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{{mergefrom|Edgy Eft}}
{{Infobox_OS|
{{Infobox_OS|
name = Ubuntu
name = Ubuntu

Revision as of 16:35, 25 August 2006

Ubuntu
File:Ubuntu Logo.svg
Ubuntu 6.06 running GNOME
DeveloperCanonical Ltd. / Ubuntu Foundation
OS familyLinux
Working stateCurrent
Source modelFree and Open Source Software
Latest release6.06.1 / August 10 2006
Repository
Platformsi386, AMD64, PowerPC, UltraSPARC[1]
Kernel typeMonolithic kernel
Default
user interface		GNOME Graphical User Interface
LicenseGNU General Public License and other licenses
Official websitehttp://www.ubuntu.com

Ubuntu (IPA pronunciation: /uˈbuntu/) is a Linux distribution offering an operating system predominantly targeted at desktop computers. Based on Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu concentrates on usability, freedom from restriction of use, regular releases, and ease of installation. Ubuntu is sponsored by Canonical Ltd., a private company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. The name of the distribution comes from the African concept of ubuntu (roughly, "humanity towards others").

The most recent version, Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS (Dapper Drake), was released on August 10 2006.

History and development

Ubuntu's first release on October 20 2004 began as a temporary fork of the Debian GNU/Linux project, with the aim of drawing from Debian's code regularly in order to allow for a new version of Ubuntu to be released every six months. This schedule allows Ubuntu to always include the most recent version of GNOME, which also follows a six-month release cycle. In contrast with some other general-purpose forks of Debian such as Xandros, Linspire and Libranet, Canonical have stayed close to Debian's philosophy with Ubuntu and use free software most of the time rather than relying on closed-source add-ons as part of their business model.[2]

Ubuntu packages are generally based on packages from Debian's unstable branch: Ubuntu uses Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool to manage installed packages, although Debian and Ubuntu packages are not necessarily binary compatible with each other. Many Ubuntu developers are also maintainers of key packages within Debian itself, and Ubuntu changes are contributed back to Debian as they are made, rather than being announced only at release time.[3]

There are plans for a branch codenamed Grumpy Groundhog. It will be a permanently unstable development and testing branch, pulling the source directly out of the revision control of the various programs and applications that are shipped as part of Ubuntu. This will allow power users and upstream developers to test up-to-the-minute versions of individual programs as they would appear if packaged for the distribution today, without needing to build packages themselves; it will be able to provide early warning of build failures on various architectures. It is intended that Grumpy Groundhog should merge with Debian Unstable every six months. Grumpy Groundhog has not yet been made available to the public.[4]

Ubuntu is currently funded by Canonical Ltd. On July 8 2005, Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Ltd. announced the creation of the Ubuntu Foundation and provided an initial funding of US$10 million. The purpose of the foundation is to ensure the support and development for all future versions of Ubuntu, but as of 2006, the foundation remains dormant. Mark Shuttleworth describes the foundation as an emergency fund in case Canonical's involvement ends.

Features

A screenshot of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, showing the Dawn of Ubuntu wallpaper, one of several pre-installed options

Ubuntu is based on the GNOME desktop environment, which is specifically designed to provide a free, simple and intuitive interface while offering a full range of modern desktop applications.[5] Besides those applications included in GNOME, Ubuntu comes with additional productivity software including OpenOffice.org, the Mozilla Firefox web browser and the GIMP raster graphics editor.

Ubuntu's focus on usability includes the widespread use of the sudo tool, which allows users to carry out administrative tasks without having to log in under an unsafe superuser account.[6] Ubuntu furthermore emphasises accessibility and internationalisation, to reach as many people as possible. As of version 5.04, UTF-8 has been the default character encoding.

Version 6.06 merges the Live CD and install CD into a single compact disc. This disc boots into a full-featured desktop, allowing users to see whether their hardware is compatible and experiment with the applications available and then install Ubuntu to the hard disk using the Ubiquity graphical installer. The installation process preserves documents created on the live desktop. An alternate install disc using the text-mode debian-installer is available for download, and is aimed at people with lower system specifications, administrators installing on many systems, and for complex disk partitioning including the use of LVM or RAID.

