AskDefine | Define dapper

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Dictionary Definition

dapper adj : marked by smartness in dress and manners; "a dapper young man"; "a jaunty red hat" [syn: dashing, jaunty, natty, raffish, rakish, smart, spiffy, snappy, spruce]

User Contributed Dictionary

English

Etymology

From

Pronunciation

  • a UK dæpə(r) /d

Extensive Definition

Ubuntu ( in English, [ùbúntú] in Zulu) is an operating system for desktops, laptops, and servers. It has consistently been rated among the most popular of the many Linux distributions. Ubuntu's goals include providing an up-to-date yet stable Linux distribution for the average user and having a strong focus on usability and ease of installation. Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian, another free operating system. Ubuntu is sponsored by Canonical Ltd, owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. The name of the distribution comes from the African concept of ubuntu which may be rendered roughly as "humanity toward others", "we are people because of other people", or "I am who I am because of who we all are", though other meanings have been suggested. This Linux distribution is named as such to bring the spirit of the philosophy to the software world. Ubuntu is free software and can be shared by any number of users.
Kubuntu and Xubuntu are official subprojects of the Ubuntu project, aiming to bring the KDE and Xfce desktop environments, respectively, to the Ubuntu core (by default Ubuntu uses GNOME for its desktop environment). Edubuntu is an official subproject designed for school environments, and should be equally suitable for children to use at home. Gobuntu is an official subproject that is aimed at adhering strictly to the Free Software Foundation's Four Freedoms. The newest official subproject is JeOS. Ubuntu JeOS (pronounced "Juice") is a concept for what an operating system should look like in the context of a virtual appliance.
Ubuntu releases new versions every six months, and supports those releases for 18 months with daily security fixes and patches to critical bugs. LTS (Long Term Support) releases, which occur every two years, are supported for 3 years for desktops and 5 years for servers. The most recent version, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron), was released on April 24, 2008. The next version will be 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and is scheduled for release in October 2008.

History and development process

Ubuntu's first release was on October 20, 2004 as a temporary fork of the Debian project. This was done so that a new version of Ubuntu could be released every six months, resulting in a more frequently updated system. Ubuntu releases always include the most recent GNOME release, and are scheduled to be released about a month after GNOME. In contrast with previous general-purpose forks of Debian—such as MEPIS, Xandros, Linspire, Progeny and Libranet, many of which relied on proprietary and closed source add-ons as part of their business model—Ubuntu has stayed closer to Debian's philosophy and uses free (libre) software most of the time.
The Ubuntu logo and typography has remained the same since that first release. The hand-drawn, lowercase OpenType font used is called Ubuntu-Title and was created by Andy Fitzsimon. The font is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) and use with logos derived from the Ubuntu logo is encouraged. although there has been criticism that this is not happening enough and Debian and Ubuntu packages are not necessarily binary compatible with each other. Many Ubuntu developers are also maintainers of key packages within Debian itself. However, Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian, criticized Ubuntu for incompatibilities between its packages and those of Debian, saying that Ubuntu had diverged too far from Debian Sarge to remain compatible. Grumpy Groundhog should merge with Debian Unstable every six months.
Ubuntu is currently funded by Canonical Ltd. On July 8, 2005, Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Ltd announced the creation of the Ubuntu Foundation and provided an initial funding of USD $10 million. The purpose of the foundation is to ensure the support and development for all future versions of Ubuntu. Mark Shuttleworth describes the foundation as an emergency fund in case Canonical's involvement ends.
Ubuntu 8.04, released on April 24, 2008, is the current Long Term Support (LTS) release. Canonical has released previous LTS versions separated by two years, and has committed to releasing the next LTS version in 2010, two years after 8.04.

Vendor support

Ubuntu is available pre-installed on computers from a number of different vendors, including Dell, Tesco, and System 76. Dell and Tesco have provided this option since 2007, while System 76 has done so since its inception in November 2005. Dell and System76 customers are able to purchase 30-day, 3-month, and 1-year support for Ubuntu through Ubuntu's parent company Canonical. Dell later increased the availability of Ubuntu-based computers by offering them for sale in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Spain, and Latin America. Selected Dell machines running Ubuntu 7.10 have free and legal DVD playback capabilities using LinDVD.

