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Real article: Ubuntu (Linux distribution)

Ubuntu (IPA pronunciation: ) is a widely used Linux distribution offering an operating system predominantly targeted at personal computers. Based on Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu concentrates on usability, regular releases, ease of installation, and freedom from legal restrictions. 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 Zulu and Xhosa concept of ubuntu, meaning "humanity towards others". Ubuntu's slogan is "Linux for human beings".

The most recent version, Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft), was released on October 26 2006.

History and development
The original name of the Ubuntu project was no-name-yet.com. Canonical have continued to use the http://no-name-yet.com/ domain since the project was initiated.

Ubuntu's first release on October 20 2004 began as a temporary fork of Debian GNU/Linux, 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. 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.

Ubuntu packages are generally based on packages from Debian's unstable set of packages. Ubuntu uses Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool to manage installed packages. However, Debian and Ubuntu packages are not necessarily compatible with each other. Several 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. However, in April 2005, the founder of Debian, Ian Murdock, criticised Ubuntu for incompatibilities between its packages and those of Debian, saying that Ubuntu had diverged too far from Debian Sarge to remain compatible.

Bugs in Ubuntu are tracked through the Launchpad web interface, which integrates with the Bazaar version control system in a similar way to SourceForge's integration with cvs.

Ubuntu is currently funded by Mark Shuttleworth through Canonical Ltd. On July 8 2005, Canonical 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. Shuttleworth describes the foundation as an emergency fund in case Canonical's involvement ends.

Features


Ubuntu's focus on usability includes the widespread use of the  tool, which allows users to carry out administrative tasks without initiating an unsafe superuser session. 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.

Ubuntu requires 256 megabytes of RAM, and, when installed to the hard disk, needs three gigabytes of hard-disk space (though there are alternative ways to install and run Ubuntu on less capable hardware).

Ubuntu is based on the GNOME desktop system, which is specifically designed to provide a free, simple and intuitive interface while offering a full range of modern desktop applications. 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.

Version 6.06 was the first to be distributed as a single compact disc that served both as a Live CD and an install 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.

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".

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

Packages are assigned to components as follows:

Main and Universe contain software which meets the Ubuntu licence requirements, which correspond roughly to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. 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 important non-free software, such as non-free device drivers, without which users might be prevented from running Ubuntu on their system, particularly non-free graphics card drivers, such as for the popular nVidia and ATI graphics cards. 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.

While some proprietary software that does not limit distribution is included in Ubuntu's Multiverse component, it does not contain software packages which infringe on U.S. 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.

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 manages a special repository for certified proprietary packages named Commercial. While software packages in Multiverse are redistributable by anyone, Commercial includes software which Canonical have obtained special permission to distribute. At the publication date of the repository this included the Opera web browser and the RealPlayer media player.

Releases
Each Ubuntu release has a code name, and also has a version number based on the year and month of release in the format Year.Month/Y.MM. For example, Edgy Eft was released in the 10th month of 2006, and is therefore version 6.10.



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

There are plans for a Ubuntu branch codenamed "Grumpy Groundhog". It is planned to 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 is planned to 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 is planned to be able to provide early warning of build failures on various architectures. Grumpy Groundhog has not yet been made available to the public.

The next stable release will be Ubuntu 7.04, nicknamed "Feisty Fawn". Currently, this release is scheduled for 19 April 2007.

6.06: "Dapper Drake"
Release 6.06 was labelled Long Term Support (LTS) to indicate that Canonical intends to support it with updates for longer than most Ubuntu releases. Package updates were planned for three years on the desktop and five years on the server, with paid technical support available from Canonical over the same period.

6.10: "Edgy Eft"
The current Ubuntu release, version 6.10, known as "Edgy Eft", debuts "edgy new technologies" that introduce new features but may reduce stability. The release includes a new System V init daemon replacement called Upstart, as well as improvements to the memory usage of applications such as Evolution and Nautilus and an increase in the speed of system boot up and application launch compared to version 6.06.

The Ubuntu 6.10 release includes GNOME 2.16.1, Mozilla Firefox 2.0, OpenOffice.org 2.0.4, X.Org Server 7.1.1, GCC 4.1.1, and version 2.6.17-10 of the Linux kernel.

In contrast to previous releases, Canonical have announced that they will not provide free CDs of Edgy Eft through its popular ShipIt programme which will continue to ship Dapper Drake, because it is expected to be more stable than Edgy Eft.

Variants


There are several variants of 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, but can be installed either as their own operating system, or as a "session" as part of Ubuntu. These different variants correspond to development efforts run by largely separate groups of people who try to bring different functionality to the distribution. Many such projects exist, but the most significant ones are:


 * Kubuntu, using KDE instead of GNOME.
 * Edubuntu, designed for classrooms, "designed for school environments, and should be equally suitable for kids to use at home."
 * Xubuntu, based on the Xfce desktop environment and designed for less powerful computers
 * 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.
 * Ubuntu VMware image. This allows Ubuntu to be used within Windows or another Linux distribution inside a virtual machine. This allows Ubuntu to be used on Windows computers that have an internet connection, but no CD-ROM drive, as well as eliminating the need for a reboot to switch between operating systems.

Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu and the Server Edition are official projects of the Ubuntu Foundation. As is the case with Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu can be ordered as CDs from the ShipIt service.

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

It was widely rumoured that Google 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 the company.

Response
The Ubuntu page on DistroWatch has been the most frequently accessed of a comprehensive list of Linux distributions for more than a year. Ubuntu was awarded the Reader Award for best Linux distribution at the 2005 LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in London. It has been favourably reviewed in online and print publications. Many reviewers of Ubuntu point out a main part of Ubuntu's success is its very large community.

At Debconf 6 in May 2006, Mark Shuttleworth stated that "about 6 million Breezy CDs" had been distributed through Ubuntu's ShipIt program.