A range of new AI features are coming to Ubuntu over the next year, according to maintainers, but only providing they’re of “sufficient maturity and quality”.

In a blog post detailing AI plans for the operating system, Jon Seager, VP of engineering at Ubuntu’s parent company, Canonical, said the firm is exploring the prospect of a dual approach to integration.

This approach centers around improving OS functionality with AI models running “in the background” while the implementation of “AI native” features will also be rolled out - but only to those who opt in.

“Over the past few weeks I’ve begun to develop a framework to help think about different kinds of AI adoption within Ubuntu," Seager wrote. “At the center of that is the idea of explicit and implicit AI features.”

Implicit AI, according to Seager, aims to enhance existing features within the operating system without sweeping changes. One example touted included the launch of speech-to-text and text-to-speech functionalities within the OS.

“I don’t see these as “AI features”, I see them as critical accessibility features that can be dramatically improved through the adoption of LLMs with minimal (if any) drawbacks,” he noted.

Seager added that these features will rely on local inference, using open weight models. Local inference is an area in which Canonical has been expanding capabilities recently, he noted, particularly with regard to “inference snaps”.

Inference snaps provide “simplified local access” to inference using models catered specifically for user hardware.

“The combination of Ubuntu’s widespread adoption and Canonical’s partnership with silicon companies has enabled us to deliver a high performance foundational inference capability for the distribution with very little cognitive overhead for our users,” he wrote.

‘Tasteful’ agentic functionality in Ubuntu

With agentic AI firmly in the spotlight over the last 18 months, Seager noted there are plans afoot on this front. These fall firmly under the “explicit” aspect of the firm’s plans.

Agentic capabilities within the operating system have huge potential, he noted, helping in tasks such as “authoring new documents or applications”, as well as personal automated tasks and troubleshooting support.

“I love the idea that all the power and capability that Linux has acquired over the past few years could become more accessible to more people,” Seager wrote.

In this case, there will be strict guardrails. A strong focus has been placed on privacy and security when considering integration of agentic workflows.

“We’re making plans on how to integrate agentic workflows into Ubuntu for those who want it in a way that feels tasteful, aligned with our user base and respectful of our privacy and security values,” Seager wrote.

“With this comes a big responsibility for us to ensure that the relevant security and confinement controls are in place to prevent unwanted side-effects.”

On the topic of confinement, Seager noted that the aforementioned inference snaps will be subject to the “same confinement rules as other snaps”.

These confinement rules limit the amount of access applications have to system resources. By adopting this approach, Canonical aims to improve user confidence and prevent “indiscriminate access” to machines and data.

A "strictly opt-in” basis

Reaction to Seager’s post appears to have been mostly positive, albeit bordering on apprehensive, with one user describing it as “one of the most sensible posts relating to the use of AI I have read”.

Limited backlash prompted Seager to publish a clarification post confirming details on user controls and consent.

On the prospect of a potential “kill switch” for AI features, Seager noted this won’t be included. However, given AI functionalities will be delivered using snaps, users will have the option of removing these.

“Which I supposed acts as a sort of kill switch for the features we’re planning on shipping,” he wrote.

Moreover, any AI features will be launched in a preview format on a “strictly opt-in basis” upon the launch of version 26.10. Future versions will also have an opt-in function for AI features, he noted.

“In subsequent releases, my plan is to have a step in the initial setup wizard that allows the user to choose whether or not they’d like the AI-native features enabled,” Seager commented.

“Because of the size of most LLMs, we simply couldn’t ship them in the installer anyway, so opting out at first run is simple: they just won’t be there.”

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Just a week after revealing critical vulnerabilities in Linux’s AppArmor security layer, Qualys researchers are warning of a flaw affecting Ubuntu that can also allow an unprivileged user to gain full root access.

The high‑severity Local Privilege Escalation vulnerability, tracked as CVE‑2026‑3888, affects default installations of Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 and later.

The flaw allows an unprivileged local attacker to escalate privileges to full root access by exploiting an unexpected interaction between two trusted system components: snap‑confine.

This manages execution environments for snap applications and systemd-tmpfiles, which automatically cleans up temporary files and directories older than a defined threshold.

While the exploit requires a specific time‑based window that varies between 10 and 30 days depending on the version of Ubuntu, a successful attack could result in complete system compromise, researchers warned.

How the Ubuntu vulnerability works

The flaw identified by Qualys works by abusing the cleanup behavior of systemd‑tmpfiles.

Once a critical directory required by snap-confine, tmp/.snap, is automatically deleted by the system's cleanup daemon, an attacker can recreate it with malicious content.

Then, during the next sandbox initialization, snap‑confine bind‑mounts the attacker‑controlled files as root, enabling arbitrary code execution with full privileges.

"Think of it this way: the system’s housekeeping service unknowingly clears a secure room, and an attacker slips in to rebuild it with their own materials — so when the security team returns, they lock in the attacker’s setup and hand over full access," researchers said.

Patch issued, but be wary

CVE-2026-3888 carries a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.8 (High), and organizations are advised to apply patches immediately.

The flaw has already been patched in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS onward, with other versions including:

• snapd versions prior to 2.73+ubuntu24.04.1
• Ubuntu 25.10 LTS - snapd versions prior to 2.73+ubuntu25.10.1
• Ubuntu 26.04 LTS (Dev) - snapd versions prior to 2.74.1+ubuntu26.04.1
• upstream snapd - versions prior to 2.75

While older Ubuntu LTS releases from 16.04 through 22.04 aren't vulnerable in default configurations, Qualys still recommends applying the patch as a precaution in cases where non-default setups might resemble the behavior of newer releases.

Separate Ubuntu desktop flaw identified

Almost as an aside, Qualys said it had also discovered a separate vulnerability through a proactive security effort prior to the release of Ubuntu Desktop 25.10.

A race condition in the rm utility allowed an unprivileged local attacker to replace directory entries with symlinks during root-owned cron executions.

Successful exploitation could potentially lead to arbitrary file deletion as root or further privilege escalation by targeting snap sandbox directories.

"The vulnerability was reported and mitigated prior to the public release of Ubuntu 25.10," said Saeed Abbasi, senior manager of Qualys's Threat Research Unit.

"The default rm command in Ubuntu 25.10 was reverted to GNU coreutils to mitigate this risk immediately. Upstream fixes have since been applied to the uutils repository."

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Qualys researchers have uncovered a set of nine vulnerabilities in Linux's built-in security layer, AppArmor, that affect more than 12 million enterprise systems around the world.

Researchers at the company's Threat Research Unit said the flaws allow unprivileged local users to circumvent kernel protections, escalate to root privileges, and weaken container isolation.

Notably, these flaws have existed since 2017 and affect more than 12.6 million enterprise Linux instances worldwide - any organization running Ubuntu, Debian, or SUSE will be affected, according to Qualys.

Industries most affected are likely to include cloud computing, banking and finance, manufacturing, healthcare, telecommunications, and government.

AppArmor is a Linux security module that provides mandatory access control (MAC) by applying profiles to applications. It's been part of the mainline Linux kernel since version 2.6.36.

"As the default mandatory access control mechanism for Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, and numerous cloud platforms, its ubiquity across enterprise environments, Kubernetes, IoT, and edge environments amplifies the threat surface significantly," warned Qualys senior manager, Threat Research Unit, Saeed Abbasi in an advisory.

What Linux users need to know about "CrackArmor"

Dubbed “CrackArmor”, the vulnerabilities are confused-deputy flaws that allow unprivileged users to manipulate security profiles via pseudo-files, bypass user-namespace restrictions, and execute arbitrary code within the kernel.

The flaws facilitate local privilege escalation to root through complex interactions with tools like Sudo and Postfix, alongside denial-of-service attacks via stack exhaustion, and Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization (KASLR) bypasses via out-of-bounds reads.

"Consequently, these findings expose critical gaps in our reliance on default security assumptions," said Abbasi. "It fundamentally undermines system confidentiality, integrity, and availability globally, extending the vulnerability exploitation window for legacy deployments."

Qualys said it has developed Proof of Concepts (PoCs) demonstrating the full exploitation chain for the CrackArmor vulnerabilities. These, along with working exploits, have been shared with the security team to work on immediate remediation.

While the firm is withholding the public release of the exploit code for the time being, the technical nature of the flaws allows for independent validation by the security community, it said.

There are no CVEs as yet, which can take a couple of weeks longer for upstream kernel issues. However, Abbasi warned enterprises shouldn’t underestimate the potential risks.

"Don’t let the absence of a CVE number downplay the significance. If you’re running affected versions, treat this advisory seriously and update accordingly."

What can enterprises do?

The CrackArmor vulnerabilities align directly with the operational playbook of state-sponsored threat actors whose campaigns consistently prioritize destruction over espionage.

These groups have ramped up attacks on the energy, water, healthcare, and defense sectors in recent years.

"CrackArmor drastically lowers the barrier for catastrophic disruption," said Abbasi.

"An attacker no longer needs administrative credentials or lateral movement to cause severe damage; any routine initial access vector that yields an unprivileged local account is now sufficient to instantly weaponize the host, triggering a kernel panic or denying all traffic."

As such, organizations should treat this as a priority patching event. Qualys also outlined a series of steps for security teams to take. These include:

• Apply vendor kernel updates immediately
• Scan for exposure using detection QIDs
• Implement monitoring on /sys/kernel/security/apparmor/ for unauthorized profile modifications

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The use of Linux as a desktop operating system has hit a new high, according to new data from Statcounter.

The open source operating system has appeared on just over 4% of desktops worldwide for the first time – up from just under 3% a year ago. It might not seem like much, but for a niche operating system like Linux it’s quite a big step.

So what’s driving this? Looking at the Statcounter data a little more closely, one reason for the overall rise is a big jump in the use of Linux in India – up from 8% in February last year to 15% last month.

Usage in the United States has also grown, albeit rather less dramatically from 2.5% a year ago to 3.85% last month.

Linux is free to install and can be a good way of reusing older hardware, and modern distributions are easier to work with than previously, all of which is perhaps fueling demand.

Measuring market share for operating systems is often a tricky business, and there are other sources that don’t show the same breakthrough. Gaming platform Steam reports for example that just 1.6% of the devices its customers are using are running Linux.

Data from the US government’s Digital Analytics Program shows that the Linux operating system is found on about 2.2% of the devices that access its official websites. 

But as over half of the devices going to these sites are mobile (57%), the actual proportion of PCs running Linux will be much higher - and probably more in line with the Statcounter data.

The Linux Foundation’s own research shows that the operating system is in fine health. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of the companies it surveyed said they use it.

However, Linux is popular for everything from web servers to cloud computing – the desktop is one of its more niche uses.

Developers are one of the main groups that are still using desktop Linux – Stack Overflow’s 2023 developer survey found that 27% of developers used Ubuntu for personal and professional use, 16% said they used Windows Subsystem For Linux, and 8% said they used Debian.

There was a time when open source enthusiasts believed that desktop Linux could be a rival to Windows. However, a hugely fragmented marketplace (there are a lot of different flavors of Linux) plus the steep learning curve needed by the average user who wanted to install it, meant that challenge rather fizzled out.

That didn’t stop cries of ‘this is the year of the Linux desktop’ that lasted for a few years.

Linux is growing, but Windows can relax

As such, Microsoft can probably relax a little bit – even if the current rate of Linux growth was maintained it will still take decades for overturn Windows' market share.

In any case, the PC is now just one part of the overall computing market which encompasses smartphones, tablets, and wearable devices too.

In the broader computing ecosystem, open source is doing fine. Android – built on the Linux kernel – remains the world’s most popular operating system.

Linux users are set to get their own version of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) as part of a new update to the operating system. 

The latest release of systemd for Linux will now generate the error message across a number of distributions, Phoronix reported yesterday. Systemd is a software suite used in a number of Linux operating systems, including Ubuntu, Red Hat, Debian, and Fedora.

Dubbed ‘systemd-bsod’, the new component will be displayed in the event that a user has a “LOG-EMERG” emergency condition.

This is intended specifically to alert users in the case of a boot failure, and was developed as part of Outreachy 2023, an open source development internship scheme, according to Phoronix.

In the event that users encounter the Linux blue screen of death, a QR code will also be displayed to provide additional information on the cause of the error and offer remediation tips.

GitHub changelogs note that this feature is still very much in its infancy, and could be changed in due course.

“A new component in “systemd-bsod” has been added, which can show logged error messages full screen, if they have a log level of LOG_EMERG log level,” the changelog reads. “This component is experimental and its public interface is subject to change.”

This wouldn’t be out of the ordinary given that Windows has tinkered with the BSOD repeatedly in recent years.

The BSOD changed to a ‘black screen of death’ for Windows 11 following its launch in 2021. However, this was subsequently reverted back to the original color scheme.

QR codes were added to Windows 10 in 2016 to provide users with crash report details.

What is the Blue Screen of Death?

The infamous blue screen of death is an error that appears when a Windows operating system - such as Windows 10 or Windows 11 - encounters an unexpected fault. 

This halts all critical processes and is used to prevent unintended damage to the operating system in the event of a fault.

Windows users have long lamented the blue screen of death as a major inconvenience. However, it plays a vital role in preventing unintended damage to the operating system in the event of a fault.

The BSOD halts all critical processes, including networks, applications, and platforms.

Blue screen errors typically appear after a major update or installation of a new application.

Dell and Canonical have made the new Dell XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition the first laptop officially certified for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

The move is a continuation of Project Sputnik, an initiative that started in 2012 to create high-end Dell systems with Ubuntu preinstalled, built for developers and guided by input from the developer community.

From August, developers in the US, Canada, and selected European countries will be able to buy Dell’s flagship 13-inch laptop with the latest version of Canoncial’s Linux distro preinstalled. Additionally, XPS 13 Plus owners can install the operating system from today or can wait until Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS is released on 4 August.

“XPS is an innovation portal for Dell – from its application of cutting-edge technology to experimentation of new user interfaces and experiential design,” said Jaewook Woo, product manager of the Linux operating system at Dell Technologies. “By bringing the enhanced performance and power management features of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS to our most advanced premium laptop, Dell and Canonical reinforce our joint commitment to continue delivering the best computing experience for developers using Ubuntu.”

The Dell XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition is the latest release in this long-standing partnership. Barton George, developer community lead from Dell, said in 2017 that the idea behind the Project Sputnik programme was to create an open source based laptop that appealed to a large audience of developers. The initial offering was one system and one configuration, which then expanded into an entire line of systems. This includes devices such as the Dell Precision 5720, Dell Precision 5520, and Dell Precision 7520 laptops.

What is Ubuntu certification?

The Ubuntu certification programme ensures that all of the components in a certified computer work as expected, so users can look forward to it working out of the box. Ubuntu certified devices are based on Long Term Support (LTS) releases and receive updates for up to 10 years.

The company’s certification lab tests hundreds of certified devices to ensure they work, and continue to work, to a high standard throughout their lifecycle.

Certified devices also include specific software or drivers that differ from the default distribution where required. These are defined in a meta-package that automatically installs the optimal configuration of packages, drivers, and kernel to deliver the best experience on that device.

Ubuntu said that through Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, users will benefit from increased desktop performance with triple-buffering, more control over their power management settings, and intuitive new workspace layouts and touchpad gestures, as well as expanded customisation options.

It comes with the latest toolchains for the most popular programming languages, including Python, PHP, Ruby, Perl, GCC, Go and now Rust, as well as the latest versions of default productivity apps like LibreOffice, Thunderbird, and Firefox.

Among the myriad Linux distributions available today, the choice between Linux Mint and Ubuntu remains one of the most common and challenging decisions for users. Since their initial releases in the early 2000s, both have maintained their status as two of the most popular and user-friendly Linux distros, prized for their ease of use and consistent developer support.

In recent years, both distributions have undergone significant updates, continuing to evolve. Linux Mint’s latest long-term support release, version 22.1 "Xia," was launched in January 2025. This update brought numerous enhancements, including improved package management tools that streamline software operations, new energy modes to optimize performance and battery life, and integrated features like NightLight for reducing blue light emissions. These refinements, along with a faster software manager and enhanced file handling, underscore Linux Mint’s commitment to stability, usability, and a modern desktop experience. This version will receive support until 2029, ensuring a secure and reliable environment for users over the coming years.

Ubuntu, meanwhile, has continued its regular release cycle with versions beyond 23.04, including the latest long-term support release Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, which benefits from Canonical’s professional stewardship and a robust community. Ubuntu’s updates typically focus on performance improvements, security enhancements, and expanded enterprise features such as Active Directory integration, making it a versatile choice for both desktop and server environments.

Both distros remain highly accessible for users transitioning from Windows or macOS, offering intuitive interfaces that minimize the need for extensive retraining. Ubuntu is often considered the more popular choice globally, partly due to its corporate backing and wide adoption, but Linux Mint’s community-driven approach and polished desktop environments like Cinnamon continue to attract a loyal following.

The key difference in their development lies in their maintenance models: Ubuntu is managed by Canonical alongside an active open source community, ensuring professional oversight and frequent updates. Linux Mint, on the other hand, is developed entirely by its community of contributors, which fosters a more grassroots, user-focused development process.

Linux Mint vs Ubuntu: A history

Linux Mint and Ubuntu are closely linked through their shared lineage. At the foundation of both lies Debian, one of the oldest and most respected Linux distributions, first released in 1993, back when Microsoft was introducing Windows 3.1 to the world. When you use either Mint or Ubuntu, you are benefiting from the stability and reliability that Debian has provided for decades.

