Ubuntu releases are made semiannually by

Canonical Ltd Canonical Ltd. is a UK-based privately held computer software company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects. Canonical employs staff ...

, the developers of the

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

, using the year and month of the release as a

version number Software versioning is the process of assigning either unique ''version names'' or unique ''version numbers'' to unique states of computer software. Within a given version number category (e.g., major or minor), these numbers are generally assig ...

. The first Ubuntu release, for example, was Ubuntu 4.10 and was released on 20 October 2004. Consequently, version numbers for future versions are provisional; if the release is delayed until a different month (or even year) to that planned, the version number will change accordingly. Canonical schedules Ubuntu releases to occur approximately one month after GNOME releases, resulting in each Ubuntu release including a newer version of GNOME. Every fourth release, occurring in the second quarter of even-numbered years, has been designated as a

long-term support Long-term support (LTS) is a product lifecycle management policy in which a stable release of computer software is maintained for a longer period of time than the standard edition. The term is typically reserved for open-source software, where i ...

(LTS) release. The desktop version of LTS releases for 10.04 and earlier were supported for three years, with server version support for five years. LTS releases 12.04 and newer are freely supported for five years. Through the ESM paid option, support can be extended even longer, up to a total of ten years for 18.04. The support period for non-LTS releases is 9 months. Prior to 13.04, it had been 18 months.

Naming convention

Ubuntu releases are also given code names, using an adjective and an animal with the same first letter – an

alliteration Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...

, ''e.g.'', "Dapper Drake". With the exception of the first two releases, code names are in alphabetical order, and except for the first three releases, the first letters are sequential, allowing a quick determination of which release is newer. As of Ubuntu 17.10, however, the initial letter "rolled over" and returned to "A". Names are occasionally chosen so that animal appearance or habits reflects some new feature, ''e.g.'', "Koala's favourite leaf is Eucalyptus"; see below. Ubuntu releases are often referred to using only the adjective portion of the code name, ''e.g.'', "Feisty".

Release history

Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog)

Ubuntu 4.10 (''Warty Warthog''), released on 20 October 2004, was Canonical's first release of Ubuntu, building upon Debian, with plans for a new release every six months and eighteen months of support thereafter. Ubuntu 4.10's support ended on 30 April 2006. Ubuntu 4.10 was offered as a free download and, through Canonical's ShipIt service, was also mailed to users free of charge in CD format.

Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog)

Ubuntu 5.04 (''Hoary Hedgehog''), released on 8 April 2005, was Canonical's second release of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 5.04's support ended on 31 October 2006. Ubuntu 5.04 added many new features including an Update Manager, upgrade notifier, readahead and grepmap, suspend, hibernate and standby support,

dynamic frequency scaling Dynamic frequency scaling (also known as CPU throttling) is a power management technique in computer architecture whereby the frequency of a microprocessor can be automatically adjusted "on the fly" depending on the actual needs, to conserve ...

for processors, Ubuntu hardware database, Kickstart installation, and

APT Apt. is an abbreviation for apartment. Apt may also refer to: Places * Apt Cathedral, a former cathedral, and national monument of France, in the town of Apt in Provence * Apt, Vaucluse, a commune of the Vaucluse département of France * A ...

authentication. Ubuntu 5.04 was the first version that allowed installation from USB devices. Beginning with Ubuntu 5.04,

UTF-8 UTF-8 is a variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit''. UTF-8 is capable of ...

became the default

character encoding Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to Graphics, graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of Language, human language, allowing them to be Data storage, stored, Data communication, transmi ...

Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger)

Ubuntu 5.10 (''Breezy Badger''), released on 12 October 2005, was Canonical's third release of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 5.10's support ended on 13 April 2007. Ubuntu 5.10 added several new features including a graphical bootloader (

Usplash Usplash is a software project in the Ubuntu community. Historically, scrolling text "verbose mode" has typically appeared on Linux computers during boot. Usplash replaces the scrolling-text screens with a graphical splash screen. It was designe ...

), an Add/Remove Applications tool, a menu editor ( Alacarte), an easy language selector, logical volume management support, full Hewlett-Packard printer support,

OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

installer support, a new Ubuntu logo in the top-left, and Launchpad integration for bug reporting and software development.

