Fabián Rodríguez

I have taken this post down until further notice. If you want to find out more about Ubuntu, please visit ubuntu.com. Thank you!

Depuis ce matin VMWare a rendu disponible VMWare server dans le dépôt “Commercial” de Canonical. Merci à mon collègue Étienne Goyer qui a fait la révision des packages pour le tuyau, malgré que nous travaillons à 2 mètres de distance je n’en savais rien. VMware propose des produits de virtualisation qui… bof, je vous suggère d’aller voir l’entrée Wikipedia de VMWare pour en savoir plus.

En chercheant sur ubuntu-fr.org je suis tombé sur cet exemple d’utilisation de VMWare server, j’ai donc mise à jour l’information sur l’installation qui s’y trouvait. En gros:

1. Allez chercher un numéro de série d’essai en vous enregistreant sur le site de VMWare
2. Ajoutez le dépôt “commercial” à vos dépôt Ubuntu - consultez les informations sur les dépôts pour les détails. Cherchez le package “vmware-server”:

   

3. Installez le package - n’oubliez pas d’avoir le numéro de série d’essai en main. Lisez attentivement la licence, il s’agît d’un logiciel non-libre dont les conditions d’utilisations sont importantes à connaître:

   

4. Démarrer la console d’accès en allant à l’option Applications > System Tools > VMWare Server Console dans les menus:

   

5. Amusez-vous

En option, téléchargez une des images “appliance” de machines virtuelles existantes.

Since I joined Canonical as a support analyst last November this is going to be my first Ubuntu Developer Summit as an “insider”. We’re going to Spain! I am all excited because this reminds me of Ubuntu Below Zero which took place in Montreal… 2 years ago! Etienne Goyer and I will be representing the brave souls from support, hopefully I’ll be useful in other areas than spanish translation

Here are a few specs we may be participating in:

• WinModem support
• Increase participation in the Ubuntu Hardware Database
• More robust configuration of the X server
• Simple X mode selection
• Provide simple PABX / VOIP capabilities with Asterisk
• Make it easy to use file/partition/disk encryption

I’d be interested in hearing any feedback anyone would have in terms of support for us to bring there and work on. We’ll be primarily attending to share our experience when providing support to actual customers, learn about and contribute to specs related to different aspects of support, and if time permits some other pet peeves Asterisk support is something I’d really love to contribute to, and Etienne’s rapidly improving packaging skills may help a lot in getting this further - he packaged SugarCRM and participated in the review process for VMWare server, Opera and DB2.

Check out the UDS-Sevilla Ubuntu Wiki for more (upcoming) details.

Tiens, en flânant sur le carnet de Michael j’apprends que Catherine Roy nous entretient aussi de ses découvertes et opinions. J’ai rencontré Catherine à plusieurs reprises, je crois que la première fois c’était à W3QC. Sur son carnet, un peu de tout, mais j’apprends toujours quelque chose Ça vaut le détour!

As you may have noticed, the Festival Latinoamericano de Instalación de Software Libre or Free/Open Source Software Latin-American Installfest is taking over the place this coming Saturday April 28^th. Many people will be organizing and attending local events in Colombia.

I have been helping the Ubuntu Colombian LoCo Team becoming an official team (yes, from Montreal!) and I think it’s coming along nicely. There’s been very active discussions on the mailing list about the ethics vs. convenience of supporting and providing proprietary drivers support, different support issues, and of course… where to get Ubuntu labels and the obligatory voting to choose a logo!

Some Colombian Team members like Elkin Botero will be traveling quite a bit to talk about Ubuntu and spread some love, in fact the team will be present in 6 cities no less! Check the Colombian Team Flisol 2007 wiki page for all the details.

I wish all the participants across Latin America a good, friendly & productive day !

I am putting together information that will be included in the official Ubuntu Certified Professional training material, and I thought it would be interesting to make my initial draft available here. Most of this information is already public, while some of it is derived from existing references, such as the Ubuntu releases lifecycles. I like to call this a crash course about support options available for Ubuntu, so if anyone reading this feels there are things that are badly missing, just comment and I’ll gladly revise it - or dig it.