Ubuntu requires 256 megabytes of RAM, and, when installed to the hard disk, needs three gigabytes of hard-disk space.[7]

The default appearance of the user interface in the current version is characterised by shades of brown and orange. Ubuntu has an optional package called ubuntu-calendar, which downloads a new desktop wallpaper matching the brown colour theme each month. In the past, these wallpapers featured partially nude people and were criticized as risqué. This led to the coining of nicknames such as "Linuxxx".[8]

Releases

Wikinews has related news:

Ubuntu and its variants are available via free download online, or mailed free to anyone who requests them on CD-ROM via Canonical's ShipIt service.[9]

Each release has both a code name and a version number based on the year and month of release.

Version Release date Code name
4.10 October 20 2004[10] Warty Warthog
5.04 April 8 2005 Hoary Hedgehog
5.10 October 13 2005 Breezy Badger
6.06 LTS June 1 2006[11] Dapper Drake
6.10 planned for October 26 2006 Edgy Eft[12]

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS included GNOME 2.14, Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.3, OpenOffice.org 2.0.2, Xorg 7.0, GCC 4.0.3, and version 2.6.15 of the Linux kernel at release time. Several packages were upgraded for the first maintainance release on 10 August 2006.

Release 6.06 is labelled Long Term Support (LTS) to indicate that it will be supported with updates for three years on the desktop and five years on the server, with paid technical support available from Canonical Ltd. over the same period.

Package classification and support

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS CDs

Ubuntu divides all software into four sections, called components, to reflect differences in licensing and level of support available.[13]

Packages are assigned to components as follows:

Free software non-free software
supported Main Restricted
unsupported Universe Multiverse

Main and Universe contain software which meets the Ubuntu licence requirements, which correspond roughly to the Debian Free Software Guidelines.[14] There is one caveat for Main, in that it also may contain binary firmware and selected fonts used in supported software that cannot be modified without permission so long as their redistribution is unencumbered.

It is intended that Main and Restricted should contain all software needed for a general-use Linux system. Alternative programs for the same tasks and programs for specialised applications are placed in Universe and Multiverse.

Non-free software packaged for Ubuntu is usually unsupported, but some exceptions (Restricted) are made for very important non-free software, such as non-free device drivers, without which users might be prevented from running Ubuntu on their system, particularly binary-only graphics card drivers. The level of support is more limited than for Main as the developers may not have access to the source code.

Ubuntu Backports is an officially recognized project to backport newer versions of certain software that are available only in unstable versions of Ubuntu. The repository is not comprehensive; it mostly consists of user-requested packages, which are approved if they meet quality guidelines.[15]

Proprietary software support

Further information: [[:Linux distribution#Proprietary software|Linux distribution § Proprietary software]]

While some proprietary software that does not limit distribution is included in Ubuntu's Multiverse component, it does not contain various packages for software which infringes on US and international patent or copyright law. Some examples of software not distributed by Ubuntu include:

  • Software that enables the playback of CSS-scrambled video DVDs, due to the questionable legal status of the libdvdcss open-source DVD-decoding library in some parts of the world.
  • Encoding and decoding libraries for many proprietary media formats such as Windows Media.[16].

Unofficial utilities such as EasyUbuntu and Automatix aim to automate the installation and configuration of software which is not officially packaged for Ubuntu.

Ubuntu has a certification system for third-party proprietary software, and Canonical manage a special repository for certified proprietary packages named Commercial.[17] While software packages in Multiverse are redistributable by anyone, Commercial includes software which Canonical has obtained special permission to distribute.[18] At the publication date of the repository this included the Opera web browser and the RealPlayer media player.

Variants

Xubuntu 6.06 default desktop

There are several variants besides Ubuntu available as ISO images for download. As of 2006, their releases are simultaneous with Ubuntu's, and packages are drawn from the same official repositories; they simply install a different set of packages from the original Ubuntu. These different versions correspond to development efforts run by largely separate groups of people who try to bring different functionality to the distribution:

  • Kubuntu, a desktop distribution using KDE instead of GNOME.
  • Edubuntu, a distribution designed for classrooms, "designed for school environments, and should be equally suitable for kids to use at home."[19]
  • Xubuntu, a "lightweight" distribution based on the Xfce desktop environment.
  • Ubuntu Server Edition, which provides server applications such as an e-mail server, a LAMP web server platform, as well as tools for DNS, file serving and database management. The server edition comes as a smaller CD image than the desktop edition and has lower hardware requirements. It runs on a minimum of 500 megabytes of hard disk and 64 megabytes of RAM.[7]

In the case of Kubuntu and Edubuntu, CDs are also available via mail order from the ShipIt service as with the main Ubuntu distribution.