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake)

Ubuntu 6.06 (''Dapper Drake''), released on 1 June 2006, was Canonical's fourth release, and the first

(LTS) release. Ubuntu 6.06 was released behind schedule, having been intended as 6.04. It is sometimes jokingly described as their first "Late To Ship" (LTS) release. Development was not complete in April 2006 and

Mark Shuttleworth Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African and British entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Canonical, the company behind the development of the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system. In 2002, Shuttleworth became ...

approved slipping the release date to June, making it 6.06 instead. Ubuntu 6.06's support ended on 14 July 2009 for desktops and ended in June 2011 for servers. Ubuntu 6.06 included several new features, including having the

Live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading f ...

and Install CD merged onto one disc, a graphical installer on Live CD ( Ubiquity),

on shutdown as well as startup, a network manager for easy switching of multiple wired and wireless connections, Humanlooks theme implemented using

Tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...

guidelines, based on

Clearlooks Clearlooks is a theme for GTK, the main widget toolkit used by the GNOME desktop environment. It is based on Red Hat's Bluecurve theme. It was the default theme for GNOME since version 2.12 until GNOME 3 when it was replaced by Adwaita. Many us ...

and featuring orange colors instead of brown, and GDebi graphical installer for package files. Ubuntu 6.06 did not include a means to install from a USB device, but did for the first time allow installation directly onto removable USB devices.

Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft)

Ubuntu 6.10 (''Edgy Eft''), released on 26 October 2006, was Canonical's fifth release of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 6.10's support ended on 25 April 2008. Ubuntu 6.10 added several new features including a heavily modified Human theme, Upstart init daemon, automated crash reports (Apport),

Tomboy A tomboy is a term for a girl or a young woman with masculine qualities. It can include wearing androgynous or unfeminine clothing and actively engage in physical sports or other activities and behaviors usually associated with boys or men. W ...

note taking application, and F-Spot photo manager. EasyUbuntu, a third party program designed to make Ubuntu easier to use, was included in Ubuntu 6.10 as a meta-package.

Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn)

Ubuntu 7.04 (''Feisty Fawn''), released on 19 April 2007, was Canonical's sixth release of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 7.04's support ended on 19 October 2008. Ubuntu 7.04 included several new features, among them a migration assistant to help former Microsoft Windows users transition to Ubuntu, support for

Kernel-based Virtual Machine Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization module in the Linux kernel that allows the kernel to function as a hypervisor. It was merged into the mainline Linux kernel in version 2.6.20, which was released on February 5, 2007. KV ...

, assisted codec and restricted drivers installation including

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

, MP3 support, easier installation of

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

and ATI drivers,

Compiz Compiz () is a compositing window manager for the X Window System, using 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. Effects, such as a minimization animation or a cube workspace, are implemented as l ...

desktop effects, support for

Wi-Fi Protected Access Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2), and Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3) are the three security and security certification programs developed after 2000 by the Wi-Fi Alliance to secure wireless computer networks. The All ...

, the addition of

Sudoku Sudoku (; ja, 数独, sūdoku, digit-single; originally called Number Place) is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. In classic Sudoku, the objective is to fill a 9 × 9 grid with digits so that each column, each row ...

and

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

, a disk usage analyzer ( baobab), GNOME Control Center, and zeroconf support for many devices.

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)

Ubuntu 7.10 (''Gutsy Gibbon''), released on 18 October 2007, was Canonical's seventh release of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 7.10's support ended on 18 April 2009. Ubuntu 7.10 included several new features, among them AppArmor security framework, fast

desktop search Desktop search tools search within a user's own computer files as opposed to searching the Internet. These tools are designed to find information on the user's PC, including web browser history, e-mail archives, text documents, sound files, images ...

, a Firefox plug-in manager (Ubufox), a graphical configuration tool for X.Org, full

NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred fil ...

support (read/write) via

NTFS-3G NTFS-3G is an open-source cross-platform implementation of the Microsoft Windows NTFS file system with read/write support. NTFS-3G often uses the FUSE file system interface, so it can run unmodified on many different operating systems. It is r ...

, and a revamped printing system with PDF printing by default. Compiz Fusion was enabled as default in Ubuntu 7.10 and

Fast user switching Fast user switching is a feature of a multi-user operating system which allows users to switch between user accounts without quitting applications and logging out. In Linux The Linux kernel's VT subsystem dates back to 1993 and does not under ...

was added.

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)

Ubuntu 8.04 (''Hardy Heron''), released on 24 April 2008, was Canonical's eighth release of Ubuntu and the second long-term support release. Ubuntu 8.04's support ended on 12 May 2011 for desktops and ended on 9 May 2013 for servers as well. Ubuntu 8.04 included several new features, among them Tracker desktop search integration,

Brasero Brasero may refer to: * Brasero (heater), a heater or an oven * Brasero (software), CD/DVD-burning software for Linux See also * Bracero program {{disambig

Version timeline

Version end-of-life

After each version of Ubuntu has reached its End-of-life (product), end-of-life time, its repositories are removed from the main Ubuntu servers and consequently the mirrors. Older versions of Ubuntu repositories and releases can be found on the old Ubuntu releases website.

References

External links

releases.ubuntu.com
nbsp;– Ubuntu Releases site {{DEFAULTSORT:Ubuntu Releases, List Of Lists of operating systems Software version histories Ubuntu, Releases