Ubuntu released their newest version of their Desktop Operating System this morning. The new release 13.10 code named Saucy Salamander comes along side a stable version of their OS for phone installation.
A little about Ubuntu:
Ubuntu is a Linux Operating system that has its origins rooted from Debian (another Linux Operating System). Ubuntu is mainly focused at the desktop user just like Mac’s OS X and Microsoft’s Windows Operating Systems. While focused on the desktop just like its larger competitors Ubuntu offers a variety of other Systems including servers and now a phone operating system.
The first difference is, Ubuntu is free and always will be free. Instead of making money off of the sales of Ubuntu, money is generated in part by add revenue, in part by support, and in part by donation and services.
I’ve been using Linux almost exclusively for a decade now, and I can tell you it has come a long long way. 12 years ago when I was taking my first baby steps into Linux it was a scary and ill supported world for the Newbie non technical person. Ubuntu has changed that. The free support website, the web forums, the blogs dedicated to Ubuntu have transformed the world of Linux computing.
My initial plunge into the deep end was more like a shallow dive with another Linux distribution that was dedicated to the user experience, Linspire. It was at the time the single most user friendly version of Linux I had ever used. Ubuntu has taken it to a whole new level.
Currently I am running Ubuntu 13.04 on my Macbook Pro 13″ 7,1. While it is run in parallel to OS X (I keep OS X around so I can support my mom’s computer), I only very rarely run anything but Ubuntu. The user experience of with Ubuntu is now just easy. Quite simply it works.
When I look to a new piece of technology I ask a simple question. “Could my mom/wife/child figure it out?” With each new version of Ubuntu I know the answer. My wife can already figure it out, my child is no doubt capable of doing so. My mother? Well she can use a Mac, so I would guess she can figure out Ubuntu (the newer releases featuring Unity are very similar to the OS X experience).
Every Operating System, Windows, Linux, Mac… has a release cycle of sorts. While Microsoft spaces out its releases more just look at the upgrades from Windows 3.X to Windows 8, and Mac has a new release roughly once a year, Ubuntu has a 6 month release cycle. Because of the rapid cycle of Ubuntu, they offer two types of releases, Long Term Support releases and standard releases. The Long Term versions come out every Two years and are supported for a span of 5 years while the short term or mid cycle releases receive support for a shorter period. The last I saw it was getting reduced to 9 months. The next Long Term Support will be released in April of 2014, the last one was April of 2012.
“The official name of an Ubuntu release is “Ubuntu X.YY” with X representing the year (minus 2000) and YY representing the month of eventual release within in that year. Ubuntu’s first release, made in 2004 October (10th month) was Ubuntu 4.10. Since the actual release date is not known until it’s ready and humans tend to prefer names rather than numbers, a set of codenames are used by developers and testers during the buildup to a release:”
The Code names are all double letter sequences. So while 13.10 is Saucy Salamander, 14.04 is currently undecided but will be a combination of an Adjective and Animal starting with the letter T. 14.10 will be a combination using the letter U and so on. This will continue until October of 2017 when the names will shift to the beginning of the alphabet again.
If you are at all curious about Linux I suggest you go to http://www.ubuntu.com and take a tour. You can even create a live USB Disk or Live CD and give it a test drive without installing on your computer. You will be quite surprised on just how easy Linux is now.
