My Debian contributions this month were all sponsored by Freexian.

• I'm trying to get back into bugs.debian.org administration, so I spent some time catching up on my owner@bugs.debian.org mailbox and answering a number of support requests there.
• I fixed a regression I'd introduced last year where groff's PDF output had invalid date headers, both upstream and in Debian.
• I released man-db 2.12.1.
• openssh:
  • I did a little more testing of Luca Boccassi's modifications to upstream's inline systemd notification patch.
  • I did an extensive review of some of the choices in Debian's OpenSSH packaging, in light of last month's xz-utils backdoor.
  • I fixed a build failure on ppc64el, forwarded upstream.
  • I proposed reducing shared library linkage in tcp-wrappers; its maintainer accepted this by disabling NIS support.
  • I applied a suggestion to improve ordering of systemd services in relation to nss-user-lookup.target.
• I updated putty to 0.81.
• Python team:
  • I fixed build/autopkgtest failures in cytoolz (upstream PR), nbconvert (due to sphinx and lxml-html-clean changes), python-argcomplete, python-exceptiongroup, readability, toolz (upstream PR), and topplot.
  • I made a merge request to fix a build failure in pyferret.
  • I fixed a mistake in a Debian patch to python-ecdsa, noticed while updating jsonpickle.
  • I updated cachelib, dnsdiag, feedparser, jsonpickle, pywavelets (fixing a distutils dependency), python-aiohttp-session, python-avro, python-rstr, vine (including an upstream packaging tweak, and wtforms to new upstream versions.
• I did some inconclusive investigation of flaky tests in gcr4. More work is needed there.
• I proposed a patch for a build failure in gyoto, both upstream and in Debian.

You can support my work directly via Liberapay.

01 May 2024 11:34am GMT

The previous release of uCareSystem, version 24.04.0, introduced enhanced maintenance and cleanup capabilities for Ubuntu and its derivatives. The fresh new release 24.05, is introduced with support for flatpak maintenance. This new version includes: Where can I download uCareSystem ? As always, I want to express my gratitude for your support over the past 15 […]

01 May 2024 10:30am GMT

With 12 years of support, Landscape 24.04 LTS adds snap and repository management controls to a modernised systems management web portal and API.

London, 30 April 2024.

Today Canonical announced the availability of Landscape's first LTS release. Landscape 24.04 LTS features a new versioned API, a new web portal with accessibility and performance in mind, and intuitive controls for software distribution. Landscape 24.04 LTS comprises Landscape Server and Landscape Client. With a modernised backend and web portal in place, engineering teams can work efficiently, focusing on patches and new features.

Predictable release cadence and 12 years of support for LTS versions

Building on Canonical's commitment to reliability, Landscape releases going forward will align with Ubuntu LTS and interim releases for predictable security coverage, feature patches, and bug fixes.

Landscape Server 24.04 can be installed on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS releases with Ubuntu Pro. Landscape Server 24.04 is compatible with the previous four Ubuntu LTS releases (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS onwards), and will manage future Ubuntu releases including Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.

Like Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, this Landscape release gets a 12 year commitment for security maintenance and support. Landscape 24.04 LTS will get five years of bug fixes and incremental feature patches until August 2029. Ubuntu Pro subscribers can continue using Landscape 24.04 LTS after these 5 years for a total of 12 years, with the Legacy Support add-on.

A new web portal built with Canonical's Vanilla Framework

Vanilla Framework provides consistent and uniform design patterns across Canonical's products. Landscape joins MAAS, LXD UI, and others with a responsive React JS driven user interface. This web portal is built using a new versioned API serving JSON data. This API enhancement ensures seamless integration for developers, offering a forward-looking assurance that applications developed with a particular API version will remain robust and reliable, regardless of future updates to Landscape and its accompanying API endpoints.

The Monitoring feature from the legacy Landscape web portal has not yet been migrated to Landscape 24.04 LTS, yet. Monitoring will arrive as an incremental patch for Landscape 24.04 LTS with a modern charting library, a monitoring API, and companion documentation.

Lastly, the web portal provides a significant improvement in Lighthouse scores for Accessibility. The dashboard's accessibility scores as measured by Lighthouse improved from 70% to 95%. Landscape 24.04 LTS has a web portal which is accessible to users with deficiencies in colour vision, complete colour blindness, and other visual impairments.

Save terabytes in storage and bandwidth with point-in-time repository snapshots

Landscape's new web portal includes an intuitive point-and-click repository mirroring experience, and the repository snapshot service is available as a source when mirroring repositories. In late 2023, Canonical became the first Linux provider to integrate a repository snapshot service with Microsoft Azure's update mechanisms. Landscape 24.04 LTS brings this simplified and safe deployment practice capability on-premises, and to mixed and hybrid cloud environments.

Benefits of Landscape's repository snapshot service include predictable updates, consistency across deployments, and simplified repository mirroring, providing improved resilience and security for Ubuntu workloads.

Beyond the conveniences afforded to system administrators, the repository snapshots implementation also saves over 100 terabytes of disk space and network throughput, for organisations making complete repository mirrors every week. Canonical's on-demand repository snapshot capability extends back to February 2023 for non-ESM (Expanded Security Maintenance) repositories. This innovation frees storage and network resources, because scheduled mirroring and archival of these mirrors becomes unnecessary.

Snap management for Ubuntu and Ubuntu Core

Beyond managing Ubuntu interim and LTS releases, Landscape 24.04 LTS also manages Ubuntu Core, Canonical's snap based, immutable and strictly-confined operating system. A strictly confined Landscape Client snap package provides snap package management, remote script execution, monitoring and inventory capabilities to Ubuntu, for anyone interested in consuming the latest Landscape Client as a snap package.

Snap management capabilities also exist in the Landscape Client Debian package, available in the Main repository for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and in ppa:landscape/self-hosted-24.04 for previous versions of Ubuntu.

Distribution of updated snap revisions is controlled through the Snap Store, which organisations can self-host as a snap store proxy, or as a brand store if there is a need to distribute proprietary non-public snaps within the organisation. Snap management in Landscape 24.04 LTS can add, remove, update, and pause updates from Snap Store, snap store proxy, and brand stores.

Landscape has historically provided fine grained management of Debian packages installed through the apt package manager. With Landscape 24.04 LTS, similar management capabilities arrive for snap packages, with consideration for revisions and channels, which are specific to the snap ecosystem. By default, snap packages self-update through transactional over-the-air updates, and have the ability to rollback automatically if the upgrade fails. Organisations and individuals interested in uniformity across machines can pin revisions of a snap to machines, and ensure consistency between machines that must be uniformly configured.

Next steps

• Read the Landscape datasheet
• Install Landscape 24.04 LTS on Ubuntu Server, using Ubuntu 20.04 LTS or later
• Learn to enrol Ubuntu 24.04 LTS instances with Landscape, using Pro Client

About Canonical

Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu, provides open source security, support and services. Our portfolio covers critical systems, from the smallest devices to the largest clouds, from the kernel to containers, from databases to AI. With customers that include top tech brands, emerging startups, governments and home users, Canonical delivers trusted open source for everyone.

Learn more at canonical.com.

01 May 2024 2:31am GMT

Landscape 24.04 LTS is Landscape's first LTS release, with a modernised backend, web portal, snap management, and repository management features.

01 May 2024 2:31am GMT

Thanks to a colleague who introduced me to Nim during last week's SUSE Labs conference, I became a man with a dream, and after fiddling with compiler flags and obviously not reading documentation, I finally made it.

This is something that shouldn't exist; from the list of ideas that should never have happened.

But it does. It's a Perl interpreter embedded in Rust. Get over it.

Once cloned, you can run the following commands to see it in action:

• cargo run --verbose -- hello.pm showtime
• cargo run --verbose -- hello.pm get_quick_headers

How it works

There is a lot of autogenerated code, mainly for two things:

• bindings.rs and wrapper.h; I made a lot of assumptions and perlxsi.c may or may not be necessary in the future (see main::xs_init_rust), depends on how bad or terrible my C knowledge is by the time you're reading this.
• xs_init_rust function is the one that does the magic, as far as my understanding goes, by hooking up boot_DynaLoader to DynaLoader in Perl via ffi.

