Author Archives: RedWolf

23 Jan

Lubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet alpha 2

We’re preparing Lubuntu 15.04, Vivid Vervet, for distribution in April 2015. With this early Alpha pre-release, you can see what we are trying out in preparation for our next version. We have some interesting things happening, so read on for highlights and information.

NOTE: This is an alpha pre-release. Lubuntu Pre-releases are NOT recommended for:
  • Regular users who are not aware of pre-release issues
  • Anyone who needs a stable system
  • Anyone uncomfortable running a possibly frequently broken system
  • Anyone in a production environment with data or workflows that need to be reliable
Lubuntu Pre-releases ARE recommended for:
  • Regular users who want to help us test by finding, reporting, and/or fixing bugs
  • Lubuntu developers

You can get more information here.

23 Jan

Vivid Alpha 2 ready, so time to work towards Beta 1

Closer and closer we creep towards the release of Vivid Vervet. Alpha 2 testing went well with flying colors thanks to the likes of:

Thank you to all of you that did any sort of testing or bug work. We need all we can get! In about a month’s time, Beta 1 will be ready for official testing. We can have a similarly smooth sail through testing if you can all get out there and test the daily builds. Report bugs on anything (make sure to subscribe the Lubuntu Packages Team) and work with Lubuntu QA to get your bugs properly triaged.
In fact, we need more triage. As much as possible. All the time. We need bugs reports to be detailed, with clear, repeatable steps. We then need to make sure they’re confirmed and that a Bug Control member (me!) can confirm them. They can set the priority and create an upstream bug report and then officially call the bug triaged. Long story short: if you find a bug that does not say Triaged, In Progress, Fix Commited, or Fix Released, there’s more work to be done.
Without this work, we can do little to guide developers. Right now much of the team is heavily focused on developing LXQt, but that doesn’t mean we can’t stomp out some bigger bugs together. If you’d like to help with the triage, join the Lubuntu Packages Team and Bug Squad. Ask for help. The aforementioned Dave Kokandy has been doing a wonderful job lately, as modest as he is, and deserves big ups for attack the problem so vigorously.
For those of you that don’t feel like doing triage, I encourage you to test (all you need is a virtual machine) and to report some bugs. QA is a friendly team and we’re always happy to help if you need it.
For the rest of you simply trying to figure out where the heck to get Alpha 2, here’s the Release Notes. Make sure you read them before you download. There’s always important information on there.
06 Dec

Box icons release 0.49

It’s been a while since last post, but no, we’re not dead, just busy preparing everything for 15.04 and it’s new features. Now the icon theme part has been updated since Utopic Unicorn release with a few modifications (see the changelog here) improving integration with LXQt, and we’ll keep working on it.

And remember you can use it with any Linux distro! Download it while it’s hot.

23 Oct

The blue Unicorn set free!

After the success[1] of their first Long-Term-Support (LTS) version in April this year, the Head of the Developer Team, Julien Lavergne, has finished work on the Utopic Unicorn which can now be downloaded at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu/GetLubuntu.

Acting Release Manager, Walter Lapchynski, shortly after the release: “This cycle we mainly focused on fixing known bugs. But”, he adds “there is a downside, too: due to several serious bugs, we had to skip PPC versions of the Unicorn. We recommend using of the LTS version for now and do hope, that we are able to present a PPC Version in April next year. For the moment we are still working on our plans to implement LXQt in either 15.04 or 15.10.”

The Unicorn itself comes with eliminated known bugs[2], software such as Pcmanfm, Openbox and LightDM brought to state of the art technology and new wallpapers which were sent in by Lubuntu users via Flickr [3]. Artwork Director Rafael Laguna explains: “We try to get a little contest going each cycle in which we offer a chance for users to become part of this great distribution.”

What is Lubuntu?

As the name suggests, Lubuntu is the lightweight of the Ubuntu family. Based on the LXDE technology, Lubuntu takes only 512 MB ​​RAM for simple actions such as surfing the internet or word processing with LibreOffice. Once again Walter Lapchynski: “We do recommend to have at least a Pentium 4 or Pentium M or AMD K8 with 1 GB RAM to prevent advanced internet services like Google+, Youtube, Google Docs and Facebook from failing to work.”

[1] https://twitter.com/montyjanderson/status/505362281468006400
[2] For issues and features common to Ubuntu, please refer to the Ubuntu release notes.
[3] https://www.flickr.com/groups/lubuntu1410contest/

23 Sep

Lubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn Final Beta

Testing has begun for the Final Beta (Beta 2) of Lubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn. Head on over to the ISO tracker to download images, view testcases, and report results. If you’re new to testing, anyone can join and they don’t have to be
Linux Jedis or anything. You can find all the information you need to get started here.

Please note that we especially need testers for PPC chips and Intel Macs. We have a special section discussing it here. In particular, if you have an Intel Mac, I have a few questions for you that might help us trim down the workload of the testing team.

Also, if you have a PPC chip, we’re about the only distro actively supporting this architecture. However, we are community supported, so without formal testing, the arch will lose more support. So please, join in testing!

10 Sep

[Results] Community wallpaper contest

The results are in!

I’d like to start with addressing some of the issues with running this type of contest. We try to communicate the rules for this contest as clearly as possible, for example, you cannot even join the Flickr group without accepting the rules. However, we cannot force people to read terms and conditions, so we try to warn contestants if they aren’t following the rules in order for them to correct their submission before deadline. Unfortunately we cannot force people to read their emails either, so we always have a few popular submissions that get disqualified. This contest was no different, we’ve had a few problems with wallpaper sizes and of course — licensing issues. 
With that being said, full contest results can be seen here, and down below are the five wallpapers that will be included in Lubuntu 14.10, a big congratulations to you all:
 Sunset Over Lake by Andrei Daniel Ticlean
 Turn Back by Kari Wagner
 Void by Marxco
 DragonFly4 by Earl Lunt
 Colori D’autunno by Quellicol1000
I would also like to thank our friend Guillaume at Picompete for helping us host this contest. He’s been helping us for years now, and we really appreciate everything he’s done for us. It’s a trustworthy service that we really recommend if you wish to host similar contests like this. Guillaume is also a big fan of open source and Linux, and he has offered to help other distributions if they ever need to host a poll.
http://picompete.com/contest/1441/lubuntu-14-10-community-wallpaper-contest/
28 Aug

Lubuntu Utopic Unicorn 14.10 β1

We’re preparing Lubuntu 14.10, the Utopic Unicorn, for distribution in
October 2014. With this early Beta pre-release, you can see what we are
trying out in preparation for our next version (with  3.16.0-11 Ubuntu Linux kernel). Remember that this is an early beta pre-release, so don’t use it on daily production computers.

We’d like you to join us for testing, especially if you have a PPC machine. We didn’t have PPC testers this release, do there is no PPC release.

Read the release notes before getting the disc images, and contact us with feedback.