If you cannot see the embedded spot, click on this link.

The spot runs for three days, showing Ubuntu to a remarkable amount of passengers.

Please note: The background image is from Marvin Kubiak, you can find it among other interesting Jaunty background images on:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Jaunty/AlphaBackgrounds

Happy release!

When you have – for whatever reason (either by chance, clicking around or due to having a rotated display) – changed the display mode of Ubuntu to VRGB or VBGR (you can easily do this in the “System>Preferences>Appearance>Fonts” menu) and additionaly turned on the lcd/subpixel mode, probably all of your qt4 applications – even qtconfig – will be totatlly scrambled and unreadable. The bug might hit you under Ubuntu (without a blue “K” in the beginning) as you probably run something like VirtualBox, Skype or even Amarok in your Gnome environment. It will probably look like this:

Screenshot showing the scrambled qt application

But: Don’t panic! This bug only occurs when you changed some defaults in the Appearance/Fonts settings to rather uncommon or often maybe useless settings and switching back is fairly easy. But as I ran into this and put some effort into the corresponding bug on launchpad Subpixel/Lcd mode with VRGB/VBGR makes qt4 applications on Jaunty unreadable, I noticed, that a remarkable bunch of users posted duplicate bug reports or commented the report.

So if you are running into this error, all you have to do, is:

1. exit all qt applications,
2. go into “System>Preferences>Appearance>Fonts”,
3. change VRGB/BGR to RGB/BGR.

That’s all. If you want to examine the bug, do the following (don’t do this at home):

1. exit all qt applications,
2. go into “System>Preferences>Appearance>Fonts”,
3. change RGB/BGR to VRGB/BGR,
4. switch to lcd/subpixel mode.

Afterwards your qt applications will look scrambled. If you don’t know, which one to run for a test, you probably have “qtconfig” installed.

(I had a little chat with some developers about the severity of this bug. Though I think it’d would be definitely better not having it in a release, I understand the point, that the environment must be set up in a rather special way to run into this and it popped up quite late. Therefore it did not make it into the release critical bugs, but I am quite sure, it will be fixed soon.)

That’s all about this. I wish you a smooth upgrade to Jaunty – see you there

[update 2009-04-03]

As you can read on https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/qt4-x11/+bug/334657, a patch has been committed to the Ubuntu repositories, that has been found here:

http://cvs.fedoraproject.org/viewvc/rpms/qt/devel/qt-x11-opensource-src-4.5.0-disable_ft_lcdfilter.patch?revision=1.1&view=markup

So the fix as an update is coming closer…

After using Jaunty for about a month now I think the graphical changes really please my eyes. I like the new notification scheme (though it feels still young and there is a lot to do like implementing it to common applications like Thunderbird), introduced by Mark Shuttleworth some months ago. Moreover while not currently using Evolution myself I am impressed about reading about “evolution-mapi“, enabling Evolution to access Exchange 2000, 2003 and 2007 servers by talking the native Exchange mapi protocol and and not using the neat but slow owa (web) wrapper. Yes, that seems to be a techie feature but it might improve acceptance of Ubuntu/Gnome/Evolution in enterprise setups dramatically.

Your turn now. What is your new killer feature or just tiny improvement you like most? Let me know, and I promise, I’ll try to include it into my presentation.

Again, a couple of lectures will be held – ranging from new features in Intrepid (that’s my part, I’ll give the lecture at the same day also at the BLIT), over Gnome eyecandy stuff to presentations of Freifunk project and the DeepaMehta semantic desktop (don’t miss!) directly from it’s lead developer. So either if you are new to Ubuntu and want to make first steps and contact other Ubuntu users or you are a Linux guru – you’ll find somebody to have a chat with, I promise. There’ll even be a “tux tinker corner” where you or your girl friend have the possibility to try out some Tux Origami.

The event’ll mainly be in German, but a lot of people are speaking English, so don’t hesitate asking for help/translations.

Entrance is free, there is a free wifi, so feel free to bring your notebook in. You can also “buy” a freshly burned Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu cd for a service charge of 1 Euro or check the Ubuntu merchandising table.

See you there?

Links:
Official Party Announcement Page
how to get to c-base?
Freifunk
DeepaMehta
Ubuntu Berlin

Don’t trust me? See this:

and this:

And come over on Saturday, the 26th of April to our release party. Lectures, demonstrations, freshly burned cds, a live Samba band, a button machine and Daniel Holbach as Drum’n'Bass dj and of course dozens of helpful and open source minded people are waiting for you. Entrance is free.

Hope to see you Berlin folks this Saturday (German folks even – just enter a train, car or whatever). Feel free to contact me directly there, I am always happy to see new faces.

Ubuntu “Hardy Heron” release party on April 26th at 4:00 pm at the c-base in Berlin

Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” is arriving. To celebrate the new release of the popular free GNU/Linux distribution Ubuntu the local user group Ubuntu-Berlin will organize a party. The event will take place on the 26th of April in the rooms of the culture project c-base and starts at 4:00 pm. Admission is free.

