Every six months, we are graced with a new Ubuntu release.  This means, every six months, we get to enjoy release notes, reviews (this recently dugg review is a good read) , new features, bugs, and parties!  These gatherings are a great opportunity to meet other local Ubuntu users.  Release parties are often organized and executed by LoCo teams, making them a perfect opportunity to meet your LoCo and get involved.  Guests and friends are, of course, welcome.

What to expect

• Lots of laughs
• A bit of awkwardness
• Food and beverage
• A stack of Live CDs
• Lots of memories
• Anticipation for the next party and the beginning of a 6 month countdown

Head over to the Ubuntu wiki for a list of release parties around the world.  If you can’t find a party near you, feel free to start your own!  Every party on that list was started by a member of the Ubuntu community who couldn’t find an already-planned party nearby.

I’m guessing that most people reading this blog will already have developed their own answer to this question (or at least to the broader question “Why Linux?”), but as a continued introduction to this blog and to us, I think it’s worthwhile to discuss.

I started using Linux in 2003 at the recommendation of a math professor in college. (Hi, Walt!) I’d been something of a computer enthusiast up to that point, and worked in the computer lab on campus. Walt recommended I use Mandrake as it was, by his estimation, the easiest to install and to use. I had no problems with Mandrake at all: easy to set up, reasonably intuitive (though of course I had questions), and the KDE interface was quite attractive.

After a year of learning and using it, a few things were apparent to me: RPM (or at least Mandrake’s use of it) was unmanageable; burning four CDs for each version was a pain; I wanted something flexible that would update its available software.

I switched from there to Gentoo in mid-2004. What attracted me to it was a powerful and stable package manager and the idea of having everything be compiled from source exactly the way I decide. After two days, my system was up and running. I learned a lot about Linux and my computer while using Gentoo, and it was well worth the experience. I even cut my teeth in C on it.

However, the same customizability that drew me to Gentoo was what made me eager to try something else. Compiling everything from source meant that when I wanted to upgrade to a new version of OpenOffice.org, I had to let it run overnight. Or when I decided to switch my music collection from MP3 to FLAC, it took my computer over a day to recompile all my software to support it.

By mid-2005, I was frustrated with the time it took me to maintain a Gentoo system and was looking for something else. I’d heard about this “Ubuntu” distribution, based on Debian (which still held an elitist and overwhelming air for me) and I tried it out. I had some bizarre problem with ReiserFS, so I couldn’t install Hoary.

I switched to Arch Linux on the recommendation of a friend. Arch ended up being a combination of both worlds: package-based software repositories, a robust but simple package manager, and rolling releases (so I was always up-to-date). The problem with that, however, was that there was much more focus on day-to-day maintenance so it was hard to know when an upgrade would be trivial or significant. It also had a pretty small community, so progress was sometimes slow.

With the release of Breezy gaining a lot of press, I decided to try Ubuntu again. This time, I was sold. Rock solid installation, great mission, and a reliable timeline. I’ve shared my opinion with friends and family, and a dozen or so have switched to it.

Since then, I haven’t looked back. I find that Ubuntu has the right idea in terms of distribution (and that’s important because that’s what Ubuntu is), has the best community, and continually gets better. It has its faults, and I could go into those separately, but overall I genuinely think it’s the best GNU/Linux distribution.

Completely fueled by what I consider to be the best BoF (Birds of a Feather) I’ve ever been to, I’ve made some serious changes in how I interact with the Ubuntu community.  Listening to some of the ‘Rock Stars’ at our relatively small gathering at Ohio LinuxFest, I have been able to determine some of the best ways I can immediately get involved with the community.  Ken described some excellent methods on this topic earlier this week and has given us an outline of things that we can start doing at this very moment.

OLF has come and gone, and for those of you that were there, perhaps you were motivated by the speakers’ tone regarding community and belonging.  For those of you that weren’t there, you’ve been clinging on to recaps from the various sources around the blogosphere and are motivated to do something.  So what are you waiting for?  Go ahead: pick your pony, and mount up.  Specifically, ask yourself at least one of these questions:

1. What’s my favorite software?
2. What’s my favorite feature of that software?
3. What’s my favorite feature in Ubuntu?
4. What software/feature am I really good at using?
5. What’s the coolest plugin, add-in, or package that I just can’t live without?

