INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS UBUNTU?
Ubuntu (pronounced /uːˈbuːntuː/), is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution. It is named after the South African ethical ideology Ubuntu ("humanity towards others") [5] and is distributed as free and open source software. Ubuntu
provides an up-to-date, stable operating system for the average user, with a strong focus on usability and ease of installation. Ubuntu has been selected by readers of desktoplinux.com as the most popular Linux distribution for the desktop, claiming approximately 30% of
Linux desktop installations in both 2006 and 2007. Ubuntu is composed of multiple software packages of which the vast majority is distributed under a free software license (also known as open source). The main license used is the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) which, along with the GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL), explicitly declare that users are free to run, copy, distribute, study, change, develop and improve the software. Ubuntu is sponsored by the UK based company Canonical Ltd., owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. By keeping Ubuntu free and open source, Canonical is able to utilize the talents of community developers in Ubuntu's constituent components. Instead of selling Ubuntu for profit, Canonical creates revenue by selling technical support and from creating several services tied to Ubuntu.
Canonical endorses and provides support for three additional Ubuntu-derived operating systems: Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Ubuntu Server Edition. There are several other derivative operating systems including local language and hardware-specific versions.
Canonical releases new versions of Ubuntu every six months and supports Ubuntu for eighteen months by providing security fixes, patches to critical bugs and minor updates to programs. LTS (Long Term Support) versions, which are released every two years, are supported for three years on the desktop and five years for servers
"Karmic Koala" is the code name for Ubuntu 9.10, scheduled for
release in October. The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the latest and greatest software the Open Source Community has to offer. 9.10 promises to have quite a number of new features that should please even the most discerning of Linux users. A major focus of all these new features , as usual shall be increasing the overall speed and efficiency of the
operating system even on a system with just the bare minimum amount of resources.
New features since Ubuntu 9.04
Upstart:
Upstart replaces the /sbin/init daemon which handles the starting of services during the boot process.
Boot Process:
A brand new boot process has been worked in to make the boot of Ubuntu even faster than it was in 9.04. It is. The boot process for Linux is getting scary fast. The figure on the right
shows the new Ubuntu boot screen. The goal of the 10 second start up is growing ever within reach.
Software Center:
This is very new and replaces the old Add/Remove Software utility. The ultimate purpose of the Software Center is to replace Synaptic and Gdebi and will, eventually, also offer commercial software. You can see how different the Software Center is to
the old tool in the figure shown on the left. It is my belief the Software Center is Ubuntu’s attempt to catch on in the Enterprise space. And why shouldn’t
they? After taking a peek around the Software Center, I
have to say I am really impressed.
GNOME:
GNOME reaches the 2.28 release in the Ubuntu release cycle. The only major change is that GDM has been completely rewritten.
Application development with Quickly:
Quickly makes it easy for developers to make new applications for Ubuntu, and to share those application with other Ubuntu users via .deb packages or personal package archives.
Kubuntu:
Kubuntu 9.10 includes the first Kubuntu Netbook release,
Enterprise Cloud Images:
With the release of 9.10 you will images for use with Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud that is deployed with Amazon EC2.
Ubuntu One File Sharing:
This is Ubuntu’s version of Dropbox. With Ubuntu One you can keep all of files on your Ubuntu machines in sync
with one another. You will have to sign up for an account in order to take advantage of this. You also have to subscribe to Ubuntu One. There are two types of accounts:
• Free: 2 Gigs of storage.
• Paid: 50 Gigs of storage for $10.00 USD per month.
Once you have subscribed you can then install the client software.
Linux kernel 2.6.31:
Ubuntu 9.10 includes the 2.6.31-11.36 kernel based on 2.6.31.1. The kernel ships with Kernel Mode Setting enabled for Intel graphics (see below). linux-restricted-modules is deprecated in favour of DKMS packages.
hal deprecation:
Ubuntu 9.10 underlying technology for power management, laptop hotkeys, and handling of storage devices and cameras maps has moved from "hal" (which is in the process of being deprecated) to "DeviceKit-power", "DeviceKit-disks" and "udev".
