5 years livin' with Ubuntu !

[varsamakos]

5 years livin' with Ubuntu !
(original link)

Back then, in 2004 and 20th of October, a new distribution was welcoming by the Linux community.
It's name was "Ubuntu", maintained by Canonical Ltd and its founder Mark Shuttleworth.





The word "Ubuntu" was taken from an African philosophy in which, people, are focusing on allegiances and relations with each other.


Ubuntu was based in Debian project and its primary aim was to be a more frequently updated system.
As a fork of Debian, Ubuntu was/is based in Debian's packages and as a result, fixes and changes was pushed back in Debian.

Before release, packages are imported from Debian Unstable continuously and merged with Ubuntu-specific modifications. A month before release, imports are frozen, and packagers then work to ensure that the frozen features interoperate well together.

Releases are timed to be approximately one month after GNOME releases and two months after X.org releases.


It is a stable OS, featuring the newest software versions, in the level of the kernel or in application software.
Ubuntu's main goals was usability, security and the simpliest methods regarding interaction between user and OS.


Each release is having a 6-month life cycle and it is supported with updates for 18 months.
Selected releases have been labeled as Long Term Support (LTS) versions offering 3-years support in desktop and 5-years in Server Edition. These releases are out every two years and they're known for their packages' maturity and stability.







Now, let's make a tour to see what Ubuntu had in it's briefcase all these years ... May nostalgia be with us : )




2004. Mark Shuttleworth began to round up a small but immensely talented and dedicated group of open source developers to create a revolutionary new Linux desktop. Based on the principles of time-based releases, a strong Debian foundation, the GNOME desktop, and a strong commitment to freedom, this group operated initially under the auspices of http://no-name-yet.com.




Ubuntu 4.10 Warty Warthog






The first release from Canonical, released in October of 2004, introducing the naming method, Y.MM, in which "Y" represents the year and "MM" the month of each version's final release date.
In addition to that, two words was given along with these numbers, an adjective and a noun. The later one was an animal and in this case a warthog !
Here is the official announcement from Mark Shuttleworth.

Interest in Ubuntu was dramatic from the outset. There were nearly 3000 messages on the ubuntu-users mailing list within the first two weeks, and the community focus of the project attracted key contributors




2005. The following year saw dramatic growth in the Ubuntu community. Hundreds and then thousands of free software enthusiasts joined the community. The core development team continued to grow, and dedicated volunteers around the world found new ways to contribute through code, advocacy, artwork, documentation, wiki gardening, and more.




Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog





The second release of Ubuntu, came out in April of 2005.
At the same time, the first release of Kubuntu was made, to the delight of KDE fans worldwide.




Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger






In addition to the much anticipated Ubuntu and Kubuntu releases, Edubuntu was released for the first time to address the educational market with the release of Ubuntu 5.10.






2006. The Ubuntu project took a significant step forward in 2006.



Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake (LTS)






Dapper Drake was produced in June. In addition to the extended support cycle(LTS), this release also marked the first time a single CD served as a live and install CD, and in which there was a formal Server Edition.



Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft




In October, the 5th release from Canonical. It was the first one to follow the alphabetical order regarding naming.

[varsamakos]

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn





Came with migration tool, easy installation of multimedia codecs, networking improvements, Xorg 7.2, Apache 2.2 etc.


Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon





New features in Gutsy, Gnome 2.20, desktop 3D effects, desktop search, fast user switching, handling of non-free device drivers etc.
The official announcement was given by Mark in Ubuntu lists.







2008. The Ubuntu project released its second LTS version of Ubuntu, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, two years after the previous LTS version. This provided users of the 6.06 LTS desktop edition a full year to plan their migrations. Later that year, the 8.10 release featured Wubi, the Windows installer for Ubuntu.



Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron (LTS)





Armed with visual improvements and mainly stability in its packages (LTS), it managed to attract a lot of users in Ubuntu and generally in Linux community.


Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex




8.10 was named Intrepid Ibex and came with Guest Sessions and newer version of Network Manager(0.7), Gnome and X.org.
Equipped, IMO, with the greatest wallpaper of all Ubuntu's releases.






2009. Ubuntu community is growing and its reputation is getting bigger and bigger.
The 9.04 release included the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) designed for small screened netbook devices. Also noteworthy was the inclusion of Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) which enabled organizations to deploy a private computing cloud in their own data center.
Also, in 10th release, Jaunty, among the others, two of the goals was faster boot time and better integration and support in web services.


Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope








Now, let's see what we know about next releases ...



In a few days, although 9.10 Karmic Koala is almost 100% known though beta version, the official one will make appearance in 29th of this month, as scheduled.


Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala





Comes with cleaner and more elegant desktop, changing to ext4 and bringing newer versions for Grub, Gnome and various software applications.
Add/remove applications is also changing, now known as Ubuntu Software Centre.



Information about the next release is also known.
It will be named 10.04 Lucid Lynx and be the third LTS release, right after Hardy Heron.
As a LTS version, the main focus in its stability.

[varsamakos]

Now, just for our entertainment, let's see what Canonical had/has in its mind regarding naming each release with names brought from animals. : )

Warthog





Hedgehog





Badger




Drake




Eft




Fawn




Gibbon

[varsamakos]

Heron




Ibex





Jackalope




Koala




Lynx

Nowadays, Ubuntu is the most popular distribution.
Why ?
There are many reasons for that, few of them are :
The people behind this project had a clear vision, the timing that Ubuntu was landed in Linux world was also perfect and of course, the, easy to install - easy to use factor helped so this distribution became the most known and for a lot of people it's a synonym of Linux.

The growth of Ubuntu took it pre-installed in some PC's (Dell etc.), in laptops and desktops, with full support of the hardware and free to buy in the global market.



So, today, we are celebrating 5 years of our favorite distribution, Ubuntu !
Let's wish for innovative and up-to-date improvement though the next years ...








Be open sourced !



Links for further information :
Gnu / Linux
Ubuntu - Open Source
GNU GPL
Richard Stallman - Linus Torvalds



This article is a translation of an article that I posted in my blog this morning (see thread title). So, forgive my english. I was hasty and tired.
I just wanted to post it here too, where the heart of Ubuntu beats.

Cheers!

[nmccrina]

That's pretty epic.

[The Real Dave]

I remember 8.04 =] My first Ubuntu, though I do have a 5.10 install disk I must agree, 8.10 has the best wallpaper.

So, 5 years? Heres to another 50!

[Perfect Storm]

Been here, since beta 4.10...5 years flying by...

[motang]

For me it's has been 4 and a half years of Ubuntu. When the first one came out, I was still a Fedora user (one my old computer), wasn't very happy as it didn't support my hardware well. On my primary desktop it was Win XP, come 2005 and second version of Ubuntu came out and so I put that on my old computer and instantly fell in love as it supported my hardware as they were suppose to see seen! Ever since then I have replaced Win XP and used Ubuntu as my primary OS (on desktop, notebook) but I still have an old XP box laying around (it gets turned on couple of times a month) .

[speedwell68]

I have only been using Ubuntu for three years. I have been using it exclusively since Edgy, only by accident , I wiped my XP install by mistake. I haven't looked back since. I can now no longer imagine computer use in anything other than Linux. I do play with other distros, but Ubuntu is the one on my stable machine.

[Machnikowski]

My first Ubuntu was 6.10 (My first Kubuntu being 6.06).

8.10's wallpaper with 9.10's darker theme looks sweet.