If you answer any of these, you have just identified a place to start.  Ken told you to get yourself a Launchpad account and get cracking on bugs. Perhaps you really don’t know where you can begin.  I can say that at this point, I’m no developer.  However, I can tell you that I have sat down regularly with my 4-year-old son to take part in the GCompris software bundled with Edubuntu.  I have since subscribed to all bugs in GCompris and I will be popping into the IRC regularly to help support the application to the best of my ability.  Additionally, I have saved a search on the forums for anything regarding the GCompris suite.  I know that GCompris may not be as popular as say, Firefox, but I am embracing a piece of software that is important to me (and my son) and we are not alone.

Perhaps you don’t have software that you are attached to like I do, but are looking to help.  Perhaps you use a laptop and use Network Manager to connect your computer wirelessly.  Perhaps you are particularly good at troubleshooting nm-applet.  What can seem small and insignificant to you right now, may have a few bugs that need help.

So have you picked your pony yet?

One of the great challenges the Ubuntu project has confronted (and arguably conquered) is figuring out how to pull individuals out of the pool of users and into the pool of contributor-users.  Ubuntu is perhaps best known for its user-centricity and its focus on community.  Even so, the user looking to contribute to the Ubuntu Community in a meaningful way faces an overwhelming task.  The Ubuntu Community is large, multi-faceted, and not always as inviting as you would hope.  The intention of this post is to point you to the door of community participation.  However, it’s up to you to get your foot in there and not to look back.

Development

For many, getting involved in the Ubuntu community evokes images of long Mountain Dew powered nights spent hacking kernel code. Our Dew powered coders are certainly important and necessary (love you guys!) but the average contributor can not, and frankly, should not spend time writing code.  Instead, the most valuable way the average user can contribute to the development of Ubuntu is by assisting with bugs.

All you’ll need to contribute here are some basic troubleshooting and information gathering skills, a Launchpad account, and some free time.  Start on the Ubuntu wiki to get in on the bug fixing fun.

Are you bilingual?  Ever dream of working as a translator at the United Nations?  Well, translating software may not be quite as glamorous as translating for Vladimir Putin, but please believe you will have a much more significant impact on the world around you doing the former than the latter.  More effective high quality localization of free and open source software helps to bridge the technological divide and helps bring amazing free software into every nook and cranny of the globe.  Translators are always welcome.  Take a tour of translations in Launchpad, check out all the projects that use it, and look at all the languages into which you can translate Ubuntu.

Documentation and Support

Documentation is vastly important for any software, free or proprietary.  You can contribute to the Ubuntu project in many ways that all fall under the umbrella of “documentation”.  Contribute to forum threads or help with the creation and maintenance of wiki pages. Peruse the forums for problem-fix threads.  Test and verify solutions and then add these solutions to the wiki.  You can also join the Documentation Team to contribute to documentation efforts in a more official capacity.

Testing

Ubuntu is under near constant development.  When one development cycle ends, another is without fail soon to begin.  The six month development cycle has been something of a trademark of Ubuntu since its inception.  Testers are essential to releasing a robust and stable operating system every six months.  To help out with testing, simply install the alpha or beta release of Ubuntu currently under development (Intrepid Ibex at the time of this posting).  I’d recommend dual booting a stable version of Ubuntu with a development release.   As a tester, your primary duty is to simply poke around and try things.  When you find something that does not work or is buggy, file a bug in Launchpad.  Its simple, fun, necessary work and you’ll always be on the bleeding edge of Ubuntu development.

The “Get Involved” pages on Ubuntu.com are a great resource for links to further reading and information.  Now, get out there and get involved!

All three of us joined 1000+ people at the Ohio LinuxFest on Saturday (October 11). Ken and I first came in 2006, all three of us last year, and again this year.

Keynotes: Community

The entire day was bookended by the Community Managers for two major distributions. Could we ask for a better setup?

Joe Brockmeier, AKA “Zonker”, delivered the morning keynote, entitled “Bootstrapping Community”. He is the openSUSE Community Manager. Novell has been doing great work for open-source software in the pasts few years, so his role at Novell is certainly interesting to us. He discussed his role in promoting and building community around openSUSE, and it seems like he is doing a good job of changing what has been a lackluster community into something vibrant.

Jono Bacon delivered the evening keynote, entitled “Building Belonging”. As Ubuntu users who love our community, we were quite excited to hear what Jono had to say. It turned out to be quite inspiring, as he brought up the idea of community as a sense of belonging, about each of our stories and how they give meaning to who we are, and how everyone’s contributions are gifts to a community. Look for us to unpack some of that in upcoming posts, but it was very motivating. (He also asked how many people use Ubuntu and took a picture. Wow!)

Presentations

Throughout the day there were various presentations on all topics. Some presentations were geared to Linux beginners or those switching from Windows: Andrew Pitonyak discussed open-source software that was equivalent (or superior to) Windows software; Elizabeth Garbee, a well-spoken teenager, discussed how she has grown up with Linux at home and in school.