Features

Ubuntu focuses on usability, including the widespread use of the sudo tool for administrative tasks. The Ubiquity installer allows installing Ubuntu to the hard disk from within the Live CD environment without the need for restarting the computer prior to installation. Ubuntu also emphasizes accessibility and internationalization, to reach as many people as possible. Beginning with 5.04, UTF-8 became the default character encoding. The default appearance of the user interface in the current version is called Human and is characterized by shades of brown and orange.
The most recent version of Ubuntu comes installed with the a wide range of software including: the OpenOffice.org productivity suite, the Internet browser Firefox, the instant messenger Pidgin (formerly known as Gaim), the BitTorrent client Transmission and the raster graphics editor GIMP. Several lightweight card, puzzle games, and board games are pre-installed including Sudoku and Chess. Ubuntu has all networking ports closed by default for added security, although its firewall, which offers more fine-grained control of incoming and outgoing connections, is installed but not enabled. Ubuntu comes with the ability to perform most functions such as scanning, and even includes Optical Character Recognition software for the translation of scans to text.

Multilingual

Ubuntu is available in many languages. GNOME 2.22—the default desktop environment of Ubuntu 8.04—offers support for 46 languages.

Installer

There are numerous ways to install Ubuntu:

Desktop CD

The desktop CD allows a user to try Ubuntu without actually installing Ubuntu; the user may optionally install Ubuntu later. This is the recommended CD to use. At least 384 MB of RAM is required to install from this CD.
Ubuntu offers a fully featured set of applications that work straight from the standard install, but nonetheless fits on a single CD. The live CD allows users to see whether their hardware is compatible before installation to the hard disk. The live CD is then used to install Ubuntu using the Ubiquity installer. CDs for the LTS (Long Term Support) releases are mailed free to anyone who requests them, and CD images for all versions are available for download. The Ubuntu live CD requires (for version 7.10) 256 megabytes of RAM, and once installed on the hard disk, Ubuntu needs four gigabytes of hard disk space. An alternative installation disc using the standard debian-installer in text mode is available for download only, and is aimed at people with lower system specifications, computer dealers selling systems already installed with Ubuntu, and for complex partitioning including the use of LVM.
With the release of Ubuntu 7.04 in April 2007, the Ubuntu installation process changed slightly. It now supports migration from Microsoft Windows. The new migration tool, called Migration Assistant, imports Windows users' bookmarks, desktop background (wallpaper), and settings for immediate use in the Ubuntu installation.
With Wubi, it is possible to install Ubuntu on a Windows partition, without using an ISO file. It also makes use of the migration tool which imports Windows users' configurations. Wubi was born as an independent project, as such 7.04 and 7.10 are unofficial releases. But since 8.04 the code has been merged within Ubuntu and since 8.04-alpha5, Wubi can also be found in the Ubuntu Live CD.

Alternate Install CD

The Alternate Install CD is an alternative installation disk designed for specialist installations of Ubuntu. The Alternative installation CD provides an installer that is text-based rather than graphical and it is not a Live CD.
It provides for the following situations:
  • creating pre-configured OEM systems;
  • setting up automated deployments;
  • upgrading from older installations without network access;
  • LVM and/or RAID partitioning;
  • installing on systems with less than about 320 MB of RAM (although note that low-memory systems may not be able to run a full desktop environment reasonably).
  • installing Ubuntu from a local network or from Ubuntu mirrors.

Network and Server Install CDs

The Network Install CD installs Ubuntu over a local network or directly from an Ubuntu mirror. Installation from a mirror ensures that installed packages are up-to-date. It contains only the kernel, to start up the installation. The installation is text-based and is not recommended for beginners. However, the server install CD is designed for server installation of Ubuntu and contains all packages needed for installation without a network connection. The server installation of Ubuntu does not install a graphical user interface.