With those two bits in place, and thanks to the magic of the bindgen crate, and after some initialization, I decided to use Perl_call_argv, do note that Perl_ in this case comes from bindgen, I might change later the convention to ruperl or something to avoid confusion between that a and perl_parse or perl_alloc which (if I understand correctly) are exposed directly by the ffi interface.

What I ended up doing, is passing the same list of arguments (for now, or at least for this PoC), directly to Perl_call_argv, which will in turn, take the third argument and pass it verbatim as the call_argv

        Perl_call_argv(myperl, perl_sub, flags_ptr, perl_parse_args.as_mut_ptr());

Right now hello.pm defines two sub routines, one to open a file, write something and print the time to stdout, and a second one that will query my blog, and show the headers. This is only example code, but enough to demostrate that the DynaLoader works, and that the embedding also works :)

I got most of this working by following the perlembed guide.

Why?

Why not?.

I want to see if I can embed also python in the same binary, so I can call native perl, from native python and see how I can fiddle all that into os-autoinst

Where to find the code?

On github: https://github.com/foursixnine/ruperl or under https://crates.io/crates/ruperl

01 May 2024 12:00am GMT

Linux Mint 22 will include a Matrix web client preinstalled when released later this year. The IRC-based desktop chat app Linux Mint has been building, Jargonaut, to replace Hexchat and provide real-time communication for its users, will no longer be included (the status of any future development uncertain). Why the change? "Jargonaut […] works well and does exactly what we want. Its implementation was relatively easy and I'd say it's now 75% complete," Linux Mint lead Clément Lefèbvre says. But he adds that "feedback about Matrix" led to the team testing it, liking it, and deciding to switch. As such, […]

You're reading Linux Mint 22 Will Include Preinstalled App for Matrix, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

30 Apr 2024 9:24pm GMT

I've not had much time to play around with the latest release but this is cool - OneDrive Nautilus integration.

Settings > Online Accounts > Microsoft 365, leave everything blank and hit "Sign in…". Web page opens to authenticate and then you can mount OneDrive in Nautilus.

30 Apr 2024 8:22pm GMT

It seems that the popular command-line system info tool Neofetch is dead, Jim. The Github repo for the project was archived by its main developer last week and is now read-only, a sure sign that development has well and truly ceased to be. Not that this is a shock. Development on Neofetch seemed to stall a few years back as bug reports piled up, pull requests were ignored, and the developer stop replying. The last update to Neofetch was made in 2020. I'm a big fan of Neofetch and have used it on all my installs since discovering it in […]

You're reading Neofetch Development Ends as GitHub Project Archived, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

30 Apr 2024 3:10pm GMT

A study of 4 major use cases of AI in cars

In this fast-paced age of technological evolution, Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as the key catalyst driving profound shifts in the automotive sector. From smart vehicle design to customised in-car interactions, AI is reshaping every aspect of transportation, ensuring safer, more effective, and environmentally friendly journeys for both drivers and passengers.

In this blog, we'll have a look at the four most promising use cases for AI in the automotive industry.

Intelligent vehicle lifecycle management

Innovative vehicle design, material use, and manufacturing processes

AI-powered generative design algorithms are transforming how vehicles are conceptualised and engineered, pushing the boundaries of creativity and efficiency. These algorithms optimise vehicle structures for performance, safety, and sustainability by analysing vast datasets and exploring numerous design iterations.

Moreover, AI is revolutionising material selection: manufacturers are harnessing its capabilities to identify the most suitable materials for each component, balancing strength, weight, and environmental impact. This results in vehicles that are lighter, more fuel efficient, more technologically advanced, and more sustainable to produce - contributing to a greener industry and future.

Predictive maintenance and diagnostics

AI is reshaping the landscape of vehicle maintenance through predictive maintenance systems that redefine how issues are identified and addressed.

Some cars have over 100 embedded sensors, tracking everything from engine fuel-oxygen mixes and tyre pressure, to component temperatures and orientation. AI algorithms can use the data from these sensors to predict mechanical and electrical faults before they happen, opening up the door for proactive, preventative maintenance.

As a result, vehicle downtime is minimised, maintenance costs are reduced, and overall reliability is significantly enhanced, ensuring a smoother and more seamless ownership experience for drivers.

Supply chain enhancements

AI isn't just making cars lighter and more efficient - it's also making them easier to build and send to showrooms and car lots. Car manufacturers can use AI algorithms to analyse large amounts of data related to demand forecasting, inventory management, and logistics operations; this data will reveal ways to streamline supply chain processes and improve overall manufacturing efficiency.

AI-driven supply chain enhancements enable OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to anticipate demand fluctuations, optimise inventory levels, and minimise lead times, thereby reducing costs and improving responsiveness to market dynamics. Moreover, AI enables predictive analytics for proactive risk management, allowing manufacturers to identify potential disruptions and mitigate them before they impact production. This helps car companies be more flexible, resilient, and competitive in today's changing market.

One example of this in action is the dispatch of parts across a vast network of locations, including repair shops and warehouses. AI algorithms analyse a multitude of factors, including weather data, customer repair habits, seasonal trends, and inventory levels, to predict demand and optimise part shipments. By consolidating information from various sources and through predictive analytics, AI enables automotive companies to proactively manage their supply chains, ensuring timely delivery of parts while minimising costs and maximising efficiency.

This approach mirrors strategies employed by agricultural companies, which rely on AI to optimise the distribution of repair parts for harvesting machines, enhancing overall supply chain resilience and performance.

Enhanced in-car experience and connectivity

In the automotive field, it's not just the vehicle that's being improved by AI, but the human experience of that vehicle. AI is revolutionising the in-car experience, offering a seamless blend of comfort, convenience, and connectivity for drivers and passengers alike.

In-car experience personalisation

Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all vehicle settings. With AI, the in-car experience becomes highly personalised, adapting to the individual preferences and needs of each occupant. By analysing data on driver behaviour, environmental conditions, and historical usage patterns, AI algorithms adjust various settings within the vehicle to create a unique driver-specific experience.

Imagine sitting in a brand-new car, or in your uncle's car. Within seconds, the steering wheel height, mirrors, seat, and headrest adjust to put you at the perfect driving height with optimal vision of everything around you. The air conditioning turns on at a perfect 19 degrees (which your uncle thinks is a waste of fuel). The car radio imports your favourite stations as preset channels. The in-car GPS suggests preferred routes home for you based on your previous journeys and the current traffic. That's the power of AI-driven user experience.

AI ensures that every journey is as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. This level of personalisation not only enhances the overall driving experience but also fosters greater driver satisfaction and loyalty to automotive brands.

Natural Language Processing for smarter assistants

In today's world, you're more connected than ever. There's just one problem: it's illegal in most countries to use the thing that connects you (namely, your phone) while driving. This simple fact makes AI-powered natural language assistants a must-have companion. These assistants enable hands-free interaction with vehicle systems, allowing drivers to perform a wide range of tasks using voice commands alone.

Whether it's making phone calls, sending text messages, adjusting navigation settings, or controlling entertainment options, AI-powered natural language assistants make driving safer and more convenient. These assistants seamlessly integrate with other services and devices, such as calendars, emails, and smartphones, ensuring a connected and flawless experience for drivers. Imagine this: your AI companion remembers the 3pm text you got from your partner to pick up milk, and automatically adds a stop at the nearest convenience store that is listed as open and sells your usual purchased brand of organic 3.5% full-fat, free-range fresh milk. By harnessing the power of AI, natural language assistants transform the car into a true extension of the driver's digital life, enhancing productivity and connectivity on the go.

Advanced mobility solutions and urban planning

AI goes even further than the car and its driver; at a macro scale, its data and feedback can improve roads, cities, and even the environment itself. As urbanisation continues to accelerate and cities confront growing challenges related to congestion, pollution, and limited infrastructure, AI emerges as a key enabler of advanced mobility solutions and urban planning strategies.