Other presentations delved specific topics: Daniel Chen, AKA “crimsun”, explored the confusing world of Linux audio systems and subsystems; Roland Hess showcased Blender and the way the Blender project has been successful in fundraising; Mackenzie Morgan discussed precautions about open WiFi networks (which was the same time as the Ubuntu BoF so we missed it, but she put her slides up).

Still other presentations discussed some interesting applications of open-source software: Mat Kovach returned this year for another presentation about using various open-source tools to track baseball statistics; Scott Preston discussed specific ways to build robots using Linux.

Unfortunately, the presentations ran in parallel, and it was hard to decide between three concurrent presentations, but it was nice to see so many interesting topics being discussed.

Vendors

There were two vendor exhibits where companies and organizations could set up booths. There were good showings by Ubuntu (run by the Ohio LoCo), Fedora, and openSUSE. The Linux Fund had a table; they are an organization set up to offer credit cards whose “rewards” are donated to various OSS projects.

HP had a booth showcasing some mini laptops and a neat OSS project called Fossology: Bob Gobeille described the project with the goal of straightening out any inconistencies in open source projects’ licenses, clauses specific to a project, or ways they could make their license situation clearer for contributors and users of their software. It seems like a really neat project that is filling an important, if not thankless, role.

Ubuntu BoF

We missed one of the afternoon sessions because we attended the Ubuntu BoF (Birds of a Feather), an ad hoc, informal discussion about Ubuntu. In this one, rockstars Richard Johnson “nixternal”, Jorge Castro, and Jono led discussion about contributing to Ubuntu—helping with bugs, documentation, becoming a MOTU, ways of joining the community. It was apparent both that there are a bunch of passionate people and that there are as many who want to jump in.

Overall it was a worthwhile trip for us. We are very grateful to be a part of the Ubuntu/Linux/FOSS community and look forward to more of these events! Get connected with your LoCo or find a local LUG to find out about events in your area!

So here I am on a flight to Ohio LinuxFest with two friends/colleagues/Ubunteros—and my first thought is “What the hell am I going to write about?” I’ve been blogging for many years about different things such as technology, video games, gadgets, personal thoughts, and experiences. As I sit here creating my first post for Ubuntero, I realize how special this specific blog is to me.

So firstly, let me say thank you to those of you taking the time to read this at the moment: you are the inspiration of this site. I have to admit, I’m as excited as a geek in an open-source candy store to finally have Ubuntero back up. Why am I excited? Because of what our small group of Ubunteros say at our meetings. When Andrew, Ken, and I have gotten together to talk about our site, our love for the Ubuntu community is evident.

We start by talking about what our idea for a site is. Of course originally we wanted to have a social site where people can create their own site, put up their own content, and have a forum that was their own. While doing this, we constantly kept in mind that we needed to make sure that we never built a replacement for Ubuntu’s existing resources. We were inspired by the forums, wiki, but didn’t want to be them. We wanted something special, we wanted something supplemental.

That’s why we decided to build something for you, for all of us, the community that we are blessed to be a part of. We always had you in mind. We want for you to love coming to the site because it is yours: your content, your friends, your community. Yes, I know it sounds corny but that’s how passionate we are to bring all of the great things together that have the spirit of Ubuntu in mind.

After a too-long hiatus, we’ve relaunched Ubuntero with a slightly different focus. Sorry; we know we’ve been gone for quite a while.

The reason we created Ubuntero was to capture the fantastic community that surrounds the best Linux distribution out there. The people are certainly what make Ubuntu itself great, as well as the experience of using it and sharing it with others. We each have had the chance to talk about Ubuntu with other people, family,  friends, colleagues, etc., and a lot of what we share is the best way to get help with this program, that issue, or understanding why the other thing does that. We’ve also learned a lot about Ubuntu from each other. We love to share, and it’s in that spirit that we created Ubuntero—as a place for all of us to share what we love about Ubuntu.

We’ve realized that the essence of what we have been trying to do is to create a medium that invites new Ubuntu users to join the community, and to provide a way to know the depth and breadth of all that’s out there.

We want to emphasize that we are simply a part of the Ubuntu community, so we also want to offer everyone the chance to contribute. We’re interested in hearing your stories/experiences, your ideas, anything you’d like to share. (Also, we’re working on arranging a way for everyone to write for the blog yourself, if you’re so inclined, but if not we’d still like to know what you want to see on the site. For the time being, feel free to contact us.