FOSS Roundup #5 – Time to Test (Ubuntu Flavors)

Welcome to the fifth edition of my Weekly FOSS Roundup! We’re halfway through the Ubuntu Testing Week (March 3-10), and it’s time to start getting involved. In other news, the Xubuntu Wallpaper contest is ongoing, and there are some updates around Bluetooth and Xfce. Here’s the latest!

The Xubuntu 22.04 Wallpaper Contest Continues

The Xubuntu 22.04 Wallpaper Contest is progressing smoothly. So far, we’ve already had 77 quality submissions from numerous contributors. Submissions are open through March 12, so it’s not too late to submit your own. Keep your submissions coming!

Ubuntu Testing Week March 3-10

The next LTS release of Ubuntu and its many flavors will be released in less than two months. Feature Freeze is behind us, so there is no better time to get started with testing. Please help make this another dependable release by taking time to test and report any bugs you find.

Linux Mint is Switching to the Blueman Bluetooth Manager

Linux Mint has been using its own Blueberry application to manage Bluetooth devices for several years now. Later this year, it looks like they’ll be switching to Blueman, the same utility found in Xubuntu and several other Linux distributions. Their move will no doubt have a positive impact on any other Blueman-using distros.

This Week’s Xfce Releases

The 0.9.2 release of the Xfce Terminal is a release candidate for the upcoming 1.0.0 release. It includes several improvements and bug fixes. Take it for a test drive to help identify and eliminate the remaining bugs!

Xfdashboard provides a GNOME Shell-like experience for Xfce. The new 0.9.90 release is a release candidate for the upcoming 1.0.0 release. If you’re a fan of GNOME Shell’s behavior but prefer to stick with Xfce, Xfdashboard is worth a look.

The Xfce Diskperf (Disk Performance) plugin displays instant disk and partition performance in the panel. The 2.7.0 release features various usability and feature improvements.

What I’m working on…

This week I spent extra time working on the Xubuntu Documentation updates. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 have been converted to Docbook, leaving only 8 chapters to go. I’ve got a pretty good flow for converting them now; it depends on having a solid, uninterrupted 20-30 minutes to migrate a single chapter.

Thanks for reading!

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Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next week with some new and exciting Xfce and Xubuntu updates! Have a great week, and stay safe out there!