Multimodal AI Assistant and Cross-App Integration

The integration of AI-powered multimodal assistants marks a significant advancement in mobility solutions. These assistants are designed to seamlessly facilitate transitions between different modes of transport, offering users a harmonious and intuitive experience. Capable of processing various inputs such as voice commands, images, and video feeds, these assistants serve as versatile interfaces, connecting users with their vehicles and surrounding environments.

By analysing vast amounts of data, including traffic patterns, congestion hotspots, and user preferences, these assistants not only assist drivers but also contribute to the collective improvement of transportation systems. For instance, their recommendations for nearby points of interest (POIs) like attractions and services aren't just about enhancing individual journeys. They are also about facilitating better traffic distribution, reducing congestion, and ultimately creating a more harmonious and enjoyable travel experience for everyone on the road.

Urban transport optimisation

In densely populated urban areas, efficient transport systems are essential for maintaining mobility and reducing environmental impact. AI plays a central role in optimising urban transport planning and infrastructure, using data analytics and predictive modelling to improve efficiency and sustainability.

By analysing massive datasets, including traffic patterns, public transit schedules, and environmental conditions, AI algorithms identify opportunities for optimisation, such as route adjustments, traffic signal synchronisation, and modal shift incentives. Additionally, AI facilitates dynamic pricing and demand-responsive services, ensuring that transport networks remain responsive to changing needs and preferences. Through urban transport optimisation, AI enables cities to alleviate congestion, reduce emissions, and enhance overall mobility, creating more pleasant and sustainable urban environments.

Travel booking and mobility services

AI-driven travel booking, ride-hailing platforms and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) solutions offer individually curated and integrated transportation options, adjusting to individual preferences and needs. With the help of AI algorithms, these platforms analyse user data, historical travel patterns, and real-time availability to offer customised travel itineraries, including public transit, ride-sharing, and micromobility options. These plans extend beyond mode selection to include nuanced considerations such as off-peak travel calculations, surge pricing predictions, and custom suggestions for optimal travel experiences. For instance, AI could recommend travel options based on a user's preference for a car with ample luggage space, in-car entertainment features, or the most direct route with the fewest stops.

Additionally, AI optimises travel routes and schedules, taking into account factors such as traffic conditions, weather forecasts, and user preferences, to ensure efficient and stress-free journeys.

By streamlining travel booking and offering tailored mobility solutions, AI enhances the overall urban mobility experience, making it easier and more convenient to navigate cities and reach destinations.

Simulation and testing for autonomous driving

The pursuit of autonomous driving (AD) stands at the forefront of automotive technology, promising safer, more efficient, and more convenient transportation solutions. Central to this endeavour is the use of AI to assist in rigorous simulation and testing processes, ensuring the reliability and safety of autonomous vehicles.

Complex AD simulation scenarios

The development and validation of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving technologies require extensive testing under diverse and complex scenarios.

AI-driven simulation platforms play a crucial role in this process, generating realistic and dynamic environments that mimic real-world driving conditions. These simulations encompass a wide range of scenarios, including varying weather conditions, road layouts, traffic patterns, and unforeseen events, allowing developers to evaluate the performance of autonomous systems in virtually any situation.

By relying on AI algorithms, these simulations continuously evolve and adapt, incorporating new data and insights to enhance their realism and effectiveness. As a result, developers can iteratively refine and optimise autonomous driving algorithms, accelerating the journey towards safe and reliable autonomous vehicles.

AI and AD Integration

At the core of AD systems lies the integration of AI algorithms, enabling vehicles to perceive, interpret, and respond to their surroundings in real-time. AI processes data from various sensors- including cameras, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), and radar- to identify objects, detect obstacles, and predict their movements.

Through advanced machine learning processes, AI algorithms continuously learn and improve, enhancing the accuracy and reliability of autonomous driving capabilities. Additionally, AI facilitates decision-making in complex and dynamic environments, enabling vehicles to navigate safely and efficiently in any driving conditions, no matter how stormy or congested they are.

By integrating AI into autonomous driving systems, automotive manufacturers are creating even safer self-driving cars that can share the road with the rest of us.

AI for impactful and smarter automotive innovations

In conclusion, the integration of AI into the automotive industry has ushered in a new era of innovation, transforming every facet of the driving experience. From revolutionising vehicle design and maintenance to optimising supply chains and enhancing urban mobility, AI is driving (pun intended) unprecedented advancements that promise safer, more efficient, and more sustainable transportation solutions.

The applications of AI discussed in this blog illustrate the breadth and depth of its impact on the automotive sector. AI-driven design and manufacturing processes are pushing the boundaries of creativity and efficiency, while predictive maintenance systems are ensuring the reliability and longevity of vehicles on the road. In-car experience personalisation and natural language assistants are redefining how drivers interact with their vehicles, while advanced mobility solutions and urban planning strategies are reshaping the way we navigate and interact with cities. Furthermore, AI's role in optimising supply chains and facilitating autonomous driving technologies underscores its potential to revolutionise the entire automotive ecosystem. By harnessing the power of AI, automotive companies can unlock new opportunities for efficiency, sustainability, and innovation, driving us towards a future where mobility is smarter, safer, and more accessible for all.

As we look ahead, it is clear that AI will continue to play a leading role in shaping the future of transportation.

• Download our whitepaper on V2X and connected vehicles
• Check out our webpage
• Contact Us
• More automotive software updates and news
• Watch a joint webinar with Elektrobit: Unlocking software-defined vehicles: a deep dive into automotive software

30 Apr 2024 8:00am GMT

A study of 4 major use cases of AI in cars In this fast-paced age of technological evolution, Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as the key catalyst driving profound shifts in the automotive sector. From smart vehicle design to customised in-car interactions, AI is reshaping every aspect of transportation, ensuring safer, more effective, and environmentally friendly […]

30 Apr 2024 8:00am GMT

A new version of the open-source music player Amarok has been released, the first major update to the Qt-based media app since 2018. Amarok 3.0 is the first stable release to use Qt 5 and KDE Frameworks 5, and work to port the music player to the the newest Qt 6 and KDE Frameworks 6 is, its devs say, soon to get underway. "Common usecases should work quite well, and in addition to fixing KF5 port related regressions reported in pre-releases, 3.0 features many bugfixes and implemented features for longstanding issues, the oldest such documented being from 2009," devs say. […]

You're reading Amarok 3.0 Released, Ported to Qt5/KDE Frameworks 5, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

30 Apr 2024 12:25am GMT

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 837 for the week of April 21 - 27, 2024. The full version of this issue is available here.

In this issue we cover:

• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) released
• Ubuntu Stats
• Hot in Support
• Party like a Noble Numbat
• UbuCon North America 2024 Call for Papers
• LoCo Events
• NVIDIA GPUDirect over Infiniband Migration Paths
• Let's talk open design
• Subiquity 24.04.1 has been released to the stable channel
• May - October 2024 planning cycle - your opinions count
• Ubuntu Cloud News
• Canonical News
• In the Press
• In the Blogosphere
• Other Articles of Interest
• Featured Audio and Video
• Meeting Reports
• Upcoming Meetings and Events
• Updates and Security for Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04, 23.10, and 24.04
• And much more!

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

• Krytarik Raido
• Bashing-om
• Chris Guiver
• Wild Man
• And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

.

29 Apr 2024 10:47pm GMT

Explore the latest features and improvements of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, codenamed 'Noble Numbat'. This release, optimized for Microsoft/Azure users, introduces an enhanced Azure Marketplace experience, optimized performance on Azure infrastructure, and advanced developer toolchains. Discover how Ubuntu continues to lead in confidential computing and learn about its enhanced Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) integration.

29 Apr 2024 5:28pm GMT

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS was released just a few days ago and many Ubuntu users will now slowly plan their upgrades, whether it's going to be over the next few days, weeks, months or years.

When it comes to running Incus on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, there are a few options detailed below.

