• VIA unveils open source driver development portal - vnunet.com - “The first offering is graphics drivers for the VIA CN896 digital media IGP chipset for the new Ubuntu 8.04 LTS distribution…”

• 451 CAOS Theory » Red Hat-Ubuntu pairing would have potential - “I’m starting to see some big potential for symbiosis between two Linux and open source leaders: Red Hat and Ubuntu. Red Hat’s departure from the consumer desktop Linux market comes at the same time Ubuntu continues rolling in the same market with the release of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron this week…”
• BlissPoint Blog: Five Reasons why the Ubuntu Server Revolution will never happen - “I have complete respect for the VAR Guy, so I am writing out a response to his post Five Reasons Ubuntu Server Revolution Begins Today that allows me to explain my position and how it differs from him. It isn’t criticism of the VAR Guy, it is a difference of opinion. I hope he sees it that way…”
• [Phoronix] Ubuntu 8.04 vs. Windows Vista Power Usage - “Without a doubt, however, Linux has been improving when it comes to power management in large part thanks to Intel and their various projects such as PowerTOP and LessWatts…”
• FOSSwire » Interview: Kenneth Wimer of the Ubuntu Art Team
• InformIT: Interview with Donald Knuth - Donald Knuth, author of The Art of Programming series is an Ubuntu user.

Some topics covered:

• Ubuntu 8.04 Released!
• Ubuntu Open Week
• Hardy Heron Release Parties
• Ubuntu 8.04 Press Release Translations
• Northeast Louisiana Regional Ham RadioFest
• Full Circle Magazine Issue #12
• Ubuntu Stats & Bugs
• Ubuntu Forum News & Tutorials
• In the Press & Blogosphere
• In Other News
• Team Meeting Summaries
• Upcomoing Meetings & Events
• Updates & Security

Read it here.

If you are interested in writing for the UWN, join and introduce yourself to the the marketing list.

If you think you have a story for the UWN, email ubuntu-marketing-submissions@lists.ubuntu.com.

Even though Ubuntu 8.04 LTS came out this week, I still haven’t upgraded my main desktop from 7.10.

Recently, I got the Blackberry Curve 8320. Its pretty much dependent on Windows for everything. I needed to upgrade the OS on the Blackberry, so I fired up an old VMware instance of XP. Then I plugged in a random USB flash stick I had lying around.

Nothing.

Thats not completely true. It USB stick got mounted on my regular Ubuntu desktop, but I didn’t say any reference to it in XP.

After a quick Google search, I realized I hadn’t added USB peripherals to the VMware XP guest instance at all. Ok, so I added that, restarted VMware.

Once XP was loaded, I was expecting to see some entries under VM > Removable Devices > USB Devices. Nope, still nothing.

After Googling some more, I could across an Ubuntu Forums thread which referenced a VMware knowledge base article.

Basically, VMware uses USBFS to detect USB devices attached to the host. USBFS was not being mounted in some distros.

To get it working in Ubuntu, simply enter this in a terminal:

sudo mount -t usbfs none /proc/bus/usb

Then restart VMware.

For a more permanent solution, add this to your /etc/fstab:

usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs auto 0 0

Links to translated versions of the Ubuntu 8.04 press release have been posted on the Fridge. If you have a language that should be added, leave a comment here mentioning the language and the link to the translation.

Or drop by #ubuntu-marketing or #ubuntu-news on FreeNode and let us know.

“Linux Ubuntu installation on PCs sold by Excimer and NT Computer is to be launched within the nearest month. Consequently, Ubuntu sales in Russia might reach 300 thousand units. Ubuntu 8.04 released on April 24, 2008 is more likely to be preinstalled.”

Nice.

