IdeaStorm meet Brainstorm

Inspired by Dell’s IdeaStorm, the Ubuntu qa team has put together Ubuntu Brainstorm.  If you have any ideas for making Ubuntu better, submit your ideas to a single site where other Ubuntu users can vote on them.  The concept has worked well for Dell, so it will likely work well for Ubuntu.  Make Ubuntu better:  start brainstorming!

Ubuntu updates: we are experiencing technical difficulties; please stand by.

If you’ve gotten an indicator to update your (K)(X)Ubuntu installation with these updates:

• smbclient
• samba-common
• libsmbclient

then you have probably noticed that the update fails. The problem is not with your system, but rather with the updates themselves. The reason, according to Jamie Strandboge:

There was a regression in the Dapper and Edgy packages, and this update has been disabled. We are currently working on an updated package.

… Turns out there were more problems with the patch and all releases have been disabled. Updated packages for Dapper, Edgy, Feisty and Gutsy will be provided soon.

As of a few minutes ago, I was able to successfully download and install the updates, so it appears all problems have been fixed. If you still can’t apply the updates, try updating your package list first (in Kubuntu, click the “Fetch list of updates” button) before applying the updates. If that fails, just be patient and your system should automatically figure out the updated updates eventually .

Update instructions for

• Ubuntu
• Kubuntu

Oh frabjous day! Kallooh, Kallay! (with apologies to Lewis Carroll)

With great fanfare from the entire Ubuntu Kommunity, Kubuntu 7.10 has been released. If you prefer stinky feet to fire-breathing dragons, you can use Ubuntu instead. Don’t forget about the other variants, either! Congratulations to the development team, all the users who performed testing and submitted bug reports, and just plain users who are willing to give any choice of Ubuntu a try on their systems.

Reasons to use (K)(X)(Ed)Ubuntu:

• You won’t be asked if you really want to perform that operation every time you try to do something.
• There’s no DRM: use what you want, how you want, when you want.
• You are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law (see previous point).
• You don’t need a key code, a license sheet, or a phone call to install and use it: that’s a genuine advantage.
• You can try it out without installing it just by using the Desktop CD; install it from the same CD when you are ready.
• It just works.

apt-get can’t remove dependencies?

So reports Aaron Toponce.

I take it he’s never tried apt-get autoremove.  It isn’t perfect, but it has only missed one or two dependencies in the time I’ve been using it.

A return to Windows-land, and the subsequent harrowing escape

Over the weekend I decided to do something I had vowed I wouldn’t do: reinstall Windows on my PC. Before the Linux zealots out there collapse in a gasping heap of unbelief at this, let me explain that this was to be a dual-boot scenario, with Kubuntu as my primary OS still.