Mark Shuttleworth has endorsed the creation of an Ubuntu-libre or GNUbuntu distribution, using only Free Software Foundation-approved free software.[20]

File:Ubuntu withcompiz.png
Ubuntu 6.06 running with xgl and the CGWD compositing window manager

There are also several unofficial derivatives, including nUbuntu, a distribution including many security tools, Ebuntu, which uses Enlightenment as its window manager, and Ubuntu Christian Edition, which includes software relevant to the Christian faith. It was widely rumoured that Google were building and would be distributing an Ubuntu derivative called Goobuntu. Google confirmed that they have created a modified version of Ubuntu but also insisted that they have no plans to distribute this version outside of the company.[21]

Response

The Ubuntu page on Distrowatch.com has been the most frequently accessed of their comprehensive list of Linux distributions for more than a year,[22] and Ubuntu was awarded the Reader Award for best Linux distribution at the 2005 LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in London.[23] It has been favourably reviewed in online and print publications.[24][25] Many reviewers of Ubuntu point out a main part of Ubuntu's success is the fact that it has a very large community.[26]

Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian, has criticised Ubuntu for incompatibilities between its packages and those of Debian, saying that Ubuntu had diverged too far from Debian Sarge to remain compatible.[27]

See also

References

  1. ^ The UltraSPARC and UltraSPARC T1 platforms are only supported by the Server Edition.
  2. ^ "Ubuntu Philosophy". Ubuntu.com. Retrieved 2006-04-25.
  3. ^ "Ubuntu and Debian". Ubuntu.com. Retrieved 2006-05-25.
  4. ^ "Grumpy Groundhog specification". Ubuntu.com. Retrieved 2006-06-29.
  5. ^ http://www.gnome.org/about/
  6. ^ "RootSudo". Ubuntu Wiki. Retrieved 2006-04-25.
  7. ^ a b "Ubuntu 6.06 Release Notes: Hardware Requirements". Retrieved 2006-07-08.
  8. ^ "Community MX: LinuXXX?". Retrieved 2006-04-27.
  9. ^ "Ubuntu Support: ShipIt FAQ". Canonical Ltd.
  10. ^ "Ubuntu 4.10 announcement". Retrieved 2006-04-26.
  11. ^ http://www.ubuntu.com/news/606released
  12. ^ Shuttleworth announced Edgy Eft in a 19 April 2006 post to the ubuntu-announce mailing list. In contrast to Dapper, it will debut "edgy new technologies" that will bring new features but possibly reduce stability.
  13. ^ "Ubuntu Components". Retrieved 2006-03-16.
  14. ^ "Ubuntu Licensing". Retrieved 2006-06-29.
  15. ^ "Ubuntu Backports". Retrieved 2006-03-16.
  16. ^ "Codecs install". Retrieved 2006-08-02.
  17. ^ "partners/certification/software". Retrieved 2006-03-16.
  18. ^ http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/07/08/introducing-the-dapper-commercial-repository/
  19. ^ "Edubuntu - Frequently asked questions". Retrieved 2006-07-15.
  20. ^ "Mark Shuttleworth registers gnubuntu.org (Ubuntu mailing list)". Retrieved 2006-04-25.
  21. ^ "The Register: Google at work on desktop Linux". Retrieved 2006-04-25.
  22. ^ "DistroWatch: Linux Distribution Popularity". Retrieved 2006-04-27.
  23. ^ "LinuxWorld Expo UK 2005" (PDF). Retrieved 2006-05-09.
  24. ^ "Ubuntu - A New Approach to Desktop Linux". Retrieved 2006-05-09.
  25. ^ "Linux in Government: Linux Desktop Reviews, Part 6 - Ubuntu". Retrieved 2006-05-09.
  26. ^ "XYZ computing article on kubuntu". Retrieved 2006-03-11.
  27. ^ "internetnews.com Sarge vs. The Hoary Hedgehog?". Retrieved 2006-04-25.

Further reading

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