Native Incus packages

Incus 6.0 LTS is included directly in the Ubuntu Archive, making it very easy to install:

• Simple container experience: apt install incus
• Container and virtual-machines: apt install incus qemu-system-x86-64
• To migrate from LXD: apt install incus-tools

Installing Incus that way is convenient as it doesn't use external repositories nor does it rely on alternative packaging methods like snaps. That's also the same set of Incus packages that will be shipped with Debian 13 (Trixie).

On the support front, this is using Incus 6.0 LTS and so uses a version of Incus that will be supported upstream for the next 5 years. The package itself is in the universe repository and so doesn't come with security updates provided by Canonical as part of stock Ubuntu.

However Canonical now provides additional security updates to Ubuntu Pro users which includes both security updates and support for all 23000 packages in universe.

Third party Incus packages

An alternative is to use the packages that I produce myself.

Those packages are quite different from the ones shipped directly in Ubuntu or Debian as they also directly include the most critical dependencies so that the whole solution can be tested and validated as a single unit.

That makes it much easier for me to provide timely fixes as well as commercial support for users of those packages. It also allows for decoupling the Incus installation/version from the OS version, making major system updates easier.

Packages are available for Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04 and now 24.04 LTS as well as Debian 11 and Debian 12.

Moving from LXD

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS ships with LXD 5.21, migrating from LXD 5.21 to Incus 6.0 LTS can be done very easily by running the "lxd-to-incus" command.

It supports very quickly and reliably migrating data from LXD installations as old as LXD 4.0.0 all the way to and including LXD 5.21.

Running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on top of Incus

If you're just looking at using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS but don't want to upgrade your whole system yet, or you're running another Linux distribution and just want to experiment with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, you can easily do that through Incus.

Incus has the following images ready for use:

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base image

Our default Ubuntu 24.04 LTS image. It's pretty lightweight while still containing most expected tools for day to day operation.

It's available for both containers (125MiB compressed) and virtual-machines (270MiB compressed).

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS cloud image

Our cloud-init enabled Ubuntu 24.04 LTS image, it's basically the same as the default image but with cloud-init enabled for automated provisioning.

It's available for both containers (150MiB compressed) and virtual-machines (305MiB compressed).

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS desktop image

Our desktop (Gnome) Ubuntu 24.04 LTS image, it boots directly into a pre-created user account and makes it extremely easy to try the latest Ubuntu Desktop experience.

This image is only available as a virtual-machine (1.1GiB compressed).

Conclusion

Hopefully this provided a pretty good overview of how to get Incus up and running on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, either by moving from an existing LXD installation over to Incus or installing it fresh.

If you'd just like to learn more about Incus without having to install it locally, our online demo service is as great for that as ever!

And if you're not using Ubuntu on your system, don't worry, Incus can run on just about anything else too!

29 Apr 2024 4:14pm GMT

For a native integration for Canonical's Kubernetes platform, Juju was the perfect fit, and the charm makes consuming CloudCasa seamless for users.

29 Apr 2024 2:00pm GMT

Mozilla devs are bringing more customisation options to the new tab page in Firefox. A number of modern web browsers, including Google Chrome, allow users to set a custom image as the backdrop for the new tab page: As the new tab page is (by default) set to show when a browser is launched and every time a new tab is opened it's a highly visible (if often fleeting) part of users' browser experience, making customisation a popular request. But while Mozilla Firefox offers an array of advanced features and settings that put it on a par with rival browsers […]

You're reading Mozilla Devs Adding 'New Tab Wallpapers' to Firefox, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

29 Apr 2024 12:53am GMT

Want to know the official codename of Ubuntu 24.10? Although Ubuntu 24.04 LTS has only just been released the pace of development marches ever on. Ubuntu developers are already beginning to bootstrap the base on which the next short-term release of the popular Linux distribution will be built. Ubuntu 24.10 will be released in October, 2024 and, upon release, receive 9 months of updates. Of course, as we all know: every new Ubuntu release gets its own alliterative codename made up of an adjective and an animal (real or mythological). For Ubuntu 24.10 they've settled on "Oracular Oriole". Cute, but […]

You're reading Ubuntu 24.10 Codename Revealed as Development Begins, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

28 Apr 2024 9:37pm GMT

A few weeks ago, in episode 25 of Linux Matters Podcast I brought up the subject of 'Coding Joy'. This blog post is an expanded follow-up to that segment. Go and listen to that episode - or not - it's all covered here.

Not a Developer

I've said this many times - I've never considered myself a 'Developer'. It's not so much imposter syndrome, but plain facts. I didn't attend university to study software engineering, and have never held a job with 'Engineer' or Developer' in the title.

(I do have Engineering Manager and Developer Advocate roles in my past, but in popey's weird set of rules, those don't count.)

I have written code over the years. Starting with BASIC on the Sinclair ZX81 and Sinclair Spectrum, I wrote stuff for fun and no financial gain. I also coded in Z80 & 6502 assembler, taught myself Pascal on my Epson 8086 PC in 1990, then QuickBasic and years later, BlitzBasic, Lua (via LÖVE) and more.

In the workplace, I wrote some alarmingly complex utilities in Windows batch scripts and later Bash shell scripts on Linux. In a past career, I would write ABAP in SAP - which turned into an internal product mildly amusingly called "Alan's Tool".

These were pretty much all coding for fun, though. Nobody specced up a project and assigned me as a developer on it. I just picked up the tools and started making something, whether that was a sprite routine in Z80 assembler, an educational CPU simulator in Pascal, or a spreadsheet uploader for SAP BiW.

In 2003, three years before Twitter launched in 2006, I made a service called 'Clunky.net'. It was a bunch of PHP and Perl smashed together and published online with little regard for longevity or security. Users could sign up and send 'tweet' style messages from their phone via SMS, which would be presented in a reverse-chronological timeline. It didn't last, but I had fun making it while it did.

They were all fun side-quests.

None of this makes me a developer.

Volatile Memories

It's rapidly approaching fifty years since I first wrote any code on my first computer. Back then, you'd typically write code and then either save it on tape (if you were patient) or disk (if you were loaded). Maybe you'd write it down - either before or after you typed it in - or perhaps you'd turn the computer off and lose it all.

When I studied for a BTEC National Diploma in Computer Studies at college, one of our classes was on the IBM PC with two floppy disc drives. The lecturer kept hold of all the floppies because we couldn't be trusted not to lose, damage or forget them. Sometimes the lecturer was held up at the start of class, so we'd be sat twiddling our thumbs for a bit.

In those days, when you booted the PC with no floppy inserted, it would go directly into BASICA, like the 8-bit microcomputers before it. I would frequently start writing something, anything, to pass the time.

With no floppy disks on hand, the code - beautiful as it was - would be lost. The lecturer often reset the room when they entered, hitting a big red 'Stop' button, which instantly powered down all the computers, losing whatever 'work' you'd done.

I was probably a little irritated at the moment, just as I would when the RAM pack wobbled on my ZX81, losing everything. You move on, though, and make something else, or get on with your college work, and soon forget about it.

Or you bitterly remember it and write a blog post four decades later. Each to their own.

Sharing is Caring

This part was the main focus of the conversation when we talked about this on the show.

In the modern age, over the last ten to fifteen years or so, I've not done so much of the kind of coding I wrote about above. I certainly have done some stuff for work, mostly around packaging other people's software as snaps or writing noddy little shell scripts. But I lost a lot of the 'joy' of coding recently.

Why?

I think a big part is the expectation that I'd make the code available to others. The public scrutiny others give your code may have been a factor. The pressure I felt that I should put my code out and continue to maintain it rather than throw it over the wall wouldn't have helped.

I think I was so obsessed with doing the 'right' thing that coding 'correctly' or following standards and making it all maintainable became a cognitive roadblock.

I would start writing something and then begin wondering, 'How would someone package this up?' and 'Am I using modern coding standards, toolkits, and frameworks?' This held me back from the joy of coding in the first place. I was obsessing too much over other people's opinions of my code and whether someone else could build and run it.

I never used to care about this stuff for personal projects, and it was a lot more joyful an experience - for me.

I used to have an idea, pick up a text editor and start coding. I missed that.

