Ubuntu

Ubuntu ( uu-BUUN-too) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in multiple editions: Desktop, Server, and Core for Internet of things devices and robots. The operating system is developed by the British company Canonical, and a community of other developers, under a meritocratic governance model. As of October 2023, the most-recent release is 23.10 ("Mantic Minotaur"), and the current long-term support release is 22.04 ("Jammy Jellyfish").

As with other Linux distributions, all of the editions can run on a computer alone, or in a virtual machine. An upgrade to Ubuntu is released every six months, with long-term support (LTS) releases every two years. Canonical provides security updates and support for each Ubuntu release, starting from the release date until the release reaches its designated end-of-life (EOL) date. Canonical generates revenue through the sale of premium services related to Ubuntu and donations from those who download the Ubuntu software.

Ubuntu is named after the Nguni philosophy of ubuntu, "humanity to others" with a connotation of "I am what I am because of who we all are". Since the release of the first version in 2004, Ubuntu has become one of the most popular Linux distributions for general purposes and is backed by large online communities like Ask Ubuntu. Numerous community-editions of Ubuntu also exist. It is also popular for cloud computing, with support for OpenStack.