Bunch of good news in May, latest of which is that I got appointed to the Ubuntu Membership Board.

Last month the Community Council announced rescheduling and restaffing on the board, and I decided to apply. The good news came yesterday from Elizabeth Krumbach that my application was accepted.

The primary responsibility is taking care of new Ubuntu Membership applicants, approving them if they are worth it and denying them if not but in a way that they don’t get discouraged or heart-broken. Other duties include adding them to Launchpad Ubuntu Members team, writing summary emails about the newly approved members, and maintaining team reports.

Ubuntu Bangladesh was formed in 28th April 2006, more than 4 years ago with the vision to create a solid platform for Ubuntu users and contributors in Bangladesh. We’re the official local community team in Bangladesh, recognised by Ubuntu Community Council and Ubuntu’s sponsor Canonical Ltd. It’s been a long journey, and I’m really glad that with all of your help, support, and contributions we’ve been able to achieve most of our major goals.

I’ve been working as the team leader of Ubuntu Bangladesh throughout these years, and I’ve decided to step down and hand over the team leadership to two of our very active volunteers, Shahriar Tariq and Shabab Mustafa. They have made a tremendous contribution for our team, for Ubuntu, and for Linux as a whole, and I strongly believe that Ubuntu Bangladesh will prosper even more under their new leadership and vision.

I’ll still be around, will help to administer our Launchpad page, mailing list, IRC channel, and our site.

Thanks to each and everyone who’ve helped me throughout the years, thank you for your never-ending support! Long live Linux, long live Ubuntu!

BLUA Documentation Team has published a beginners guide on Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) in Bengali, which is available for download from http://linux.org.bd/go.php?link=ubuntuguide (PDF file, 2.7 MB).

If you’re new to Ubuntu Linux and want to learn more about it, then this guide should be helpful to you. The topics covered are installation, package management, network and Internet connection setup, customization, proprietary hardware driver and multimedia support, troubleshooting, and much more.

Please pass on this message to your friends and colleagues who might be interested in using Ubuntu.

I’ve been using the Unicode based Bengali fonts of Ekushey for a long time, specially SolaimanLipi which I use almost everywhere. To make these fine fonts easily available on Ubuntu, I’ve made a package of all of them called ttf-ekushey. Users of Ubuntu derivatives such as Linux Mint can use this package too.

Font list:

1. SolaimanLipi
2. Rupali
3. Ekushey Lohit
4. Ekushey Sharifa
5. Ekushey Punarbhaba
6. Ekushey Sumit
7. Ekushey Durga
8. Ekushey Saraswati
9. Ekushey Puja
10. Ekushey Azad
11. Ekushey Godhuli
12. Ekushey Mohua

(Twelve for now, but whenever they releases a new font I’ll update my package too.)
Continue reading…

My Ubuntu membership application has been approved today by the Asia and Oceania membership approval board by unanimous votes.

It’s a recognition of significant and sustained contribution to the Ubuntu community, and I’m really glad to get the status. I hope to continue contributing for this great project.

The delete key on my Acer Extensa 5620 wasn’t working on Ubuntu 8.04 out of the box, and I experienced the same problem on Ubuntu 8.10. It’s already filed as Bug 181057 and I hope it’ll be fixed on the next release.

Anyway, here’s how to fix this problem:

1. Open the following file as root: /etc/X11/xkb/keycodes/xfree86
2. Find the line <DELE> = 107
3. Replace it with <DELE> = 242
4. Find the line <I72> = 242
5. Replace it with <I72> = 107
6. Save and reboot, delete key will now work

This problem has been reported on other distributions too, and effects Acer Extensa 5210, 5220, 5620 and possibly other models that I’m not aware of.