board will be extended by one month. We’re told there are “many more candidates than positions” so this will give more time for discussion. The updated timetable for the election is given.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/call-for-nominations-2024-ubuntu-technical-board/50081/9

Welcome New Members and Developers

Congratulations, Andrew! Thank you for your continued contributions to Ubuntu, and welcome back to the team!

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open: 145108 (-295)
  • Critical: 310 (+1)
  • Unconfirmed: 73665 (-9)

As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started, please see: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad

Translations

  • German: 86.88% (46048/155)
  • Ukrainian: 86.22% (48360/1448)
  • French: 84.85% (53199/6602)
  • Swedish: 79.86% (70710/989)
  • Spanish: 76.91% (81059/5075)

Hot in Support

Ask Ubuntu Top 5 Questions

Ask (and answer!) questions at: https://askubuntu.com/

Ubuntu Community Discourse Trending Top 5 Threads

Find more support at: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/c/support-and-help/306

Ubuntu Forums Top 5 Threads

Find more support at: https://ubuntuforums.org/

Meeting Reports

LXD: Weekly news #374

The highlight of the past week was the release of LXD 6.2 . Additionally, LXD received several bug fixes and a new feature that allows listing images from all projects.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/weekly-news-374/50474

With the new LXD versions fresh off the press, now is a good time to evaluate if you are on the right snap channel for your needs.

Rocks Public Journal; 2024-12-06

The OCI user for all rocks is now a UID. When using run-user in Rockcraft, the value that is embedded into the OCI configuration of the rock will, from now on, be a UID instead of the username. See why.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/rocks-public-journal-2024-12-06/50730

Other Meeting Reports

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Times shown are UTC unless otherwise specified. For more details and farther dates please visit: https://fridge.ubuntu.com/calendars/ | https://discourse.ubuntu.com/upcoming-events

LoCo News

Ubuntu Portugal: November 2024 activity report

Diogo Miguel Constantino Dos Santos provides us with a November 2024 activity report in both Portuguese and English. We’re told of the Ubuntu Portugal Podcasts episodes E323-E326 with a brief summary of each, then that monthly meetups at Sintra have returned. Mention is made of the Centro Linux event in November, which was dedicated to Ubuntu 24.10 (and flavors). Planning for future events is then touched on, including Ubucon Portugal 2025, an installation party in Lisbon, and more. Photos are included.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/november-2024-activity-report/50433

UbuCon Asia 2025 (Aug 30-31) is now looking for sponsors

Youngbin Han updates us on UbuCon Asia 2025, which is scheduled for November 30-31, 2025 in Kathmandu, Nepal. We’re told sponsors are sought, with this post outlining some details of the event, and various sponsorship options available. We’re given many links should we need more details, plus an email address.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubucon-asia-2025-aug-30-31-is-now-looking-for-sponsors/50630

LoCo Events

The following LoCo team events are currently scheduled in the next two weeks:

Looking beyond the next two weeks? Visit the respective LoCo Team calendar to browse upcoming events.

Please see:

The Hub

LXD: Time to pick a snap channel

Sdeziel1 talks about picking a snap channel in regards to our usage of LXD. We’re reminded of the past standard, and the newer standard of stable channel that provides the LTS version. We’re also told that if using LXD 6.2 containers, we can downgrade them to stable/5.21 LTS for a short time, as no data schema changes currently exist.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/time-to-pick-a-snap-channel/50480

Landscape: Feedback on the new web portal

Yanisa Haley Scherber tells us we can preview the new web portal for Landscape SaaS and self-hosted installs. This thread is also available for feedback.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/feedback-on-the-new-web-portal/50528

Call for testing: ubuntu-frame, mir-test-tools (Mir 2.19 update)

Alan Griffiths informs us that as a result of the latest Mir release (2.19) the mir-test-tools and ubuntu-frame have been updated. We’re told how we can install these to test, told to use them normally, and also told if no problems are reported they’ll be promoted to stable in a week.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/call-for-testing-ubuntu-frame-mir-test-tools-mir-2-19-update/50607

PSA: updating the default tracks to 24 (ubuntu-frame*, *-test-tools)

Michał Sawicz starts by reminding us we’ve had a couple of stable releases using the 24 track, with all documentation updated to core24 its now time to switch the default. We’re told this is a non-breaking change, with current deployments continuing to track the channel they do currently as the change impacts new deployments. A list of the snaps defaulting to tracking 24 are listed; the change takes effect December 11, 2024. Numerous links for more details are provided.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/psa-updating-the-default-tracks-to-24-ubuntu-frame-test-tools/50611