Realisation

In January this year, Terence Eden wrote about his escapades making a FourSquare-like service using ActivityPub and OpenStreetMap. When he first mentioned this on Mastodon, I grabbed a copy of the code he shared and had a brief look at it.

The code was surprisingly simple, scrappy, kinda working, and written in PHP. I was immediately thrown back twenty years to my terrible 'Clunky' code and how much fun it was to throw together.

In February, I bumped into Terence at State of Open Con in London and took the opportunity to quiz him about his creation. We discussed his choice of technology (PHP), and the simple 'thrown together in a day' nature of the project.

At that point, I had a bit of a light-bulb moment, realising that I could get back to joyful coding. I don't have to share everything; not every project needs to be an Open-Source Opus.

I can open a text editor, type some code, and enjoy it, and that's enough.

Joy Rediscovered

I had an idea for a web application and wanted to prototype something without too much technological research or overhead. So I created a folder on my home server, ran php -S 0.0.0.0:9000 in a terminal there, made a skeleton index.php and pointed a browser at the address. Boom! Application created!

I created some horribly insecure and probably unmaintainable PHP that will almost certainly never see the light of day.

I had fun doing it though. Which is really the whole point.

More side-quests, fewer grand plans.

27 Apr 2024 8:00am GMT

With Ubuntu 24.04 LTS released and a long weekend upon us you might be planning to upgrade an existing Ubuntu install to the latest version. But don't. For one, "officially" you can't since Ubuntu 24.04 LTS upgrades are not yet enabled, neither from Ubuntu 23.10 nor 22.04 LTS. But that doesn't stop us folks from upgrading manually. They hear that a new version of Ubuntu is out and stable, they don't fancy the faff of a fresh install, and they don't want to wait for the "new version available" upgrade prompt to appear on their desktop. So they go to […]

You're reading Why You Shouldn't Upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Yet, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

26 Apr 2024 1:25pm GMT

The latest release of uCareSystem, version 24.04.0, introduces enhanced maintenance and cleanup capabilities for Ubuntu and its derivatives. It's definitely worth exploring the new features As uCareSystem joyfully celebrates its 15th anniversary, its latest release unveils a host of new features that I have incorporated to address the evolving needs since the previous version, 4.4.0 […]

26 Apr 2024 11:01am GMT

Over coffee this morning, I stumbled upon simone, a fledgling Open-Source tool for repurposing YouTube videos as blog posts. The Python tool creates a text summary of the video and extracts some contextual frames to illustrate the text.

A neat idea! In my experience, software engineers are often tasked with making demonstration videos, but other engineers commonly prefer consuming the written word over watching a video. I took simone for a spin, to see how well it works. Scroll down and tell me what you think!

I was sat in front of my work laptop, which is a mac, so roughly speaking, this is what I did:

• Install host pre-requisites

$ brew install ffmpeg tesseract virtualenv

• Get simone

git clone https://github.com/rajtilakjee/simone

• Get a free API key from OpenRouter
• Put the API key in .env

GEMMA_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

• Install python requisites

$ cd simone
$ virtualenv .venv
$ source .venv/bin/activate
(.venv) $ pip install -r requirements.txt

• Run it!

(.venv) $ python src/main.py
Enter YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDIAHEoECfM
/Users/alan/Work/rajtilakjee/simone/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/whisper/transcribe.py:115: UserWarning: FP16 is not supported on CPU; using FP32 instead
 warnings.warn("FP16 is not supported on CPU; using FP32 instead")
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "/Users/alan/Work/rajtilakjee/simone/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pytesseract/pytesseract.py", line 255, in run_tesseract
 proc = subprocess.Popen(cmd_args, **subprocess_args())
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "/opt/homebrew/Cellar/python@3.12/3.12.3/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/lib/python3.12/subprocess.py", line 1026, in __init__
 self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
 File "/opt/homebrew/Cellar/python@3.12/3.12.3/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/lib/python3.12/subprocess.py", line 1955, in _execute_child
 raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg, err_filename)
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'C:/Program Files/Tesseract-OCR/tesseract.exe'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "/Users/alan/Work/rajtilakjee/simone/src/main.py", line 47, in <module>
 blogpost(url)
 File "/Users/alan/Work/rajtilakjee/simone/src/main.py", line 39, in blogpost
 score = scores.score_frames()
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "/Users/alan/Work/rajtilakjee/simone/src/utils/scorer.py", line 20, in score_frames
 extracted_text = pytesseract.image_to_string(
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "/Users/alan/Work/rajtilakjee/simone/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pytesseract/pytesseract.py", line 423, in image_to_string
 return {
 ^
 File "/Users/alan/Work/rajtilakjee/simone/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pytesseract/pytesseract.py", line 426, in <lambda>
 Output.STRING: lambda: run_and_get_output(*args),
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "/Users/alan/Work/rajtilakjee/simone/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pytesseract/pytesseract.py", line 288, in run_and_get_output
 run_tesseract(**kwargs)
 File "/Users/alan/Work/rajtilakjee/simone/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pytesseract/pytesseract.py", line 260, in run_tesseract
 raise TesseractNotFoundError()
pytesseract.pytesseract.TesseractNotFoundError: C:/Program Files/Tesseract-OCR/tesseract.exe is not installed or it's not in your PATH. See README file for more information.

• Oof!
• File a bug (like a good Open Source citizen)
• Locally patch the file and try again

(.venv) python src/main.py
Enter YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDIAHEoECfM
/Users/alan/Work/rajtilakjee/simone/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/whisper/transcribe.py:115: UserWarning: FP16 is not supported on CPU; using FP32 instead
 warnings.warn("FP16 is not supported on CPU; using FP32 instead")

• Look for results

(.venv) $ ls -l generated_blogpost.txt *.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 alan staff 2163 26 Apr 09:26 generated_blogpost.txt
-rw-r--r--@ 1 alan staff 132984 26 Apr 09:27 top_frame_4_score_106.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 alan staff 184705 26 Apr 09:27 top_frame_5_score_105.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 alan staff 126148 26 Apr 09:27 top_frame_9_score_101.jpg

• Drink your weak lemon drink now! (to wash away the foul taste of computer lies in your honest hobby gullet)

In my test I pointed simone at a short demo video from my employer, Anchore's YouTube channel. The results are below, with no editing, I even included the typos. The images at the bottom of this post are frames from the video that simone selected.

Ancors Static Stick Checker Tool Demo: Evaluating and Resolving Security Findings

Introduction

Static stick checker tool helps developers identify security vulnerabilities in Docker images by running open-source security checks and generating remediation recommendations. This blog post summarizes a live demo of the tool's capabilities.

How it works

The tool works by:

• Downloading and analyzing the Docker image.
• Detecting the base operating system distribution and selecting the appropriate stick profile.
• Running open-source security checks on the image.
• Generating a report of identified vulnerabilities and remediation actions.

Demo Walkthrough

The demo showcases the following steps:

• Image preparation: Uploading a Docker image to a registry.
• Tool execution: Running the static stick checker tool against the image.
• Results viewing: Analyzing the generated stick results and identifying vulnerabilities.
• Remediation: Implementing suggested remediation actions by modifying the Dockerfile.
• Re-checking: Running the tool again to verify that the fixes have been effective.

Key findings

• The static stick checker tool identified vulnerabilities in the Docker image in areas such as:
  • Verifying file hash integrity.
  • Configuring cryptography policy.
  • Verifying file permissions.
• Remediation scripts were provided to address each vulnerability.
• By implementing the recommended changes, the security posture of the Docker image was improved.

Benefits of using the static stick checker tool

• Identify security vulnerabilities early in the development process.
• Automate the remediation process.
• Shift security checks leftward in the development pipeline.
• Reduce the burden on security teams by addressing vulnerabilities before deployment.

Conclusion

The Ancors static stick checker tool provides a valuable tool for developers to improve the security of their Docker images. By proactively addressing vulnerabilities during the development process, organizations can ensure their applications are secure and reduce the risk of security incidents

Here's the images it pulled out:

Not bad! It could be better - getting the company name wrong, for one!

I can imagine using this to create a YouTube description, or use it as a skeleton from which a blog post could be created. I certainly wouldn't just pipe the output of this into blog posts! But so many videos need better descriptions, and this could help!

26 Apr 2024 9:00am GMT

Arriving alongside the main Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release are new versions of the official Ubuntu flavours, including Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu Cinnamon. What follows is a concise, top-level overview of the key new features and changes in some of the most popular Ubuntu flavours, plus the relevant downloads links to snag an ISO need should be tempted into trying a few flavors first-hand. Unless otherwise noted, all flavours share the same foundational footprint as the main release, e.g., Linux kernel, graphics drivers, tooling, etc. But some fears, like the Flutter-based OS installer and the snap-centric App Center aren't used in […]

You're reading Ubuntu 24.04 Official Flavours Available to Download, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

26 Apr 2024 1:26am GMT

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, codenamed "Noble Numbat", is here. This release continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, together with the community and our partners, to introduce new features and fix bugs.

Our 10th Long Term Supported release sets a new standard in performance engineering, enterprise security and developer experience.

Ubuntu Desktop brings the Subiquity installer to an LTS for the first time. In addition to a refreshed user experience and a minimal install by default, the installer now includes experimental support for ZFS and TPM-based full disk encryption and the ability to import auto-install configurations. Post install, users will be greeted with the latest GNOME 46 alongside a new App Center and firmware-updater. Netplan is now the default for networking configuration and supports bidirectionality with NetworkManager.

Ubuntu now enables frame pointers by default on 64-bit architectures to enable CPU and off-CPU profiling for workload optimisation, alongside a suite of critical performance tools pre-installed. The Linux 6.8 kernel now enables low-latency features by default. For IoT vendors leveraging 32-bit arm hardware, our armhf build has been updated to resolve the upcoming 2038 issue by implementing 64-bit time_t in all necessary packages.

As always, Ubuntu ships with the latest toolchain versions. .NET 8 is now fully supported on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS) for the full lifecycle of the release and OpenJDK 21 and 17 are both TCK certified to adhere to Java interoperability standards. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS ships Rust 1.75 and a simpler Rust toolchain snap framework to enable future rust versions to be delivered to developers on this release in years to come.

The newest Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Cinnamon, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Studio, Ubuntu Unity, and Xubuntu are also being released today. More details can be found for these at their individual release notes under the Official Flavours section:

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/noble-numbat-release-notes/

Maintenance updates will be provided for 5 years for Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Cloud and Ubuntu Core. All the remaining flavours will be supported for 3 years. Additional security support is available with ESM (Extended Security Maintenance).

To get Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

In order to download Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, visit:

https://ubuntu.com/download

Users of Ubuntu 23.10 will soon be offered an automatic upgrade to 24.04. Users of 22.04 LTS will be offered the automatic upgrade when 24.04.1 LTS is released, which is scheduled for the 15th of August. For further information about upgrading, see:

https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop/upgrade

As always, upgrades to the latest version of Ubuntu are entirely free of charge.

We recommend that all users read the release notes, which document caveats and workarounds for known issues, and provide more in-depth information on the release itself. They are available at:

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/noble-numbat-release-notes/

Find out what's new in this release with a graphical overview:

https://ubuntu.com/desktop
https://ubuntu.com/desktop/features

If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug but aren't sure, you can try asking in any of the following places:

#ubuntu on irc.libera.chat
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
https://ubuntuforums.org
https://askubuntu.com
https://discourse.ubuntu.com

Help Shape Ubuntu

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways
you can participate at:

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/contribute

About Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a full-featured Linux distribution for desktops, laptops, IoT, cloud, and servers, with a fast and easy installation and regular releases. A tightly-integrated selection of excellent applications is included, and an incredible variety of add-on software is just a few clicks away.

Professional services including support are available from Canonical and hundreds of other companies around the world. For more information about support, visit:

https://ubuntu.com/support

More Information

You can learn more about Ubuntu and about this release on our website listed below:

https://ubuntu.com

To sign up for future Ubuntu announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu's very low volume announcement list at:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-announce

Originally posted to the ubuntu-announce mailing list on Thu Apr 25 15:20:52 UTC 2024 by Utkarsh Gupta on behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team

25 Apr 2024 11:47pm GMT

Among the many new features in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is the ability to access your Microsoft OneDrive files through the Nautilus file manager. No 3rd-party app downloads, no dodgy scripts to run, and no paid plans to cough up for because this nifty feature is part of GNOME 46 (and available in any Linux distribution using it, not just the latest Ubuntu LTS). OneDrive file access works the same way as the (long-standing and popular) Google Drive integration: a Gvfs backend authorised through GNOME Online Accounts (via the Settings app), and then surfaced as an entry in the Nautilus sidebar. […]

You're reading How to Enable OneDrive File Access in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

25 Apr 2024 8:15pm GMT

The Kubuntu Team is happy to announce that Kubuntu 24.04 has been released, featuring the 'beautiful' KDE Plasma 5.27 simple by default, powerful when needed.

Codenamed "Noble Numbat", Kubuntu 24.04 continues our tradition of giving you Friendly Computing by integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.

Under the hood, there have been updates to many core packages, including a new 6.8-based kernel, KDE Frameworks 5.115, KDE Plasma 5.27 and KDE Gear 23.08.

Kubuntu 24.04 with Plasma 5.27.11

Kubuntu has seen many updates for other applications, both in our default install, and installable from the Ubuntu archive.

Haruna, Krita, Kdevelop, Yakuake, and many many more applications are updated.

Applications for core day-to-day usage are included and updated, such as Firefox, and LibreOffice.

For a list of other application updates, and known bugs be sure to read our release notes.

Download Kubuntu 24.04, or learn how to upgrade from 23.10 or 22.04 LTS.

Note: For upgrades from 23.10, there may a delay of a few hours to days between the official release announcements and the Ubuntu Release Team enabling upgrades.

25 Apr 2024 4:16pm GMT

The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu Studio 24.04 LTS, code-named "Noble Numbat". This marks Ubuntu Studio's 34th release. This release is a Long-Term Support release and as such, it is supported for 3 years (36 months, until April 2027).

Since it's just out, you may experience some issues, so you might want to wait a bit before upgrading. Please see the release notes for a more complete list of changes and known issues. Listed here are some of the major highlights.

You can download Ubuntu Studio 24.04 LTS from our download page.

Special Notes

The Ubuntu Studio 24.04 LTS disk image (ISO) exceeds 4 GB and cannot be downloaded to some file systems such as FAT32 and may not be readable when burned to a standard DVD. For this reason, we recommend downloading to a compatible file system. When creating a boot medium, we recommend creating a bootable USB stick with the ISO image or burning to a Dual-Layer DVD.

Minimum installation media requirements: Dual-Layer DVD or 8GB USB drive.

Images can be obtained from this link: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/24.04/beta/

Full updated information, including Upgrade Instructions, are available in the Release Notes.

Please note that upgrading from 22.04 before the release of 24.04.1, due August 2024, is unsupported.

Upgrades from 23.10 should be enabled within a month after release, so we appreciate your patience.

New This Release

All-New System Installer

In cooperation with the Ubuntu Desktop Team, we have an all-new Desktop installer. This installer uses the underlying code of the Ubuntu Server installer ("Subiquity") which has been in-use for years, with a frontend coded in "Flutter". This took a large amount of work for this release, and we were able to help a lot of other official Ubuntu flavors transition to this new installer.

Be on the lookout for a special easter egg when the graphical environment for the installer first starts. For those of you who have been long-time users of Ubuntu Studio since our early days (even before Xfce!), you will notice exactly what it is.

PipeWire 1.0.4

Now for the big one: PipeWire is now mature, and this release contains PipeWire 1.0. With PipeWire 1.0 comes the stability and compatibility you would expect from multimedia audio. In fact, at this point, we recommend PipeWire usage for both Professional, Prosumer, and Everyday audio needs. At Ubuntu Summit 2023 in Riga, Latvia, our project leader Erich Eickmeyer used PipeWire to demonstrate live audio mixing with much success and has since done some audio mastering work using it. JACK developers even consider it to be "JACK 3".

