Ubuntu and Kubuntu

Ubuntu (operating system)

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Ubuntu

Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)

Company / developer Canonical Ltd. / Ubuntu Foundation

OS family Unix-like

Working state Current

Source model Free and open source software (with exceptions)[1][2]

Initial release 20 October 2004

Latest stable release 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) / 10 October 2010; 6 months ago[3]

Latest unstable release 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Beta 2 / 14 April 2011; 6 days ago[4]

Available language(s) Multilingual (more than 55)

Update method APT (front-ends available)

Package manager dpkg (front-ends like Synaptic available)

Supported platforms i386, AMD64

Kernel type Linux (Monolithic-based Hybrid)

Userland GNU

Default user interface GNOME

License Mainly the GNU GPL and various free software other licenses / plus proprietary binary blobs.[1][2]

Official website ubuntu.com

Ubuntu (pronounced /??b?ntu?/)[5][6] is a computer operating system based on the Debian GNU/Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu ("humanity towards others").[7]

With an estimated global usage of more than 12 million users,[8] Ubuntu is designed primarily for desktop use, although netbook and server editions exist as well.[9] Web statistics suggest that Ubuntu's share of Linux desktop usage is about 50%,[10][11] and indicate upward-trending usage as a web server.[12]

Ubuntu is sponsored by the UK-based company Canonical Ltd., owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. Canonical generates revenue by selling technical support and services tied to Ubuntu, while the operating system itself is entirely free of charge.

Contents [hide]

1 History and development process

2 Features

2.1 System requirements

2.2 Installation

3 Package classification and support

3.1 Availability of third-party software

4 Releases

5 Variants

6 Development

7 Reception

8 Local Communities (LoCos)

9 Vendor support

10 See also

11 References

12 Bibliography

13 External links

[edit]History and development process

Ubuntu is a fork of the Debian project's codebase. The original aim of the Ubuntu team was to create an easy-to-use (freedom for users rather than freedom for programmers) Linux desktop with new releases scheduled on a predictable six-month basis, resulting in a more frequently updated system.[13][14]

Ubuntu's first release was on 20 October 2004. Since then, Canonical has released new versions of Ubuntu every six months[15] with commitment to support each release for eighteen months by providing security fixes, patches to critical bugs and minor updates to programs. It was decided that every fourth release, issued on a two-year basis, would receive long-term support (LTS).[13] LTS releases are supported for three years on the desktop and five years on the server.[15]

The latest LTS release is Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), released on 29 April 2010, while the latest normal release is Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat), released on 10 October 2010.

Ubuntu packages are based on packages from Debian's unstable branch: both distributions use Debian's deb package format and package management tools (APT and Synaptic). Debian and Ubuntu packages are not necessarily binary compatible with each other, however,