Ubuntu made its debut in October 2004, quickly gaining popularity for its focus on user-friendliness and regular, predictable updates. Ubuntu is built directly on top of Debian and uses the .deb package format for software installation. True to its commitment to consistency, Ubuntu continues to release new versions every six months, with long-term support (LTS) releases arriving every two years.

Linux Mint, on the other hand, arrived on the scene a bit later, launching in 2006. Its first version was based on Kubuntu, the KDE-flavored variant of Ubuntu. Since then, Linux Mint has grown into its own, offering a choice of desktop environments, Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce, and focusing on providing a polished, familiar experience for users. Like Ubuntu, Mint typically follows a twice-yearly release schedule, usually releasing new versions about a month after Ubuntu’s updates.

A key distinction between the two lies in their development models. Ubuntu is developed and maintained by Canonical, a professional software company that coordinates contributions from the wider open source community. In contrast, Linux Mint is a community-driven project. Its development is guided by feedback from users, sponsors, and partners, with financial support coming from donations and sponsorships rather than a single corporate backer. This grassroots approach allows Mint to stay closely attuned to the needs and preferences of its user base.

Linux Mint vs Ubuntu: Naming conventions

Linux Mint and Ubuntu each have their unique traditions when it comes to naming new releases.

Linux Mint names every new version after a woman, with each name ending in the letter “a.” This tradition continues in the latest releases: for example, Linux Mint 22.1 is called "Xia." These names are paired with a version number that follows the Ubuntu base on which Mint is built.

Ubuntu, on the other hand, uses a version numbering system based on the year and month of release. For instance, Ubuntu 24.04 was released in April 2024. While Ubuntu still assigns code names to its releases, typically a playful combination of an adjective and an animal, such as “Noble Numbat” for 24.04, these code names are now used mainly within the developer and enthusiast communities. The numeric versioning is what most users encounter on a day-to-day basis.

Ubuntu’s Long-Term Support (LTS) releases, such as Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, are especially notable. The “LTS” designation means that the release will receive security updates and maintenance for several years, free of charge. This approach is similar to the extended support cycles offered by mainstream operating systems like Windows and macOS, making Ubuntu LTS versions a popular choice for users and organizations seeking stability and reliability.

Linux Mint vs Ubuntu: Desktops interfaces and usability

Linux Mint and Ubuntu differ most noticeably in their desktop interfaces and overall usability, despite sharing the same underlying architecture. The user interface is where these two distributions set themselves apart and shape the user experience.

Linux Mint, particularly with its flagship Cinnamon desktop environment, offers a layout reminiscent of classic Windows systems (such as Vista). The interface features a taskbar at the bottom of the screen, a menu button similar to the Windows Start menu, and quick access to open applications and system shortcuts. This familiar arrangement makes Mint especially approachable for users transitioning from Windows, as it allows for easy browsing and straightforward navigation. Applications are organized in a way that enables users to explore and find what they need without having to remember exact program names, which is particularly helpful for beginners.

Ubuntu, by contrast, uses the GNOME desktop environment. Since moving away from its Unity interface in 2017, Ubuntu has maintained a modern look with a vertical dock on the left side of the screen, housing frequently used applications like Firefox and LibreOffice. System indicators such as networking, sound, and time are located along the top bar. To launch or search for applications, users access the Activities Overview, which allows them to type the name of the desired program. While this search-centric approach is efficient for those who know exactly what they’re looking for, it can be less intuitive for users who prefer to browse through categories or are unsure of an application’s name.

Both distributions offer a polished and responsive experience, but Mint’s desktop is generally considered more accessible for newcomers, especially those accustomed to Windows. Ubuntu’s interface, on the other hand, appeals to users who appreciate a streamlined, modern design and are comfortable with search-based navigation. Ultimately, the choice comes down to personal preference and which workflow feels more natural to the user.

Linux Mint vs Ubuntu: What's your flavor?

Both Ubuntu and Linux Mint offer a range of "flavors", distinct versions tailored to different user preferences, each featuring a unique desktop environment and set of default applications.

Ubuntu’s ecosystem is especially diverse, with official flavors that include Kubuntu (KDE Plasma), Lubuntu (LXQt), Xubuntu (Xfce), Ubuntu MATE (MATE), Ubuntu Budgie (Budgie), Ubuntu Cinnamon (Cinnamon), Ubuntu Kylin (UKUI, targeting Chinese users), Edubuntu (education-focused), Ubuntu Studio (for creative professionals), and Ubuntu Unity (Unity 7 interface). The latest Ubuntu 25.04 "Plucky Puffin" release, for example, brings updated desktop environments across all these flavors, such as GNOME 48 for standard Ubuntu, KDE Plasma 6 for Kubuntu, LXQt 1.4.0 for Lubuntu, Xfce 4.20 for Xubuntu, and MATE 1.28 for Ubuntu MATE.

Linux Mint, by comparison, focuses on delivering a streamlined experience with fewer options. Its primary editions are Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce. While Mint previously offered KDE and other desktop environments like GNOME, LXDE, and Fluxbox, these are no longer actively developed. The Cinnamon edition remains the flagship, designed to provide a familiar, user-friendly interface especially appealing to those transitioning from Windows.

Linux Mint vs Ubuntu: Performance

On modern hardware, the performance gap between Ubuntu and Linux Mint is minimal, with both offering smooth and responsive experiences out of the box. However, Linux Mint, especially when using its Cinnamon or XFCE editions, tends to be lighter on system resources compared to Ubuntu’s GNOME desktop. This means Mint often feels snappier on older or less powerful machines, while Ubuntu’s GNOME environment can be more demanding and may show slower performance on legacy hardware. Mint’s XFCE edition is particularly well-suited for very low-end systems, boasting faster boot times, lower idle RAM and CPU usage, and longer battery life compared to Ubuntu GNOME. For users with newer computers, the difference in day-to-day use is less noticeable, but those seeking maximum efficiency or running on older PCs will likely find Mint to be the faster and more responsive option.

Both distributions are free to download and use. Linux Mint is a community-driven project, relying on donations from users, sponsors, and partners to support its development. Ubuntu, while also free for personal use, is backed by Canonical, a commercial company that offers paid professional support and enterprise services for organizations that need them.

Mint vs Ubuntu: Upgradability

Upgrading and updating both Linux Mint and Ubuntu is straightforward, thanks to their user-friendly update tools. Ubuntu users can access updates through the Software Updater, which checks for and installs the latest system and application updates with just a few clicks. 

Linux Mint offers a similar experience via its Update Manager, allowing users to easily keep their system and software current. Both systems provide clear notifications for available updates and handle the process with minimal user intervention, making maintenance accessible even for those new to Linux.

Linux Mint vs Ubuntu: Productivity

When installed, both Ubuntu and Linux Mint feature LibreOffice productivity suite and Firefox browser. While there is no material difference between how LibreOffice works on both operating systems, the way the user interface is structured on both is slightly different.

As mentioned earlier, Ubuntu has a more Mac-like feel, so when using an app (not just LibreOffice) the menu bar is along the top of the display. In Mint, the menu bar is attached to the window of the app itself. We would say which one is better is down to personal tastes and preferences (and whether you are coming to Linux from Windows or Mac).

Linux Mint vs Ubuntu: Compatible apps

Both Linux Mint and Ubuntu come with a comprehensive suite of pre-installed applications, including productivity tools like LibreOffice, the Firefox web browser, and other essentials such as email clients, media players, and image editors. While both systems provide a solid out-of-the-box experience, Linux Mint’s application menu is designed to be especially intuitive, closely resembling the Windows Start menu. This makes it easy for users to browse and locate installed programs without needing to remember exact names, which is particularly helpful for beginners or those transitioning from Windows.

Ubuntu, on the other hand, organizes its applications through the GNOME interface and its Activities Overview. While Ubuntu offers access to a wider array of applications, partly due to its integration with the Snap Store, finding specific programs can sometimes be less straightforward, especially for users unfamiliar with Linux. The search-based navigation requires users to know or guess the name of the app they want, which can make discovery more challenging.

When it comes to installing additional software, both Mint and Ubuntu feature user-friendly app stores. Ubuntu’s Software Center is prominently placed on the dock, making it quick to launch and easy to navigate. It provides access to a vast selection of both free and paid applications, and its integration with Snap packages means users can quickly install the latest versions of many popular tools. Linux Mint’s Software Manager, while straightforward and effective, focuses on stability and simplicity and prefers Flatpak for newer app versions, with Snaps disabled by default. This approach gives users more control but may require a bit more manual management for certain applications.

Linux Mint vs Ubuntu: Business use

With regard to business use for both the Ubuntu and Mint distributions, Canonical has made great strides to ensure the former has been rolled out to corporate users across a range of industries.

The organization has also managed to strike a positive relationship with major PC manufacturers to pre-load the distro onto desktops and laptops in recent years.

Conversely, Mint is very much targeted toward enthusiasts, and there has been no significant push by the project to promote this distro to corporates.

Regardless, Mint is a very finely tuned and well-polished distro, and a capable replacement for users of Windows 7 - or older - that do not currently plan on moving to Windows 8 or beyond.

Linux Mint vs Ubuntu: Verdict

Choosing between Linux Mint and Ubuntu ultimately comes down to personal preference, as both distributions share a common foundation and offer similar core functionality. The distinctions that matter most often relate to subtle differences in user interface, resource usage, and support models.

Both Mint and Ubuntu provide long-term support (LTS) releases, typically offering five years of updates and security patches. However, it’s important to note that while Ubuntu’s main edition enjoys five years of support, some of its official flavors, like Kubuntu and Lubuntu, receive only three years of updates.

Support structure may also influence your decision, especially for business users. Ubuntu benefits from Canonical’s professional support services, making it an attractive choice for organizations that require guaranteed, paid assistance. Linux Mint, in contrast, relies on a community-driven support model, which is robust but may be less appealing to enterprises seeking formal service agreements.

Performance is another consideration. Both distributions are known for their speed and efficiency, but Linux Mint, particularly with its lighter desktop environments, tends to use fewer system resources. This makes Mint a strong option for older or less powerful hardware, or for organizations looking to extend the lifespan of existing equipment.

Concerns about security that once surrounded Linux Mint, mainly due to an earlier policy of not updating the kernel automatically, are no longer relevant. The Mint team has since changed this approach, and both Mint and Ubuntu are now regarded as offering strong, up-to-date security protections.

Mark Shuttleworth doesn't intend to make any "significant change" to Canonical's executive direction and strategy now that he has resumed his position as CEO.

The founder of Canonical, behind the open source operating system Ubuntu, retook his former post as head of the company in July, replacing the long-serving Jane Silber, who took over for him in 2010 when he transitioned to a more product-focused role.

"She had a good stint, which was extended several times, and so now it's my turn back at the helm," Shuttleworth told IT Pro in an interview last week. However, he made it clear that he was not planning on making any major changes to the company's business model.

"She and I have worked closely throughout her tenure," he said. "It doesn't really represent a very significant change in executive direction, because she and I were always pretty closely aligned on how we wanted things to work."

Canonical's focus will remain on enterprise-facing business segments like its cloud and IoT divisions, Shuttleworth said, as well as on advanced areas like workloads for machine learning and self-driving cars, but he didn't share any details on forthcoming products. However, he reaffirmed that Canonical's desktop product is not about to be left behind.

"The desktop is important to us, because that's what those developers use," he said. "If you walk down the corridors at Google, or Netflix, or any of the companies that are essentially defining that next generation of Software-as-a-Service or cloud-centric services, you'll see Ubuntu on all sides."

Canonical ditched plans for a mobile rollout of Ubuntu in April, killing off development plans for Unity 8, a phone and convergence shell, in favour of shifting its default desktop back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, which is due to ship in April 2018. In a discussion sparked by a Google+ post discussing the ditched plans, Shuttleworth hit out at members of the open source community who had previously complained about Mir, a display interface that Canonical developed to enable the Unity 8 project, calling them "muppets".

He also said: "I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply anti-social types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream."

Speaking to IT Pro, Shuttleworth said he's pleased to be back behind the wheel of his company, saying: "It's a pleasure. I believe there's a phenomenal team in place."

Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth will resume his place as CEO of the company this July, taking over from current chief Jane Silber.

Silber has led the company since 2010, after a stint as COO. Her seven-year tenure has seen Ubuntu become the leading public cloud operating system by a considerable distance, alongside other achievements, but said it was time for a change.

"We're now entering a new phase of accelerated growth at Canonical, and it's time to pass the baton to both seasoned hands and a new generation of Canonical leaders," Silber said as part of a blog post announcing the news.

"Over the next three months I will remain CEO but begin to formally transfer knowledge and responsibility to others in the executive team. In July, Mark will retake the CEO role and I will move to the Canonical Board of Directors."

Shuttleworth will retake the helm at a slightly troubled time for the company; it has just shuttered its efforts to move Ubuntu to mobile and tablet devices, and Shuttleworth himself was recently spotted blasting some members of the open-source community as "muppets".

On the other hand, however, he is also coming back in at a time when open source software is the most popular it's ever been. Technologies like Big Data and the Internet of Things have pushed open source even further into the enterprise, raising awareness and creating demand for skilled open source professionals.

As for Silber, she said she will "take some time to recharge" before seeking another full-time role.

"I am proud of what we've accomplished together, honoured to have been a part of it, and I have learnt so much along the way," she wrote. "I am already nostalgic for the feeling of Ubuntu I have become accustomed to here, in both the Canonical and canonical sense of the word."

Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons

Ubuntu founder and space tourist Mark Shuttleworth has lambasted the open source software community for being "muppets" who love to "hate" on popular software.

After his Google+ post thanking people who worked on the recently abandoned Unity project sparked a wealth of comments, he responded to questions over the Mir Windowing system, with people lamenting its apparent demise.

Confirming Mir is used as a compositor in various Ubuntu IoT projects, Shuttleworth added: "The whole Mir hate-fest boggled my mind - it's free software that does something invisible really well. It became a political topic as irrational as climate change or gun control, where being on one side or the other was a sign of tribal allegiance.

"We have a problem in the community when people choose to hate free software instead of loving that someone cares enough to take their life's work and make it freely available."

He added: "I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply anti-social types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream.

"When Windows was mainstream they hated on it. Rationally, Windows does many things well and deserves respect for those. And when Canonical went mainstream, it became the focus of irrational hatred too. The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that iOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence."

Shuttleworth explained in a blog post a few days ago that Canonical would be shelving investments in Unity8, the phone and convergence shell, moving the Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Ubuntu is to kill off efforts to put its operating system on smartphones and tablets.

In a blog post, Ubuntu found Mark Shuttleworth, said that the company would end Unity8, the phone and convergence shell and shift its default Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. This new version of the desktop will ship in April 2018.

With the move, the company has close off plans to have a phone acting as a desktop when docked into a special device hooked up to a display.

He said the company would continue to produce desktop software and maintain the existing LTS releases, working with partners to distribute this software and support corporate customers.

Shuttleworth said he took the view that "if convergence was the future and we could deliver it as free software, that would be widely appreciated both in the free software community and in the technology industry, where there is substantial frustration with the existing, closed, alternatives available to manufacturers".

"I was wrong on both counts," he added, saying his company's efforts were seen as "fragmentation not innovation". He said that while what the Unity8 team had delivered so far was "beautiful, usable and solid", he respected that "markets, and community, ultimately decide which products grow and which disappear".

He said the decision had been a very difficult one for him to make "because of the force of my conviction in the convergence future, and my personal engagement with the people and the product, both of which are amazing. We feel like a family, but this choice is shaped by commercial constraints, and those two are hard to reconcile".

Looking to the future, Shuttleworth said that Ubuntu would now concentrate its investments in "areas which are contributing to the growth of the company".

He listed them as Ubuntu itself, for desktops, servers and VMs, its cloud infrastructure products (OpenStack and Kubernetes), cloud operations capabilities (MAAS, LXD, Juju, BootStack), and "our IoT story in snaps and Ubuntu Core".

Just when we thought you couldn't squeeze any more storage features into a NAS appliance, along comes Qnap's TS-x53A family. With Intel's Braswell' Celeron N3150 processor in the driving seat, they have tons of data protection features while the new Linux Station app makes them Qnap's first NAS devices that can run Linux as well as QTS, QNap's own operating system.

This allowed us to run QTS and Linux alongside each other and output the latter to one of the appliance's dual HDMI ports for local control. A key difference between Qnap's Container Station, its separate virtualisation app, and the Linux Station app is that the latter has full access to all storage and shares on the appliance.

On review is the eight-bay TS-853A with 8GB of DDR3L memory the maximum supported by the N3150 CPU. There are four Gigabit Ethernet ports and four USB3 connectors, but the lack of expansion slots means you can't upgrade to 10-Gigabit Ethernet.

A feature we can't see businesses being too chuffed about is the dual microphone sockets at the back. Yes, you can even team these up with the free OceanKTV app and turn the TS-853A into a Karaoke machine.

Linux Station

The Linux Station app runs on appliances with at least 4GB of memory and the Container Station app loaded. On first startup, it downloaded Ubuntu Desktop and installed it for us without any fuss.

We had it ready for action in fifteen minutes, but support for Debian and Fedora are future features yet to be certified by Qnap. We had no problems using it with a local HDMI monitor, keyboard and mouse plus we could enable remote desktop and VNC to it using a web browser.

We ran Ubuntu Desktop from Linux Station and remotely accessed it using VNC

One glitch is you can't have the HD (HybridDesktop) Station active at the same time as they can't both use the HDMI ports. This isn't a huge drawback as the HD Station app, used for browsing the web and playing locally stored media files, is redundant as you can accomplish the same tasks in Linux. Even so, we could swap between them as needed. You'll similarly need to swap between apps if you also want to use the HD Station app for streaming multimedia access, but this is easier as Qnap includes a handy remote control handset.

