Browsing English (Australia) translation

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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{Canonical is the company that provides financial and technical support for Ubuntu. It has employees based around the world who work on developing and improving the operating system, as well as reviewing work submitted by volunteer contributors. 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 rapidly grew, 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 to its core features and hardware support, and Ubuntu has gained the attention of large organizations worldwide. One of IBM's open source operating systems is based on Ubuntu. In 2005, the French Police began to transition their entire computer infrastructure to a variant of Ubuntu\dash a process which has reportedly saved them ``millions of euros'' in licensing fees for Microsoft Windows. By the end of 2012, the French Police anticipates that all of their computers will be running Ubuntu. \Index{Canonical} profits from this arrangement by providing technical support and custom-built software.

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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 system will always be free. As of 2012, 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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The Linux \Index{kernel} is the controller of the operating system; it is responsible for allocating memory and processor time. It can also be thought of as the program which manages any and all applications on the computer itself.

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\marginnote{While modern graphical \glspl{desktop environment} have generally replaced early command-line interfaces, the command line can still be a quick and efficient way of performing many tasks. See \chaplink{ch:advanced-topics} for more information, and \chaplink{ch:the-ubuntu-desktop} to learn more about \gls{GNOME} and other desktop environments.} Linux was designed from the ground up with security and hardware compatibility in mind, and is currently one of the most popular \Index{Unix}-based operating systems. One of the benefits of Linux is that it is incredibly flexible and can be configured to run on almost any device\dash from the smallest micro-computers and cellphones to larger super-computers. \Index{Unix} was entirely command line-based until graphical user interfaces (\glspl{GUI}) began to emerge in the early 1990s.

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These early \acronym{GUI}s were difficult to configure, clunky, and generally only used by seasoned computer programmers. In the past decade, however, graphical user interfaces have come a long way in terms of usability, reliability, and appearance. Ubuntu is just one of many different Linux \emph{distributions}, \marginnote{To learn more about Linux distributions, see \chaplink{ch:learning-more}.} and uses one of the more popular graphical desktop environments called \acronym{GNOME}.

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New users to Ubuntu may find that it takes some time to feel comfortable when trying a new operating system. You will no doubt notice many similarities to both Microsoft Windows and Mac \acronym{OS~X}, and some differences. Users coming from Mac \acronym{OS~X} are more likely to notice similarities due to the fact that both Mac \acronym{OS~X} and Ubuntu originated from \Index{Unix}. The Unity shell, which is the default in Ubuntu, is a completely new concept, which needs some exploring to get used to it. See \chaplink{ch:the-ubuntu-desktop} for more information about the Unity shell.

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Before you decide whether or not Ubuntu is right for you, we suggest giving yourself some time to grow accustomed to the way things are done in Ubuntu. You should expect to find that some things are different from what you are used to. We also suggest taking the following into account: