[ 1.8GB ] One Click DownloadOperating system
Ubuntu is a free and open-source operating system and Linux distribution based on Debian. Ubuntu is offered in three official editions: Ubuntu Desktop for personal computers, Ubuntu Server for servers and the cloud, and Ubuntu Core for Internet of things devices and robots. Wikipedia
Package manager: dpkg, Snappy
License: Free software licenses; (mainly GPL)
Initial release date: 20 October 2004
Developer: Canonical Ltd., Ubuntu community
Platforms: IA-32, AMD64; ARMhf (ARMv7 + VFPv3-D16), ARM64; and only for servers: POWER8 (ppc64el), s390x
Programming languages: Python, Java, C, C++, C#
Ubuntu (/ʊˈbʊntuː/; stylized as ubuntu) is a free and open-source operating system and Linux distribution based on Debian. Ubuntu is offered in three official editions: Ubuntu Desktop for personal computers, Ubuntu Server for servers and the cloud, and Ubuntu Core for Internet of things devices and robots. New releases of Ubuntu occur every six months, while long-term support (LTS) releases occur every two years, and the most recent one is, 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver), is supported for ten years.
Ubuntu is produced by Canonical and the developer community, under a meritocratic governance model. Canonical provides free guaranteed security updates and support for each Ubuntu release, starting from the release date and until the release reaches its predesignated end-of-life (EOL) date. Canonical generates revenue through the sale of premium services related to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is named after the Southern African philosophy of ubuntu (literally, 'human-ness'), which Canonical suggests can be loosely translated as "humanity to others" or "I am what I am because of who we all are".
Ubuntu is the most popular operating system for the cloud, and is the reference operating system for OpenStack.
History and development process
Ubuntu is built on Debian's architecture and infrastructure, and comprises Linux server, desktop and discontinued phone and tablet operating system versions. Ubuntu releases updated versions predictably every six months, and each release receives free support for nine months (eighteen months prior to 13.04) with security fixes, high-impact bug fixes and conservative, substantially beneficial low-risk bug fixes. The first release was in October 2004.
Current long-term support (LTS) releases are supported for five years, and are released every two years. LTS releases get regular point releases with support for new hardware and integration of all the updates published in that series to date.
Ubuntu packages are based on packages from Debian's unstable branch. Both distributions use Debian's deb package format and package management tools (e.g. APT and Ubuntu Software). Debian and Ubuntu packages are not necessarily binary compatible with each other, however, so packages may need to be rebuilt from source to be used in Ubuntu. Many Ubuntu developers are also maintainers of key packages within Debian. Ubuntu cooperates with Debian by pushing changes back to Debian, although there has been criticism that this does not happen often enough. Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian, had expressed concern about Ubuntu packages potentially diverging too far from Debian to remain compatible. Before release, packages are imported from Debian unstable continuously and merged with Ubuntu-specific modifications. One month before release, imports are frozen, and packagers then work to ensure that the frozen features interoperate well together.
Ubuntu is currently funded by Canonical Ltd. On 8 July 2005, Mark Shuttleworth and 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. Mark Shuttleworth describes the foundation goal as to ensure the continuity of the Ubuntu project.
On 12 March 2009, Ubuntu announced developer support for third-party cloud management platforms, such as those used at Amazon EC2.
GNOME 3 has been the default GUI for Ubuntu Desktop since Ubuntu 17.10, while Unity is still the default in older versions, including all current LTS versions except 18.04 LTS. However, a community-driven fork of Unity 8, called Yunit, has been created to continue the development of Unity. Shuttleworth wrote on 8 April 2017, "We will invest in Ubuntu GNOME with the intent of delivering a fantastic all-GNOME desktop. We're helping the Ubuntu GNOME team, not creating something different or competitive with that effort. While I am passionate about the design ideas in Unity, and hope GNOME may be more open to them now, I think we should respect the GNOME design leadership by delivering GNOME the way GNOME wants it delivered. Our role in that, as usual, will be to make sure that upgrades, integration, security, performance and the full experience are fantastic." Shuttleworth also mentioned that Canonical will cease development for Ubuntu Phone, Tablet, and convergence.