Top performance

With four of Seagate's latest 8TB NAS hard drives fresh in the labs, we used these for performance testing. With a share mapped to an HP ProLiant DL380 Gen9 rack server running Windows Server 2012 R2, we watched Iometer record fast raw read and write rates of 117MB/sec and 113MB/sec. Real world testing was equally impressive as our 25GB file copy returned read and write rates of 114MB/sec and 111MB/sec.

We tested maximum performance by adding three more Xeon E5-2600 v3 servers each with a dedicated Gigabit Ethernet link and network share. Running Iometer on all four servers returned cumulative raw read and write speeds of 457MB/sec and 440MB/sec.

It also delivered top IP SAN speeds with Iometer reporting sequential read and write speeds of 116MB/sec for a 600GB target. We upped the pressure with a quad-Gigabit MPIO link and saw Iometer return read and write rates of 465MB/sec and 330MB/sec.

Qnap's Virtualization Station hosted a Windows Server VM even while Linux Station was running

Snapshots

Qnap's snapshots can run on EXT4 thick and thin volumes Synology only supports them on its 64-bit appliances that use BTRFS and the new Snapshot Replication app. Qnap's Snapshot Manager app makes light work of creating snapshots of NAS volumes and iSCSI LUNs where we could run them on-demand or schedule them.

Smart snapshots save space as they'll only be taken if data has changed since the last one. Recovery is equally pain-free as we viewed our snapshots and could use the Revert option for a full recovery or we could browse specific NAS volumes and restore individual files.

The Snapshot Replica feature is great for off-site backup as it takes a snapshot of a local appliance and replicates it to a remote one. We tested this with a TS-1263U-RP and after an initial replication of a test volume on the TS-853A, we could run scheduled incremental snapshots, view the vault on the remote unit, restore files and clone entire snapshots.

The Snapshot Replica app can replicate volumes and iSCSI targets to remote sites

More backup and cloud features

The TS-853A is packed with standard backup apps for securing data across local folders, to external hard drives and Rsync-compatible remote appliances. Qnap's RTRR (real-time remote replication) runs one-way synchronizations between local and remote appliances and there's a separate option in the Storage Manager for LUN backups.

Cloud provider support is top notch with free apps for Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Storage, Amazon Glacier, iDrive and more. Amazon S3 is supported in the Backup Station app which we used to secure data to buckets in our cloud account.

The new Connect to Cloud Drive app links up with file syncing services such as Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive. We linked it to our own accounts and could view all their contents from the File Manager and use it to upload and download files.

Qnap offers a remarkable range of data backup and cloud apps

Conclusions

If you can look past the TS-853A's multimedia features and daft Karaoke ports, small businesses will find a big data storage repository at a fair price. Qnap's QTS software delivers plenty of data protection features and performance using Seagate's new 8TB NAS drives is exemplary.

The Linux Station could prove useful for developers and there are plenty of other virtualization features as well. With a price tag of under 600 for a diskless model, it's a very good value NAS.

Verdict

Despite the glut of entertainment features, the TS-853A is an affordable and fast eight-bay NAS appliance with business-class data protection and virtualisation features

Chassis: Desktop

CPU: 1.6GHz Intel Celeron N3150

Memory: 8GB DDR3L-1600 (max. 8GB)

Storage: 8 x 3.5in/2.5in hot-swap SATA drive bays

Array support: RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, hot spare, JBOD

Network: 4 x Gigabit Ethernet

Other ports: 4 x USB3, 2 x HDMI

Remote control handset: Yes

Management: Web browser

Warranty: Two years RTB

The Respberry Pi Zero is a tiny single-board computer, about the size of a stick of laptop RAM at 65mm x 30mm x 5mm. It's as fully capable as its larger Raspberry Pi 1 siblings, but everything's been scaled down to the smallest possible size. Plus, the Pi Zero is cheap. When it's in stock, as it sells out quickly, it costs just 4.

The Zero uses a microSD card for storage and is equipped with a micro-HDMI port and two micro-USB ports, one of which is the Zero's power input and the other of which is an On-the-Go port.

Unlike the rest of the Raspberry Pi range, the Zero doesn't have a set of pins already in place for you to connect and control external devices. Instead, there's a set of 40-pin General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pinout pads on which you can solder a variety of male and female headers, or directly solder connections to individual pads. There's also an unpopulated composite video-out header.

To connect the Zero to a keyboard and monitor, you'll need, at minimum, a micro-USB to USB-A female adaptor. Another 4 will get you a kit including the adaptors, plus a standard male pinout header. You'll also need a 8GB or larger microSD card to install an operating system, and we recommend using a powered USB hub so that you can connect, for example, both a wireless keyboard and mouse set and a USB Wi-Fi or Ethernet adaptor to your Pi. You can also power the Pi itself from your hub.

The Pi Zero has a slightly faster processor than the Pi 1 Model B+ - a Broadcom BCM2835 SoC with a 1GHz ARM11 core, compared to the 700MHz ARM11 core in the B+. Like current versions of the B+, the Zero has 512MB of memory which is shared with the GPU. It's also more power-efficient, rated at just 0.8W, compared to the B+'s 3W.

While no one buys a Raspberry Pi for sheer number crunching prowess, we ran a Blowfish hashing benchmark for reference purposes. The Zero scored 71.12: not quite as fast as the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, which got 62.19, but faster than the Pi 1 B+, which clocked in at 99.64. A lower score is better, as it indicates that the processor completed the task faster. It's also worth bearing in mind that the score produced by single-board computers of this kind are far slower than what you'll get from a typical modern desktop PC, which you can safely expect to score well under 10.

The main advantage of the Pi Zero is its tiny size, which makes it ideal for embedded projects and means that you can now fit a functional computer in your wallet (although this wouldn't be our recommended mode of transport). Its remarkably low price is also appealing, although its limited ports and processor power make it less suitable for some projects than the 30 Raspberry Pi 2 Model B.

The Raspberry Pi Zero is much smaller than the already tiny Raspberry Pi 2, making it a tempting basis for numerous embedded projects

Getting Started

The recommended method of getting your Pi up and running is to copy the New Out Of the Box Software (NOOBS) installer to your SD card using any computer with an SD card reader, and then installing the Raspbian Linux operating system. The NOOBS installer used to include installation images for multiple operating systems, but now only includes Raspbian by default. If you want to use a different operating system, you can opt for a network install or a third-party image.

If you want hardware support for the MPEG-2 video codec, required if you want to connect your Pi to a disc drive and play DVDs, you'll have to spend 2.40 on a licence for it at swag.raspberrypi.org. The licences aren't supplied as standard in order to keep the cost of the Pi Zero down. To download them, you'll need your Zero's processor serial number, which you can find by using the cat /proc/cpuinfo command at the bash prompt.

Third party operating system images for the Zero currently include several Ubuntu variants and RISC OS. Additionally, many Linux distributions built for the Pi will work with the Zero, including the OPENELEC/Kodi media centre combo. Sadly for Microsoft fans, Windows 10 IoT Core, which is now available for embedded Windows projects on a Raspberry Pi 2, isn't currently available for the Pi 1 or Zero.

Verdict

While the Raspberry Pi range is primarily targeted at the educational sector and hobbyists, there are a number of business-friendly uses that this little 4 Linux PC can be turned to. Its small size and low power consumption make it ideal for feeding slides or other information screens to monitors in public areas of your office, acting as a server monitoring system running the NagiosPi distribution or even being pressed into use as a thin client, allowing staff to access virtual machines or a Citrix server.

There's even a version of the Asterisk VoIP server optimised for the Pi called RasPBX, and while the tiny computer lacks the power to run a large-scale IP telephony system, two or three phones in a home or small office should be within its capabilities.

At 4, it's hard to argue against buying a Pi Zero. Remember though, that on top of the computer's price, you'll need extra hardware, potentially including microSD cards, cables, input devices and monitors. The Pi Zero won't be useful to every business, but if you and your staff are technically inclined, and if your business is the kind of environment that encourages creative problem-solving from within, then the Zero is likely to be 4 very well spent.

Verdict

At £4 and with a lot of flexibility, there's no reason *not* to buy this single-board wonder

Processor: Broadcom BCM2835 with 1GHz ARM11 core

Memory: 512MB RAM

Slots and ports: microSD card slot; mini-HDMI output; micro-USB On the Go port

Canonical, maker of Linux-based operating system Ubuntu, has launched its first "fully converged" device, claiming to offer a hybrid smartphone-PC experience.

The Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet, produced in partnership with European technology company BQ, features the latest Ubuntu software and an adaptive user experience, which the company says is capable of "providing both a true tablet experience and the full Ubuntu desktop experience".

The tablet represents the first in a new series of devices fulfilling Canonical's long-running project to develop converged devices, which are devices capable of running the same platform and libraries, making it straightforward for users to access the same applications across all their Ubuntu devices.

"Ubuntu is now the only platform that runs both a mobile-based full touch interface and a true PC experience from a single smart device," the company claimed in a statement introducing the Aquaris M10 on its corporate blog.

Jane Silber, CEO of Canonical, said: "We're bringing you everything you've come to expect from your Ubuntu PC, now on the tablet with BQ, soon on smartphones.

"This isn't a phone interface stretched to desktop size it's the right user experience and interaction model for the given situation. Also, in terms of applications, we have something no other OS can provide: a single, visual framework and set of tools for applications to run on any type of Ubuntu smart device."

Beside convergence, headline features of Ubuntu's latest tablet include: access hundreds of apps from the Ubuntu App Store, fluid multitasking and window management, a broad range of desktop apps and thin client support for mobility and productivity, access the underlying OS if desired, mobile messaging on desktop, and security and reliability updates.

The Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet has a 10.1in multi-tactile FHD screen with Dragontrail Asahi protection, is powered by a MediaTek quad-core MT8163A 1.5 GHz processor and includes a 7280 mAh LiPo battery. It is 8.2mm thick and weights 470g.

Convergence is not unique to the Ubuntu OS though. Both Apple and Microsoft have sought to bring their mobile, tablet and desktop OSes closer together in the last 12 months. Windows 10 was built with cross-device support specifically in mind, while Apple's continuity feature, which debuted on iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 Yosemite, enables users to open the same documents on their iPhone and Mac.

Today's announcement therefore brings Ubuntu in line with such competitors.

Canonical believes the convergence present its new Ubuntu OS and tablet make it ideal for enterprise use, because it offers enterprise-grade, system-based security.

Built on the open-source Linux OS, and continuing the principle of openness, Ubuntu has been adopted by public sector departments and hobbyists. Its total number of users can only be estimated, but Canonical said in 2015 that it has over 40 million desktop users.

The less you spend on a laptop, the higher the percentage of the asking price is consumed by a Windows licence. While Microsoft is of course entitled to charge for its operating systems, there are savings to be had if you're willing to forego the familiarity, but also the complexity of this for-profit OS.

With more and more workplaces and consumer applications moving to the cloud and, as a consequence, to the web browser, Windows' importance has diminished somewhat. If you've become heavily or entirely dependent on cloud-based webapps, then it almost doesn't matter which operating system you use. Despite this, there are relatively few Linux-based laptops (unless you count Chromebooks). The HP Probook 455 G2 is one of the very few we've seen running the Ubuntu 12.04 operating system and is available exclusively, as far as we know, from Ebuyer.

HP Probook 455 G2 Ubuntu: operating system

Although version 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) seems a long way behind the latest 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) version of Ubuntu, 12.04 is a Long Term Support release. This means it's guaranteed to get security updates until early 2017 much longer than standard releases of Ubuntu.

Without delving into chicken/egg debates, if you've ever used Apple's Mac OS X then you'll find Ubuntu very familiar as there are more than a few design similarities. They're far from the same of course, but it makes for an easier transition if you're used to Mac OS X. The menu bar runs along the top of the screen, with status icons for battery, email, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and time all displayed in the top right-hand corner. Applications sit in a static dock on the left-hand side of the screen.

Hitting the Windows key (yes, there's a Windows key as the Probook 455 G2 is also available with Windows) will open up the search bar. You can search for items on your computer or type in a web address to be opened in Mozilla Firefox, which is the default browser here.

The laptop comes pre-installed with the open-source LibreOffice, which is compatible with the latest Microsoft Office formats. It's less refined than Microsoft's suite, but it's still more than good enough for most word processing, spreadsheets and presentations tasks, You also get Mozilla Thunderbird, a free email client that integrates itself into the status bar.

One of Ubuntu's most useful features is virtual desktops, or Workplace Switching as Ubuntu insists on calling it. This makes it much easier to multitask on one screen, although this feature has been present in Mac OS X for many years and has finally made it into Windows 10.

The virtual desktops built into those rival operating systems are more elegant though. You can use touchpad gestures, as well as keyboard shortcuts, to switch between different virtual desktops. Oddly, Ubuntu 12.04 is limited to just four virtual desktops in total unless you tinker around with command line settings a limitation that doesn't apply to Windows 10, Mac OS X and, to be fair, later versions of Ubuntu..

Ubuntu also has a feature similar to Windows Snap, so you can quickly position two windows side-by-side using either a mouse gesture or keyboard shortcut. It doesn't work quite as smoothly as Windows Snap, but it's still very useful to have.

An easy way to find and install more programs is the pre-installed Ubuntu Software Center. While it's full of video players, email clients, web browsers, games and system configuration tools, it's more threadbare when it comes to business software. Some basic Access-related tools and utilities are available, but if you want CRM or Visio-compatible diagramming software then cloud-based options are your best bet.

HP Probook 455 G2 Ubuntu: keyboard and touchpad

The Probook 455 G2 is an otherwise by-the-numbers budget laptop. We like the soft-touch, matt black lid which feels sturdy and looks stylish. The casing takes on a faux brushed metal-style around the keyboard which looks great, although the keyboard itself leaves a little to be desired. The keys are fairly slippery to the touch, and we occasionally missed a few keystrokes when typing for longer periods.

The touchpad has delightful physical buttons with plenty of travel, and the touchpad itself is for the most part very responsive. The only area where the touchpad requires improvement is scrolling. On its default setting, it's almost impossible to coerce the operating system into detecting the two-finger swipe gesture needed to scroll up or down. Crank up the sensitivity to the max and you'll get a much better, but still rather laggy, performance. It's this sort of frustrating touchpad that makes us long for the touchsticks you sometimes see on ThinkPads and some Toshiba laptops.

HP Probook 455 G2 Ubuntu: battery life, ports and screen

The laptop weighs 2.1kg and is fairly chunky at 22mm thick, so it's not our first choice for working on the move regularly. At least the battery life is up to scratch if you do decide to travel with it the battery lasted seven hours and 35 minutes in our light usage test.

On the left-hand side of the laptop are two USB3 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port as well as HDMI and VGA connectors for attaching external displays. The right side, meanwhile, is mostly dedicated to the DVD drive but there's also room for a pair of USB2 connectors and a 3.5mm headset jack. There's also an SD card reader on the front edge.

The 15.6in screen has a cramped resolution of 1,366x768 which makes it a little tricky to work in multiple windows simultaneously, although using virtual desktops helps here. Text appears large and legible, at least. The screen has fairly narrow vertical viewing angles, so you'll need to adjust the screen angle carefully. Colours look dull and contrast isn't very high, but the screen does have a matt coating so it's well shielded from reflections caused by overhead lighting and sunlight. There's some backlight bleed on the bottom of the screen, but it's not hugely bothersome.

HP Probook 455 G2 Ubuntu: performance

The Probook 455 G2 is powered by a quad-core AMD A10-7300 running at 1.9GHz alongside 8GB of RAM. You'd expect reasonably sprightly performance from such a lightweight operating system, but we actually found the PC bogging down a little more often than we'd like. We suspect this is partly down to a sluggish 1TB hard disk, but it's still slightly disappointing. Web pages open with a bit of a stutter and programs take several seconds to load. Overall, though, performance is acceptable, if not stellar.

HP Probook 455 G2 Ubuntu: conclusions

The HP Probook 455 G2 with Ubuntu is very affordable, but even without the expense of Windows it feels a little cheap and lacks polish in various places from the hardware to Ubuntu itself. It's by no means bad, but unless you specifically need Linux then a good Chromebook would be a better value and better designed Windows alternative as long as you're happy to work exclusively in the cloud.

Verdict

A cheap Linux laptop, but both the software and hardware need more finesse

Processor: 1.9GHz AMD A10-7300 quad core

GPU: AMD Radeon R6 integrated graphics

Memory: 8GB

Storage: 1TB hard disk

Display: 15.6in 1366x768

Connectivity: Dual-band 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0

Ports and slots: 2x USB3, 2x USB2, Gigabit Ethernet, 3.5mm headset jack, SD card reader, DVD drive

Dimensions: 25x345x244mm (HxWxD)

Weight: 2.1kg

The latest version of open source operating system Ubuntu is now available for download, with v.15.04 featuring updates for mobile, cloud and a new Internet of Things (IoT) core dubbed Snappy.

The update to the OS - also dubbed Vivid Vervet after the East African monkey, as part of Ubuntu's animal based naming convention - was released today and is available for download now.

One key new feature is the "Snappy" Ubuntu Core, which is available for the first time.

It's the smallest version of the OS, and the most secure, according to development group Canonical. It's designed for use on IoT and other connected devices, including drones, robots and home hubs, as well as for cloud infrastructure such as network switches and mobile base stations.