PipeWire's JACK compatibility is configured to use out-of-the-box and is zero-latency internally. System latency is configurable via Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration.

However, if you would rather use straight JACK 2 instead, that's also possible. Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration can disable and enable PipeWire's JACK compatibility on-the-fly. From there, you can simply use JACK via QJackCtl.

With this, we consider audio production with Ubuntu Studio so mature that it can now rival operating systems such as macOS and Windows in ease-of-use since it's ready to go out-of-the-box.

Deprecation of PulseAudio/JACK setup/Studio Controls

Due to the maturity of PipeWire, we now consider the traditional PulseAudio/JACK setup, where JACK would be started/stopped by Studio Controls and bridged to PulseAudio, deprecated. This configuration is still installable via Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration, but we do not recommend it. Studio Controls may return someday as a PipeWire fine-tuning solution, but for now it is unsupported by the developer. For that reason, we recommend users not use this configuration. If you do, it is at your own risk and no support will be given. In fact, it's likely to be dropped for 24.10.

Ardour 8.4

While this does not represent the latest release of Ardour, Ardour 8.4 is a great release. If you would like the latest release, we highly recommend purchasing one-time or subscribing to Ardour directly from the developers to help support this wonderful application. Also, for that reason, this will be an application we will not directly backport. More on that later.

Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration

Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration has undergone a UI overhaul and contains the ability to start and stop a Dummy Audio Device which can also be configured to start or stop upon login. When assigned as the default, this will free-up channels that would normally be assigned to your system audio to be assigned to a null device.

Meta Package for Music Education

In cooperation with Edubuntu, we have created a metapackage for music education. This package is installable from Ubuntu Studio Installer and includes the following packages:

• FMIT: Free Musical Instrument Tuner, a tool for tuning musical Instruments (also included by default)
• GNOME Metronome: Exactly what it sounds like (pun unintended): a metronome.
• Minuet: Ear training for intervals, chords, scales, and more.
• MuseScore: Create, playback, and print sheet music for free (this one is no stranger to the Ubuntu Studio community)
• Piano Booster: MIDI player/game that displays musical notes and teaches you how to play piano, optionally using a MIDI keyboard.
• Solfege: Ear training program for harmonic and melodic intervals, chords, scales, and rhythms.

New Artwork

Thanks to the work of Eylul and the submissions to the Ubuntu Studio Noble Numbat Wallpaper Contest, we have a number of wallpapers to choose from and a new default wallpaper.

Deprecation of Ubuntu Studio Backports Is In Effect

As stated in the Ubuntu 23.10 Release Announcement, the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA is now deprecated in favor of the official Ubuntu Backports repository. However, the Backports repository only works for LTS releases and for good reason. There are a few requirements for backporting:

• It must be an application which already exists in the Ubuntu repositories
• It must be an application which would not otherwise qualify for a simple bugfix, which would then qualify it to be a Stable Release Update. This means it must have new features.
• It must not rely on new libraries or new versions of libraries.
• It must exist within a later supported release or the development release of Ubuntu.

If you have a suggestion for an application for which to backport that meets those requirements, feel free to join and email the Ubuntu Studio Users Mailing List with your suggestion with the tag "[BPO]" at the beginning of the subject line. Backports to 22.04 LTS are now closed and backports to 24.04 LTS are now open. Additionally, suggestions must pertain to Ubuntu Studio and preferably must be applications included with Ubuntu Studio. Suggestions can be rejected at the Project Leader's discretion.

One package that is exempt to backporting is Ardour. To help support Ardour's funding, you may obtain later versions directly from them. To do so, please one-time purchase or subscribe to Ardour from their website. If you wish to get later versions of Ardour from us, you will have to wait until the next regular release of Ubuntu Studio, due in October 2024.

We're back on Matrix

You'll notice that the menu links to our support chat and on our website will now take you to a Matrix chat. This is due to the Ubuntu community carving its own space within the Matrix federation.

However, this is not only a support chat. This is also a creativity discussion chat. You can pass ideas to each other and you're welcome to it if the topic remains within those confines. However, if a moderator or admin warns you that you're getting off-topic (or the intention for the chat room), please heed the warning.

This is a persistent connection, meaning if you close the window (or chat), it won't lose your place as you may only need to sign back in to resume the chat.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does Ubuntu Studio contain snaps?
A: Yes. Mozilla's distribution agreement with Canonical changed, and Ubuntu was forced to no longer distribute Firefox in a native .deb package. We have found that, after numerous improvements, Firefox now performs just as well as the native .deb package did.

Thunderbird also became a snap during this cycle for the maintainers to get security patches delivered faster.

Additionally, Freeshow is an Electron-based application. Electron-based applications cannot be packaged in the Ubuntu repositories in that they cannot be packaged in a traditional Debian source package. While such apps do have a build system to create a .deb binary package, it circumvents the source package build system in Launchpad, which is required when packaging for Ubuntu. However, Electron apps also have a facility for creating snaps, which can be uploaded and included. Therefore, for Freeshow to be included in Ubuntu Studio, it had to be packaged as a snap.

Q: Will you make an ISO with {my favorite desktop environment}?
A: To do so would require creating an entirely new flavor of Ubuntu, which would require going through the Official Ubuntu Flavor application process. Since we're completely volunteer-run, we don't have the time or resources to do this. Instead, we recommend you download the official flavor for the desktop environment of your choice and use Ubuntu Studio Installer to get Ubuntu Studio - which does *not* convert that flavor to Ubuntu Studio but adds its benefits.

Q: What if I don't want all these packages installed on my machine?
A: Simply use the Ubuntu Studio Installer to remove the features of Ubuntu Studio you don't want or need!

Looking Toward the Future

Plasma 6

Ubuntu Studio, in cooperation with Kubuntu, will be switching to Plasma 6 during the 24.10 development cycle. Likewise, Lubuntu will be switching to LXQt 2.0 and Qt 6, so the three flavors will be cooperating to do the move.

New Look

Ubuntu Studio has been using the same theming, "Materia" (except for the 22.04 LTS release which was a re-colored Breeze theme) since 19.04. However, Materia has gone dead upstream. To stay consistent, we found a fork called "Orchis" which seems to match closely and will be switching to that. More on that soon.

Minimal Installation

The new system installer has the capability to do minimal installations. This was something we did not have time to implement this cycle but intend to do for 24.10. This will let users install a minimal desktop to get going and then install what they need via Ubuntu Studio Installer. This will make a faster installation process but will not make the installation .iso image smaller. However, we have an idea for that as well.

Minimal Installation .iso Image

We are going to research what it will take to create a minimal installer .iso image that will function much like the regular .iso image minus the ability to install everything and allow the user to customize the installation via Ubuntu Studio Installer. This should lead to a much smaller initial download. Unlike creating a version with a different desktop environment, the Ubuntu Technical Board has been on record as saying this would not require going through the new flavor creation process. Our friends at Xubuntu recently did something similar.

Get Involved!

A wonderful way to contribute is to get involved with the project directly! We're always looking for new volunteers to help with packaging, documentation, tutorials, user support, and MORE! Check out all the ways you can contribute!

Our project leader, Erich Eickmeyer, is now working on Ubuntu Studio at least part-time, and is hoping that the users of Ubuntu Studio can give enough to generate a monthly part-time income. Your donations are appreciated! If other distributions can do it, surely we can! See the sidebar for ways to give!

