Ubuntu Certification – Website Improvements

January 19, 2012 6 Comments

The Ubuntu Certification Website has just got better. We have roll-out improvements to how we list systems and provided a powerful search feature. We want to ensure that you get as quick as possible to the information that you need.

As part of the Certification website, we provide a feedback mechanism through Launchpad Answers. Over the last year, we have seen a trend of questions around:

  • Most models are sold with different graphics cards , processors… so which one is the one listed as certified?
  • Does the system listed as certified works with a version of Ubuntu that I can download from Ubuntu.com? Or only with the one that the manufacturer sales?
  • What release is this model certified for?

To address these questions, we have introduced some changes to the website. We now display what components are included on the certified system in the search results. We’ve also added a icon to indicate if the system is only certified with a vendor image or with the standard Ubuntu image.

The new and simpler search interface eliminates confusion on what data is presented. A small filter box has been added to the website allowing  users to select the device type, Ubuntu release and image type that they are interested in.

If you have any comments on the new website design, I would really like to hear from you!


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Introducing odm.ubuntu.com

December 9, 2011 1 Comment

Coinciding with the 2011 Ubuntu Hardware Summit, we are launching a new portal aimed to help engineers at device manufacturers shipping Ubuntu systems: odm.ubuntu.com

The Ubuntu community is great. It provides users and developers with lots and lots of useful information. This means that sometimes finding the right informationfor you can take a bit longer than expected.

The odm.ubuntu.com portal content is a selection of the best articles in the Ubuntu community sites that are relevant to device manufacturers (OEM and ODMs) engineers. The content has been selected by the Canonical Hardware Enablement team and builds on the good work of the Ubuntu Kernel team.

We will continue to add and improve the content of the portal over the coming months, including news on tools and techniques to help you better integrate Ubuntu with your hardware. Please let us know if there is specific content you would like to see there.

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Asus and Ubuntu in Portugal

November 28, 2011 11 Comments

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The Future Of Personal Computing

November 24, 2011 3 Comments

I have previously complained about the about the amount of gadgets that seem to be piling by my bedside table charging quietly every night.. Laptops, Tablets, phones, kindle (yes the plural is not a typo).

On top of that I am growing frustrated with my DVR. Last week the new series of “The Mentalist” was broadcasted in the UK. I did set the record in advance but somehow it clashed and did not get recorded. Even with the missed show only one-click away, in the TV channel’s website, it turns out that my only options were to wait for a repeat on TV in 4 days or go upstairs and watch it in the office desktop. Why is it so complicated!?

All of this frustration got me thinking and I have come up to some conclusions of what the future of my home computing is going to look like.

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Ubuntu on ARM(Techcon)

November 2, 2011 1 Comment

Here is Ronald, doing a great job at explaining why Ubuntu on ARM is AWESOME!!!

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Red Hat and Canonical agree on Secure Boot

October 28, 2011 Leave a Comment

If you follow the Canonical blog, you would have seen that a new white paper has been published on how to implement UEFI Secure Boot in a manner that can be used by all users, including Linux.  The paper is signed and authored by Matthew Garret from Red Hat, Jeremy Kerr from Canonical and James Bottomley, Linux Kernel developer.

Since Microsoft talked about their plans for Secure Boot at /Build2011, there has been lots of things said on the matter. With more than 16,000 people signing the Free Software Foundation statement on “Secure Boot vs Restricted Boot”, it is clear that this is an issue that needed some attention.

It is great to see companies like Red Hat and Canonical getting together, and coming up with recommendations that benefit the whole industry. The paper is well worth the read, Enjoy!

Padlocks of love by Wlodi

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Ubuntu 11.10 on ARM

October 18, 2011 14 Comments

I have been using Ubuntu 11.10 on ARM now for a couple of days and I have to say: It Rocks! Ubuntu has had a long history of supporting ARM Systems on a Chip (SoC) since 2008, but Ubuntu 11.10 is a significant milestone.