There will be a programme of short talks (about 20 minutes each) in relaxed atmosphere. Several features and applications which are integrated into the new Ubuntu version are presented by users, for example the optional 3D-Desktop. Furthermore there will be contributions of associated organisations like the “Free Software Foundation Europe” (FSFE) and the “Förderverein für eine Freie Informationelle Infrastruktur” (FFII). A “burning station” provides visitors with Hardy CDs at cost price of one Euro. For anyone who wants to try out Hardy straight away there will be the possibility to do so on one of the computers there. There will be many experienced users around, who will answer questions.

(please note the year )

Apart from the official programme, the event offers the possibility to get started with the world of free software and to get in touch with like-minded users. Musical entertainment comes from a variety of Bands and DJs who will also play free music. Beverages and snacks are available at the bar at moderate prices. Laptops can be connected to a free Wifi net (visitors could bring a power strip, switch and cable).

Who is “Ubuntu Berlin”?

“Ubuntu Berlin” is a free group of interested Ubuntu-Linux users. The group sees itself as a local communication platform und organises regular user meetings and release parties. The group has no own legal form but it keeps loose contact with the registered association “Ubuntu Deutschland e.V.” which supports selected activities.

Place, time and access route

Date: 26th of April 2008
Time: doors open 4:00 pm, open end
Place: c-base, Rungestraße 20 in Berlin Mitte, S+U Jannowitzbrücke
Route: https://wiki.c-base.org/coredump/AnfahrtsSkizze

Contact

E-Mail: kontakt@ubuntu-berlin.de
WWW: http://www.ubuntu-berlin.de/

For the lazy ones around, take the following:

Die Anwendergruppe “Ubuntu Berlin” sucht Referenten für die am 26.4.2008 in den Räumen des c-base e.V. stattfindende Ubuntu Hardy Heron Releaseparty.

Die Teilnehmer der Party setzen sich aus Ubuntu-Neulingen, Anwendern und fortgeschrittenen Entwicklern zusammen. Es ist mit einer Teilnehmerzahl ab 100 Personen zu rechnen. Thematisch sind Vorträge zu Ubuntu-bezogenen Themen (Neuerungen in Hardy Heron, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Gobuntu, usw.), Installation, speziellen Anwendungsfällen und Applikationen, aber auch Community- und Linux-nahen Aktivitäten willkommen. Die Vortragszeit beträgt 20 Minuten, um ein Vortragsinterval von 30 Minuten einzuhalten. Beamer, Internetzugang, Rechner, Mikrofon können gestellt werden. Bei rechtzeitiger Anfrage ist eventuell die Bereitstellung eines Workshop-Raums für kleinere Sitzungen möglich (ca. 8 Plätze).

Vorschläge sind einzureichen bis zum 29.2.2008. Über eine Annahme der Vorträge wird bis 16.3.2008 entschieden.

Beim Einreichen sind folgende Vorgaben zu beachten:

• Nennung von Vortragstitel, Name des Vortragenden, Qualifikation (z.B. Anwender, Vereinsmitglied, Entwickler)
• Beschreibung des Vortragsthemas in einem Absatz
• Kontakt-Möglichkeit des Vortrages (E-Mail, nach Möglichkeit Telefon)
• Nennung notwendiger Ressourcen (Beamer, Netzwerk, Rechner)
• Besteht die Möglichkeit, den Vortrag ca. eine Woche vorher voraufzuführen

Ubuntu Berlin kann keine Kostenerstattung für Anreise, Unterkunft und Verpflegung übernehmen. Ein eventuell notwendiger Transport von Hardware kann im Raum Berlin organisiert werden.

Therefore we set up a small and incomplete list with games that you can play under Linux. Some of them are actually Windows games that can run under Wine – but only some (and they are a kind of compromise for some of our members). Quite enthusiastic discussions occurred in conjunction with games like “Battle for Wesnoth“, “Armagetron“, “OpenArena” and “Nexuiz“. All of them are available through Ubuntu package repositories and – even better – not all of them are shooters.

So we are happily looking towards our first lan party within the next weeks which will be located at c-base or newthinking store if one them lets us in. I hope that we also have time to do some bug reporting afterwards if necessary – it should be a great possibility to do some network game stress tests.

Powered by ScribeFire.

As last time several lectures will be held. Due to the public interest especially in technical information we moved our party from Friday to Saturday and are going to start earlier in the afternoon so we can provide more input for visitors while still being able to have the dj(s) do their work in the evening and probably some barbecue.

So if you live around Berlin (Germany) – save the date – and feel free to help us with the preparation. You are welcome on the mailing list or our other communication channels that you can find on our wiki page. If you are just interested in attending the lectures or just want to hang around at the party, you invited to join our moderated, low traffic announcement mailing list.