Special Thanks

Huge special thanks for this release go to:

• Eylul Dogruel: Artwork, Graphics Design
• Ross Gammon: Upstream Debian Developer, Testing, Email Support
• Sebastien Ramacher: Upstream Debian Developer
• Dennis Braun: Upstream Debian Developer
• Rik Mills: Kubuntu Council Member, help with Plasma desktop
• Scarlett Moore: Kubuntu Project Lead, help with Plasma desktop
• Zixing Liu: Simplified Chinese translations in the installer
• Simon Quigley: Lubuntu Release Manager, help with Qt items, Core Developer stuff, keeping Erich sane and focused
• Steve Langasek: Help with livecd-rootfs changes to make the new installer work properly.
• Dan Bungert: Subiquity, seed fixes
• Dennis Loose: Ubuntu Desktop Provision (installer)
• Lukas Klingsbo: Ubuntu Desktop Provision (installer)
• Len Ovens: Testing, insight
• Wim Taymans: Creator of PipeWire
• Mauro Gaspari: Tutorials, Promotion, and Documentation, Testing, keeping Erich sane
• Krytarik Raido: IRC Moderator, Mailing List Moderator
• Erich Eickmeyer: Project Leader, Packaging, Development, Direction, Treasurer

A Note from the Project Leader

When I started out working on Ubuntu Studio six years ago, I had a vision of making it not only the easiest Linux-based operating system for content creation, but the easiest content creation operating system… full-stop.

With the release of Ubuntu Studio 24.04 LTS, I believe we have achieved that goal. No longer do we have to worry about whether an application is JACK or PulseAudio or… whatever. It all just works! Audio applications can be patched to each other!

If an audio device doesn't depend on complex drivers (i.e. if the device is class-compliant), it will just work. If a user wishes to lower the latency or change the sample rate, we have a utility that does that (Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration). If a user wants to have finer control use pure JACK via QJackCtl, they can do that too!

I honestly don't know how I would replicate this on Windows, and replicating on macOS would be much harder without downloading all sorts of applications. With Ubuntu Studio 24.04 LTS, it's ready to go and you don't have to worry about it.

Where we are now is a dream come true for me, and something I've been hoping to see Ubuntu Studio become. And now, we're finally here, and I feel like it can only get better.

-Erich Eickmeyer

25 Apr 2024 3:16pm GMT

Canonical's 10th Long Term Supported release sets a new standard in performance engineering, enterprise security and developer experience.

25 Apr 2024 3:01pm GMT

Learn how Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 LTS is built to empower open source developers and deliver innovation for the next 12 years.

25 Apr 2024 3:00pm GMT

Ubuntu MATE 24.04 is more of what you like, stable MATE Desktop on top of current Ubuntu. This release rolls up some fixes and more closely aligns with Ubuntu. Read on to learn more 👓️

Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS

Thank you! 🙇

I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone who has played an active role in improving Ubuntu MATE for this release 👏 I'd like to acknowledge the close collaboration with all the Ubuntu flavour teams and the Ubuntu Foundations and Desktop Teams. The assistance and support provided by Erich Eickmeyer (Ubuntu Studio), Simon Quigley (Lubuntu) and David Muhammed (Ubuntu Budgie) have been invaluable. Thank you! 💚

What changed since the Ubuntu MATE 23.10?

Here are the highlights of what's changed since the release of Ubuntu MATE 23.10

• Ships stable MATE Desktop 1.26.2 with a selection of bug fixes 🐛 and minor improvements 🩹 to associated components.
• Integrated the new ✨ Ubuntu Desktop Bootstrap installer 📀
• Added GNOME Firmware, that replaces Firmware Updater.
• Added App Center, that replaces Software Boutique.
• Retired Ubuntu MATE Welcome; although it is still available for Ubuntu MATE 23.10 and earlier.

Major Applications

Accompanying MATE Desktop 1.26.2 🧉 and Linux 6.8 🐧 are Firefox 125 🔥🦊, Celluloid 0.26 🎥, Evolution 3.52 📧, LibreOffice 24.2.2 📚

See the Ubuntu 24.04 Release Notes for details of all the changes and improvements that Ubuntu MATE benefits from.

Upgrading to Ubuntu MATE 24.04

The upgrade process to Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS from either Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS or 23.10 is the same as Ubuntu.

• Ubuntu 24.04 Upgrade Process

There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu MATE. Please ensure you have network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible mirror and follow the instructions above.

25 Apr 2024 2:57pm GMT

After 6 frenzied months of development the final stable Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release has arrived and is available for download. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (codenamed 'Noble Numbat') includes a rich array of new features ranging from an enhanced desktop installer and a the latest GNOME desktop to gaming improvements and a new Linux kernel. As a long-term support release Ubuntu 24.04 LTS gets 5 years of select apps updates, security fixes, kernel upgrades, and other buffs, and a further 5 years of extended security coverage via Ubuntu Pro. Plus, enterprise customers can buy an additional 2 years of coverage to make […]

You're reading Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Available to Download, This is What's New, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

25 Apr 2024 2:04pm GMT

We are pleased to announce the release of the next version of our distro, 24.04 Long Term Support. The LTS version is supported for 3 years while the regular releases are supported for 9 months. The new release rolls-up various fixes and optimizations that the Ubuntu Budgie team have been released since the 22.04 release in April 2022: We also inherits hundreds of stability…

Source

25 Apr 2024 1:37pm GMT

A new version of Clapper, a GTK4-based video player for Linux desktop has been released - the first major update in nearly 2 years. I first wrote about Clapper back in 2021 having been seduced over by its slick user interface (a superficial reason to like a media player, I know), its use of GStreamer, and a small but focused feature set that wasn't trying to distract me with features I'd never need. Subsequent updates to the app refined and expanded those selling points further and player remained my preferred video player, despite the lack of any major update since […]

You're reading Clapper Video Player for Linux Gets First Update in 2 Years, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

24 Apr 2024 8:05pm GMT

We're excited about the upcoming Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release, Noble Numbat. Like all Ubuntu releases, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS comes with 5 years of free security maintenance for the main repository. Support can be expanded for an extra 5 years, and to include the universe repository, via Ubuntu Pro. Organisations looking to keep their systems secure without needing […]

24 Apr 2024 8:40am GMT

Anyone making the upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS from the previous LTS, Ubuntu 22.04, is in for a treat because the amount of improvements on offer is vast. In addition to the new features in Ubuntu 24.04 those upgrading from the previous LTS will also discover, experience and benefit from the myriad of features added in the Ubuntu 22.10, 23.04, and 23.10 releases. Those upgrading from the previous LTS will find 2 years worth of changes on offer in Ubuntu 24.04 - Which amounts to a LOT! In this post I run-through 20 of the biggest changes Ubuntu 24.04 LTS […]

You're reading Ubuntu 24.04 LTS: 20 Major Changes to Look Out For, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

23 Apr 2024 11:04pm GMT

Next time you stop by the Flathub website you will notice it's had a bit of a revamp. The latest UI refresh lands a year after its last big redesign and builds on that look by adding new on-page features. These changes make it easier for Linux users to find the apps they are looking for and come across new software they might not have heard of. - That is unless they regularly read sites like mine, eh 😉. The Flathub homepage is now topped by a new banner slider (updated weekly) which promotes 5 apps. There's also a new […]

You're reading The Official Flathub Website Just Got a Fab Revamp, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

23 Apr 2024 3:16pm GMT

Discover how IBM Cloud's bare metal servers offer highly confined and high-performing single-tenant cloud isolation through the use of Ubuntu Core and Snaps, supported by the AMD Pensando Elba DPU (Data Processing Unit). This setup enables the creation of secure and efficient environments for each tenant. Its design ensures the total separation of their servers […]

22 Apr 2024 4:52pm GMT

Why aren't there more design contributions in open source? Help us find out!

19 Apr 2024 10:11am GMT

Introduction DISA, the Defense Information Systems Agency, has published their Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. The STIG is free for the public to download from the DOD Cyber Exchange. Canonical has been working with DISA since we published Ubuntu 22.04 LTS to draft this STIG, and we are delighted that it […]

18 Apr 2024 4:39pm GMT

MLflow is an open source platform, used for managing machine learning workflows. It was launched back in 2018 and has grown in popularity ever since, reaching 10 million users in November 2022. AI enthusiasts and professionals have struggled with experiment tracking, model management and code reproducibility, so when MLflow was launched, it addressed pressing problems […]

17 Apr 2024 4:49pm GMT

Clouds, be they private or public, surprisingly remain one of the most DIY-favouring markets. Perhaps due to the nebulous and increasingly powerful technologies, a series of myths, or even unnecessary egos, the majority of non-tech-centric…

17 Apr 2024 12:33pm GMT