Linux Dis­tri­b­u­tion Ubuntu

To make the release of the new version 16.04 LTS more palatable, Canonical published an in­fo­graph­ic in April 2016 about the spread of the Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion Ubuntu. The graphic shows the con­sid­er­able success of the open source system package: For example, in 2015 about 20 million new Ubuntu in­stal­la­tions were started on public and private clouds. The dis­tri­b­u­tion has been installed on hundreds of millions of PCs, servers, devices, virtual machines, etc. since pub­li­ca­tion in 2004 – including on the Chinese su­per­com­put­er Tianhe-2. Among the numerous projects run by the system software are the social networks Snapchat, Pinterest, Instagram, and Reddit, as well as the web services Dropbox and Netflix. Ubuntu is also in use on the In­ter­na­tion­al Space Station (ISS) and is the central operating unit of the BYU Mars Rover.

Ubuntu is a free Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion, published in October 2004 and based on the GNU/Linux classic Debian. The founder of the open source project was the South African en­tre­pre­neur Mark Shut­tle­worth. He had a dream to develop an operating system that was available to virtually all people, and that shaped the basic phi­los­o­phy of the software package – the word “Ubuntu” comes from the Bantus languages of the Zulu and the Xhosa, and means “community” or “humanity”.

From the beginning, the software company Canonical – also founded by Shut­tle­worth – was re­spon­si­ble for the further de­vel­op­ment of the project. Together with various de­vel­op­ers, it ensures that new Ubuntu versions appear every six months con­tain­ing new features, security updates, and system op­ti­miza­tions. Ubuntu quickly gained pop­u­lar­i­ty due to its sim­plic­i­ty, which made it very different from other Linux dis­tri­b­u­tions right from the start. Orig­i­nal­ly intended as a home PC system, it has been the most widely used Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion for web servers since June 2016, according to the sta­tis­tics of w3techs – finally over­tak­ing its pre­de­ces­sor Debian almost twelve years after its release. Now, a variant for use on mobile devices also exists with Ubuntu Touch.

Since Ubuntu is a de­riv­a­tive of Debian, both Linux dis­tri­b­u­tions look tech­ni­cal­ly similar: The Ubuntu team has adopted a variety of struc­tures, including the package manager dpkg (Debian Package) and the .deb format, as well as some of the software packages. At the beginning of the de­vel­op­ment cycle of a new version of Ubuntu, these are matched with those from the current stable version of Debian and adapted ac­cord­ing­ly. These changes are then in turn made available to de­vel­op­ers of Debian projects as patches. But because the adap­ta­tions are often rather drastic, they’re rarely suitable for use in Debian, which in the past has always been a point of con­tention between the two project teams. Primarily, there’s always the ac­cu­sa­tion that Canonical con­cen­trates ex­clu­sive­ly on the im­prove­ment of its own product during the de­vel­op­ment process, without con­tribut­ing to the Debian project or the further de­vel­op­ment of the Linux core.

As a Unix-like system, Ubuntu isn’t tied to a fixed desktop en­vi­ron­ment like a Windows operating system would be. The interface Unity (pre­vi­ous­ly GNOME), created by Canonical, has been installed by default since version 11.04, but you can also replace it with the user interface of your choice. This isn’t necessary, though, because Unity allows you to work ef­fi­cient­ly and quickly with just a bit of practice – by mouse or by keyboard. The ap­pear­ance and po­si­tion­ing of in­di­vid­ual operating elements can be changed to a great extent to quickly adapt the en­vi­ron­ment to your own re­quire­ments.

Another special feature of Ubuntu is the fact that hardware con­fig­u­ra­tions are mostly not stored on the hard drive. The system au­to­mat­i­cal­ly rec­og­nizes built-in com­po­nents during the start-up process, which means that you can easily exchange graphics cards, memory cards, and more. Likewise, it’s also possible to use an Ubuntu in­stal­la­tion saved on a portable storage system on a different PC without making any ad­just­ments. The standard in­stal­la­tion of the Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion creates an ad­min­is­tra­tor account (root), but this is disabled, which is also the case with Mac OS X. This protects newcomers from un­in­ten­tion­al system changes that may adversely affect per­for­mance or security. The sudo command also allows you to tem­porar­i­ly obtain full system priv­i­leges in the default con­fig­u­ra­tion, which may be necessary to install some ap­pli­ca­tions.