"This is an amazing platform for the new generation of cloud and device developers" said Dustin Kirkland, product manager for Ubuntu Core. "The combination of an open platform with an app store that works across a very wide range of devices, from tiny embedded boards to high end switches and routers, has stimulated a rush of creativity in the maker and entrepreneur communities."

Snappy supports 64-bit Intel chips as well as those made by ARM.

Ubuntu 15.04 desktop and phone updates

Ubuntu 15.04 is also the core for the first Ubuntu phones - the BQ Aquaris E4.5, which is already shipping, and the Meizu MX4.

The former will receive updates over the air in the next few weeks.

For desktop users, Ubuntu 15.04 has reinvented its Developer Tools Centre as Ubuntu Make, making it easier to build mobile and web apps. It also includes LibreOffice 4.4, which features improved tracking to Writer, support for digitally signed PDF exports and support for connecting to Sharepoint and OneDrive.

Ubuntu 15.04 cloud updates

Alongside the Snappy release, Ubuntu 15.04 has other new features for businesses and the cloud.

First, there's the new container-based hypervisor, LXD, which Canonical said "provides the full experience of virtual machines, the security of a hypervisor, and bare-metal performance and density."

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth added: "LXD eliminates the very high virtualisation penalty of traditional hypervisors, making Linux-on-Linux workloads much faster and much more dense."

"Containers are the new frontier in virtualisation and cloud," he added.

Canonical is also claiming Ubuntu is the first OpenStack distribution to make the newest "Kilo" release available to users.

"In Kilo, Neutron is updated to include Distributed Virtual Routing (DVR) to enable Neutron to scale more efficiently, and a preview of 'DNS as a service' from the new Designate' component," Canonical said.

"Cloud federation also takes a big step forward in Kilo with Ubuntu OpenStack now able to share identity across cloud regions," the developer added.

"This enables enterprises with multiple OpenStack implementations to manage identity much more efficiently, and simplifies the path to hybrid cloud computing with OpenStack on-premise and public OpenStack clouds."

Canonical has finally announced its first Ubuntu smartphone, which will be manufactured by Spanish device maker BQ.

Officially named the Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition, the handset will be available in Europe initially through a series of flash sales priced at 169.90.

These sales will take place the week beginning 9 February with exact times and dates to be announced through the @Ubuntu and @bqreaders Twitter accounts, via Google+ (Ubuntu G+) and on the Ubuntu Facebook page.

Key specifications include 4.5in screen, a MediaTek quad-core Cortex A7 processor running at up to 1.3 GHz and 1GB RAM. The device will also include 8GB of internal storage.

There's a 5-megapixel camera on the front and an 8-megapixel snapper on the rear with a BSI sensor.

The Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition will ship with a dual SIM configuration and will be unlocked. A select number of operators including 3 (Sweden), amena.com (Spain), giffgaff (UK) and Portugal Telecom will offer special SIM bundles.

In terms of the interface, Ubuntu will display content in an aggregated fashion instead of relying on the traditional app tray model. Music, social, web, local services, and photos will all be accessible from the home screen, in what will be known as Scopes'.

"We're not coming out with another iOS or Android clone. We're introducing a brand new way for people to interact with their smartphones," claimed Cristian Parrino, VP of mobile at Canonical during a pre-brief.

The Ubuntu smartphone OS will also support mainstream HTML5, so developers can reuse apps they've already created for the web.

Canonical is targeting early adopters at the initial launch, but the firm is confident it can replicate the success of unknown companies such as Xiaomi, which have sprung up in Asia.

"We're learned quite a bit from China where unknown innovative brands have become extremely successful in a cluttered market by focusing on early adopters," Parrino continued.

Canonical previously tried to raise 32 million via crowd-funding to bring the device to market in 2013. Despite failing short of the target by raising 12 million, it still managed to secure a deal with BQ and Chinese firm Meizu.

By using Linux, HP hasn't had to shell out for a Windows license and has been able to price this 15in laptop at 200, a rare occurrence.

The G1 runs Ubuntu 12.04, which came out in 2012, but it's a Long Term Support release supported until 2017, which makes it ideal for businesses.

A rapid boot sequence gives way to a usable OS. The left-hand side serves up a customisable taskbar with links to LibreOffice's tools, the Firefox web browser, a file browser, the Ubuntu Software Centre and more.

Multiple desktops add versatility, and a recent concentration on usability means it's enough to create an account and start downloading software from Ubuntu's Software Centre.

Anyone with basic knowledge of Windows or OS X should be able to navigate Ubuntu. Version 12.04 includes a HUD-style display that can be used to searching via hotkeys or keywords in similar fashion to Windows 8's Start screen searching.

Version 12.04 is one of the best versions of Ubuntu, but it's worth mentioning the 14.04, which was released in April and is also a Long Term Support release. It's a free download, and comes with several improvements including Ubuntu Web Apps and a universal web search can hunt through cloud services for files alongside local drives.

Under the hood

The Ubuntu installation saves cash, but this is still a 200 laptop so don't expect high-end hardware. The AMD hardware used inside is based on the Brazos architecture, which is used for low-end, low-power chips. The E1-1500 processor has two cores, a modest clock of 1.48GHz, and no Turbo boosting. This chip also contains the graphics processor, but don't expect much from the Radeon HE 7310 core it's got just 80 stream processors and running at a low 529MHz.

Elsewhere, the HP has 4GB of RAM and a 750GB 5,400rpm hard disk. The former is the minimum requirement we expect from even basic laptops, although it can be easily expanded to an 8GB maximum by popping off a panel and using the spare slot. The hard is sizeable enough, but 5,400rpm is slow.

HP's minimal specification had an impact on real-world use. We noticed occasional stuttering when navigating some of Ubuntu's menus, and the sluggish hard disk meant application loading times were poor and our initial log-in took an age. Once basic software was loaded, though, we hit no problems word processing and spreadsheet software worked without complaint, as did Firefox.

This budget machine doesn't have stellar battery life. Our standard benchmark loops a video at full-screen with the panel at 75 per cent brightness and the Wi-Fi turned off, and the HP lasted for three hours and 40 minutes.

The HP's modest performance and longevity are what we expect at this price and if you want extra grunt and longevity, you'll need to spend more cash. Dell's Latitude 13 Education Series is a more expensive contender: for less than 600 it's got a Core i5 processor and stonking 12 hour battery life.

Budget Exterior

The 15.6in screen has a 1,366 x 768 resolution. It's standard for a budget machine, but it's not conducive to working with detail. Plus it's barely big enough for one window, let alone two or three.

Quality is reasonable. It's got ample brightness for working beneath office lights, and it handled a reasonable range of colours at the extreme ends of the scale only the deepest blacks and brightest whites blended together, and colours were vivid in between. This is no screen for complex colour work, but it's fine for basic tasks.

HP has paid more attention to function than form with this machine it's clad in matte black and grey plain looking plastic. The concentration on build quality benefits the base section, which is extremely strong, but that hasn't carried over to the screen; pressing the rear of the panel caused a line of flickering across the centre.

The 2.45kg weight means the HP is twice as hefty as more expensive Ultrabooks, and its 36mm body doesn't impress either.

The edges have 3 x USB 2 ports. There's a D-SUB output, SD card reader and pair of audio jacks are commonplace, but no HDMI connection.

Ergonomically, the HP is decent. The keyboard has a good layout and a light, snappy action conductive to touch-typing. The two button trackpad is responsive, and the pad is accurate and has good grip thanks to its mottled texture.

Windows Alternatives

At this end of the market competition is fiercer than ever: comparably-specified Windows laptops are just as affordable as HP's Ubuntu machine. Even Chromebooks are a tempting option if much of your work uses the cloud.

Ubuntu is a change of pace from Windows, and is a popular choice but it's not right for every business. IT departments used to Windows or OS X might balk at the thought of a new operating system on their network, and the savings made by using a cheap laptop like this could well be wiped out by increased support costs.

Windows notebooks are available for similar money. A system such as Lenovo's B50 comes with an Intel Celeron processor, 4GB of RAM and a 15.6in screen with 1,366 x 768 resolutions is available for 190. As is the Toshiba's Satellite Pro C50D, which runs Windows 8.1.

Overall

Despite the proliferation of affordable Windows machines at this end of the market, HP's super-cheap Ubuntu machine worth considering.

Ubuntu 12.04 of the OS is easy to use, with a slick interface, reasonable software and revised features.

If you and your office can accept Ubuntu and you're willing to live with this machine's basic performance then it's a decent budget buy.

Verdict

A decent budget laptop useful for basic word processing and web browsing.

Display: 15.6in screen (1,366 x 768)

Processor: 1.48GHz AMD E1-1500

GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7310

Memory: 4GB 1,600MHz DDR3

Storage: 750GB hard disk

Connectivity: 802.11n WiFi; Gigabit Ethernet; Bluetooth 4.0

Ports: 3 x USB 2, 2 x audio, SD card slot, D-SUB

Dimensions: 376 x 247 x 36mm (WxDxH)

Weight: 2.45kg

Canonical has announced that its third Long Term Support (LTS) cloud release, Ubuntu 14.04, will be available from 17 April.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will run on all major public cloud services and works with service providers including AWS, Azure, HP Cloud, Joyent, and IBM SoftLayer and SmartCloud.

The vendor said the update includes new versions of Juju and MAAS to "design, deploy and scale services faster than any other platform available today, on cloud or bare metal."

The Linux distribution enables ISVs, SaaS providers and end users to deploy cloud applications securely, offering continued support patches and updates for at least five years.

The update will coincide with the availability of the latest OpenStack release, codenamed Icehouse, which will offer automated installation, bare metal provisioning, a queuing and notification service and Database-as-a-Service features too.

The Ubuntu 14.04 LTS release is a pretty substantial one, adding support for 64-bit ARM servers in addition to that for OpenStack cloud frameworks. It is also the first release to support IBM Power architecture servers and the Docker open-source project for container-based virtualisation.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, said: "Ubuntu is the primary platform for cloud public, private or hybrid. In this release, our third LTS with deep roots in cloud, we raise the bar for efficiency and orchestration at scale. That's why businesses are adopting Ubuntu as they move to the cloud computing era."

Some of the biggest telcos in the world are utilising the Ubuntu platform including BT in the UK. A number of web-based services such as Netflix, Instagram and Quora are also building services on Ubuntu too, ensuring demand for the update.

Canonical has revealed the identities of two manufacturers who have agreed to bring its much-hyped Ubuntu-powered smartphones to market.

The software developer has signed agreements with Spanish phone maker bq and Chinese manufacturer Meizu, and said it expects the first Ubuntu Touch devices to ship later this year.

The smartphones will be available to buy online directly from both manufacturers, as well as from Ubuntu.com, with Canonical describing them as "mid-to-high end" handsets.

At the time of writing, details about the devices and their technical specifications were not forthcoming, but the firm is expected to showcase them at next week's Mobile World Congress.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, said the devices will provide end users with a viable alternative to iOS and Android.

"The mobile industry has long been looking for a viable alternative to those that reign today," he said.

"Ubuntu puts the control back into the hands of our partners and presents an exciting platform for consumers, delivering an experience which departs from the tired app icon grid of Android and iOS and provides a fluid, content-rich experience for all."

News of the OEM partnerships has been a long time coming, as Canonical initially tipped the first Ubuntu smartphones to start shipping in October 2013.

However, development delays pushed back the release, and the project's first manufacturing partner was only signed up in December. At the time, the company declined to confirm the manufacturer's identity.

During an Ask Me Anything session on social news site Reddit last month, the company revealed that an Ubuntu Touch smartphone made by a major OEM was unlikely to materialise this year.

The apparent delay in getting the Ubuntu Touch to market follows Canonical's abortive attempt last summer to release a crowd-funded smartphone, dubbed the Ubuntu Edge.

The firm needed $32 million to get the device made, but ended up falling $20 million short by the end of its month-long fundraising campaign.

The Ubuntu Touch smartphone is unlikely to be released by a major OEM in 2014, Canonical has admitted.

The open source software vendor's community manager Jono Bacon made the admission during a Reddit Ask Me Anything session earlier this week.

The company signed its first manufacturing partner for the project in December 2013, and stated at the time the first Ubuntu Touch smartphone would materialise this year.

However, Bacon seemed to backtrack on this claim during his Reddit Q&A session, citing development delays.

"Longer-term we would love to see the major OEM/carriers shipping Ubuntu handsets. This is a long road though with many components, and I would be surprised if we see anything like this before 2015," he wrote.

"When the major OEMs/carriers ship, this is when many of the ISVs will be on-board too."

That being said, Bacon said there's every chance a smaller OEM could release the first Ubuntu Touch device.

"In the shorter-term there are smaller OEMs who serve a smaller region who see great opportunity in Ubuntu, and their costs and risk are smaller for them to trial a device. This is where we will likely see the first handsets shipping," he said.

"My hope is that when one of these smaller OEMs ships an Ubuntu handset that it sells well and it sends a strong message to other OEMs too."

The apparent delay in getting the Ubuntu Touch to market follows Canonical's abortive attempt last summer to release a crowd-funded smartphone, dubbed the Ubuntu Edge.

The firm needed $32 million to get the device made, but ended up falling $20 million short by the end of its month-long fundraising campaign.

Software developer Canonical has released an update for its Ubuntu desktop operating system, designed to pave the way for an OS that can be used across mobile and server platforms.

Ubuntu 13.10 is available to download now, although the firm has been quick to stress the release is not a "consumer-ready" offering and will only be supported for nine months.

Instead, Canonical claims the software is aimed at OEMs, carriers and silicon vendors that may be planning to integrate the Ubuntu OS into their forthcoming hardware releases.

"Canonical is working with partners to bring Ubuntu smartphone devices to market in 2014. The desktop version of Ubuntu 13.10 reflects much of that progress, with scopes that organise home, apps, video content, lower device memory and graphics requirements and substantial improvements in battery and memory efficiency," the company said in a statement.

In the latest release, the software's Dash search interface has undergone a number of enhancements to make it easier for users to customise the search experience and trawl through results.

It also includes a new Friends Scope feature, which is designed to improve users' access to their social media accounts.

Rick Spencer, head of Ubuntu's consumer-facing engineering team, described Ubuntu 13.10 as a "full server-grade OS".

"The exact same Ubuntu OS runs on ARM phones and modern HP Moonshot ARM servers, and provides exactly the same capability as x86 platforms," said Spencer.

"Ubuntu 13.10 is a full server-grade OS that offers a mobile experience and is lean enough to support mobile devices, kicking off a new era in mobile security and computing convergence."

The OS reportedly features a wide array of apps created by the Ubuntu developer community, and also comes with a full Software Developer Kit for people that might want to have a bash at making their own.

Mark Shuttleworth, found of Ubuntu and Canonical, said: "Thanks to our passionate community of early adopters and designers we've built a unique experience for end users and for developers: one UI framework that scales across all the personal computing form factors."

As reported by our sister site Cloud Pro last week, Canonical also recently took the wraps off its Ubuntu Server 13.10 offering, which also goes on general release today.

The IT Pro community can always be relied on to provide some fresh, enlightening and (often) humorous perspective on the week's biggest news stories, features and reviews. And, thankfully, this week is no exception.

Over the past seven days, our readers have passed comment on Facebook's security bug catching policies, Canonical's recent smartphone funding efforts and the merits of keeping Windows XP.

Facebook bug catching debacle

The common reaction of most people who feel like they're being ignored after raising a serious customer service issue with a large organisation is to escalate the complaint to someone higher up the firm.

And that's precisely what Palestinian security researcher Khalil Shreateh did when Facebook, which offers $500 rewards to people who uncover security bugs within the site, denied he'd discovered a genuine flaw when he reported a vulnerability that allowed users to post on any member's timeline.

To prove his point, Shreateh posted a message on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's timeline, claiming he had no other choice but to bring the issue directly to his attention as the firm's White Hat programme team were refusing to act.

As thanks for publicly pointing out the flaw, the researcher had his Facebook account closed and was told he wasn't eligible for a $500 reward because his actions violated the social networking giant's terms and conditions. Nice.

IT Pro readers were particularly sympathetic to Shreateh's plight, with several claiming big firms rarely show their appreciation to the security research community for spotting vulnerabilities.

"Never, never, never report vulnerabilities to companies [because] they will neither pay nor thank you for it. Even worse, they will try to sue you," said Paskwyno.

"When you discover a vulnerability you should just use it, or make it available to everybody. This is what the companies deserve." Oh, that sounds like fighting talk to us.

Simon Nicholls said he's had similar experiences when trying to report security issues in the past to search giant Yahoo and social networking site LinkedIn.

"I suppose it's part of the usual arrogance and blame culture of such commercial organisations...[because] acknowledging the issue and thanking the reporter would be to acknowledge they had made a cock-up," explained Nicholls.

RIP Windows XP

With Microsoft's aged operating system, Windows XP, set to be pensioned off in April 2014, IT Pro examined the pros and cons associated with keeping XP or upgrading to something a little more modern.

The article sparked nearly as much debate as the news Hollywood actor Ben Affleck is to play Batman in the caped crusader's next cinematic outing. Oh, and just for the record, we're team Affleck all the way at IT Pro.

Anyway, back to XP and Justin Coleman said there were certain use cases that make abandoning the Microsoft OS almost impossible.

"I run a small store and the till runs Windows XP. I just cannot chance switching over to another OS and nothing working...if it works, don't fix it," Coleman cautioned.

