[06:22] <basil_kurian_> \q
[08:24] <j_hn> Hi all
[08:29] <j_hn> I'm having problems with random freezes. Have installed multiple versions and tried un-installed nouveau. Anyone have a clue?
[16:24] <nigelb> 5 more minutes folks!
[16:30] <jcastro> Alright
[16:30] <jcastro> let's get started!
[16:30] <skaet> :)
[16:30] <jcastro> Welcome everyone to our Weekly Q+A
[16:31] <jcastro> This week we have skaet, who is the release manager for Ubuntu
[16:31] <jcastro> skaet: ok, it's all yours!
[16:31] <skaet> Thanks jcastro
[16:31] <skaet> Hi,  my name is Kate Stewart and I'm having a lot of fun these days working with the release team and all the development team to get Ubuntu release out for Natty.   Beta-1 will be coming out next week!  :)
[16:31] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/03/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[16:32] <skaet> As release manager,  I mostly try view the release as a whole and make sure there's some balance between teams as the code enters the archive.  This means making sure the important bugs aren't lost in limbo,  getting the latest features in from the various development teams and upstream projects, and having something stable enough to ship.   My knowledge tends to be broad and how the key areas need to interact/de
[16:32] <skaet> pend  on each other.  For specific details of the individual projects I lean on the tech leads and managers a lot (Ubuntu's got lots and lots of packages after all ;) ).
[16:33] <skaet> The release team does most of the heavy lifting and are awesome to work with.  I couldn't do this job without them.
[16:33] <skaet> Mostly day to day,  I herd cats, and ask questions,  lots of questions..
[16:33] <skaet> Now its your turn...   are there any questions?
[16:34] <skaet> !y
[16:34] <skaet> !q
[16:35] <jcastro> (one sec while she figures out the bot)
[16:36] <ClassBot> mhall119 asked: What's the future plans for adding or updating packages in the archives mid-cycle?
[16:36] <skaet> thanks mhall119
[16:36] <skaet> packages are able to update now until feature freeze
[16:36] <skaet> so, there's no plans to change that.
[16:37] <skaet> as we get closer to shipping a release though
[16:37] <skaet> we need to cut down on the amount of churn and interaction between packages
[16:37] <skaet> so we enter a feature freeze mode,  where only approved packages are allowed
[16:37] <skaet> to go into the archive.
[16:38] <skaet> this is done by a Feature Freeze Exception, being filed.
[16:38] <skaet> so, package can still get update.   The rate just slows down after mid cycle or so.
[16:39] <ClassBot> IdleOne asked: Besides Unity what can we expect from the 11.04 release in terms of "new stuff" ?
[16:40] <skaet> thanks for the question IdleOne.
[16:40] <skaet> there will be lots of updates beyond Unity landing, although as you know that is a major one.
[16:41] <skaet> We'll see updates to the toolchain and some of the infrastructure to support the next release
[16:41] <skaet> there will also be alot of key desktop packages updated, as well as server, etc.
[16:42] <skaet> the kubuntu team and other flavors will be seeing their packages update as well.
[16:42] <skaet> Probably best to refer to the release notes that will come out with the beta though, rather than me trying to go into them all here.
[16:43] <ClassBot> jcastro asked: What kind of things do you do on release day before the final image is pushed to the servers?
[16:44] <skaet> thanks jcastro
[16:44] <skaet> on the release day its mostly a matter of making sure all the images are working as advertised, and we have evidence (thanks to QA team and community volunteers)
[16:45] <skaet> and then for the bugs we know about,  reviewing that we've got them documented so we can try to help folk avoid stumbling into them
[16:46] <skaet> after it all looks good, and my typos/grammar errors/etc. have mostly been caught :P
[16:46] <skaet> we work with the IS team to get the images up to the mirrors and start populating them.
[16:46] <skaet> oh yeah,  and make sure the annouce goes out to the
[16:46] <skaet> appropriate IRC channels ;)
[16:46] <jcastro> For the question about what features are coming in 11.04: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NattyNarwhal/TechnicalOverview
[16:47] <skaet> thanks jcastro   :)
[16:47] <skaet> and expect it to be changing alot over the next week ;)
[16:48] <ClassBot> semiosis asked: sometimes primary distribution site (archive.canonical.com/security.ubuntu.com) gets real busy... lots of people are starting to use ubuntu in EC2, how about making the EC2 mirror first-class official?
[16:48] <skaet> thanks semiosis
[16:49] <skaet> good question
[16:49] <skaet> I'll make a note of that and look into it, with robbiew and the IS folk as to what the space implications are like for supporting it on themirrors.
[16:50] <skaet> Its a balancing act here too, and there are economic considerations,  but if its starting to be a bottleneck. Yes it is well worth revisiting.
[16:50] <skaet> thanks again for excellent question.
[16:50] <jcastro> Protip: We do support apt mirrors now, just not by default: http://mvogt.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/the-apt-mirror-method/
[16:52] <skaet> good point.   Thanks for mentioning, Protip.   Will add mvo to the discussion ;)
[16:52] <ClassBot> anadon asked: is there anything in this release to help foster or support resource sharing?
[16:53] <skaet> hmm...
[16:53] <skaet> anadon,  resources in which context?
[16:54] <nigelb> resources such as disk storage pooling over a network, hopefully sharing processing power, sharing distributed resources to help  scalability at my university
[16:54] <skaet> There are work groups investigating distributed development practices, that may be relevant.
[16:55] <skaet> Let me check with robbiew and others and get back to you offline.
