Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 877

Ubuntu Weekly News
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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 877 for the week of January 27 - February 1, 2025.

In this Issue

  • Ubuntu developer discussion moving to Matrix
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Hot in Support
  • Other Meeting Reports
  • Upcoming Meetings and Events
  • FOSDEM 2025: How Ubuntu Entered the Matrix
  • Ubuntu Nepal’s First Official Meetup After Reboot : Focus on UbuCon Asia 2025
  • LoCo Events
  • Linux App Summit 2025 announcement and CFP!
  • Canonical News
  • In the Press
  • In the Blogosphere
  • In Other News
  • 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 developer discussion moving to Matrix

Robie Basak, on behalf of the Ubuntu Technical Board, alerts developers that from “1 March 2025 the primary official realtime communications channels for Ubuntu developers will be on Matrix”. Details, including how to ‘get started’ on Matrix, are provided.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2025-January/001365.html

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open: 143997 (+10)
  • Critical: 305 (0)
  • Unconfirmed: 73730 (+7)

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

Translations

  • German: 86.90% (45979/178)
  • Ukrainian: 86.24% (48298/1393)
  • French: 84.88% (53091/6420)
  • Swedish: 80.33% (69059/787)
  • Spanish: 77.26% (79824/4602)

Hot in Support

Ubuntu Community Discourse Trending Top 5 Threads

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

Ask Ubuntu Top 5 Questions

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

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

FOSDEM 2025: How Ubuntu Entered the Matrix

This post gives details of the FOSDEM 2025 talk titled “How Ubuntu Entered the Matrix”. We’re given details of the talk, told it will cover a wide area including governance, moderation and server operations. The talk will end in a Q&A session and is presented by Schiano Grégory, Merlijn Sebrechts and Nils Büchner.

https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6061-how-ubuntu-entered-the-matrix/

Ubuntu Nepal’s First Official Meetup After Reboot : Focus on UbuCon Asia 2025

Aaditya Singh relates the activities in this the “first meetup after the reboot (After 13 long years)”. Nepal grows in adopting open source and Ubuntu features prominently in the country. The agenda focused on plans for UbuCon Asia 2025. Photos are provided of the participants with thanks to GNOME Nepal’s collaboration.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-nepals-first-official-meetup-after-reboot-focus-on-ubucon-asia-2025/54371

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

Linux App Summit 2025 announcement and CFP!

Mauro Gaspari alerts us to the Call for Proposals for the Linux App Summit 2025 being open, with deadline being February 15, 2025. Along with some brief details, we’re given links for those needing more. We’re also told Ubuntu Members who contribute to the event can make CDA requests for sponsorship.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/linux-app-summit-2025-announcement-and-cfp/54280

Canonical News

In the Press

Ubuntu upgrade had our old Nvidia GPU begging for a downgrade

Liam Proven writes about the Reg FOSS desk downgrading Ubuntu ‘to restore graphics acceleration’. Liam gives us the how and why this was done. We’re reminded of prior articles about the issue, and that it doesn’t just impact Ubuntu. This article mostly covers what they did to downgrade to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on a test Thinkpad. A brief discussion on Nvidia support is given, especially with how this impacts users of older cards.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/29/nvidia_gpu_ubuntu_downgrade/

In the Blogosphere

Linux 6.14 To Switch From SHA1 To SHA512 For Module Signing By Default

Michael Larabel writes that the Linux kernel is now switching to SHA-512 as default (for signing kernel modules). Details and a link are provided if you need more.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.14-Modules

Completed NTSYNC Driver Merged For Linux 6.14: “Should Make Many SteamOS Users Happy”

Michael Larabel tells us of recent Linux 6.14 kernel merge requests relating to the NTSYNC driver which may help, among others, some SteamOS users. We’re given details, a quote from Greg Kroah-Hartman, and some stats that show improvements, Michael reminds us the 6.14 kernel should be seen in Ubuntu 25.04.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.14-Char-Misc-NTSYNC

GNOME Triple Buffering Now Works With Direct Scanout & VRR

Michael Larabel updates us on triple buffering with regards GNOME 48, which is nearing its feature freeze. Quoting Canonical’s Daniel van Vugt in a status update, we’re told they’re down to 3 of the 10 issues in last week, Both Debian and Ubuntu are carrying patches, even if the code doesn’t make it into GNOME 48 before its freeze deadline.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-Triple-Buffering-Direct

Ubuntu’s Snapdragon X1 Elite Laptop Support Enables Experimental Hardware Video Decode

Michael Larabel reminds us Canonical has been maintaining ISOs of Ubuntu Linux for Snapdragon X1 Elite laptops, and now tells us that new ISOs are available for testing. Brief mention is made of this work & new enabled features. Plus details are provided on downloading the latest ISO for testing if we have this newer hardware.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Snapdragon-More-Features

GNOME Display Control Utility “gdctl” Merged For GNOME 48

Michael Larabel tells us gdctl has been merged into GNOME’s Mutter just ahead of feature freeze for GNOME 48. We’re told what this tool can do, and given a link to the merge request.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-Display-Control-gdctl

Bcachefs Lands More Bug Fixes In Linux 6.14

Michael Larabel blogs about a “big set of Bcachefs updates” that are now merged into the Linux 6.14-rc1 kernel. We’re reminded that changes were missed in the 6.13 kernel, but the code in 6.14 is even better, though it’s still an “experimental copy-on-write file-system”. We’re given a quote from Ken Overstreet’s pull request, and mention is made of some Bcachefs tools that will help with performance problems.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.14-Bcachefs-Fixes

GNOME 48 Switches Over To “Adwaita Sans” As Default Font

Michael Larabel informs us the default font for GNOME 48 has changed. We’re told GNOME used Cantarell for “a decade and a half” but will now use Adwaita Sans. With a link to the merge, we are shown some screenshots reminding us what Adwaita Sans looks like. We’re given some additional details.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-48-Adwaita-Sans

In Other News

The Debian Publicity Team will no longer post on X/Twitter.

This post from Debian Publicity alerts users that Debian Publicity will no longer post to X/Twitter. Reasons for this decision are provided, and alternate places for news on Debian are listed.

https://micronews.debian.org/2025/1738154246.html

Other Articles of Interest

Featured Audio and Video

Ubuntu Portugal Podcast: Episode 334 - GameDev, com Soficious e Rafael Gonçalves - II

“Continuamos a conversa com Sofia «Soficious» e Rafael Gonçalves sobre o mundo do desenvolvimento de jogos: porque é que os sistemas operativos Livres são muito mais espectacularmente superiores em tudo, maravilhosos, incríveis e inexcedíveis na sua magnificência radiosa? E porque é que é muito melhor trabalhar com Software Livre e regras de acessibilidade no desenvolvimento de jogos? Como é que o Ubuntu combinado com Proton pode libertar os prisioneiros de SO proprietários? E porque é que há pessoas que ainda são reféns da Adobe e imploram por misericórdia? Tudo isso e muito mais, neste episódio! .”

https://podcastubuntuportugal.org/e334/

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

As always you can find more Ubuntu news and announcements at:

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
  • 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/

Or get involved with the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter team! We always need summary writers and editors, if you’re interested, learn more at: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/joining-the-ubuntu-weekly-newsletter-team/40929

Feedback

This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Weekly News Team. If you have a story idea or suggestions for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list at https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/Ubuntu-news-team and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki at https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-weekly-newsletter-ideas/40053/. If you’d like to contribute to a future issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, please feel free to edit the appropriate wiki page. If you have any technical support questions, please check https://community.ubuntu.com/help-information/ for more information on where to get help.

Except where otherwise noted, this issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License.

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