The interestingly named Babyboomer49 said everything he uses works fine with XP, despite its age, so he's sticking with the operating system and that, as they say, is that.

"Windows 7 or 8 would not improve my computer usage one iota," he sniped. "In fact it could leave me with hardware for which there is no driver and older programmes that may not reinstall. I will use XP until my PC bites the dust."

John Stolarczyk emerged as another reader backing Windows XP ahead of its newer and nimbler replacements.

"I have tried Windows 7 and 8 and neither is better than XP for everyday use," he said.

"Most users do not need or desire the bells and whistles of the newer operating systems [and] Windows 8 is clearly designed for touch screens that most do not need or desire."

Canonical's Edge of glory

Canonical's bid to raise $32 million in a month through crowd-sourcing site Indiegogo so that it could ship its dual Ubuntu/Android smartphone, known as Edge, was always going to be a tall order.

Sadly, despite smashing the record for the amount raised through a crowd-funded project, the firm ended up $20 million short of its target when the deadline for pledges passed this week.

As a result, the project has been shelved, much to the dismay of several IT Pro readers who felt given some more time Canonical would have no problem hitting its target.

"If the timing is increased, we will be able to clear this obstacle...now news is spreading at a very fast rate," fumed Neelabhi Rai.

Meanwhile, IT Pro fan V1Dar said he was a big fan of the handset, claiming its $695 asking price and specifications represent great value for money.

"Ubuntu Edge is dead cheap, and it has amazing specifications. It really depends on how many people [are] aware of this project at the end," he added.

Canonical has failed to secure the $32 million needed for its crowd-funded smartphone project and will begin refunding contributions.

After a month-long campaign, Canonical secured a total of $12,809,906 for its Ubuntu Edge hybrid smartphone, falling short of its target by nearly $20 million.

Canonical received nearly 20,000 individual contributions. The biggest backer was Bloomberg, which ordered 115 devices for $80,000.

The Ubuntu Edge was introduced as a 2-in-1 converged device in July. It would have run Android in smartphone mode, and switched to the full Ubuntu desktop OS when docked on a desk.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, confirmed Paypal would aim to refund contributions to the project within five days in an upbeat message to supporters.

"Our bold campaign to build a visionary new device ultimately fell short, but we can take away so many positives," he noted on Indiegogo.

"Most importantly, the big winner from this campaign is Ubuntu. While we passionately wanted to build the Edge to showcase Ubuntu on phones, the support and attention it received will still be a huge boost as other Ubuntu phones start to arrive in 2014."

Canonical introduced the idea for its converged device in January 2013 and has been in negotiations with hardware manufacturers to bring the concept to market but as yet none appear to have jumped on board.

Shuttleworth suggested the campaign could help Canonical secure a deal in the future, and didn't rule out further crowd-sourcing campaigns either.

"All of the support and publicity has continued to drive our discussions with some major manufacturers, and we have many of the world's biggest mobile networks already signed up to the Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group," he continued.

"And who knows, perhaps one day we'll take everything we've learned from this campaign - achievements and mistakes - and try it all over again."

For now it looks like the Ubuntu Edge can be filed under Vapourware.

A crowd funding campaign to help Canonical develop its Ubuntu Edge smartphone has smashed records in amassing $10,288,472 (about 6.6 million) in pledges - beating the previous crowd funding record set by the Pebble smart watch last year.

However, the campaign is still around $20 million short of the goal of $32 million and it has just six days left to raise the remaining funds. Should Canonical fail, it will have to return any money pledged to the project.

"When we started this campaign three weeks ago, we hoped it would resonate with our community. So, to break the world record for a crowd funding campaign is absolutely mind-blowing," said Jane Silber, Canonical chief executive.

"We felt that innovation had substantially slowed down in the mobile industry, so wanted to address this. We're still astonished by the generosity of our community and will continue to do all we can to make the Ubuntu Edge a reality."

The smartphone, if built, will sport a 4.5in, 1,280 x 720 HD display. Instead of a glass touch screen, it would have one made from pure sapphire crystal. The phone would also feature an eight megapixel camera on the rear and a two megapixel one on the front and the handset would be capable of running Ubuntu operating system as well as Google Android.

A pledge of $695 would see backers get their own Ubuntu Edge smartphone. Last week, Bloomberg offered up $80,000 for the campaign as an enterprise backer. Canonical is now hoping that a more backers come out of the woodwork in the next few days to save the project.

The project, if successful, will see the firm develop a smartphone that can also be used as a desktop computer. It was looking to launch on the market in May 2014.

The firm is now considering whether to extend the campaign if significant new funding through the site is not forthcoming in the remaining days.

At the time of publication the US and UK were the top two nations in terms of donating to the project,

Canonical's plan to raise $32 million in a month via crowd-sourcing website Indiegogo so it can ship a smartphone running Ubuntu and Android, which also doubles as a PC, appears to have got off to a roaring start.

Ubuntu Edge was introduced by Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth on Monday 22 July, who told journalists the venture aims to plug an "innovation gap". The project will initially see 40,000 handsets created and shipped in May 2014, but only if the founding goal of $32 million is met (the equivalent of raising $1 million per day).

The plan is to ship the device with a dual-OS Android is present when handset is being used as smartphone and Ubuntu kicks in when the user plugs it into a monitor to use as a PC.

Since the initiative was first announced, the company has raked in more than $3.7 million in donations, an achievement the firm trumpted in a website post yesterday.

"We hit $1 million in under five hours, and $2 million not long after that. We've now passed the 10% line, which shows just how much demand there is out there for the Edge's radical new approach to mobile technology," the post stated.

"Thank you for all your support, both in backing the campaign and getting it out there for all to see - at one point yesterday our new baby was trending higher on Twitter than a certain royal one!"

Backers who signed up to the project on Day One (22 July) will get a handset for a discounted $600 (394). Those donating thereafter will have to pay $830 (592) if they would like to receive a device.

However, yesterday's blog post also saw the firm announce plans to offer users two Ubuntu Edge phones for $1,400, as part of an offer it has dubbed Double Edge.

Confirmed specifications include a 4.5in display (1,280 x 720), 8-megapixel camera, 4GB or RAM and 128GB of internal storage. However, Shuttleworth acknowledged that specifications are subject to change before the release date.

"Some of them [specifications] are concrete on the storage front we modelled our usage on netbooks and lightweight laptops and figured that 128GB was futureproof for this generation of mobile PCs. Also there's a physical size constraint there," Shuttleworth said during the briefing.

"From a RAM point of view we think 4GB is ahead of what any other phones will [have]. There isn't much drive to put more memory in phones at the moment because essentially they've completely got the ability to drive the screens which [use the] major of phone memory. We need the ability to drive two screens at once."

Questions about core specifications still remained unanswered though. Shuttleworth was unable to disclose which manufacturer will be creating the Ubuntu Edge or whether ARM or Intel chipsets would be used.

"We're in open conversations to select the best part and as the question was raised earlier that is something we may be able to give our backers a say in," he said in response to IT Pro.

"We have good experience on both sides of that architectural fence and we'll see you know what present the best performance capabilities for this convergence device."

*This article was originally published on 22 July, and was updated on 24 July to reflect the progress Canonical has made with its fund raising efforts.

Canonical claims to have found the root cause of the security breach that reportedly led to millions of Ubuntu Forum users having their email and passwords compromised.

The Ubuntu developer took the web forum down, which is used by people who want to discuss the workings of the Linux-based operating system, on Saturday.

This followed a defacement of the forum by hackers, who gained access to every member's email address, hashed password and username.

At the time of writing, the site was still down, but a holding page set up to alert forum users about the breach claims the firm is getting closer to revealing how the hackers accessed its systems.

"We believe the root cause of the breach has been identified [and] we are currently reinstalling the forums software from scratch," the holding page states.

"No data (posts, private messages, etc.) will be lost as part of this process."

Canonical CEO Jane Silber advised users in a blog post dated 21 July to assume their passwords have been accessed and to change them.

She also confirmed the company has started notifying affected users by email, and at this time has no reason to believe the hackers accessed other Ubuntu or Canonical sites or services.

"We are continuing to investigate exactly how the attackers were able to gain access and are working with the software providers to address that issue," she said.

"Once the investigation is concluded, we will provide as much detail as we safely can."

According to reports, around 1.8 million users are thought to have been affected by the breach.

Graham Cluley, former Sophos senior technology consultant and independent IT security expert, said the hackers could have accessed the site in several ways.

"It's possible the administrators of Ubuntu Forums weren't doing a great job at keeping their forum and server software up-to-date and this could have allowed the hackers to exploit a vulnerability," he offered in a post on his website.

He also claimed the breach could leave users at risk of account hacking and spam emails.

However, Conrad Constantine, Ubuntu Forum's member and research engineer and at security vendor AlienVault, said he was happy with Canonical's handling of the breach.

"Ubuntu did its part (making sure the impact of the password database being stolen is minimised, via salted, hashed entries), [and] I've done my part (making sure that I don't use the same credentials for a lower-security site like the Ubuntu Forums, on a higher security site, like my online banking)," he said.

"It's really not hard, when both sides of an arrangement live up to their security obligations to make things very difficult for the bad guys out there," he added.

*This article was originally posted on 22 July, and updated today to reflect new information about the Ubuntu hack.

Canonical has signed a collaborative engineering deal with Dell that will see the hardware giant support the Ubuntu open source operating system across its PowerEdge server range.

The deal means end users that purchase a 12th generation PowerEdge server featuring Ubuntu 12.04 LTS will benefit from software and hardware support from both Canonical and Dell.

This is on the proviso that said customers are signed up to the Ubuntu Advantage support programme.

"The engineering agreement cements the commitment of both companies to offer assurance to the growing number of Ubuntu Advantage enterprise customers running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on Dell PowerEdge Servers," the companies said in a joint statement.

The operating system allows IT administrators to manage server workloads and distributed cloud environments.

Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager of Dell Server Solutions, said demand for Ubuntu is building among the firm's hyperscale customers.

"The Canonical certification and support of Ubuntu on our Dell PowerEdge servers is consistent with our innovation for customers running scale-out workloads," Norrod added.

Mark Murphy, vice president of global alliances at Canonical, added: "Dell's support of Ubuntu on its latest 12th generation PowerEdge Servers shows its strong commitment to growing demand for Ubuntu on PowerEdge servers from enterprises."

Ubuntu developer Canonical has treated users to a sneak peek at the new tablet version of its Linux-based operating system, on Google Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 devices.

The firm released a promo video on February 21st, showcasing the software, and the preview version is now available to download from developer.ubuntu.com.

Users' favourite applications are displayed on the left hand side of the screen, while their apps can be controlled via a panel on the bottom edge. On the right hand side, users will find a feature called "side stage", which allow smartphone and tablet apps to be run side-by-side.

The video also provided end users with details of how they could use the tablet to create a fully-functioning PC, that can run Windows applications.

A very large supplier of silicon to the mobile industry has said they will commit to Ubuntu.

Furthermore, tablet device owners can set up user and guest accounts, which will allow their device to be used by multiple users without disclosing personal information.

During a conference call, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical and Ubuntu, said the security underpinning the devices was the same grade as it uses in the PC, server and cloud market, and will bolster the appeal of Ubuntu within several vertical markets.

"We see [Ubuntu for tablets] being adopted in enterprise settings...and there will be full encryption of each users' data...[so] tablets can be passed around factory floors or in healthcare and military settings," he explained.

The company has also released details of the tablet hardware requirements needed run to the OS for entry-level (7in-10in) and higher end (10in-12in) devices.

End users that want to run the OS on smaller tablets will need a device powered by at least a dual-core Cortex A15 processor that boasts 2GB memory and 8GB of flash storage.

Larger tablets will need at least a quad-core A15 or Intel x86 processor to run the OS, as well as 4GB of memory and have 8GB of flash storage to spare.

The launch of the tablet OS has been something of an open secret, with Canonical featuring a countdown clock for the announcement on its website bearing the phrase, "Tick, tock, tablet time!"

The prospect of a tablet-focused Ubuntu OS is hardly a surprising development for Canonical, given that it released a version designed for use with Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone devices back in January.

Nexus 7 tablet users have also been able to port the Ubuntu OS onto their systems for some time, after the 7in device was chosen by Canonical as a reference design used to optimise the software's user experience for tablet owners.

Shuttleworth hailed the "tremendous acclaim" his firm has received since announcing the launch of its smartphone OS.

"The most significant [development since then]...is a very large supplier of silicon to the mobile industry has said they will commit to Ubuntu and optimise it on their silicon...that has also catalysed the manufacturing sector and given them the confidence to say they are ready to release Ubuntu devices," he said.

"We are now very confident that Ubuntu [for smartphones] will ship on devices in Q1 2014," he added.

At the moment, there is no shipping date for Ubuntu-based tablets, Shuttleworth revealed, although he did hint that they could make an appearance before its smartphones drop, thanks to its incumbent partnerships with PC manufacturers, such as Dell, who have already released touch-enabled devices.

The Ubuntu OS has a dedicated following, with Canonical regularly claiming that more than 20 million people favour its free software over commercial alternatives.

However, the firm has a fight on its hands if it is serious about the latest version of its OS taking market share away from the likes of the Android and iOS.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has also been making a concerted effort on the mobile front of late with the release of Windows Phone 8 and touch-optimised versions of its flagship Windows 8 OS.

Updated: The Ubuntu Tablet OS Touch developer preview is now available to download from developer.ubuntu.com, which features installation instructions for users of Google Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablet devices, as well as Nexus 4 and Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphones.

However, the site warns the download is only intended at this stage for developers and enthusiasts to try out the OS, rather than as a permanent replacement for their existing tablet operating system.

The site states: "We want to stress that the Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview is currently work in progress. We are releasing the full code at this point to align to our philosophy of transparency and open source development.

"It is not intended to replace production devices or the tablet or handset you use every day," it concluded.

Canonical has unveiled plans to launch an Ubuntu smartphone OS. But in a world dominated by Android, iOS and Windows Phone 8, will it be able to offer the functionality that users are accustom to?

We take a look at some of the key features of the operating system, which will be based on the Linux kernel.

Why use Ubuntu on a smartphone?

According to Jane Silber, CEO of Canonical, the firm expects smartphones running Ubuntu to be popular in the enterprise market. The vision is that businesses will be able to provision employees with a single smartphone that will also be able to dock and be used as a PC. Canonical claims the thin-client capabilities will allow users to access legacy applications on Ubuntu, such as the Microsoft Office suite.

It's an interesting concept, but with businesses increasingly setting up BYOD policies and many employees opting for Android or iOS devices, Ubuntu is not going to be an overnight sensation.

Installation

Upon launch the OS is only likely to be used by developers and enthusiasts who have multiple devices to hand.

As Canonical is yet to partner up with an OEM to release an official device, the firm will make the Ubuntu OS available to download. Initially, users will require an Android device to run the OS in the form of the Galaxy Nexus.

This may seem ideal for those who want to take the OS for a test run, but there is a major sticking point at this time. The Ubuntu OS will lack dual-booting functionality so installing it will wipe Android from the device, including apps.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu and VP of products at Canonical told IT Pro that a dual-booting functionality "was not a priority" and hopes this will be something the developer community will address.

Code for use on other devices is also be expected to be made available. The minimum specifications to use the OS will be as follows:

Apps

There will be just five native applications available at launch - but the Ubuntu OS will also work with web-apps. Shuttleworth told IT Pro that using an emulator to port over Android apps would send the wrong message to developers. He also noted that no operating system would flourish using apps from another source. Although he has a point, the lack of apps still a major weakness.

What's it like to use

The Ubuntu OS relies on swipes from different edges of the screen to navigate. A swipe from the left hand side will bring up recently used apps, whereas swiping from the right hand edge will cycle between open applications.

The OS is visually appealing and has most of the commonly used features you'd expect from a mobile OS. However, we did see one of the demo devices running particularly sluggishly, so we're concerned about the ability of a smartphone to run as a fully functioning Ubuntu PC all-day long.

Check out the video demo below to see the Ubuntu OS in action.

Battery life is another mystery as Ubuntu has traditionally been used on PCs and laptops and has not yet been fully optimised for use on mobile devices.

Price

The OS will be free to download and install on your Android device. Canonical plans to partner with OEMs to launch devices with the OS pre-loaded starting later this year.

However, when questioned directly about the possible pricing of any handsets, Shuttleworth remained coy. He confirmed that Canonical would take a cut out of sales and also noted that royalties would be needed to be paid to a number of partners.

With Google drastically cutting the price of the Nexus 4 to just over 200, Canonical and its partners would have to launch a device at a similarly low price to have any hope of attracting users.

Launch date

Canonical is expected to make the Ubuntu OS code available to download in mid-January.

Devices with the OS pre-loaded are expected to start shipping in late 2013, but with no partners confirmed, this could change.

Verdict

Although visually appealing, the Ubuntu OS will not gain any significant traction in the market until it has strong backing from an OEM and a vast ecosystem. Even with these in place, it will be hard to catchup to Android and iOS in terms of brand appeal.

Linux vendor Canonical has unveiled a smartphone operating system which it plans to make available for use on Android devices.

The Ubuntu software will launch for Galaxy Nexus owners in mid-January. The software will initially require users to download the software and install it manually.

The device will support Nexus-branded devices, but the plan is to make it available to other OEM devices that come with an unlocked bootloader. At this time, no OEMs or networks have signed on to launch a device with the software.

However, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu and VP of products at Canonical, claimed he expects at least one major vendor to launch an Ubuntu device this year.

In terms of usability, the interface uses all four edges of the screen and navigation is primarily carried out via swipes.

An Achilles heel of the OS appears to be the ecosystem. Initially, the OS will launch with just five native applications including Facebook, Google Maps, Gmail and Spotify.

The OS will also support HTML5 native apps, but there are no plans to let it support the hundreds of thousands of existing Android applications, despite the software sharing the same Linux kernel.

Although Ubuntu has a dedicated following, its userbase is nowhere near the size of Android or iOS at this time. With Microsoft also pushing heavily on the mobile front with its Windows Phone 8 and touch-optimised Windows 8 editions, the biggest problem Canonical faces is getting users to opt for Ubuntu over these more established platforms.

Shuttleworth accepted the mobile market is a hotly contested mobile area and noted the open source firm will "need to partner carefully to make this a reality". It remains to be seen which OEM will step forward to take up the challenge.

Although Microsoft dominates the enterprise with Windows, Ubuntu could be the ideal operating system for start-ups or small businesses looking to cut down on costs. The ability to run native apps over a thin-client could also attract IT admins who like to experiment with devices.

Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin' is the first Long Term Support (LTS) release to feature the controversial Unity windows manager, a heads-up display (HUD), and five year support as Canonical aims to set it apart from the myriad of other Linux distributions.

Interface

Canonical's controversial Unity interface has annoyed and angered many long-standing Linux users. However, for newcowers to Linux it provides something different from Windows and Mac OS X and is a welcome move away from the equally controversial Gnome window manager.

Unity looked rushed when it was introduced a year ago. Since then, Canonical's developers have improved the overall fit and finish and introduced the HUD to provide contextual searching for applications, files and program functions.

Despite looking polished, the HUD can be clunky at times

Searching for applications by name is straightforward and nothing new as Microsoft introduced this within the Windows Vista Start menu. Searching for a function within a program is slow on Ubuntu and it doesn't work with all applications such as Skype by default.

The problem with the HUD is down to its immaturity and social engineering. Every major operating system for the last three decades has been driven by an icon/menu based interface and while it is far more unnatural than typing what you want to find, it is how the majority of people are used to working.

Despite its shortcomings, we do like the HUD as it is a progressive move towards natural computer interaction. It simply needs time and better support from applications to make it as intuitive as it should be.

Although Canonical has placed a lot of faith in Unity to lure new users to Ubuntu, the firm still maintains Ubuntu distributions which use the KDE, LXDE and Xfce window managers by default. Ubuntu 12.04 distribution can used without Unity, with users able to download the window manager of choice and uninstall Unity.

Installation and software

For years Canonical has been working to polish Ubuntu's install environments. This is evident from its website all the way through to the installation procedure. Ubuntu 12.04 can be directly installed from Windows through a USB memory stick or via traditional optical media. The OS is just as easy as loading Windows.

Users wishing to upgrade from Ubuntu 10.4 or newer have only to use the Update Manager. Upgrade times vary depending on the software packages installed, but the process is simple and requires little user interaction. Canonical recommends users upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 as soon as possible and from our experience we have no reason to suggest otherwise.

The Windows installer will make it easy for those who haven't tried Ubuntu before

Aside from Unity and the HUD, Ubuntu 12.04 is a complete operating system. Windows users will have to download Microsoft Office or LibreOffice to bring offline word processing and spreadsheet functionality to life. However, Ubuntu 12.04 comes with LibreOffice 3.5.2, which supports Microsoft file formats and has features to compete with the expensive Office Suite.

The Software Centre has been given an 'app store' look

Canonical has made minor cosmetic changes to the Software Centre in Ubuntu 12.04, giving it even more of an app store feel. Canonical's decision to try and centralise software acquisition and installation has been well implemented. However, in some cases such as Skype, we still had to use a web browser to download the application even though Software Centre took care of the installation.

Canonical also offers the Ubuntu One cloud service so users can store files online. The Ubuntu One integration in Precise Pangolin is installed by default and the polished interface is a joy to use, allowing users to make use of the free 5GB of space to store documents, movies and music.

The Ubuntu One cloud storage locker can also be accessed from Windows, Android and iOS devices with Canonical releasing free clients for the respective operating systems. Canonical offers a $2.99/month package for 20GB or a $3.99/month package which adds music streaming capabilities to Android and iOS devices on top of the 20GB space.

Server support

Canonical has also released a server version of Ubuntu 12.04. This doesn't include a windows manager by default and is geared towards enterprises considering deploying a cloud infrastructure. Canonical pre-announced the inclusion of its AWSOME APIs in Ubuntu 12.04. This allows users to develop applications which can make use of OpenStack clouds and Amazon Web Services, while its Metal-as-a-Service initiative claims to make physical server deployment easier.

Prior to the launch of Ubuntu 12.04, Canonical announced HP would be certifying Ubuntu 12.04 on a range of its Proliant servers, meaning HP will provide support for certified Proliant servers running Ubuntu 12.04. HP's support for Ubuntu 12.04 should help its adoption in the lucrative Linux server market.

HP has thrown its support behind Ubuntu 12.04

Canonical's push into the Linux server market with Ubuntu 12.04 puts it up against Red Hat, the biggest enterprise Linux vendor. Those who don't want to splash out on Red Hat's Enterprise Linux have a free alternative in the form of CentOS. Ubuntu 12.04 has a lot of ground to cover before it can match the popularity of CentOS and the revenue generation capabilities of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but it does have clear advantages.

Where Ubuntu 12.04 edges out CentOS 6.2 is its out-of-the-box support for newer hardware. Whereas Red Hat and the CentOS team take a conservative approach to hardware support, Ubuntu 12.04, by virtue of its desktop roots, is quicker on the ball, saving system administrators time.

The biggest advantage Ubuntu 12.04 has over CentOS is that it has predictable release dates. CentOS on the other hand is made up of a large group of volunteers who work on repackaging software after Red Hat releases the source to its Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution. Recent history shows timely, predictable releases are lacking.

Overall

Canonical has pulled out all the stops with Ubuntu 12.04. The integration of software such as Unity, its HUD, Software Centre and Ubuntu One is well done. The operating system is cohesive and combines performance along with eye-candy to offer a good user experience. The five year support also makes it attractive to enterprises.

Long-time Linux users may not like the interface changes, but Canonical needed to differentiate 12.04 from other distributions.

When contrasted with Microsoft's Windows and Apple's Mac OS X, Ubuntu 12.04 is free and just as stable. Canonical's work to improve the fit and finish of Ubuntu has reached a stage where the decision to move over depends on whether you can find Linux versions or alternatives of applications used on Windows or Mac OS X.

Verdict

Although Ubuntu 12.04 is dominated by Unity, support services such as Ubuntu One and Software Centre play a big role in making this the most complete Linux-based desktop operating system available.

Windows or Mac OS X

384 MB of memory for Ubuntu Desktop

USB stick for boot disk or CD drive

Canonical plans to increase work mobility with the release of Ubuntu for Android.

The concept, unveiled yesterday, allows Android smartphone users to access the free Ubuntu desktop by connecting their phones to a monitor and keyboard.

With Android and Ubuntu running at the same time, the systems automatically sync with each other and seamlessly switch between the two. Android applications such as contacts, telephony and SMS/MMS messaging are accessible from the Ubuntu interface.

It's not an application on Android - it's full Ubuntu, running alongside Android.

Likewise, the Ubuntu desktop is synchronised with Android. Someone working on an email from Ubuntu can disconnect their smartphone and continue composing on the go with Android.

"It's not an application on Android - it's full Ubuntu, running alongside Android," Canonical CEO Jane Silber told our sister site PC Pro.

Silber said Ubuntu for Android would be released under an open source license, but that Canonical expects it to mostly be pre-installed on specific hardware.

"We'll want to optimise for certain hardware profiles and chips," she said. "It simply wouldn't be the same experience on a downloaded install."

According to Silber, the system can be run on smart TVs, but Ubuntu for Android is mainly targeted towards PCs and laptops.

"We think the main use case is for the converged device, of a laptop and smartphone converging, and in the enterprise for the mobile worker," she said.

Both OSes are based on Linux, making integration effortless, according to Canonical.

"It's a Linux solution for a Linux smartphone platform," project manager Richard Collins added. "Other than Android, we're interested in any smartphone platform that's Linux based as well, it's just that Android is the biggest one by a long-shot right now."

In order to work, handsets need to be dual-core, offer at least 1GHz CPU and 512MB of RAM, and support HDMI - general qualities possessed by most modern smartphones.

Ubuntu for Android will work best with 4G connections, Canonical said. Cloud apps like Google Docs work best with a full desktop, and shine with the lower latency of LTE, Canonical said.

Businesses in the UK don't yet have access to 4G, however.

Collins said the system also supports thin client solutions from VMware and Citrix.

"In terms of a fully-fledged enterprise solution, if there's a thin-client environment that's something that works very, very well with this solution," Collins said

The system is a crucial step forward in Canonical's quest to move Ubuntu onto smartphones and tablets.

According to Silber, Canonical is already talking with some manufacturers and will be showing the product off at Mobile World Congress next week to persuade more mobile device makers to join in.

As of now there is no launch date yet but Silber said the software is ready to go.

Read on for our head-to-head featuring Ubuntu vs. Windows 7 on a business desktop.

Of these, Canonical's Ubuntu Linux distribution is regarded as one of the most fully developed operating systems and for this head-to-head, we've compared the current Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot') to Windows 7. In particular, we're interested in its interface and software capabilities from an end-user's perspective, plus the ease of installation, security and maintenance considerations for administrators.

Installation

Canonical Ubuntu can be installed alongside an existing operating system, or can completely replace it, and it offers fine control over the partitioning and allocation of hard drive space. A number of file systems are also available, including Ext4, Ext3, ReiserFS, JFS, XFS, and FAT32. In an ideal world, an operating system should be ready to use as soon as it's installed, but that's seldom the case.It is worth noting that manually configuring an Ubuntu partition to co-exist alongside one or more others may result in the new partition not being immediately available. We had to boot into an existing operating system partition and update the GRUB Bootloader to reflect the new drive configuration, after which Ubuntu was available as a bootable option.

With the partition table set up accordingly, whether manually or automatically by Ubuntu, installation conveniently continues in the background while other system settings are configured, but it's also possible to create a slipstreamed installation disk that requires no user interaction.

Configuration

In an ideal world, an operating system should be ready to use as soon as it's installed, but that's seldom the case. While both Windows 7 and Ubuntu do an excellent job of recognising most common hardware and installing the necessary drivers, it's inevitable that some hardware will need to be set-up by hand.

Graphics cards tend to be the most common device to require manual driver installation. Basic graphics functionality is offered by default in both Windows and Ubuntu, but more sophisticated features, such as 3D or audio over HDMI support, require the appropriate proprietary driver. For Ubuntu, these are available from its Software Centre and they're always worth installing, even if a graphics cards more advanced features aren't required.

Proprietary video driver installation was reasonably easy on our test system with an AMD Radeon HD 6990 graphics card, but we were initially unable to configure the test PC's two monitor set-up using AMD's Catalyst Control Centre.

This was remedied with judicious use of the command line ("sudo aticonfig --initial -f", if anyone is wondering), but these sorts of solutions are considerably more complex that most Windows users will ever have to deal with.

Audio drivers proved less problematic in Ubuntu and multiple input/output devices were correctly detected and set-up. The Sounds Settings tool makes switching between them straightforward too, so it's a non-issue to swap from built-in speakers to a headset when using VoIP, for example.

Networking is an oft-cited problem area with Linux, but the current version of Ubuntu's Network Manager utility detected both Wi-Fi and a USB 3G modem correctly, although connection details for the latter had to be specified manually.

User Interface

Ubuntu's interface was revamped with version 11.04 and the new Unity UI is designed to provide streamlined access to applications. Unity looks significantly less clunky than the GNOME UI used by previous versions of Ubuntu, nor does it have the Windows XP-inspired looks of KDE, the other most popular Linux UI.

The biggest change introduced with Unity is the Launcher. This runs down the left of the Desktop and replaces the taskbar of old that sat at the bottom of the screen, but it performs a similar purpose. It works much like the Windows 7 Taskbar too, with a selection of pinned' quick-launch icons for commonly used applications.

The Launcher also shows icons for other running applications that can be pinned in place for faster subsequent access, along with shortcuts for any USB-attached devices and a handful of other useful OS tools. In addition to clicking the appropriate Launcher icon, the foremost running application window can be switched using the [Alt] + [Tab] keyboard shortcut.

The Launcher is also home to Ubuntu's Workspace Switcher for managing virtual Desktops. Windows can be dragged across Desktops when this is open, which is a useful way of managing application windows without a built-in Windows equivalent.

Ubuntu also has a toolbar that runs across the top of the Desktop that works in a similar way to the Mac OS X menu bar. This is always visible and carries a fixed array of tools, such as an icon that shows the status of the email inbox, network settings, volume and sound settings shortcuts, and a System Settings menu with the usual log out, restart and shut down options.

The toolbar also has the Ubuntu Dash button, which works much like the Windows 7 Start menu.The rest of the toolbar's contents are context sensitive and change according to the application in focus. If the Desktop is active, for example it shows menus with shortcuts to key local directories and the rest of the network, options to create new folders and documents, and to change the appearance of the Desktop. With Firefox in active use though, the toolbar changes to show bookmarks, web browser tools and so on.

The toolbar also has the Ubuntu Dash button, which works much like the Windows 7 Start menu. When clicked, it opens a translucent window with shortcuts to key applications like the web browser and email client, along with shortcuts to application groups like internet' and media'.

These groups mix both installed and available-to-install software, with the latter option resulting in the appropriate download from the Ubuntu Software Centre, although it did mistakenly prompt for an installation disc in one isolated instance. The Dash also has a Search box that makes it easier to find a particular application on a system with lots of installed software.

Software Installation

Software installation is one area where Ubuntu trumps Windows for convenience, thanks to the complete online distribution of applications through its Software Centre and other third-party software repositories.

Managed by Canonical, the Ubuntu Software Centre provides downloads for a massive archive of Ubuntu-compatible programs and also provides a convenient interface for managing installed software. Applications can eve searched for by name or function, and also offers user ratings.

Everything the Software Centre provides is extensively tested and safe to install, but IT managers who would rather retain control over the applications their users are able to install can simply set-up accounts without privileged superuser' (or sudo') access.

Application and operating system updates are also delivered through the Software Centre, and notification updates are shown via the Updates icon on the Ubuntu Unity Launcher. Individual updates can be enabled here, as can updates only for important security fixes.

If bandwidth is a concern, it's also possible to create an offline update repository that downloads files just once, and then redirect each Ubuntu PC to this instead.

This set-up compares extremely well to Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), which performs a similar function for local software updates, but requires an administrator to perform time-consuming approvals for updates rolled out across a network.

SecuritySecurity is often selling point for Linux, not least since it's the target of far fewer malicious programs than Windows. The fact that superuser-level root' access requires manual command line activation makes it extremely difficult for malware that relies upon administrative access to take hold, plus it makes it difficult for users to inadvertently cause critical system damage, too. Linux is vulnerable to certain exploits, particularly the kind that use automated brute force attacks to access accounts with insecure passwords.Linux is still vulnerable to certain exploits though, particularly the kind that use automated brute force attacks to access accounts with insecure passwords the default installation options for software like VMware and MySQL offer particularly inviting opportunities for hackers, for example.

So, it is still important to pay attention to security issues with a Linux installation. It's easy enough to limit threat potential to the point where it becomes negligible and Linux is unlikely to be subject to the usual range of drive-by downloads, but it is still important to be aware of these threats and ensure users use strong, secure passwords, for example.

Antivirus software is available for Ubuntu, although its primary purpose to scan any Windows file systems on connected drives, and to prevent emails with infected attachments from being forwarded to users with more vulnerable operating systems.

ClamAV is the option available in the Ubuntu Software Centre, although a range of major anti-virus companies have Linux products available.

Backups and Cloud Synchronisation

Both Microsoft and Canonical offer their own cloud backup and synchronisation services, but Canonical's Ubuntu One is by far the more versatile and effective.

Microsoft's Live Mesh and SkyDrive services give 25GB of online storage, the ability mirror selected folders between all synced computers (assuming they run Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Mac OS X) and lets you sync Internet Explorer bookmarks and Microsoft Office settings.

Live Mesh isn't much use as a replacement for a dedicated backup regime, though. It lacks options for file versioning and there's no way to expand its free 5GB of synchronised storage (deducted from the 25GB total storage space).

Ubuntu One, on the other hand, offers both a free and paid-for service. The free option also gives 5GB of cloud storage that can be used to sync selected folders, while an annual subscription of $30 (around 20) provides a much more useful 20GB.

Document sharing is available with both account types, but there's no file versioning yet, which means Dropbox is still a better bet cloud file synchronisation and backups.

Word Processing & SpreadsheetsWord processing and spreadsheets are disproportionately popular applications for PC users, so it's no surprise that there are numerous, highly polished open source alternatives to Microsoft Word and Excel see our detailed head-to-head review of Microsoft Office vs. Open Office 3.3, for example.

Ubuntu ships with LibreOffice, based on Oracle's OpenOffice.org, and both its Writer and Calc applications will feel familiar to anyone who's used Microsoft Office 2003 although Office 2007 or 2010 users may miss the ribbon interface

Both applications feel faster than their Microsoft rivals when it comes to loading and saving files and templates, and Writer in particularly feels like an improvement on Word, but Calc lacks some of the advanced data handling features of Excel.

Scanner and printer support is excellent. Installing a network-attached network printer simply involved searching the local network using the Printer Configuration utility and selecting the correct device, after which Ubuntu downloaded and installed the appropriate driver.