Introducing.. Ubuntu Server on ARM – Technology Preview

Canonical announced back in August that Ubuntu Server 11.10 would include the first ARM version of the product, and here it is. While this is just the first step on an exciting journey, it is worth to celebrate that the voyage has started. I look forward to see what 12.04 LTS brings us on this space!

Playing with Ubuntu on ARM (Toshiba AC100)

It is hard to really grasp the full experience of Ubuntu on

ARM when you are playing with a development board. For this reason, we have released a demo image for the Tegra2-based (Nvidia) Toshiba AC100.

Running Unity 2D, it shows off  that Ubuntu on ARM is a great platform for computing, in a very compact design and with a very long battery life. For all these reasons, this is my system of choice to take to UDS-P.

If you have a Toshiba AC100, I encourage you to install Ubuntu 11.10 in it!

TI OMAP4 Panda Board

Powered by the Texas Instruments OMAP4430 processor, the Panda Board packs in “a dual-core 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore CPU, a PowerVR SGX540 GPU, a C64x DSP, and 1 GB of DDR2 SDRAM“.  Providing an affordable and competitive design tool for the embedded mobile space.

Ubuntu 11.10 on ARM is available in Headless and full image for Panda. You can find download links and installation instructions here. You can also find there Ubuntu 11.10 for OMAP3 (Beagle Board). Read more of this post

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What Phone To Buy Next?

October 3, 2011 11 Comments

I don’t believe I am saying this, but I am no longer interested on the phone industry.. The thing is that I have been paying attention to the gadget news all this year and  I am pretty interested on the new kindle’s, however I have not been interested on phones now for long time.

Android has managed to make the phone industry boring. All the phones look the same, they run the same apps, they run the same services..YAWN! Do you feel the same way? The problem to me is that 1-2 years ago a phone was the only tech item that you really needed to access all services and do anything you could possibly want.

Since then, thanks to tablets and e-readers amongst other the phone is no longer the ultimate convergence device. I am back to carrying multiple gadgets and a never-ending battery charging nightmare. Can someone invent the evolution on computing devices? please..

So, this week Apple is launching the Iphone 5 – will see…

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Ubuntu Friendly Needs You!

September 16, 2011 7 Comments

Are you running an up to date version of Oneiric? Do you have 15 minutes spare?YOU can help Ubuntu Friendly today! Read on..

The Ubuntu Friendly program is now on its test phase. One think that we could really do with is some more real user data to test website views. The Ubuntu Friendly feeds from test submissions from Launchpad.

So what do I need to do?

You need to run the recently improved System Test tool. This tool is in the default Oneiric image and the run-time has been reduced to under 15 minutes (disclaimer: this depends on how powerful is your system!)

If you are not sure how to find this tool, just go to the Unity Search lens and type “System Testing” and click in the icon that looks like a computer screen with a tick mark.

Just follow the instructions and, if you don’t mind, ping me a comment back on this post with how long it took you to run it and any other feedback you might have!

Go on, it is Friday don’t you know…

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Ubuntu Certification – What do we test?

September 13, 2011 7 Comments

We frequently get asked what do we test on the certification program.  While we do have a simple page covering this topic, some times we are asked for further details. We have now updated the certification program guide with a more comprehensive description of the test cases.  We review and update if necessary the list of test cases for each release:

Note that these test cases only apply to hardware that actually supports the functionality. For example, we do not run the bluetooth tests on a laptop that does not list bluetooth on its specifications.

Here is what the program guide says for Oneiric:

We use three different lists:

  • Whitelist, or features that are required for certification. If any of the tests in the whitelist fails, the certification will fail.
  • Greylist, or features that are tested, but that don’t block certification. If any of the tests under the greylist fail, a note will be added to the certificate to warn the potential customer or user.
  • Blacklist, or features that are not currently tested. We will consider adding more tests as needed.

Whitelist

Processors:

  •  ia32 (x86), x86_64 and ARM processors are tested to ensure proper functionality.
  •  Stress tests are performed to ensure that they work during high utilization as well.

Memory:

  • Proper detection
  • General usage
  • Stress testing

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