Customized installable Live CD/DVD

Many programs exist to create a customized Live CD/DVD from an existing Ubuntu installation, such as remastersys, the Ubuntu Customization Kit, and Reconstructor.

Package classification and support

Ubuntu divides all software into four components, to reflect differences in licensing and level of support available. Packages are assigned to components as follows:
"Free" software here includes only that which meets the Ubuntu license requirements, which correspond roughly to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. There is one exception for Main however; it "also may contain binary firmware and selected fonts (which are used by free components of Main) that cannot be modified without permission from their authors" so long as their "redistribution is unencumbered."
Non-free software is usually unsupported (Multiverse), but some exceptions (Restricted) are made for very important non-free software, such as non-free device drivers, without which users might be prevented from running Ubuntu on their system, particularly binary-only graphics card drivers. The level of support is more limited than for main, since the developers may not have access to the source code.
It is intended that Main and Restricted should contain all software needed for a general-use Linux system. Alternative programs for the same tasks and programs for specialised applications are placed in Universe and Multiverse.
Beyond the official repositories is Ubuntu Backports, which is an officially recognized project to backport newer versions of certain software that are available in later versions of Ubuntu. The repository is not comprehensive; it mostly consists of user-requested packages, which are approved if they meet quality guidelines.
For releases which are classified as old and therefore no longer supported, users can still download installation CD/DVD's and perform package updates from old-releases.ubuntu.com. Editing /etc/apt/sources.list and replacing references to "archive.ubuntu.com" with "old-releases.ubuntu.com" should allow continued installation of packages through synaptic and apt-get on unsupported releases.

Availability of proprietary software

Ubuntu has a certification system for third party software. Ubuntu-certified proprietary software should work well in Ubuntu. However, many programs familiar to users of non-free operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, are incompatible and are not Ubuntu-certified. Some proprietary software that does not limit distribution is included in Ubuntu's multiverse component.
Some examples of software not distributed by Ubuntu, but that can be easily installed:
  • Software that enables the playback of region-locked video DVDs, due to the questionable legal status of the Libdvdcss open-source DVD-decoding library in some parts of the world. Libdvdcss, as well as much other software that might be forbidden in certain parts of the world, is readily available for Ubuntu through the package libdvdread3.
  • Some popular proprietary web-browser plugins, such as Adobe's (formerly Macromedia's) Flash. One workaround to the specific prohibition against redistribution in the Flash EULA is the multiverse package "flashplugin-nonfree" which automatically downloads the Linux Flash plugin directly from Adobe's site and then installs.
The package ubuntu-restricted-extras additionally contains software that may be legally restricted, including:

Releases

Each release has both a code name and a version number. The version number is based on the year and month of release. For example, the very first release of Ubuntu 4.10 was released on October 20, 2004. Consequently, version numbers for future versions are provisional; if the release is delayed until a different month to that planned, the version number changes accordingly.
The first characters of release names form an alphabetical series. This makes the recognition process to determine which release is newer if someone writes (for example) "This bug seems to be related to Gutsy rather than Feisty". Exceptions are the first few releases that should have begun with A, B, C.
Releases are timed to be approximately one month after GNOME releases, which are in turn about one month after releases of X.org. Consequently, every Ubuntu release comes with a newer version of both GNOME and X.
Release 6.06—and recently 8.04—have been labeled as a Long Term Support (LTS), to indicate support with updates for three years on the desktop and five years on the server, with paid technical support available from Canonical Ltd.

Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog)

Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog), released on 2004-10-20, Ubuntu 4.10's support ended on 2006-04-30.

Features

  • ShipIt -- giving the ability to order Ubuntu on CD for free

Notable Programs

Desktop:
Server:
System:

Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog)

Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog), released on 2005-04-08, was Canonical's second release of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu 5.04's support ended on 2006-10-31

Features

Notable Programs

Desktop:
  • Gaim 1.1
  • GIMP 2.2
  • GNOME 2.10
  • Mozilla Firefox 1.0
  • OpenOffice.org 1.1
Server:
  • MySQL 4.0
  • PHP 4.3
  • Python 2.4
System:

Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger)

Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger), released on 2005-10-13, was Canonical's third release of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu 5.10's support ended on 2007-04-13.