Ubuntu's scanner handling is similarly straightforward. It uses Linux's SANE driver to provide support for a massive range of both USB and network scanners and MFDs, including many which are no longer supported under recent versions of Windows. Some options provided by OEM scanner drivers may be missing, but more capable image scanning can be had with Hamrick's commercial VueScan 9 software.

Image Editing & DTP

There are some remarkably powerful image-editing applications for Linux, of which GIMP is probably the best known (and available from the Ubuntu Software Centre).

Linux image-editors are generally not as polished as their Windows or Mac OS X equivalents, but GIMP should be mostly familiar to anyone more used to Adobe Photoshop and it's certainly as capable.

As with Windows, connecting a USB storage device that contains images to an Ubuntu PC results in a dialog box that asks how to handle it. Options here include simply showing the device's contents in a window, or browsing the images using the smartly designed photo organisation tool, Shotwell.

Shotwell handles image searching and tagging, as well as such basic image-editing tasks as red-eye removal, cropping and general enhancement. It can also share images online via Facebook, Flickr or Picasa. Windows doesn't have an integrated equivalent, although free tools such as IrfanView and ACDSeeperform the same task admirably.

One creative area in which Linux is a little lacking is DTP and there's no heavyweight open source equivalent to Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress. Scribus is a relatively straightforward and feature-filled DTP application for short and simple documents though, and can save files in PDF format.

Multimedia Support

No operating system intended for business use is complete without an application for creating presentations and Linux is ably served by LibreOffice Impress.

This is remarkably similar to Microsoft PowerPoint, with a variety of template styles, support for slide notes, plus embedded charts, videos and sound files. The option to create handouts to accompany a presentation is useful, too.

Copyright issues relating to open source software mean than Ubuntu lacks built-in support for a number of multimedia file formats, including MPEG4 video. This means a download is required before many kinds of file can be opened, but this is usually automatic and swift as long as there's an internet connection available, of course. Copyright issues relating to open source software mean than Ubuntu lacks built-in support for a number of multimedia file formats.Video editing is usually best left to experts equipped with professional-level software, but there are situations where footage of a meeting or interview might need to be quickly cut together on the desktop. Windows is rather poorly served on this front Live Movie Maker only provides basic functionality and lacks support for multiple video and audio tracks.

The Ubuntu Software Centre has several viable options for these sort of simple requirements, including OpenShot Video Editor, but this is rather too similar to Windows Live Movie Maker to be useful.

LiVES is a more sophisticated and versatile video editor, but it will require the download of any necessary video codecs before it can export any edited footage.

Internet Applications

Ubuntu 11.10 installs the capable Mozilla Firefox web browser by default, but Chromium the open source version of Google Chrome is also available for Linux.

Neither support Adobe Flash from the get go, but Firefox prompts for the installation of the open source Gnash SWF plug-in as soon as Flash content is encountered online. Chromium does not, but will make use of the same plug-in if installed for Firefox.

Thunderbird client handles POP and IMAP email extremely well, but its search function is sluggish and presents results in a rather unfriendly mass that can't easily be selected and moved or deleted. It also requires further manual configuration to support calendaring (via the Lightning plug-in) or Microsoft Exchange.

Exchange support comes via the Davmal exchange gateway that connects to Exchange Email, Calendar and Dictionary services, plus the manual installation of Oracle's latest Java Development Kit. The set-up process isn't too involved though, and there are a number of helpful guides to help.

Running Windows Software

Linux may be a mature operating system with a fully comprehensive selection of software for just about any purpose, but there will inevitably be times when only something that only runs under Windows will do.

Oracle's VirtualBox is a very good open source VM application that should handle most needs, but it does still require the appropriate Windows licence. There will inevitably be times when only software that only runs under Windows will do.Wine, on the other hand, is a self-contained open source Windows emulator that doesn't require a guest operating system to be installed and while its support for 64-bit client applications is currently very limited, it can still run on 64-bit Linux platforms and 32-bit versions of most Windows software are still widely available.

Wine is most popular as a way to run Windows games under Linux (which says something about its performance, if nothing else), but a wide range of business-orientated applications have been confirmed as fully compatible with Wine. These include Adobe Photoshop CS3, Cisco IP Communicator and numerous specialist programs used by the accountancy and legal professions.

The Future

Ubuntu's version numbers indicate the date of release rather than an incremental numbering system so 11.10 was released in October 2011 but the animal-based code names have so far been ordered alphabetically (Oneiric Ocelot follows Natty Narwhal).

Releases are generally made twice a year and have so far been split into two types normal and long-term support (LTS). Normal releases like 11.10 are supported for 18 months with updates, while LTS desktop releases last for three years, but Ubuntu is switching for a standard five-year support cycle with version 12.04 (assuming an April 2012 release date).

Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin' refines many of the best features found in v11.10, but is intended to bring greater integration with the Ubuntu One cloud service. So far, v12.04 looks likely to still resemble 11.10, but with all the benefits and business stability that an LTS release will bring.

Pricing & SupportFor all its good points, Ubuntu's real strength and its main advantage over Windows 7 is its price. Since it's an open source project, Ubuntu costs nothing to install and use on any number of PCs, for any purpose. Volume licensing for Windows 7, on the other hand, costs around 125 + VAT per copy, with another 306 for an Office 2010 volume licence. Even if an operating system doesn't cost anything, there are always costs involved with its use, usually in the form of support.More pertinent is the price of a new system with or without Windows 7 installed, An HP Workstation with Windows 7 Home Premium costs 372 + VAT, for example, while the same system with FreeDOS (HP's default no-OS option) costs 313 + VAT a 59 saving. Similar savings are valuable from other PC vendors.

In practice, even if an operating system and software don't cost anything to acquire, there are always costs involved with their use, usually in the form of support. Linux is no more expensive than Windows in this regard though, and Canonical offers its own 24/7 support service for businesses, starting from $105 (around 66) per desktop, per year.

Similarly, London-based support firm Help4IT quoted an initial cost of 650 and a basic monthly fee of 273 (both ex VAT) for both 10 clients and one server, for both Windows 7 and Ubuntu.

Conclusions

Ubuntu 11.10 is a mature and capable desktop operating system that's a massive improvement even over the previous 11.04 release. The Unity UI may not immediately appeal to long-term Linux users, but it's polished, intuitive and easy to use and end-users won't ever have to worry about using the command line interface or arcane driver configuration options. Security is also a major strength, as is the no-cost nature of most Linux software, although this latter feature may sometimes mean putting up with a lack of refinement here and there. The biggest issue with Ubuntu and Linux in general, however, is familiarity. Users may require retraining to adequately cope with the way Linux works, but this is no different to that required for people switching from Mac OS X to Windows, for example.

Verdict

After years of all-too-valid complaints that Linux isn’t ready for the desktop, Ubuntu 11.10 genuinely is. It’s not a perfect feature-for-feature match for Windows 7 or Mac OS X any more than either of those major desktop operating systems is for the other, but Ubuntu has proved to be stable, secure, widely compatible and surprisingly easy to use. The ease with which the desktop environment can be locked down without removing key functionality is of particular benefit within a corporate environment and, as long as there’s a support team on hand to manage the transition, there’s nothing to prevent end-users more used to Windows from switching seamlessly.

HP has announced it will run its upcoming public cloud offerings on the Ubuntu operating system (OS).

The open source OS from Canonical will be the "lead host and guest operating system" for HP's recently announced public cloud services HP Cloud Compute and HP Cloud Object Storage which are still being trialled as private betas.

The two firms said they had been working closely together throughout the development, with the aim of making "the most secure, scalable, business-class cloud [for] companies of all sizes."

Although Ubuntu is seen as the natural choice for OpenStack-based clouds, like the HP Public Cloud, Canonical still saw the deal as a big win and massive corporate endorsement.

"Ubuntu is the reference OS for OpenStack but like in any other open source project we need to earn our keep on a daily basis and having HP select us is a great endorsement of Ubuntu as a Cloud OS," read the company's blog.

"If Ubuntu can power one of the world's largest public clouds for one of the biggest names in technology what can we do for you?"

Although blogs have already appeared confirming the partnership, the deal was set to be officially announced at the OpenStack conference in Boston.

The big news from the show last week was Rackspace was donating the IP for OpenStack to the wider community and the fact it would be forming a not-for-profit foundation to take over the management.

There is still no firm date for the launch of HP's public cloud services.

Ubuntu has confirmed that version 11.10 of its open source operating system will be code named Oneiric Ocelot.

The double-barrelled, animal-themed name follows on from previous versions of the OS such as Maverick Meerkat and Natty Narwhal, the latter of which is yet to be released.

Natty Narwhal (11.04) is due at the end of April, while Oneiric Ocelot, less creatively known as 11.10, is expected to arrive six months later in October.

"Oneiric means 'dreamy', and the combination with ocelot reminds me of the way innovation happens: part daydream, part discipline," said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu-backer Canonical, in a blog post.

While the name is really little more than a code name for developers, some weren't amused by Ubuntu making them reach for their dictionaries.

"I'm going to have to Google how to pronounce this name, that in my opinion is kind of a usability fail," said one commenter on the post. "I don't like being negative Mark, but this seems like a step too far in the eccentricity stakes."

The next version will introduce support for the Qt development framework, which Nokia just sold off.

"The introduction of Qt means we'll be giving developers even more options for how they can produce interfaces that are both functional and aesthetically delightful," Shuttleworth said.

Aside from further tweaks to the desktop experience, Shuttleworth said Ubuntu will have to decide which cloud platforms the version after Ocelot, 12.04, will support. "We'll need to keep up the pace of innovation on all fronts post-Natty," Shuttleworth added.

Future releases of Ubuntu are set to feature multi-touch capabilities, starting with the 10.10 version of the OS.

Canonical has announced the launch of uTouch 1.0, providing users and developers with a touch-screen framework that covers applications as well as the OS's kernel.

The company has created an open source gesture recognition engine along with a gesture API so multi-touch can work on applications.

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth explained the system will enable users to link basic gestures for a smoother experience than other single gesture multi-touch technologies.

"The basic gestures, or primitives, are like individual verbs, and stringing them together allows for richer interactions," Shuttleworth explained in a blog post.

"It's not quite the difference between banging rocks together and conducting a symphony orchestra, but it feels like a good step in the right direction."

Canonical believes multi-touch will be central Linux application use in future and the company is planning to continue collaborating with manufacturers of touch-enabled devices to take such technologies to a wider audience.

From version 10.10 onwards, touch will feature in Ubuntu Netbook, Desktop and Light products.

There is evidently a buzz surrounding the technology. Mozilla recently announced the third beta of Firefox 4 would come with multi-touch functionality.

Dell, the world's third biggest PC maker, has called into question Microsoft's efforts to keep Windows users safe online by claiming Ubuntu offers more protection.

With Linux systems still struggling to gain public trust, particularly when it comes to online shopping, Dell has issued a statement of support for Ubuntu by revealing 10 reasons why PC users should opt for Canonical's Linux instead of Windows when buying a new PC.

Number six in Dell's list is the claim that "Ubuntu is safer than Microsoft Windows: The vast majority of viruses and spyware written by hackers are not designed to target and attack Linux."

Among the other reasons mentioned are its fast boot-up speeds and elegant design, and that with Dell claiming Ubuntu is "social from the start".

The company says anti-malware software is "unwarranted" on Ubuntu, but claims Windows' on-board Defender and Security Essentials invariably need upgrading to get closer to the level of protection needed on Windows systems.

The argument Dell is using is a simple one: the popularity of Internet Explorer will always make it the number one target for security threats, while the massively smaller quality of Ubuntu users will largely be safe simply because because the numbers just aren't there to make it worth their while.

Dell whose PCs have been shipping with Ubuntu on-board since 2007 insists the public had no reason to fear Linux just because it doesn't look exactly like Windows.

Canonical has unveiled two new systems for the dual boot, instant-on market, trimming down open source operating system Ubuntu to a light version and offering a new netbook-friendly shell called Unity.

The two new products were announced at the Ubuntu Development Summit and targeted at those looking to get to the web in 10 seconds from a cold start up using solid state devices.

"Instant-on products are generally used in a stateless fashion. These are 'get me to the web asap' environments, with no need of heavy local file management," noted founder Mark Shuttleworth in a blog post. "If there is content there, it would be best to think of it as 'cloud like' and synchronise it with the local Windows environment, with cloud services and other devices."

"They are also not environments where people would naturally expect to use a wide range of applications: the web is the key, and there may be a few complementary capabilities like media playback, messaging, games, and the ability to connect to local devices like printers and cameras and pluggable media," he added.

Unity

The first release is a new "desktop experience codebase" called Unity, which lets users jump right to using the web, but doesn't support standard file management, Shuttleworth explained.

Unity is designed to make the best use of wide but short screens, said Shuttleworth. "Netbooks have screens which are wide, but shallow. Notebooks in general are moving to wide screen formats," he wrote. "So vertical space is more precious than horizontal space."

Because of this, the application panel is moved from the bottom of the screen to the left hand side. It's also been widened, making the icons touchscreen friendly.

While Unity is available now, the next move is to make it the basis for Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition, ahead of its update in October 2010. Shuttleworth called for help developing the system to work with more applications and standard file management.

Ubuntu Light

The Light version of Ubuntu will come in two versions, for netbooks and desktops.

"The dual-boot opportunity gives us the chance to put a free software foot forward even in markets where people use Windows as a matter of course," he said.

The two versions are available today to OEMs, alongside a tool for Windows to help manage the dual booting. Shuttleworth said offering Ubuntu Light alongside Windows will help manufacturers "differentiate" their products.

Light won't be made generally available via the Ubuntu website, however, "given the requirement to customise the Light versions for specific hardware," Shuttleworth noted.

Linux Kernel

This is a given, granted, but we couldn't form a list of what open source does right without including the brainchild of Linus Torvalds. What started as a learning experience for the young programmer has now grown into a fully fledged rival for the likes of Microsoft and Apple.

It's easy to see the benefits of Linux. Many heads working together to make something perfect. Hundreds of thousands of beta testers out there, running different combinations of architecture, seeing what works and fixing what doesn't. It's communist computer heaven.

One only has to imagine how much better Windows or OSX could be if those skilled geeks that spend their time hacking the OS were allowed to consult, improve and stabilise it.

For this reason, Linux is the cornerstone of open source.

Ubuntu

These days it seems impossible to mention Linux without hearing the word 'Ubuntu' follow shortly after. The Debian-based OS has shown clear improvement with every release and certainly lives up to its namesake.

With Ubuntu things just tend to *work*. You install your OS and off you go. Plug your printer in, it works. Plug your MP3 player in, it works. These are simple things but ones that make a huge difference to end users. Add to that the malleability of the OS, the ability to alter the very foundation that it runs on, the way it looks, acts and responds and you have a very attractive proposition for the technically minded among us. And a more and more attractive proposition for the novice with every release.

This openness and support are something which the market leaders are only now starting to embrace and while they haven't quite grasped the concept of 'Ubuntu' yet, the hope is that they continue trying to learn from the African way and stop pig-headedly ignoring it.

When you're giving up your own free time to work on something you don't want to faff around. You simply want to get to work and those that form the open source community are a prime example of what you can achieve when you're working for love and not money.

When over management is removed from the development process more time is left for what matters. There are no stockholders to placate, no discriminating deadlines set by the corporate office just problems to solve and work to be done.

All too often we see software houses trying in earnest to re-invent the wheel, holding press conferences promising better, faster, prettier and so often failing to deliver. Why? Because they should have spent more time walking the walk, and less time talking the talk.

Security

It stands to reason that something developed by a vast community will evolve faster than something created by a smaller group. In the age that we now live, with vast sums of money changing hands over the information super highway, security is paramount. As such, most of us would most likely rather have three million bright people working on shoring it up than an over-worked developer on a caffeine high.

A prime example is Snort, an open source network intrusion prevention and detection system which happens to be the most widely deployed tool of its kind. There's a reason why reportedly the US Army, Google, Cisco, Shell and many more huge companies choose to run Linux servers.

The internet

Yes, it's a sweeping statement but a great number of the very basics that make up our World Wide Web experience are based on open source ideals. What would our online world be like without Java, PHP, Apache, Ruby on Rails or MySQL? Or indeed what would our surfing experience be like without Firefox?

At a guess, a slow, buggy, insecure wheeze without Twitter the humanity!

Whether it be workspaces, icons, security settings or anything else, open source will always lead the way when it comes to a custom user experience, for the simple reason that you are legally allowed and positively encouraged to tinker.

With access to code, the advanced user can streamline software or add to it while the home user can easily tailor their own operating system for their custom PC build without infringing on any EULA while they're doing so.

With fully customised work spaces on your OS you could potentially save hundreds of hours over your working year. And that's time that could be spent doing things you really enjoy.

The Open Handset Alliance/Android

Uniformity at the core of their mobile experience is something users could only dream about only a few years ago. Now, with the introduction of a standardised charging socket and Android you can be sure of a full, productive experience from any number of mobile devices, manufactured by the top companies and supported by leading service providers.

With Java and Linux at its heart, Android offers a stable base for mobile devices, with customised offerings and home-brewed incarnations aplenty. None of this would be possible without the open source philosophy.

Reduction of technical obsolescence

You've got your old laptop, it's getting on in years now (don't computers age like dogs?) and you're facing the possibility of having to throw it away. It struggles with even the very basic of tasks under its proprietary OS and even the wonderful Windows 7 doesn't want to know.

