In just nine years, Ubuntu has become one of the most popular Linux distributions in the world with millions of users and a thriving community. Ever wondered what all the fuss is about? How have we achieved such a great feat in such a short space of time? Here’s where you can find out. Ubuntu Open Week is a week of IRC tuition and Q+A sessions all about getting involved in the rock-and-roll world that is the Ubuntu community. We organise this week for the beginning of a new release cycle to help new contributors get involved.

Ubuntu Open Week takes place in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net (#ubuntu-classroom-chat for questions), on May 20th-21st, from 13 to 18 UTC each day. We will be having people from different teams in, such as the Quality team, the Development team, the News team, and more! We are also going to have an “Ask Mark!” session with Mark Shuttleworth, the Ubuntu Community founder!

During the “Ask Mark!” session, community members are invited to ask Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl) questions about the Ubuntu project. You will ask your questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat with the prefix QUESTION: and philipballew will be selecting specific questions to pass along to Mark in the main #ubuntu-classroom channel.

To check out the full schedule and learn more about the event, visit the Ubuntu Open Week page on the Ubuntu wiki (we’re finishing to nail the schedule!)

We hope to see you there! But if not, as always, logs will be available after each session, and linked to the schedule at the end of each day.

The Ubuntu Open Week is one of the big Classroom events we have each cycle. This time, it will be taking place the 21st and the 22nd of May, and sessions will last from 13 to 18 UTC. For those of you who do not know what this is all about, it is a community-oriented and community-driven event where people from different teams explain what work they do in the community, so you can choose the areas you like the most, and help us grow as a strong community. You can find more information about it in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek.

Now, we are looking for people who have been involved with a team for a long time, and would like to explain clearly how things work on it. That way, people around the world would be encouraged to join in what they like the most. During this cycle we will only be hosting sessions during two days, and they will only be on IRC.

If you want to take a slot just grab it, but make sure to let me (JoseeAntonioR on #ubuntu-classroom-backstage on freenode, joseeantonior at ubuntu dot com) know, by pinging me on IRC or sending me an email. Also, make sure to pass on this announcement to anyone who can be interested on being part of this event. Thanks for your interest!

Logs from all sessions are now available:

• Introduction to User Days by JoseeAntonioR
• Introduction to Ubuntu by JoseeAntonioR
• Unity and the Dash by LionThinker
• Introduction to Firefox by JoseeAntonioR
• Equivalent Programs by holstein
• Multimedia and Multimedia Centers (video) by bobweaver
• Installing Software in Ubuntu by epikvision
• Accessibility Applications by AlanBell
• Ubuntu Flavors: Xubuntu and Lubuntu by amjjawad and pleia2
• Ubuntu Community Roundtable by pleia2 and JoseeAntonioR
• Using Launchpad by JoseeAntonioR
• How to get help in Ubuntu by philipballew
• How to solve a problem – Ask Ubuntu! through Launchpad by cprofitt

We are very thankful to our instructors and attendees who made the work of this last weeks worthwhile, we feel very proud of all of them. Congratulations!

The Spanish Classroom team also hosted a User Day on February 9th, el Día del Usuario Ubuntu.

Logs for the 6 sessions they hosted can be found in their wiki page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DiaDelUsuarioUbuntu

¡Felicitaciones por el buen trabajo, muchachos!

I really hope you enjoyed this User Days, and that all the shared knowledge is useful to you. Again, a huge thanks from all the Classroom team, and stay tuned so you make sure you learn something new every day!

In other Quality news, the logs for our most recent sessions with the team are available. The first is their series on bugs by Phill Whiteside (phillw) and Gema Gomez-Solano (gema):

• An introduction to bug reporting
• Following a bug report

We then had a series of laptop testing sessions presented by Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h) Carla Sella (Letozaf) and Sergio Meneses (SergioMeneses):

• Registering your laptop on the database
• Testing on a laptop

Today Phill Whiteside (phillw) and Jackson Doak (Noskcaj) of the Quality team hosted a series of sessions in #ubuntu-quality about the QA tools available for ISO testing:

• Zsync
• Using Virtual Manager(KVM)
• Using Test Drive

Thanks to everyone who participated and the effort put into making the schedules work!