If you plan on burning some CDs to distribute, wallet and CD artwork can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DIYMarketing. This is whats available:

• ‘Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition CD wallet artwork’ (pdf, hi-res) and CD face artwork (pdf, eps)
• ‘Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition (64-bit) CD wallet artwork’ (pdf, hi-res) and CD face artwork (pdf, eps)
• ‘Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition CD wallet artwork’ (pdf, hi-res) and CD face artwork (pdf, eps)
• ‘Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition (64-bit) CD wallet artwork’ (pdf, hi-res) and CD face artwork (pdf, eps)
• ‘Kubuntu 8.04 CD wallet artwork’ (pdf, hi-res) and CD face artwork (pdf, eps)
• ‘Kubuntu 8.04 (64-bit) CD wallet artwork’ (pdf, hi-res) and CD face artwork (pdf, eps)
• ‘Ubuntu 8.04 Education Edition Add-On CD wallet artwork’ (pdf and hi-res) and CD face artwork (pdf, eps)
• ‘Kubuntu 8.04 (KDE 4 remix) CD face artwork (pdf, eps), there is no CD wallet artwork for this version of Kubuntu.

• FOSSwire » Ubuntu Cheat Sheet - Command line cheat sheet for controlling common apps and utilities.
• Ubuntu man Shuttleworth dissects Hardy Heron’s arrival | The Register - “We would be quite willing to revisit the elements of our release schedule in order to make that synchronicity possible, if the fact that we happen to do April and October wouldn’t work for the majority of the distros. We would be flexible in that regard…” Martin Owens, the Ubuntu Massachusetts LoCo leader also pipes in and discusses issues with PulseAudio and bug reports. He also asks if Canonical’s focus on virtualization and support for enterprise solutions is moving away from goals of pushing Ubuntu into the mainstream.
• Ubuntu’s Hardy Heron is here | The Pervasive Datacenter - CNET Blogs - “Canonical says that they have relationships with more than 30 PC manufacturers (many of them regional) as well as dozens of commercial ISVs, Open Source and otherwise (IBM Lotus Notes, Parallels, VMware, Alfresco, Zimbra, etc.)…”
• Hardy Heron reflects Ubuntu Linux ambitions - “The desktop contributes more to Canonical’s bottom line than the server…The server business is still Canonical’s primary focus for support revenue. But the company has been getting paid for desktop and consumer-electronics work…”

• BBC NEWS | Technology | Ubuntu ‘reaping Linux dividend’ - “There are other versions of Linux that are better for a particular purpose - but Ubuntu strives to be a general platform that is secure and self-maintained…”
• Ubuntu Linux takes on enterprise server market with new OS - “So now that Ubuntu has an enterprise-ready server operating system, will the company begin following the model of other Linux vendors, such as Red Hat Inc., and create an offering for enterprise applications as well?”
• Atheros hires ath5k developer - Maybe there will be native wifi drivers for the Asus Eee soon. “Luis R. Rodriguez has been hired by Atheros to to get every device of Atheros supported upstream in the Linux kernel…”
• IMHO: Ray Ozzie “Gets” Open Source - O’Reilly ONLamp Blog - “But the bottom line is we believe very much in the quality of Microsoft products. We are an IP-based business. But we live in a world together with Open Source, and we have to make it possible for you to build solutions and for customers to build solution…”
• BBC NEWS | dot.life | A blog about technology from BBC News | Is it lift off for Linux? - “[Mark Shuttleworth's] main point was that Linux, and use of Ubuntu, was on the rise. He also had lots of interesting things to say about open source more broadly, the Microsoft-Yahoo deal etc, which I thought I’d detail here as a Q&A…”
• An Apple User Tries Ubuntu - “I never thought I’d say this, but the command line is a plus, not a minus. Personally I’d never want to use it – all my passwords are enough memorization – but I see it as a valuable tool for power users…”

Some topics covered:

• Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Release Candidate
• Release Candidate: call for testing
• Ubuntu Open Week
• Needed: Testers, Reviewers, and Sponsors for Abiword 2.6
• ShipIt Accepting 8.04 CD orders
• Ubuntu Stats
• LoCo News
• In the Press & Blogosphere
• In Other News
• Upcoming Meetings & Events
• Updates & Security

Read it here.

If you are interested in writing for the UWN, join and introduce yourself to the the marketing list.

If you think you have a story for the UWN, email ubuntu-marketing-submissions@lists.ubuntu.com.