What options are you left with? You can throw it away and buy a new one or you can introduce it to Vector Linux or one of the other great open source operating systems that support computers which would be considered relics to the likes of Windows and OSX.

Running the Linux OS, with its KDE GUI, the old girl virtually flies along, and with similar support from other projects such as Open Office you're able to achieve what you want to without having to fork out on a shiny new laptop.

Also, breathing life into old hardware isn't just good for the bank balance; it's good for the environment too.

Co-operation

Healthy competition is good for end users. It ensures innovation, support and offers freedom of choice. Co-operation, however, offers all of the above and more.

The open source community enjoys a previously unheard of level of co-operation between developers, manufacturers and users. Last year, Nokia and Intel announced they were joining forces on the open source Maemo and Moblin projects which, in the future, should see a new line of Intel-based architecture available for mobile devices and new open source operating systems to run on them.

Availability

With open source, people from the poorest countries have access to a world of information, education opportunities and fun. The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) scheme has strived to bring these possibilities to life and has changed thousands of lives in the process.

One of the children now using an open source laptop from the scheme may one day cure a disease or change the way the world uses energy. Pluses for open source don't get much bigger than that.

Windows users could be set to get Ubuntu cloud storage on their PCs.

A posting on the Python Community Conference website is asking for developers to sign up to project "Sprint" to help work out details of how to make the service compatible with Windows, during the event in February.

The open source Ubuntu One service gives Ubuntu operating system users 2GB of free online storage upon installation with the option of upping this capacity to 50GB for a monthly fee of $10.

Eliot Murphy, who runs the engineering team for Ubuntu One, confirmed to IT PRO it would be working on the prospect of Windows compatibility but a release date is dependent on the success of the developer meeting.

"The sprint at PyCon is an opportunity for us to test the waters and explore how much work is involved in porting the code to Windows," said Murphy.

"If it turns out to be easy, well then yes we'd likely try and find a way to provide a Windows client. However, it's just too early to say, a lot depends on how many developers get involved in making the code run on Windows."

He concluded: "I'm very excited about the possibility of other platforms, but don't want to set any false expectations: we currently have no dates or concrete plans for shipping Ubuntu One clients on platforms other than Ubuntu, but since the client code is open source the community is free to do so and I hope it happens."

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth is to step down from his role as chief executive of the open source firm by next March.

Instead, he'll be spending his time working on design as well as extending partnerships in the industry and with customers.

"Those are the areas that I enjoy most and also the areas where I can best shape the impact we have on open source and the technology market," he said in a blog post.

"I've become very passionate about design and quality, and want to spend more time figuring out how we harness the collaborative process to build better, more insightful products," he added.

His role as chief executive will be handed over to chief operating officer (COO) Jane Silber.

"Since Jane joined the company, she and I have shared the load of coordinating between the leaders of all the key teams that make up Canonical," he wrote, adding "I couldn't think of a better person to take over my formal management and leadership responsibilities at Canonical than Jane."

The firm will hire a replacement COO and will also be looking for a new lead for the Ubuntu One project.

Read on to see how Ubuntu 9.10 compares to Windows 7.

Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop dubbed Karmic Koala will arrive this Thursday, alongside the next server release.

The desktop edition of the Linux distribution promises a faster boot time, better 3G connectivity, and new audio system. It will also include Ubuntu One, which is a lineup of online services including backup, file sharing and synchronisation. It also comes with Firefox 3.5 built in.

Ubuntu 9.10 brings in 50 fixes from the "100 Paper Cuts" programme, which gathered "minor annoyances" from users to improve the user experience of the system, such as application organisation.

Canonical, the company which runs the project, also promises new development tools called Quickly and improvements to the netbook remix.

"Ubuntu 9.10 gives users more reasons than ever to seriously consider Linux at a time when many are thinking again about their operating system options," said Jane Silber, chief operating officer at Canonical, in a statement.

Taking on Windows 7

Indeed, the desktop launch follows Apple's latest operating system Snow Leopard, and comes just a week after Microsoft released Windows 7.

In a conference call, Canonical head Mark Shuttleworth called Windows 7 an "excellent release."

"I am delighted that Windows 7 is out. Now that Windows 7 is out, we can compete head to head," he added.

"The Linux desktop experience keeps getting better and better, and the Windows experience keeps getting more and more expensive for a set of features. I think we can compete," Shuttleworth said.

Server gets cloudy

The 9.10 Server Edition upgrades include tweaks to the kernel, the addition of MySQL 5.1 and new director and sign on tools, as well better support for virtualisation.

It will include a fully supported version of Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, an open source cloud environment based on Amazon EC2's APIs.

The Ubuntu release will also be available on Amazon EC2's environment as a machine image. The compatibility between the two should make it easier for businesses to run a cloud of their own.

Canonical said that its new appliance store for the UEC will be previewed in the server edition, so users can see how they'll be able to get appliances easily in the future.

"We strongly believe that businesses which are already embracing virtualised environments will take the next logical step to these self-service, super-efficient architectures and that Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud will be at the heart of that effort," Matt Zimmerman, chief technology officer of Canonical, said in a statement.

Both the desktop and server edition will be available as a free download on 29 October. Canonical said earlier this week that it planned to cap how many free Ubuntu CDs it would be sending out.

Ubuntu has revealed plans to launch its own cloud appliance store as part of its server launch at the end of this month.

The Karmic Koala server release, due on 29 October, will be focused on Ubuntu's Enterprise Cloud (UEC), increasing cloud capabilities for its users.

The company also plans to introduce a cloud appliance store, enabling customers to purchase and download applications for their server instantly and from one location.

Gery Carr from Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, told IT PRO: This is fresh off the production line and will start with running one appliance... to show you how it works and let you enjoy it."

"Our long term goal is to add other open source and proprietary appliances on there throughout 2010."

It has not been confirmed what the first appliance will be on the simply named UED store, but it will definitely be open source-based.

Any applications a user downloads will also have to adhere to security and maintenance rules set by Ubuntu.

Canonical has put the final release of Ubuntu 9.04 up for download, just a week after unveiling the release candidate.

Alongside the principal desktop and server releases, Canonical has also released a version for netbooks dubbed Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix. This version of the distro can be downloaded to a USB flash drive, giving users a chance to try it out before they commit.

Among the significant modifications for the desktop version is a customised Ubuntu Mobile Edition (UME) Launcher, which replaces the familiar desktop with a simplified icon-based interface, similar to that seen on the Eee PC.

According to Canonical, Remix will boot in under 25 seconds on most netbooks, and has been tested on the Inspiron Mini 9, Acer Aspire One and Asus Eee PC 1000.

Elsewhere, the desktop version continues the open-source operating system's evolutionary rather than revolutionary development path.

Most of the significant changes can be found under-the-hood including the optional Ext4 file system and the inclusion of the 2.6.28 of the Linux kernel.

The Gnome 2.26 desktop environment brings improvements to Evolution, the default mail client, which can now import Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders and has support for Microsoft Exchange's MAPI protocol. While on the server side customers will be able to deploy Amazon Machine Images allowing them to embark on their own cloud computing adventure.

The Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition includes a preview of Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC), which the developers said is the first distro to let businesses built their own internal cloud.

The community's attention has now turned to Karmic Koala, which will overhaul the look of the open-source operating system.

In a world that's seemingly filled with doom and gloom, and stories of failing revenues, pink slips and ever-tightening budgets, the computing industry has found itself something of a salvation. Kick-started by Asus with its Eee PC line, the netbook as we've now come to call it has been a revelation.

These low-powered, compact machines are selling for just a few hundred pounds at most, and yet are providing the kind of e-mailing and office functionality that a core audience has clearly demanded. What's more, these netbooks are doing it without the frills, and most crucially of all, the price tag. Sales of 50 million units are predicted in 2012, and there's a whole lot of growth in the next year or two to get there.

Price

One by-product of the need to get netbooks onto the market with a small price has seen major laptop manufacturers embrace Linux as the operating system they pre-load the machines with.

And it's easy to see why. One of the biggest and most obstinate slices of the cost of a computer remains the price of the Windows operating system. Offer any manufacturer a legitimate way around that and they're likely to be interested. This, surely, was Linux's big chance.

The problem, of course, is that Linux has had many false dawns outside of the server sector for it's there where it continues to prove invaluable and its desktop penetration is less than one per cent of the entire market. That's in spite of the fact that it's free of charge on the whole, and that there are hundreds of variants for people to choose from. Throw in the fact that Linux is far more secure than Windows, and it should be an easy and compelling sales message to get across.

Only it's not quite that simple. For Linux has been hamstrung by a general perception that you need to be quite technically minded to get the most out of it. Many users may scream blue murder at Windows, but it keeps them within the safe confines of a graphical user interface, and there's generally a friend of a friend on the end of the phone to fix it if things go to pot.

Linux, even in its most accessible form, requires a little unlearning of Windows, and even something like Ubuntu generally regarded as the most welcoming Linux distribution occasionally has the need to send you hunting for a command line. That command line alone is likely to have sent people scuttling back to the Microsoft tent. Remove the comfort blanket of familiarity, no matter how flawed it is, and customers start wanting their Windows back, it seems.

That difficulty, combined with the dominance of Windows, means Linux faces a major uphill struggle, free or not. Ironically, the sheer number of choices may also be an Achilles' heel to mainstream take-up, given that people generally don't mind choosing between box A and box B, but give them a warehouse full of them to look at, and they start to panic.

Support

The netbook, therefore, should have marked a turning point, because the crucial difference here was that there was manufacturer support. Granted, we've seen that before from time to time, but here was a machine that was being promoted with Linux installed, and had the comfort of a telephone support line should problems arise, rather than the usual need to hit Google.

Microsoft was late to react, too. When the first Eee PC rolled off the production line, Microsoft was still talking about phasing out Windows XP. The sudden impact of the netbook forced it to delay that still further.

Despite that, consumers were getting a choice for the first time. Walk into a store and instead of being met with wall-to-wall Windows or Mac OS-equipped computers, there were Linux alternatives available off the shelf. The problem? Consumers began rejecting the choice, and Windows quickly regained its lost ground.

The source of those numbers is the US retail analyst NPD, so there are a couple of caveats. First, this is American sales data, and second, it doesn't take into account online sales. As Linux distributor Canonical told our sister publication PC Pro: "Dell has said 30 per cent per cent of its machines are shipping with Ubuntu."

But Microsoft went further, in a post on the official Windows blog from Brandon LeBlanc. "Initially, some in the industry viewed low-cost netbook PCs as a new challenge for Microsoft and an opportunity for Linux to make inroads in the consumer market", it noted, before going on to say: "Not only are people overwhelmingly buying Windows, but those that try Linux are often returning it".

The blog then cited Carphone Warehouse in the UK as one example, after it dropped Linux netbooks due to a one in five return rate. Customers, it seemed, really didn't like being taken out of their comfort zone, and without a team of staff available to explain the ease of Linux, people hit the proverbial button.

Now the problem here is that there's clearly some interpretation that's been put on the numbers, and some select examples chosen. But Linux is also losing a real opportunity. Even if you don't buy the 96 per cent number, Windows has more than made up its lost ground, and Linux-enabled netbooks have already become the minority.

But why? Well, manufacturers, when it comes to the crunch, have to want to change the status quo. Linux can't be installed with little thought given to its implementation, and it does need to be backed up with good documentation and solid support.

Without that level of commitment, any attempt to sell it with a machine risks problems.

For cash-strapped manufacturers, the idea of retraining engineers to provide desktop Linux support may, it appears, have been one step too far, and thus when it came to the crunch, they sought solace in Windows. And that's where the gauntlet is firmly thrown down to Linux.

The challenge

There seems to be some agreement that within the Linux community, there's a strong alternative operating system to Windows that would easily service the 90 per cent of the market that use a Microsoft OS.

But without a concentrated effort, and perhaps the backing of one or two candidates to go fully head-to-head with Microsoft which goes against the principle really of the open source movement it's hard to see how it'll break through.

Put simply, for Linux to get the recognition and take-up on the desktop it deserves, some solid thought needs to be given to redressing people's perceptions of it. It's an oft-quoted saying that an operating system should just be there, and not sold as a feature in itself, but the problem is that that's not how the market works.

Microsoft and Apple, by the nature of their commercial status, make lots of noise about their respective operating systems. And, no matter how good it is, that just doesn't happen with Linux on the desktop.

The netbook has offered Linux arguably the best chance it'll ever have even better than the Vista troubles that Microsoft endured to break into the mainstream desktop OS market, and right now, it seems it wasn't ready to grasp the opportunity.

Chances are, by the nature of the Linux movement, it never will be.

Open source hardware manufacturer System76 has reported bumper financial results, leading many to question whether the non-proprietary route is the best way out of current economic gloom.

The company, which uses the Linux-based Ubuntu in all of its products, reported a 61 per cent increase in revenue for the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year.

As a privately held company System76 does not have to disclose its net income or profit margins so it is hard to determine the specific amount that the company has made.

Last month, a report by Novell suggested the recession is driving an increase in the use of Linux in businesses. So is this trend set to continue?

Perhaps so, according to Rene Millman, a senior analyst at Gartner. "More and more companies are definitely looking at using Linux within the enterprise," he said. "The reason being not just about it being free' but also the maintenance and support costs of Linux-based vendors are slightly lower too."

"Couple this with contracts that are less onerous on the customer and you have compelling reasons as to why organisations are considering the move over to open source."

Later this month, the new Ubuntu 9.04 OS will be released and System76 will be offering the OS on its desktops, laptops and servers.

Canonical has released the first beta of Jaunty Jackalope, the latest version of the popular Ubuntu operating system.

Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical's chief executive, has already claimed he wants Jaunty Jackalope to be the fastest version of Ubuntu yet, and is aiming to knock boot times down to around 25 seconds on a netbook.

Although the big visual revamp is being held back until Ubuntu 9.10, dubbed Karmic Koala, Jaunty will not go untended on the looks front.

The operating system includes the Gnome 2.26 desktop environment, bringing the Brasero CD/DVD burning tool, as well as improved notification handling - with a user being able to choose where system, email and instant messages appear.

Gnome 2.26 also brings improvements to Evolution, the default mail client, which can now import Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders and has support for Microsoft Exchange's MAPI protocol.

There's also broader file format support, an option to install the Ext4 filesystem and version 2.6.28 of the Linux kernel, which should provide the usual array of bug fixes and stability improvements.

The final release of Jaunty Jackalope will be available by mid-April. Download the Jaunty Jackalope beta here.

Mark Shuttleworth has laid out the details of Ubuntu 9.10, now officially dubbed Karmic Koala.

The name follows Canonical's conventions of naming each release after an animal and the statement suggests innovations on the desktop will be based around boot times.

The forthcoming Jaunty Jackalope release aims to get boot times down to 25 seconds on a netbook, and Shuttleworth wants to go even faster on Koala.

Alongside this, the new release will also see the introduction of the "newer and shinier" Plymouth graphical boot tool, currently doing the rounds in Fedora 10.

Shuttleworth also promised a new look: "The desktop will have a designer's fingerprints all over it - we're now beginning the serious push to a new look. Brown has served us well but the Koala is considering other options," he writes in his announcement notice.

On the server side, most of the big advancements revolve around cloud computing.

"Ubuntu aims to keep free software at the forefront of cloud computing by embracing the APIs of Amazon EC2 and making it easy for anybody to setup their own cloud using entirely open tools. We're currently in beta with official Ubuntu base AMIs [Amazon Machine Images] for use on Amazon EC2. During the Karmic cycle we want to make it easy to deploy applications into the cloud, with ready-to-run appliances or by quickly assembling a custom image," he writes.

Shuttleworth also confirmed that Karmic Koala will integrate a set of open-source cloud management tools being developed at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Rather brilliantly, the tools are called Eucalyptus.

"It's no coincidence that Eucalyptus has just been uploaded to universe and will be part of Jaunty - during the Karmic cycle we expect to make those clouds dance, with dynamically growing and shrinking resource allocations depending on your needs," Shuttleworth explains.

"A savvy Koala knows that the best way to conserve energy is to go to sleep, and these days even servers can suspend and resume, so imagine if we could make it possible to build a cloud computing facility that drops its energy use virtually to zero by napping in the midday heat, and waking up when there's work to be done."

Shuttleworth promises further details at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in May.

IBM is looking to convince companies to run "Microsoft-free" virtual desktops.

Big Blue is partnering with Ubuntu distributor, Canonical, and virtual desktop firm Virtual Bridges to deliver an all-in-one package for companies.

The trio hope to persuade recession-stricken companies of the cost benefits of moving to the "Microsoft-free" virtual environment.

The offering sees employees run an Ubuntu Linux virtual desktop that comes pre-installed with IBM's Symphony office suite, and Lotus Notes and Sametime for email, calendaring and business communications.

The virtual desktops are supported by a Linux-based server, with costs starting from $49 (33) per seat in a 1,000-seat deployment.

Users could access their virtual desktop on dedicated thin clients, or any conventional PC or laptop with a network connection.

Virtual Bridges, which is providing its VERDE virtual desktop software, claimed companies will make huge savings on desktop management and provisioning. "By consolidating these desktop sessions on to centrally-managed servers, users no longer have to self-maintain their desktops or put unnecessary burdens on the help desk," it claimed in a statement.

"This is literally putting your desktops in the data center and allowing access to them securely over the network."

However, it's by no means the first time that Microsoft has faced the threat of virtual desktops. Competitors including Sun and IBM itself have been pushing the thin-client philosophy for more than a decade, without ever seriously denting Microsoft's core operating-system business.