UBUNTU IN FLASHBACK

Ubuntu first was released on 20,oct. 2004 as temporary fork of a debian GNU/linux. It had a aim of drawing from Debian’s code often for the permission of a new version of ubuntu which was supposed to be released every six months.

These packages are based on packages from Debian unstable. Ubuntu uses Debian’s Advanced Packaging Tool to manage installed Linux packages. Debian and Ubuntu Unix packages are not compatible with each other everytime. 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.

Plans

Plans for a branch {Grumpy Groundhog} 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. The branch has not yet been made available to the public.

The other plan is “Edgy Eft” or “Ubuntu 6.10″ which will be an upgrade from the current “Dapper Drake” 6.06 version. Currently, this release is expected for October, and will have an improved bootup sequence, along with better visuals and an improved sound database.

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 10 million USD. 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.

Ubuntu mainly focusses on usability which will include 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.Ubuntu furthermore emphasizes on accessibility and globalization. As of version 5.04, UTF-8 has been the default character encoding.

Requirements -

1)256 megabytes of RAM, and
2) 3 gigabytes of hard-disk space.

It 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.The latest version 6.06 merges the Live CD and installs 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.

The default appearance of the user interface in the current version is characterized by shades of brown and orange. Ubuntu has an optional package called ubuntu-calendar, which downloads new desktop wallpaper matching the brown color theme each month.