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77.

A brief history of Ubuntu

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Ubuntu!history of

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Shuttleworth, Mark

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Ubuntu was conceived in 2004 by Mark Shuttleworth, a successful South African entrepreneur, and his company \Index[Canonical]{\gls{Canonical}}. \marginnote{To learn more about Canonical, go to \url{http://www.canonical.com}.} Shuttleworth recognized the power of Linux and open source, but was also aware of weaknesses that prevented mainstream use.

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Shuttleworth set out with clear intentions to address these weaknesses and create a system that was easy to use, completely free (see \chaplink{ch:learning-more} for the complete definition of ``free''), and could compete with other mainstream operating systems. With the \Index{Debian} system as a base, \marginnote{Debian is the Linux operating system that Ubuntu is based upon. For more information visit \url{http://www.debian.org/}.} Shuttleworth began to build Ubuntu. Using his own funds at first, installation \acronym{CD}s were pressed and shipped worldwide at no cost to the recipients. Ubuntu spread quickly, its community grew rapidly, and soon Ubuntu became the most popular Linux \gls{distribution} available.

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With more people working on the project than ever before, its core features and hardware support continue to improve, and Ubuntu has gained the attention of large organizations worldwide.

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\marginnote{For information on Ubuntu Server Edition, and how you can use it in your company, visit \url{http://www.ubuntu.com/business/server/overview}.} While large organizations often find it useful to pay for support services, Shuttleworth has promised that the Ubuntu desktop operating system will always be free. Ubuntu is installed on an estimated 2\% of the world's computers. This equates to tens of millions of users worldwide, and is growing each year. As there is no compulsory registration, the percentage of Ubuntu users should be treated as an estimate.

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What is Linux?

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Linux

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Ubuntu is built on the foundation of Linux, which is a member of the \Index{Unix} family. \Index{Unix} is one of the oldest types of operating systems, and together with Linux has provided reliability and security for professional applications for almost half a century. Many servers around the world that store data for popular websites (such as YouTube and Google) run some variant of Linux or \Index{Unix}. The popular Android system for smartphones is a Linux variant; modern in-car computers usually run on Linux. Even the Mac \acronym{OS~X} is based on Unix. The Linux \Index{kernel} is best described as the core\dash almost the brain\dash of the Ubuntu operating system.