Dear SCALE guest,
On behalf of the Ubuntu project, I would like to thank you for visiting
our booth at the Southern California Linux Expo. Every year the show is
bigger and better, and it’s always wonderful to hear how others are
using Ubuntu in their lives.
I wanted to take the time to send you a single email highlighting some
of the incredible news we reported about Ubuntu during and after SCALE,
and offering ways to become involved in and stay connected to the Ubuntu
community. This is the only email you’ll receive, so be sure and read
to the end if you’d like to stay in touch!
Since 2004, Ubuntu has led the way in creating a stunning, easy-to-use
operating system. Through 10 years of hard work, Ubuntu has become
engaging and welcoming to users, powerful enough for experts, solid
enough for servers, scalable enough for vast cloud deployments, and
versatile enough to fit perfectly on phones, tablets, laptops, desktops,
televisions, servers, and the cloud.
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will be available on April 17, 2014. Until then, you
will want to install 12.04 LTS on servers and 13.10 on desktop machines.
I give the following rationale for this decision in a blog post:
http://www.nhaines.com/blog/2014/01/03/which-version-of-ubuntu-do-i-install/
The biggest excitement this year has been around Ubuntu coming to phones
and tablets. Some news broke just in time for SCALE, when Jono Bacon
hosted a town hall style meeting with the Ubuntu community. There, Mark
Shuttleworth and others from Canonical announced the first retail phone
partners to feature Ubuntu in stores later this year.
You can watch the town hall meeting here: https://youtu.be/gGG_GHYzSLs
And you can read the press release discussing Ubuntu’s first retail
phone partners here:
http://insights.ubuntu.com/news/press-releases/canonical-announces-first-partners-to-ship-ubuntu-phones-around-the-globe/
The announcements continued over the next week at Mobile World Congress
in Barcelona. Canonical was on hand to demonstrate Ubuntu to the press
and other OEMs, and there was a lot to be excited about. In the weeks
since SCALE we’ve heard about beautiful new phone design work and new
app partners who are enjoying the incredibly convenient app development
process. I’ve collected links to some of the highlights below:
New scope design work:
http://developer.ubuntu.com/2014/02/introducing-our-new-scopes-technology/
Growing app ecosystem, including Grooveshark and VLC:
http://insights.ubuntu.com/news/press-releases/growing-app-ecosystem-for-ubuntu-phones/
Bottom edge gesture design work:
http://design.canonical.com/2014/03/loving-the-bottom-edge/
And while phones and tablets are generating the most noise in the press,
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS has still seen some really nice improvements on the
desktop as well. HiDPI support for very high resolution screens has
been added to Unity, and a new option called Locally Integrated Menus is
now available to make menus easier to use on high-resolution screens:
http://blog.3v1n0.net/informatica/linux/ubuntu-introducing-locally-integrated-menus-to-unity-7/
The easiest way to keep track of new developments in the Ubuntu world is
to follow a good news source. OMG! Ubuntu! is an independent site
devoted to tracking the latest Ubuntu news, and Planet Ubuntu is a
collection of syndicated updates from Ubuntu members as well as
Canonical and other software projects. It’s a great way to keep track
of the community as well as developing stories.
OMG! Ubuntu!: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/
Planet Ubuntu: http://planet.ubuntu.com/
Ubuntu’s presence at SCALE12X was the result of collaboration between
many parts of the Ubuntu community. From Local Community groups from
California and Peru, Canonical who sent the phones, and independent
members of the Ubuntu community who organized and contributed to Ubucon
and volunteered at the booth and provided demonstration hardware, the
community came together in a demonstration of the strength we all share
together.
Our community has always been built around the concept of “ubuntu”: “I
am who I am because of who we all are.” And that means that attending
and supporting your local Linux User Groups as well as your Ubuntu Local
Community (LoCo) is not only a great way to learn and become more
involved, but also to help others. So while we will love to see you
again at SCALE13X, I also encourage you to check out the local resources
available to you all year long.
If you are a California native, learn more about the Ubuntu California
Local Community group at their website: http://ubuntu-california.org/
And if you traveled from afar to enjoy SCALE, you can find more
information about local resources as well as the global community
advocacy effort at LoCo Portal: http://loco.ubuntu.com/
There are always new events and new ways to contribute via offering
support, marketing, troubleshooting, and many other ways to