The Planet

Introducing Launchpad Bug Templates

This post by Alvaro Crespo Serrano introduces us to the new Launchpad bug templates that aims to streamline the bug reporting process. We’re introduced to how the templates will work for us, with the plan to extend this further to multiple bug templates per project (its one currently). We’re also told markdown will be introduced.

https://blog.launchpad.net/general/introducing-launchpad-bug-templates

Documentation, development and design for technical authors

Daniele Procida reminds us of Canonical’s approach to documentation, with this post highlighting the role of the technical author. We’re told more technical authors are being hired, outlining how important documentation is in the product, and the broad areas where technical authors are required. Links for those interested are provided.

https://ubuntu.com//blog/documentation-development-and-design-for-technical-authors

Other Community News

Xfce 4.20pre2 released

Alexander Schwinn announces that Xfce 4.20pre2 is now available for download and testing. We’re told the components and versions we’ll find in the release, given links, inclusive to the release notes.

https://mail.xfce.org/pipermail/xfce-announce/2024-December/001461.html

Canonical News

In the Blogosphere

AMDVLK 2024.Q4.2 Released With New Extensions, Other Changes

Michael Larabel writes that AMDVLK 2024.Q4.2 is out, with this the AMD-official open-source Vulkan driver and an alternative to the Mesa RADV driver developed by Valve, Red Hat and the wider open-source community. We’re told this isn’t yet up to Vulkan 1.4, as it is built against Vulkan 1.3.301, but that it is compliant with Vulkan 1.3.9.2 CTS. We’re given some details, and a link to the GitHub release page for more.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMDVLK-2024.Q4.2-Released

Other Articles of Interest

Featured Audio and Video

Ubuntu Portugal Podcast: Episode 327 - Nuvens Ă  Moda da Casa

“Fumando cachimbos em amena cavaqueira depois dos nossos afazeres diários, falámos descontraidamente sobre nuvens domésticas entre nuvens de fumo escaláveis; relembrámos os momentos bem agradáveis vividos no encontro da Comunidade em Sintra e no Centro Linux; trouxemos notícias sobre diapositivos feitos com MARP e Quarto; recordes de abas em Firefox; os últimos «ports» para Ubuntu Touch feitos por heróis nacionais e não falámos de mais coisas porque não havia tempo e o fumo já não deixava ver nada.”

https://podcastubuntuportugal.org/e327/

Ubuntu OnAir: Ubuntu Summit 2024 | Flutter State of The Union

“In this talk, the Mir team at Canonical gives the community an update on the state of Flutter across platforms. They talk through how Canonical continue to contribute to Flutter, provides an update on the current status, discuss the developer API and lay out upcoming work.
About the speakers: The Mir team at Canonical has been working on the display server library for a number of years. That expertise gives them the exact right background to grow a cross-platform desktop application development environment.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-GdfzEVq8k

Ubuntu OnAir: Ubuntu Summit 2024 | How to build and test your snaps automatically using GitHub

“In this workshop, Soumyadeep Ghosh (Member of the Snapcrafters team) and Canonical’s Snapcraft experts showcase how one can use github actions to automate the building and testing of snaps. They show users how they can use the already created CIs directly, or how they can modify and change those according to their needs. The workshop will also cover how to run vms inside the github runners using ghvmctl and run GUI apps.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmcj-Zjiaoo

The Linux Experiment: Complete history of Ubuntu: a lot of highs, a lot of lows

“Since Ubuntu celebrated their 20 years with 24.10, I felt it was as good a time as any for a little retrospective of Ubuntu, how it rose to prominence among Linux distros, how it fell down over time, and how it’s once again finding its identify and focus:”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=AEc-GE9n_V4

Updates and Security for Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04, 24.04, and 24.10

Security Updates

Ubuntu 20.04 Updates

End of Standard Support: April 2025

Ubuntu 22.04 Updates

End of Standard Support: April 2027

Ubuntu 24.04 Updates

End of standard support: April 2029

Ubuntu 24.10 Updates

End of Life: July 2025

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Archive

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Further News

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Conclusion

Thank you for reading the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter.

See you next week!

Credits

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

  • Krytarik Raido
  • Bashing-om
  • Chris Guiver
  • Wild Man
  • Din Mušić
  • Cristovao Cordeiro - cjdc
  • And many others

Glossary of Terms

Other acronyms can be found at: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/glossary-uwn/42405

Get Involved

The Ubuntu community consists of individuals and teams, working on different aspects of the distribution, giving advice and technical support, and helping to promote Ubuntu to a wider audience. No contribution is too small, and anyone can help. It’s your chance to get in on all the community fun associated with developing and promoting Ubuntu. More on this at: https://community.ubuntu.com/contribute/

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