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3/8/2006 -- It's a funny thing: If you ask any number of IT professionals to describe the Linux operating system, they almost always spout out rather quickly that it is non-proprietary and open source. While that is technically true, most distributions have licensing agreements that closely parallel those of their proprietary counterparts -- you can only do this and this, are expressly prohibited from doing this, and so on.
Enter Ubuntu. Named after an African word for “humanity to others,” it is a completely free distribution (based on Debian) fully developed by the Linux community. While this may be said for other Linux distributions, the real difference is in the ability (or right) that Ubuntu grants you to alter the software in any way that you want. To quote the developers, “Not only are the tools you need available free of charge, you have the right to modify your software until it works the way you want it to.”
Among the other public commitments the Ubuntu team makes, the team promises that the operating system will always be free, and there will be a new release every six months (each release is supported for 18 months).
Curious about how the distribution compares to others I have been using of late (SUSE, Red Hat, etc.), I started poking around with it, and was very impressed by what I found.
Downloading and Installing Ubuntu
The distribution can be downloaded from links found on the Ubuntu site at http://www.ubuntulinux.org. If, for some crazy reason, you cannot download the distribution, you can request a copy of it mailed to you for free (see http://shipit.ubuntu.com). The core OS still fits on a single CD (just over 617 MB), and the requirements for a standard server installation of the most recent version (5.10) are minimal:
- Intel x86, AMD64), or PowerPC
- 64MB RAM
- 500 MB free hard drive space
For a desktop, these numbers are slightly higher, and I would recommend they be considered minimums for a server installation as well in order to provide an environment you can be comfortable working within:
- Intel x86, AMD64), or PowerPC
- 128MB RAM
- 2 GB free hard drive space
Installation is as simple as can be and done in text mode. At the initial prompt, you can type “server” to install only the base system, or just press Enter to begin the regular installation. After answering a few questions about the language and keyboard, the system detects the hardware and networking equipment/peripherals then disk partitioning takes place. Following that, the base system is installed, and then the packages. You must add one regular user, pick a time zone, set up users and passwords, and install GRUB to finish the first stage of installation.
After a reboot, you pick the video mode to use and the rest of the packages install. All the programs included with Ubuntu are free software (no licensing), and the welcome screen informs you that, “Ubuntu comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by applicable law.” In other words, you assume all responsibility for it -- while that may also be the case with other distributions, it isn't often spelled out so directly.
Using Ubuntu
Overall, I was impressed the distribution for its simplicity and bare-bones approach. Included with the distribution are the 2.6.12 kernel, GNOME desktop (2.12.1), OpenOffice.org (2.0) and a minimal number of miscellaneous applications. There is support for up to 4GB of RAM, Bluetooth, and Python. Filesystem choices include ext3, JFS, ReiserFS and XFS.
I've come to the point where I am favoring KDE over GNOME, and it would have been nice to have that desktop option included, although I can fully understand why it is not. It would have also been nice to have Adobe Acrobat Reader and a few other almost-necessary programs as well (they are included with most other distributions -- you simply independently agree to the license agreements), but I am being picky: They can all be downloaded from their respective sites after the fact.
I did run into one problem that drove me up the wall, however. In the interest of security/safety/whatever, the root account essentially does not work in Ubuntu. Although there is an entry for it in the /etc/passwd file, you do not create a password for it during the installation, and thus it is essentially unable to be used. I spent countless hours trying to figure out a way to change the password associated with this account without having the proper permissions to do so before deciding to go with sudo. Although the user I created during installation does not have the permission to run a command such as init 6, it is possible to type sudo init 6 and then enter the password associated with that user and the command executes.
While I can appreciate the desire to make the system more secure, and to get around the fact that everyone with malicious intent targets the root account, I am not convinced that this is the best approach to that problem. Once I figured out what was going on, I entered the command sudo vi passwd and removed the “x” in the second field of the root entry, then saved the file (leaving the root user without any password at all). I next became root (using the su command and, of course, there was now no prompt for a password), changed the passwd (passwd root) to the entry I wanted and typed pwconv to write it to the /etc/shadow file. Shazam, I was back to working in an environment (right or wrong) that I was more comfortable with.
Note: Before you point out that some of these steps could have been combined -- “Was vi really needed?” -- let me point out that this is the path I took because it allowed me to make sure what I wanted to happen was happening at every phase of the process.)
A Few Notes…
A few assorted and sundry notes about Ubuntu:
- The current version, 5.10, is also known as the “Breezy Badger” build – this name appears in the welcome screen and various other places.
- The next announced version, 6.04, nicknamed “Dapper Drake” is currently planned for an April release.
- In addition to English, Ubuntu is available in a number of derivatives and languages ranging from Finnish to Taiwanese.
- Free technical support is available online, but you can also purchase support in the marketplace (see http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/supportoptions).
- At the Ubuntu shop (http://www.cafepress.com/ubuntushop/), you can buy everything ranging from shirts and boxer shorts to postcards and mugs to show your support for the OS.
- There is an unofficial Ubuntu Starter Guide that can be found at http://ubuntuguide.org. As I write this, it has not been updated for the latest build, but most of the items it addresses are the same in 5.04 and 5.10, so it is a valuable resource to look at.
Final Thoughts…
Ubuntu offers an interesting approach to Linux. An attempt to make everything truly free, and including only software that requires no licensing, Ubuntu is definitely a step in the right direction. The ability to not only have the operating system, but make the modifications to it that you want in order to fulfill your needs, is something that should appeal to developers and businesses of all types. It is my belief that this distribution will become a strong marketplace contender in coming years, and one that is worth becoming familiar with now. 
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