The standard in­stal­la­tion of Ubuntu un­der­lines developer com­mit­ment to a high degree of user-friend­li­ness through the approach of offering only one program for each ap­pli­ca­tion area. Many other Linux dis­tri­b­u­tions often come with a variety of different solutions for a single user scenario, which creates un­nec­es­sary com­plex­i­ty. Ubuntu also offers users increased comfort when it comes to update policies: Update man­age­ment informs you of new versions and security patches for the operating system as well as all installed programs. When you decide which of the announced updates you want, you simply select or unselect the packages and then start the update process for your se­lec­tions at the desired time with one click.

Another popular Debian element that’s also featured on its de­riv­a­tives is the division of the program packets into several package sources. The Ubuntu team gives different attention to each of the various sources – unlike Debian. Main, the most important source for the basic func­tion­al­i­ty of the operating system receives the highest level of support. This contains only packages that meet the licensing re­quire­ments and is char­ac­ter­ized by its guar­an­teed technical support and timely security updates. All packages that are supported by the Ubuntu developer team because of their im­por­tance, but whose licensing doesn’t meet the re­quire­ments, are clas­si­fied as re­strict­ed software. Compared to the main ap­pli­ca­tions, support is limited – mainly because access to the source code is missing. The sources universe (free software) and mul­ti­verse (software with licensing re­stric­tions) don’t receive official support from Canonical. Updates instead come from members of the Ubuntu-Debian community, or the so-called Masters of the Universe (MOTUs). For open source software that’s not contained in main or universe, you can suggest its inclusion by sub­mit­ting a bug report. The in­stal­la­tion manager Ubuntu Software has been included since version 16.04, which replaced the previous software center. The program is stan­dard­ly pre-installed and lists some of the 40,000+ available software packages that can be installed directly using the tool. These primarily deal with graphic and fre­quent­ly used programs, while most shell ap­pli­ca­tions and server software, such as the Apache web server or the MySQL database, aren’t included in the manager. With Ubuntu, the path via the command line is also necessary for this.

Since its release in October 2004, Canonical publishes a new Ubuntu version every six months – in April and in October. This rhythm was only broken for Ubuntu 6.06, which took two ad­di­tion­al months to work ex­ten­sive­ly on program errors, Asian language support, and Linux standard base cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Every version has a version number, which provides in­for­ma­tion on the pub­li­ca­tion year and month. In addition, they also each have their own code name, composed of a species of animal and a pre­ex­ist­ing adjective with the same initial letter. For example, the version released in April 2007 is called Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. Mythical creatures have also been given the honor of being Ubuntu edition namesakes, such as unicorns (Utopic Unicorn) and were­wolves (Wily Werewolf). Canonical offers a support period of at least nine months for all Ubuntu versions (before version 13.04 it was 18 months), in which necessary security updates are provided. Every two years, a special version with long-term support (LTS) appears instead of the usual April version. These versions offer five-year security and hardware updates, making them much more suitable for companies and in­sti­tu­tions as well as for home users, as opposed to the usual expenses that are more in­ter­est­ing to de­vel­op­ers and members of the Ubuntu community. The first LTS version was the pre­vi­ous­ly mentioned Ubuntu 6.06.

Ubuntu is designed to provide the user with highest possible comfort of operation. When this can be guar­an­teed obviously depends on what is actually needed for the operating system. As the basis for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of a web project, for example, a com­plete­ly different form of prepa­ra­tion is needed than for the operation of a home computer. Canonical offers the Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion in three different editions, which are adapted to specific user re­quire­ments:

• Ubuntu Desktop: The standard version of the Debian de­riv­a­tive, whose features are discussed in this guide. If you decide on the desktop variant, you have the Unity interface and various ap­pli­ca­tions pre-installed, such as Firefox, Li­bre­Of­fice, or Thun­der­bird, which makes it easier to work on the PC at home.

