Ubuntu

Ubuntu Logo.

Ubuntu is a Debian-based GNU/Linux distribution aimed at being friendly to users new to GNU/Linux. Ubuntu is the most widely used GNU/Linux operating system in the world. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, offers great technical assistance and help, in the form of forums, and commercial support. Unity, Ubuntu's default interface, is also notable for its design philosophy, which has sparked mixed reactions amongst technology blogs and critics. Ubuntu can be downloaded here. While the main release comes with the Unity desktop environment, there exist a variety of officially supported variants (or "flavours") that ship with other desktop environments, some of which serve special use cases.

Ubuntu Flavours

The officially recognized variants of Ubuntu are as follows:

Xubuntu uses the Xfce desktop environment

Lubuntu uses the LXDE desktop environment

Kubuntu uses the KDE desktop environment

Ubuntu GNOME uses the GNOME desktop environment

Ubuntu MATE uses the MATE desktop environment

Ubuntu Studio is designed for multimedia editing and creation

Ubuntu Kylin is localised for China

Edubuntu is customized for educational use

Mythbuntu is designed for creating a home theatre PC with MythTV

There are many other derivatives of Ubuntu, but only those listed above are supported by Canonical.

Version numbers and LTS

Every two years, Canonical releases a Long-Term Support (LTS) version of their OS. It is intended to be very stable, and is supported for five years. As a result, however, package versions are often outdated.

Non-LTS versions are released every six months. They are the cutting-edge versions with new, but relatively stable, packages. This ensures that new hardware will be supported and later versions of packages will be available. However, each version is only supported for 18 months.

Amazon Spyware

Sadly, the flagship version of Ubuntu ships with the plague that is the Unity desktop environment, which contains Amazon spyware/adware built right into the desktop environment's search tool. Luckily, the aforementioned is set for removal in the near future, and can be painlessly removed in the meantime, by following the simple instructions at Fix Ubuntu. It should be known that the problematic Amazon "feature" is only present in the Unity desktop environment, and no other versions of Ubuntu, outside of the main one, are effected.

Controversy

Canonical, the company supporting Ubuntu, is criticized for its lack of contribution to upstream. They often fork software and change it to fit their system.

Richard Stallman has also criticized Ubuntu because of the aforementioned Amazon integration with the Unity search tool.

Replacing Unity

Like any other GNU/Linux distribution, the default desktop environment in Ubuntu can be easily replaced.

For example, to switch from Unity to the Cinnamon Desktop Environment (A GNOME 3 Fork), one can do the following:

   $ sudo apt-get remove unity unity-asset-pool unity-control-center unity-control-center-signon unity-gtk-module-common unity-lens*
   $ sudo apt-get remove unity-services unity-settings-daemon unity-webapps* unity-voice-service
   $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
   $ sudo apt-get update
   $ sudo apt-get install cinnamon