Ubuntu: A Brief History

Part two in our series of " A Brief History" looks at what many would say was the distro that brought Linux to the masses,or at least made it user friendly and accessible

Unbuntu.

The launch of Ubuntu was first announced in September 2004. Although a relative newcomer to the Linux distribution scene, the project took off like no other before, with its mailing lists soon filled in with discussions by eager users and enthusiastic developers.
In the years that followed, Ubuntu grew to become the most popular desktop Linux distribution and has greatly contributed towards developing an easy-to-use and free desktop operating system that can compete well with any proprietary ones available on the market.

What was the reason for Ubuntu's stunning success? Firstly, the project was created by Mark Shuttleworth, a charismatic South African multimillionaire, a former Debian developer and the world's second space tourist, whose company, the Isle of Man-based Canonical Ltd, is currently financing the project. Secondly, Ubuntu had learned from the mistakes of other similar projects and avoided them from the start - it created an excellent web-based infrastructure with a Wiki-style documentation, creative bug-reporting facility, and professional approach to the end users. And thirdly, thanks to its wealthy founder, Ubuntu was able to ship free CDs to all interested users, thus contributing to the rapid spread of the distribution.

On the technical side of things, Ubuntu is based on Debian "Sid" (unstable branch), but with some prominent packages, such as GNOME, Firefox and LibreOffice, updated to their latest versions. It uses a custom user interface called "Unity". It has a predictable, 6-month release schedule, with an occasional Long Term Support (LTS) release that is supported with security updates for 5 years, depending on the edition (non-LTS release are supported for 9 months). Other special features of Ubuntu include an installable live DVD, creative artwork and desktop themes, migration assistant for Windows users, support for the latest technologies, such as 3D desktop effects, easy installation of proprietary device drivers for ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards and wireless networking, and on-demand support for non-free or patent-encumbered media codecs.

• Pros: Fixed release cycle and support period; long-term support (LTS) variants with 5 years of security updates; novice-friendly; wealth of documentation, both official and user-contributed
  
• Cons: Lacks compatibility with Debian; frequent major changes tend to drive some users away, the Unity user interface has been criticised as being more suitable for mobile devices than desktop computers; non-LTS releases come with only 9 months of security support
  
• Software package management: Advanced Package Tool (APT) using DEB packages
  
• Available variants: Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu MATE, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Studio and Mythbuntu for 32-bit (i386) and 64-bit (x86_64) processors;
  
• Suggested Ubuntu-based alternatives: Linux Mint (desktop), elementary OS (desktop), Zorin OS (desktop), Pinguy OS (desktop), Trisquel GNU/Linux (free software), Bodhi Linux (desktop with Enlightenment)

 

Ubuntu Unity Desktop