From the dept.:
On behalf of the Python development team, I'm jocund to announce the final release of Python 2.7.

Python 2.7 will be the last major version in the 2.x series. However, it will also have an extended period of bugfix maintenance.

2.7 includes many features that were first released in Python 3.1. The faster io module, the new nested with statement syntax, improved float repr, set literals, dictionary views, and the memoryview object have been backported from 3.1. Other features include an ordered dictionary implementation, unittests improvements, a new sysconfig module, auto-numbering of fields in the str/unicode format method,
and support for ttk Tile in Tkinter.

Monday, July 05, 2010 July 4, 2010 - a weekend in journalism history Perhaps this weekend will be one of the times journalism historians will write about when they look back at significant changes.

Likewise Software has released a new version of its open-source authentication software for allowing Linux, Apple Macintosh and commercial Unix-based computers to hook into Microsoft Active Directory controlled servers and networks.

Starting this month, colleges and universities that don't do enough to combat the illegal swapping of "Avatar" or Lady Gaga over their computer networks put themselves at risk of losing federal funding.

ThinLinc is a fast and versatile thin client system. It is based on open source software such as TigerVNC, SSH, and PulseAudio. The ThinLinc server software can be used to distribute Linux/Unix desktops and applications to thin clients. The system also supports Windows Terminal Services and CodeWeavers CrossOver. ThinLinc supports redirection of sound, serial ports, disk drives, local printers, and Smart Card readers on top of SSH. It also features a unique "one-click" integration tool for Novell eDirectory. Clients are available for a wide variety of platforms. When used with the VirtualGL software, ThinLinc can be used with graphics intensive OpenGL applications.

Changes: This is an update to the 3.1.0 version. The performance of the Windows client has been improved, and it is about twice as fast as the previous version. This gives radically improved performance in many cases, such as video playback. A client package for IGEL Universal Desktop terminals is now provided. The smart card support has been enhanced. The client distribution TLCOS now includes basic scanner support.

Release Tags: Stable, Minor, performance

Tags: Clustering/Distributed Networks, Desktop Environment, Communications

Licenses: aggregate

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #199 for the week June 20th - June 26th and is available here.

From the Haters Gonna Mitigate the Hate dept.:
Mozilla Firefox 3.6.4 went to general release today. The big new feature in this release is out-of-process plugins (OOPP). This means things like Flash, Java, QuickTime, etc., all run in separate processes, so when Flash decides to crash, it won't take your browser out with it. If Flash starts consuming all the CPU it can find, you can kill it without nuking your browser session. I've been using this feature since it was in the 'nightly build' stage, and it was still more stable than 3.6.3, just because Flash was isolated."

Petit was developed to quickly analyze syslog and Apache log files in large environments. It can also be used for word discovery within log data. It is a general purpose tool that can do hashing, word counts, and command line graphing of Apache and syslog files. It is designed to be a standard Unix tool that can be employed with pipes or by opening files. Petit works by sifting data with standard patterns and allows for custom filters and fingerprints. This leaves the analyst with data that is both varied and interesting.

Changes: This release adds a patch to allow mixed precision when Ubuntu 8.04 logs to an Ubuntu 10.04 server with high precision, support for the rsyslogd precision time format, fingerprints for Ubuntu 10.04, and a NAME section in the man page.

Release Tags: Stable

Tags: System Administration, Log Analysis

Licenses: GPLv3

A new open-source application lets professional and amateur astronomers explore space from their desktops.

pf-kernel is a fork of the Linux kernel. It provides useful features that are not merged into the mainline, such as the bfs scheduler and tuxonice.

Changes: Zen-kernel parts have been merged. ACPI and ext4 fixed have been added.

Release Tags: Major feature enhancements

Tags: Linux, kernel, fork

Licenses: GPLv2