[16:56] <skaet> We're mostly pulling in what debian supports and it probably depends on what you're already using as well.
[16:57] <nigelb> nigelb asked: Do we have a plan for deb delta like the rpm delas that seem to have come out? Updates always seem to suck a lot of  bandwitdth -- There are 0 additional questions in the queue.
[16:58] <skaet> Thanks nigelb
[16:58] <skaet> hmm
[16:59] <skaet> we tend to be updating our stable releases in regular point releases, as deltas already.
[16:59] <skaet> and are pushing out fixes and updates to the supported releases as we get them figured out.
[16:59] <skaet> not to mention security fixes :)
[17:00] <skaet> is there some particular function that we're missing that the deb deltas is providing?
[17:01] <jcastro> I think he means this spec: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/foundations-m-rsync-based-deb-downloads
[17:01] <jcastro> where apt would download only the deltas instead of the full deb, at the expense of more CPU/IO consumption
[17:02] <jcastro> Colin's already answered though: http://askubuntu.com/questions/10167/will-11-04-include-delta-updates/13198#13198
[17:02] <jcastro> so you can go on to the next question. :)
[17:03] <nigelb> skaet just lost her connection, she'll be right back.
[17:04] <skaet> sorry about that
[17:04] <skaet> typing error on my part.
[17:05] <ClassBot> areloaded asked: I just heard about ubuntu planning for a rolling release instead of the 6 month release cycle, how do you plan on implementing that? How do you think that will be beneficial?
[17:05] <skaet> thanks areloaded
[17:05] <skaet> hmm
[17:05] <skaet> thats news to me...
[17:06] <skaet> we've got the shedules drafted for O, P, etc.  ;)
[17:06] <skaet> can you provide a pointer to where you've heard that?
[17:07] <jcastro> Yeah that was just a rumor where someone misquoted Mark
[17:07] <skaet> maybe I can see if I can help figure out the disconnect?
[17:07] <skaet> thanks jcastro
[17:07] <skaet> anyhow,  to be clear
[17:07] <jcastro> http://theravingrick.blogspot.com/2010/11/ubuntu-is-not-moving-to-rolling-release.html
[17:08] <skaet> we're keeping to the 6 month release cadence for the "forseeable" future.
[17:08] <skaet> lol
[17:10] <skaet> any more questions?
[17:13] <ClassBot> rickspencer3 asked: can you tell us a little bit about your background in release management, and how that helps you see opportunities for the Ubuntu Community to improve how we release?
[17:14] <skaet> thanks rickspencer3
[17:14] <skaet> prior to joining the ubuntu team,   my last 10 years was working on putting out an embedded distro with Freescale
[17:14] <skaet> we were at the stage of putting out about 1 release a week
[17:15] <skaet> so the one release per month (including alphas, beta, candidates, etc.) feels pretty familiar.
[17:15] <skaet> however the breadth of the packages that ubuntu supports is QUITE different.
[17:15] <skaet> lol
[17:16] <skaet> In terms of opportunities,
[17:17] <skaet> I'd like to work with the community to get earlier testing of the candidate integrated, and more automated testing to come on line.
[17:18] <skaet> so we're less likely to introduce regressions, and then a bunch of them suddenly show up.
[17:18] <skaet> by candidate integrated,  I mean the images that are about to be put out
[17:18] <skaet> as alpha, betas, etc.
[17:19] <skaet> and by community,  I'm meaning Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu,  Mythbuntu, etc.
[17:19] <skaet> :)
[17:20] <skaet> I think the more we have automated testing in place, and regressions available for folks to run, before they submit packages that impact at the system level due to dependencies,
[17:20] <skaet> the more productive we'll all be.
[17:21] <skaet> I'd also like to see us all work on making sure we've got launchpad being used effectively
[17:21] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[17:21] <skaet> its an awesome tool for collaboration.
[17:21] <skaet> but there's alot of individual practices that have emerged on how to do certain things.
[17:22] <skaet> finding the best practices and and getting them known wider, would be awesome.
[17:22] <skaet> I could probably go on for a bit more,  but should check if there are more questions.
[17:23] <skaet> The other area I'm personally interested in is getting tools available to help with license and copyright identification
[17:24] <skaet> so we can make sure the code base is easy to use for those building ontop of it.
[17:24] <skaet> What debian's been doing with DEP-5 is a welcome addition to moving this down the road.
[17:26] <ClassBot> fosterdv asked: I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but I find most talk around the Desktop version of 11.04. I was wondering, what good is coming to the server version of 11.04?
[17:26] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[17:26] <skaet> fosterdv,  thanks for asking.
[17:27] <skaet> yeah, there is a lot of focus on desktop, since that's where Ubuntu's roots are.
[17:27] <skaet> however the server team is busy making lots of plans.
[17:28]  * skaet checks some notes
[17:29] <skaet> 11.04 has the Open Stack technology preview in it.
[17:29] <skaet> there are also several things easier to use.
[17:30] <skaet> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NattyNarwhal/TechnicalOverview
[17:30] <skaet> and scroll down undeer the server section to see some more of the specifics.
[17:30] <skaet> thanks for asking though.   Robbiew and the server team hang out in #ubuntu-server if you have questions about specific packages.  :)
[17:31] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/03/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html
[17:32] <skaet> Thanks all for good questions.
[17:32] <EvilPhoenix> skaet:  thanks for coming in to answer our questions :)
[17:33] <skaet> Thanks!   I'll move over to chat now and take questions informally for a bit,  before breaking.
[17:34] <skaet> you can find me (or others of the release team) in #ubuntu-release
[18:09] <jorge38> hola