Ubuntu Rocks
Ubuntu Logo
Ubu—What???
You may be wondering, “What in the world is Ubuntu!”. Well it’s flavor of GNU/Linux which I have come to fall. If you are computer savvy you may be aware that there are other operating systems apart from the ‘default’ OS ( Microsoft Windows). Well Ubuntu falls in the stream of other Operating Systems. It belongs the GNU/Linux family so it’s ‘free ‘. Before I continue let me give toy a brief history of Ubuntu
History of Ubuntu
Ubuntu has it’s roots from the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution. One thing you should know about the Debian distribution is that they tend to be more conservative in how often they release new versions. They release new version in about every 6 months. Then name ‘Ubuntu’ comes from the Zulu word which when loosely translated means “humanity for others ” or in other words. “I am who I am because of those around me”. The main goal of Ubuntu is to provide a stable operating system for the average user, with a strong focus on suabiltu and ease of installations. Currently Ubuntu has been rated as the most popular linux distribution for desktops.
Ubuntu follows the GNU/Linux model which means it is free to download and use without any monetary charge. Also the source code of the Operating system is made available so you can modify and use as you wish. Ubuntu is sponsored by a UK-based company called Canonical Ltd. Which is owned by a South African entrepreneur called Mark Shuttleworth (You should read more about Mark Shuttlewoth). He sponsors the development of Ubuntu. There are basically four flavours of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu Edubuntu and Ubuntu JeOS (pronounced “juice”). Ubuntu has a vey funny naming system Each version of Ubuntu has a unique name. The name is in two parts. The first part is an Adjective and the second part is an animal’s name. Here are the names of various version released so far
Year Month Version Adjective Animal
2004 October 4.10 Warty Warthog
2005 April 5.04 Hoary Hedghog
2005 October 5.10 Breezy Badger
2006 April 6.04 Dapper Drake
2006 October 6.10 Edgy Eft
2007 April 7.04 Fesity Fawn
2007 October 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon
2008 April 8.04 Hardy Heron
2008 October 8.10 Intrepid Ibex
200 April 8.04 Jaunty Jackalope
Why Ubuntu Rocks,
Well on a personal level, when it comes to linux, I always feel more comfortable with Ubuntu. I have used various flavours of linux like, Mandriva, Red Hat, OpenSuse, DSL (Damn Small Linux), Fedora, Knoppix and a lot more. But somehow Ubuntu has come to take a permanent place in my heart. I sat down to think about why the love of Ubuntu and these are some of the conclusions I drawn.
Ease of Installation
The first thing I was told about linux installation is that if you don’t do it well you can wipe some important information on your system! I asked a couple of my friends about linux and most of them agree that the most intimidating thing about linux for a newbie is installation process. Well with Ubuntu the installation process has been made simpler for new users. You are guided into how to partition you hard disk without loosing any data. And it has even got better, with the introduction of the Wubi Installer you can install Ubuntu within your windows! Now how about that!
Large Range of Hardware support.
When I started using linux professionally there was one obstacle which I faced no matter the distribution I chose. That was, WiFi driver support. I was using a dell inspiron 5600 which uses a Broadcom wireless Driver. It took me almost 3 months to get a driver for linux. I had to do so many try and errors!. It got to a point I just gave up! I even resorted to using Ndiswrapper but that was a bit flacky. Once thing I noticed with Ubuntu was that immediately I installed It in my laptop. It recognized my Broadcom driver connected to the net (using my Ethernet card) downloaded. The necessary driver/firmware and installed or extracted it as required! All I had to do was restart after the process was fnished and voila! WiFi is working!!
Large Community Support
Well It wouldn’t be fair to talk about Ubuntu without talking about their Community Support!. To tell you the truth I am yet to find a problem on my Ubuntu system which has not been already addressed in the Ubuntu Forums or the lauchpad Ubuntu forum. Amazing! You may be probably thinking. Come on I don’t think I’ll ever need to use Ubuntu forums. Well, let’s wait and see.
The Apt-Get Way
I know most of you will say that most linux distributions also have this feature. Well that’s true but for me all I can say is that it’s a godsend! Apt-Get is a command line tool which allows you to download and install software packages in a breeze! All you need to do is open the console and type “apt-get install , e.g apt-get install apache2” Ubuntu will download the software from it’s repository and install it for you! Come in it doesn’t get any easier than that!
There are a lot of easy to use features which draws me to use Ubuntu. And If I’m to go through them I guess it may fit in a book! (hey, I think I should write one!) . Well all I can say now is down take me for my word. Download Ubuntu and try it out. And I can guarantee that you’ll be hooked for life.
Till then, stay Open Source!
Sources:
http://www.easy-ubuntu-linux.com/ubuntu-history.html
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DevelopmentCodeNames
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu
http://wubi-installer.org/
