Kubuntu & Kubuntu Netbook 10.04.1 now available

The first point-release for Kubuntu and Kubuntu Netbook 10.04 is now available. If you've been putting off installing because of the number of updates you'll have to download, the good news is all updates, bug fixes, and security patches that have been released for these two versions of Kubuntu have been rolled into the new 10.04.1 disc images, saving you from spending hours on updates. Yay! Just visit the Get Kubuntu page on the new Kubuntu website to get yours.

If you're already running 10.04 and have been keeping up with your updates, you don't need to do anything. You're there!

Yes, there's updated Ubuntu ISOs too.

Where did my favourite package go?

Did you upgrade to Lucid and find that some package you like is no longer available? There are a number of binary packages that were removed in Lucid as a cleanup of the archive, though for the most part the source packages are still in there. Most of these were removed because the source package was no longer buildable—meaning patches could not be applied to fix bugs since the patched source would not compile (unless, of course, the patch fixed that build issue). Some were removed because Python 2.5 was removed. To find out what happened to the package you're looking for, try this:

apt-cache showsrc $PACKAGE

This'll tell you the name of the source package (on the "Package: " line). Then go to http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/SRCPKG/+publishinghistory for a full listing of all versions of the package in Ubuntu. If you click the triangle on the left, it'll unfold revealing changelog info for that published version. For example, Sage Math's publishing history shows that it was deleted for the depends-on-Python2.5 reason.

And there's today's lesson on how to find data in Launchpad.

iPod Touch on Lucid

Plenty of folks have reported so far that their iPod Touches work with Lucid. Well, my brother has one he got for Christmas, and he says it's not working for him. He came up with a (very plausible) hypothesis though. Maybe it has to be used with Windows or OSX once (as some sort of activation mechanism?) before it'll talk to a Linux machine.

So, I'm asking: have any of you have an iPod Touch and used it on Ubuntu 10.04 without first using it on a proprietary OS and had it work?

EDIT: That was quick! Matthew Garrett says that one sync with iTunes is needed before it can be used with Linux.

EDIT2: Paul Sladen adds: I don't think we can generate the initial databases first time