• Ubuntu Server: Ubuntu Server is a standard software package that’s es­pe­cial­ly equipped for sparing resources, and only has a classic command line interface instead of the graphical Unity interface. You can use this to load the required software for your server en­vi­ron­ment after in­stal­la­tion. To this end, complete finished packages exist, for example for LAMP, OpenSSH, or mail servers.

• Ubuntu Cloud: If you decide on Ubuntu Cloud, you should be planning on using the Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion to manage an OpenStack cloud. With the help of the “autopilot” interface, you can ef­fec­tive­ly scale your private or public cloud based on the free OpenStack software initiated by Rackspace. With Ubuntu Kylin, Canonical also offers an edition that’s specially adapted to the Chinese market. De­vel­op­ers and hobbyists can use Snappy Ubuntu Core to download a variant that runs on a wide range of devices, thanks to its special ar­chi­tec­ture, such as routers, re­frig­er­a­tors, drones, or Raspberry Pi. Since 2014, Ubuntu Touch has existed as a version of the open source operating system for use on in­di­vid­ual mobile devices, like the Nexus or Sony Xperia.

The following packages are also among the of­fi­cial­ly supported versions of Canonical (“Flavors”):

• Kubuntu: Uses the desktop en­vi­ron­ment KDE, including other ap­pli­ca­tions from KDE

• Xubuntu: Build on the resource-sparing desktop interface Xfce, and is suitable for older computers with less memory

• Edubuntu: Ubuntu de­vel­op­ment for use in schools and contains diverse learning programs

• Ubuntu Studio: Software package including core with real-time function that specif­i­cal­ly meets re­quire­ments for audio, graphic, and video pro­cess­ing.

• Ubuntu GNOME: Variant with the pre­vi­ous­ly standard interface GNOME.

Before you can use Ubuntu as an operating system, you should make sure that your system fulfills all of the necessary re­quire­ments. The exact re­quire­ments for the hardware are, of course, also dependent on the version and variant that you choose. For Ubuntu 16.04, Canonical provides the following rec­om­mend­ed system re­quire­ments:

By now, the Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion has broken into the di­men­sions of Windows, mainly due to the fact that Ubuntu has developed into more of a mul­ti­me­dia platform over the past years. If you’re unsure whether your system meets the re­quire­ments or not, you can easily test Ubuntu: Just download the operating system from the official homepage and install it next to your current system. If you restart your PC afterward, you have the option to select the Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion. The original system remains unchanged in the settings.

With Ubuntu, Canonical has pulled off an unrivaled success story. The simple concept enabled maximum comfort for users, and is con­tin­u­ing to achieve that same level today. The Debian de­scen­dant has attracted many users as an al­ter­na­tive to Windows, because it’s different, rem­i­nis­cent of Linux systems, but at the same time intuitive – thanks to its in-house desktop interface, Unity, an App Store-esque software manager, and effective update man­age­ment. This route also faces pretty strong headwinds, though, es­pe­cial­ly in the Debian-Linux en­vi­ron­ment. The fact is that Canonical has broken the common Linux con­ven­tions again and again with Ubuntu, and takes steps that in­creas­ing­ly remove it from the Linux base.

As crit­i­cal­ly as this de­vel­op­ment is viewed by the Linux community, the dis­tri­b­u­tion rate of the operating system gives reason to assume that the Ubuntu de­vel­op­ers are doing something right. The large selection of Ubuntu variants, which are already optimized for different ap­pli­ca­tion types, makes it possible to operate a web server, produce music or videos, teach in­ter­ac­tive­ly, or even control a drone. More than 40,000 different software packages are available for in­stal­la­tion, including some com­mer­cial programs. If you’re unsure, whether your system fulfills the Ubuntu system re­quire­ments, or whether the Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion is suitable for your plans, you can simply test it parallel to your current operating system – for free and without com­pro­mis­ing the running ca­pa­bil­i­ty of the current system.