Ubuntu on Air! is an online show which can be found at here. As said before, it consists of Google+ Hangouts on Air on different topics, including Classroom events. So, when an instructor decides he or she wants to do a live session so they can demonstrate a process, the event will be added, both to the Ubuntu on Air! and to the Classroom calendar. In case of the Classroom calendar, it will have an [On Air] tag before the session name; same happens for the Ubuntu on Air! calendar, just that the tag is [Classroom] in this case.

While the session lasts, the video can be streamed at ubuntuonair.com. All discussion for Ubuntu on Air! Classroom sessions will take place at #ubuntu-classroom-chat on irc.freenode.net, so you don’t have to move around.. There will be an embed IRC widget on the webpage so you can have everything on your browser, and it will point to the channel. Questions should be asked the same way as on an IRC-based session, all of them should be prefixed with the word ‘QUESTION:’ without quotes. In this case, the instructor or the host will read and answer the question aloud, on the live stream.

After the session, a recording of it will be automatically uploaded to the Ubuntu on Air! YouTube Channel, and can be watched at any time.

Make sure to subscribe to Ubuntu on Air! on YouTube and follow us on Twitter to get constant updates on all of our sessions.

If you have any doubts about this collaboration you can send me an email to joseeantonior AT ubuntu DOT com, or ping JoseeAntonioR on IRC. Happy learning!

User Days was created to be a set of chat-based classes offered during a two days period to teach the beginning or intermediate Ubuntu user the basics to get them started with Ubuntu. User Days sessions include:

• how to get help
• the basics of how to use the command line
• different ways to install software
• equivalent programs
• and much more!

You can check the full schedule here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays

The best thing is, everyone can come! If you want to participate, you just need to join #ubuntu-classroom and #ubuntu-classroom chat on your IRC client, or just click here: Webchat.

We hope to see you next weekend!

Here’s what happened on day 3:

1. Automated Testing in Ubuntu & Automated Testing Technologies — Martin Pitt did a great job of summarising the current work in the Quality Assurance team. It’s getting more and more important to automatically assure us that software we rely on still provides the functionality we expect and nothing breaks. Check out the log and get an idea of how diverse the activities are and where you can get involved.
2. Syncing your app’s data with u1db — Stuart Langridge has been involved in Ubuntu One since ages and knows how to make app authors happy. If you want simple data storage and syncing without headaches, have a look at u1db and Stuart’s introduction to u1db!
3. Interacting with Debian’s Bug Tracking System — You explain things best if you talk about things you make use of every day. As Stefano Rivera is both a Debian and Ubuntu developer, this talk was quite easy to deliver for him. Debian’s Bug Tracking System is a central place of exchange between the two projects and Stefano’s session will surely make it clearer to you.
4. Building Ubuntu images & The Ubuntu Nexus 7 images — Oliver Grawert has been building Ubuntu images for various platforms for quite a few cycles already, so he knows the problems you probably run into most. His sessions give some good insight into what’s involved in bringing Ubuntu up on all kinds of devices.
5. Fixing packages to cross-build — As a member of the Foundations team Dmitrijs Ledkovs has gathered quite some experience cleaning up problems, including build problems in the archive for a while now. Check out the session to find out how to make packages build for other architectures most easily. Get involved in fixing these issues once and for all.
6. Developers Roundtable — Benjamin Drung and Michael Bienia were kind enough to take on the last session of UDW and answer all the remaining questions regarding Ubuntu development. Be sure to check out the log as your favourite question might well be among the ones answered.

Oh, and before we forget it: join us in the Automated Testing Hackfest today!

Section 2: Reporting Bugs

These sessions will be an introduction to reporting bugs

This section will be held in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net (#ubuntu-classroom-chat for questions).

Introduction to bug reporting

• Wednesday, Feb 6th at 1600 UTC
• Instructor: phillw
• Duration: 1 hour

Following a bug report

• Wednesday, Feb 6th at 1700 UTC
• Instructor: Gema
• Duration: 30 minutes

Laptop testing

In this section, several of our instructors will be guiding users through the basics of laptop testing!

This section will be held in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net (#ubuntu-classroom-chat for questions).

Registering your laptop on the database

• Thursday, Feb 7th at 2000 UTC
• Instructors: letozaf, SergioMeneses, and primes2h
• Duration: 1 hour

Testing on a laptop

• Thursday, Feb 7th at 2100 UTC
• Instructors: letozaf, SergioMeneses, and primes2h
• Duration: 1 hour

Section 3: Introduction to QA tools

Now learn more tools of the Ubuntu QA trade!