New Intel video driver architecture :
The Intel video driver has switched from the "EXA" acceleration method to the new "UXA", solving major performance problems of Ubuntu 9.04. Ubuntu 9.10 also features kernel mode setting by default on Intel hardware, which reduces boot-time flickering and dramatically speeds up suspend/resume.
EXT4 by default:
The new "EXT4" file system is used by default for new installations with Ubuntu 9.10 ; of course, other file systems are still available via the manual partitioner. Existing file systems will not be upgraded.
GRUB 2 by default:
GRUB 2 is the default boot loader for new installations with Ubuntu 9.10 , replacing the previous GRUB "Legacy"boot loader. Existing systems will not be upgraded to GRUB 2 at this time, as automatically reinstalling the bootloader is an inherently risky operation.
iSCSI installation:
The iSCSI installation process has been improved, and no longer requires iscsi=true as a boot parameter; the installer will offer you the option of logging into iSCSI targets if there are no local disks, or you can select "Configure iSCSI" in the manual partitioner.
Putting the root filesystem on iSCSI is now supported.
AppArmor:
AppArmor in Ubuntu 9.10 features an improved parser that uses cache files, greatly speeding up AppArmor initialization on boot. AppArmor also now supports 'pux' which, when specified, means a process can transition to an existing profile if one exists or simply run unconfined if one does not.
New profiles:
In addition to the above changes to AppArmor itself, several profiles were added. Enforcing profiles for ntpd, the GNOME document viewer (evince), and libvirt are enabled by default. Complain mode profiles for Dovecot are now available in the apparmor-profiles package. A new profile is provided for Firefox as well, though it is disabled by default. Users can enable AppArmor sandboxing of their browser by running:
$ sudo aa-enforce /etc/apparmor.d/usr.bin.firefox-3.5
Libvirt:
Libvirt now contains AppArmor integration when using KVM or QEMU. Libvirtd is configured to launch virtual machines that are confined by uniquely restrictive AppArmor profiles. This feature significantly improves virtualisation in Ubuntu by providing user-space host protection as well as guest isolation.
Uncomplicated Firewall:
The Uncomplicated Firewall now has support for filtering by interface and egress filtering when using the ufw command. Documentation for ufw is also improved to help users better utilise the ufw framework and take full advantage of Linux netfilter's power and flexibility.
Non-eXecutable Emulation:
Non-eXecutable (NX) memory protection, also known as eXecute-Disable (XD), has always been available in Ubuntu for any systems that had the hardware to support it and ran the 64-bit kernel or the 32-bit server kernel. The 32-bit PAE desktop kernel (linux-image-generic-pae) now also provides the PAE mode needed for hardware with the NX CPU feature.
For systems that lack NX hardware, the 32-bit kernels now provide an approximation of the NX CPU feature via software emulation that can help block many exploits an attacker might run from stack or heap memory.
Blocking Module Loading:
To block the loading of any further modules after boot (generally for servers with unchanging hardware), the /proc/sys/kernel/modules_disabled one-way sysctl flag now exists to add another layer of protections against attackers loading kernel rootkits.
Position-Independent Executables:
Building on the work done in Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04 to proactively protect Ubuntu from unknown threats by using strict compiler flags, more applications have been built as Position-Independent Executables (PIE) to take advantage of the Address Space Layout Randomisation (ASLR) available in the Ubuntu kernel.
In addition to the growing program list, PIE programs are now also built with the BIND_NOW linker flag to take full advantage of the existing RELRO linker flag. This results in PIE programs having fewer places in their memory that can be controlled to redirect program flow when an attacker attempts memory-corruption exploits.
Apart from the free ISO download at http://www.ubuntu.com a copy of the Ubuntu can also be ordered free of charge( not even shipping charges ) at http:shipit.ubuntu.com/ .
Its free, fast and smooth, give it a shot and trust me you shall not regret it.
---Sharique
Read more...