Features

Notable Programs

Desktop:
  • Gaim 1.5
  • GIMP 2.2
  • GNOME 2.12
  • Mozilla Firefox 1.0
  • OpenOffice.org 1.9 (pre-2.0 release)
Server:
  • MySQL 4.1
  • PHP 5.0
  • Python 2.4
System:
  • Linux 2.6.12
  • X.Org 6.8

Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake)

Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake), released on 2006-06-01, was Canonical's fourth release, and first Long Term Support (LTS) release. Ubuntu 6.06's support will end in 2009-06 for desktops and 2011-06 for servers.

Features

  • Long Term Support (LTS) release
  • Live CD and Install CD merged onto one disc, but it does not include a USB installer
  • Ubiquity graphical installer on Live CD
  • Usplash on shutdowns
  • Network Manager for easy switching of multiple wired and wireless connections
  • 'Humanlooks' theme implemented using Tango guidelines, based on Clearlooks and featuring orange colours instead of brown
  • LAMP installation option
  • installation to USB devices
  • GDebi graphical installer for package files

Notable Programs

Desktop:
  • Gaim 1.5
  • GIMP 2.2
  • GNOME 2.14
  • Mozilla Firefox 1.5
  • OpenOffice.org 2.0
Server:
  • MySQL 5.0
  • PHP 5.1
  • Python 2.4
System:
  • Linux 2.6.15
  • X.Org 7.0

Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft)

Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft), released on 2006-10-26, was Canonical's fifth release of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu 6.10's support ended on 2008-04-25.

Features

  • Ubuntu 'Human' theme heavily modified
  • Upstart init daemon
  • automated crash reports (Apport)
  • Tomboy notetaking application
  • F-spot photo manager
  • EasyUbuntu merges into Ubuntu via meta-package installs and features

Notable Programs

Desktop:
  • Gaim 2.0
  • GIMP 2.2
  • GNOME 2.16
  • Mozilla Firefox 2.0
  • OpenOffice.org 2.0
Server:
  • MySQL 5.0
  • PHP 5.1
  • Python 2.4
System:
  • Linux 2.6.17
  • X.Org 7.1

Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn)

Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn), released on 2007-04-19, was Canonical's sixth release of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu 7.04's support will end in 2008-10.

Features

Notable Programs

Desktop:
  • Gaim 2.0
  • GIMP 2.2
  • GNOME 2.18
  • Mozilla Firefox 2.0
  • OpenOffice.org 2.2
Server:
  • MySQL 5.0
  • PHP 5.2
  • Python 2.5
System:
  • Linux 2.6.20
  • X.Org 7.2

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)

  • Fast user switching
  • graphical configuration tool for X.org is Canonical's eighth and latest release of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu 8.04's support will end in April 2011 for desktops and April 2013 for servers.

Features

Notable Programs

Desktop:
  • GIMP 2.4
  • GNOME 2.22
  • Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Beta 5
  • OpenOffice.org 2.4
  • Pidgin 2.4
Server:
  • MySQL 5.0
  • PHP 5.2
  • Python 2.5
System:
  • Linux 2.6.24
  • X.Org 7.3

Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)

Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex), to be released on 2008-10-30, will be Canonical's ninth release of Ubuntu Linux and Ubuntu's fourth anniversary on October 10.
  • Improvements to mobile computing and desktop scalability
  • Increased flexibility for Internet connectivity
  • OpenGL face browser for GDM

Release History

Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words

bandbox, braw, chic, chichi, classy, clothes-conscious, cosmopolitan, dashing, doggy, dressed to advantage, dressed to kill, dressy, elegant, exquisite, fashionable, genteel, jaunty, natty, neat, nifty, nobby, posh, rakish, recherche, ritzy, sassy, sharp, showy, sleek, smart, smug, snazzy, soigne, soignee, sophisticated, spiffy, spruce, style-conscious, stylish, swank, swanky, swell, tricksy, trig, trim, well-dressed, well-groomed
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