Due to overlap with Ubuntu User Days in the classroom channels on Saturday, these classes will be hosted in #ubuntu-quality-chat on irc.freenode.net (#ubuntu-quality for questions).

These sessions and beyond will require people to have various things pre-installed, please see to Section 3 requirements for the details.

Introduction to QA tools; Zsync, Vbox, KVM

• Saturday, Feb 9th at 1900 UTC
• Instructor: phillw
• Duration: 3 hours

Using Testdrive

• Saturday, Feb 9th 2200 UTC
• noskcaj
• Duration: 60 minutes

The full details and any last minute changes will be available here on this wiki page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/Activities/Classroom

1. How to write apps for Ubuntu — dpm: David Planella was well prepared as always and gave some good insights into what it takes to take an app from idea to a working app. He got quite a number of questions during the session, so I guess we can expect more apps coming to Ubuntu soon.
2. Ubuntu App review process explained — coolbhavi: Bhavani Shankar explained the next step in terms of apps and demonstrated how a typical App Review works. Unfortunately the session was interrupted by a bot misbehaving towards the end, but lots of questions were still answered.
3. Finding memory leaks — achiang (Hangout!): Memory leaks can become huge problems in no time, and sometimes it’s not easy to debug or fix them. Alex Chiang is passionate about fixing them and provided a great session about how and where to start.
4. Testing with autopilot — balloons: Nicholas Skaggs and Thomi Richards are becoming the autopilot double-act (you will likely see them in tomorrow’s Automated Testing Hackfest as well). They gave a very nice introduction into autopilot and how to use it to test UI elements properly. Be sure to check it out and make good use of it.
5. Unity integration — mhall119: Michael Hall, the author of “Hello Unity” and things like “singlet” knows how Unity works and how best to integrate your apps with it. It’s these finishing touches which make your app stand out and give the users the nice feeling of a seamless experience.

Here’s what’s on for today. Hope to see you all there!

• 15:00 UTC – Automated Testing in Ubuntu — pitti
• 16:00 UTC – Syncing your app’s data with u1db — aquarius
• 17:00 UTC – Interacting with Debian’s Bug Tracking System — tumbleweed
• 17:30 UTC – Building Ubuntu images — ogra
• 18:00 UTC – The Ubuntu Nexus 7 images — ogra
• 18:30 UTC – Fixing packages to cross-build – xnox
• 19:00 UTC – Developers Roundtable — bdrung & geser

This is the last day of this cycle’s UDW, so make sure you let your friends know and show up yourself. Join in!

1. Introduction to Ubuntu development — dholbach: This session has become an institution at Ubuntu Developer Weeks and is always packed with people who want to get started. Check out the log for an overview over Ubuntu Development and lots and lots of answered questions.
2. Getting set up for Ubuntu development — dholbach: Similar to the session before, this one is a regular at our events. This time Daniel chose to only show the most important things to get set up and also walk everybody through a very simple bug fix to give an idea of how things work.
3. Introduction to patch systems — coolbhavi: Patch systems regularly confuse people. How do I “patch a package” and why are there multiple ways to do it. Go through Bhavani’s session log and find out how and why to get the most out of patch systems.
4. Working with upstreams — tumbleweed: Stefano Rivera has long been working in both the Debian and Ubuntu camp, so it’s no surprise this topic is important to him. It was great to see that many asked their questions in the session. The foundations of more healthy relations between Upstreams and Downstreams have hopefully been laid in the session.
5. Introduction to One Hundred Paper Cuts — notgary: The One Hundred Paper Cuts team has been fixing small, annoying UI bugs for quite a while and everybody’s happy that Chris Wilson brought some new energy back to the team. Watch this video to find out how you can get involved and how the project works. If you care about UI stuff, this is a great first step.
6. Ubuntu App Developer tools — mhall119: Building apps for Ubuntu has never been easier and Michael Hall knows how you can most easily get started. Read the log, it’s good fun and start working on your first app today.

Yesterday sounds like it was a great day, but wait for what we’ve lined up for today:

• 15:00 UTC: How to write apps for Ubuntu — dpm
• 16:00 UTC: Ubuntu App review process explained — coolbhavi
• 17:00 UTC: Finding memory leaks — achiang (Hangout!)
• 18:00 UTC: Testing with autopilot — balloons
• 19:00 UTC: Unity integration — mhall119

It’s very simple. Join in. Enjoy Ubuntu Developer Week!