Commercial Support

Canonical Global Support Services are deployed to enable 24×7 support infrastructure. Support requests are handled through telephone and the web. Canonical offers three types of production support: Desktop, Server and Thin Client/Cluster Support.

Canonical Ltd. provides various levels of commercial support for packages in the “main” component, including the Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu releases. Support can also be obtained from a growing network of companies and partners that are listed in the Canonical Marketplace at :
http://www.ubuntu.com/support/commercial/marketplace

Free community support

A range of free support options are also available from the Ubuntu Community, including forums, IRC channels and mailing lists. The Ubuntu Local Community Teams provide multi-language community support. For more details please refer to http://www.ubuntu.com/support

Support lifecycles for Ubuntu releases

Ubuntu desktop and server releases are issued every six months, providing versions including feature and security updates of all applications. Each Ubuntu release is supported and includes free security updates for at least 18 months on the desktop and server.

With the Long Term Support (LTS) version the support lifecycle is extended to three years on the desktop, and five years on the server. Ubuntu versioning is based on year and month of a specific release, ie, 7.04 is for the April 2007 release.

Note: Ubuntu 6.06 LTS is considered to be the same as Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS when updated.

Detailed release announcements are posted on the ubuntu-announce mailing list at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/

Updates policy and stable release updates

Once an Ubuntu release has been completed and published, updates for it are only released under certain circumstances, and must follow a special procedure. Most notably, security updates are backported and feature updates are not available until the next stable release.

Stable release updates (SRU) are automatically recommended to a very large number of users, and so it is critically important to treat them with great caution. Therefore, when updates are proposed, they must be accompanied by a strong rationale and present a low risk of regressions. This includes any community-proposed updates or bugs escalated from commercial support customers.

Free security updates are included for at least 18 months on the desktop and server. With the Long Term Support (LTS) version you get three years support on the desktop, and five years on the server. There is no extra fee for the LTS version, all Ubuntu editions are available on the same free terms. Upgrades to new versions of Ubuntu are also free of charge.

Ubuntu components

The Ubuntu software repository contains thousands of software packages organized into five components, on the basis of the level of support we can offer them, and whether or not they comply with our Free Software Philosophy. The components are called “main”, “restricted”, “universe”, “multiverse” and commercial.

The standard Ubuntu installation is a subset of software available from the main and restricted components. You can install additional software using installation software such as Synaptic Package Manager or Aptitude. Other components are added by editing the /etc/apt/sources.list file. See “man sources.list” for more information on editing the sources.list file.

Supported packages

There are several CD and DVD versions of Ubuntu available. All versions are basically a selection of specific packages put together on the same media for convenience. Packages that are included are organized by groups called Seeds. There are seven primary seeds:

1. Minimal
2. Boot
3. Standard
4. Desktop
5. Ship
6. Live
7. and Supported

The minimal, boot, standard, desktop, and either ship or live seeds go onto our CDs and the “Supported” packages are available from the FTP site. “Supported” in this context means any needed packages that other packages depend on but can’t fit on the CD/DVD.. Seeding a package pulls all of its dependencies into the appropriate part of the archive and ensures everything needed to build that package is at least placed in “Supported”.

You can view the current seeds and the current full list of packages for them at:
http://www.ubuntu.com/support

Ubuntu QC invite à un petit 5 à 9 bien informel pour se rencontrer, discuter et surtout comme prétexte pour partager une bonne bière, ou autre ce jeudi 19 avril, à l’occasion de la sortie officielle de la prochaine version d’Ubuntu Linux.

Quand: Jeudi 19 Avril, 17h à 21h
Où:Bar St-Sulpice 3^ème étage, 1680, rue Saint-Denis Montréal, QC H2X 3K6 - Téléphone: (514) 844-9458

Le St-Sulpice est un point d’accès Île-sans-fil, quel heureux hasard

Plusieurs employés du centre global de soutien technique de Canonical à Montréal (dont moi même) seront de la partie, nous offrirons des CD ou DVD de Feisty et des autocollants à ceux qui en voudront. Je veux préciser aussi que ce n’est pas une présence “corpo” officielle, d’ailleurs je vais devoir prendre congé (communautaire) pour y être.