Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

releases are made semiannually by

Canonical Ltd Canonical Ltd. is a privately-held computer software company based in London, England. It was founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects. ...

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) than planned, the version number will change accordingly. Canonical schedules Ubuntu releases to occur approximately one month after

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

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 it ...

(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 Expanded Security Maintenance (ESM; formerly Security Maintenance) 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.

Version timeline

Version end-of-life

After each version of Ubuntu has reached its 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.

Naming convention

Ubuntu releases are also given

code name A code name, codename, call sign, or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in ...

s, using an adjective and an animal with the same first letteran

alliteration Alliteration is the repetition of syllable-initial consonant sounds between nearby words, or of syllable-initial vowels if the syllables in question do not start with a consonant. It is often used as a literary device. A common example is " Pe ...

''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, 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 . 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, is Canonical's first release of Ubuntu, building upon

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

, with plans for a new release every six months and eighteen months of support thereafter. It used the

ext3 ext3, or third extended filesystem, is a journaling file system, journaled file system that is commonly used with the Linux kernel. It used to be the default file system for many popular Linux distributions but generally has been supplanted by ...

file system. 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. Similar to

UserLinux UserLinux was a project to create an operating system based on Debian, and targeted at business customers. The goal was to provide businesses with a freely available, high quality operating system accompanied by certifications, service, and support ...

and unlike other distros at the time—which had the user choose the apps to install—the Debian-based Ubuntu curated "one best FOSS app" for each category, minimizing the amount of questions asked by the installer and the disk space used. Alternatives and additional software could be installed through Debian's Advanced Package Tool (APT), which featured automatic dependency resolution, a feature then only found in commercial and professional Linux distributions. Ubuntu's competitors in the consumer-friendly free-of-charge distributions segment required the user to work out such dependencies themselves and did not use the APT dependency resolution tools due to Debian's notorious complexities and hard installation process, which Ubuntu managed to simplify.

Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog)

Ubuntu 5.04 (''Hoary Hedgehog''), released on 8 April 2005, is Canonical's second release of Ubuntu. Support ended on 31 October 2006. Ubuntu 5.04 added many new features and packages including installation from USB devices, the Update Manager, an upgrade notifier,

readahead Readahead is a system call of the Linux kernel that loads a file's contents into the page cache. This prefetches the file so that when it is subsequently accessed, its contents are read from the main memory (RAM) rather than from a hard disk drive ...

, grepmap, suspend,

hibernating Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic reduction entered by some animal species. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It is most ...

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 conserv ...

for processors, the Ubuntu hardware database, Kickstart installation, and APT authentication. Beginning with Ubuntu 5.04,

UTF-8 UTF-8 is a character encoding standard used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode Transformation Format 8-bit''. Almost every webpage is transmitted as UTF-8. UTF-8 supports all 1,112,0 ...

became the default

character encoding Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using computers. The numerical v ...

Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger)

Ubuntu 5.10 (''Breezy Badger''), released on 12 October 2005, is Canonical's third release of Ubuntu. 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 design ...

), an Add/Remove Applications tool, a menu editor (

Alacarte Alacarte (previously the Simple Menu Editor for GNOME or SMEG) is a menu editor for the GNOME desktop, written in Python. It has been part of GNOME since the 2.16 release in 2006. The menu "Places" is not available for editing. The places menu c ...

), an easy language selector,

logical volume management In computer storage, logical volume management or LVM provides a method of allocating space on mass-storage devices that is more flexible than conventional partitioning schemes to store volumes. In particular, a volume manager can concatenate, ...

support, full

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

printer support, OEM 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, is Canonical's fourth release of Ubuntu, 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, founder and CEO of Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux operating system. In 2002, Shuttleworth became the first African to travel to spa ...

approved slipping the release date to June, making it 6.06 instead. 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 booting, bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than lo ...

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 from a combination of Arge ...

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, is Canonical's fifth release of Ubuntu. Support ended on 25 April 2008. Ubuntu 6.10 added several new features including a heavily modified Human theme,

Upstart Upstart or upstarts may refer to: * HMS ''Upstart'', a Royal Navy U-class submarine * Upstart (company), an online lending marketplace * Upstart (software), a process management daemon used in several operating systems. * Upstart (sculpture), a pub ...

init In Unix-based computer operating systems, init (short for ''initialization'') is the first process started during booting of the operating system. Init is a daemon process that continues running until the system is shut down. It is the direc ...

daemon, automated crash reports (Apport),

Tomboy A tomboy is a girl or young woman who generally expresses masculine traits. Such traits may include wearing androgynous or unfeminine clothing and engaging in activities and behaviors traditionally associated with boys or men. Origins The w ...

note taking application, and

F-Spot F-Spot is a discontinued image organizer, that was designed to provide personal photo management for the GNOME desktop environment. The name is a play on the word F-Stop. F-Spot can be used for basic photo editing and management. History The F-S ...

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, is Canonical's sixth release of Ubuntu. Support ended on 19 October 2008. Ubuntu 7.04 included several new features, among them a migration assistant to help former

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

users transition to Ubuntu, support for

Kernel-based Virtual Machine Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a free and open-source virtualization module in the Linux kernel that allows the Kernel (operating system), kernel to function as a hypervisor. It was merged into the Mainline Linux, mainline Linux kernel i ...

, assisted codec and restricted drivers installation including

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, MP3 support, easier installation of

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

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 loa ...

desktop effects, support for

Wi-Fi Protected Access Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) (Wireless Protected Access), Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2), and Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3) are the three security certification programs developed after 2000 by the Wi-Fi Alliance to secure wireless computer n ...

, the addition of

Sudoku Sudoku (; ; originally called Number Place) is a logic puzzle, logic-based, combinatorics, 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 ...

and

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

, a disk usage analyzer (

baobab ''Adansonia'' is a genus of medium-to-large deciduous trees known as baobabs ( or ). The eight species of ''Adansonia'' are native to Africa, Australia, and Madagascar but have also been introduced to other regions of the world, including Barb ...

), GNOME Control Center, and

zeroconf Zero-configuration networking (zeroconf) is a set of technologies that automatically creates a usable computer network based on the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) when computers or network peripherals are interconnected. It does not require manu ...

support for many devices.

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)

Ubuntu 7.10 (''Gutsy Gibbon''), released on 18 October 2007, is Canonical's seventh release of Ubuntu. Support ended on 18 April 2009. Ubuntu 7.10 included several new features, among them

AppArmor AppArmor ("Application Armor") is a Linux kernel security module that allows the system administrator to restrict programs' capabilities with per-program profiles. Profiles can allow capabilities like network access, raw socket access, and the pe ...

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 NT File System (NTFS) (commonly called ''New Technology File System'') is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft in the 1990s. It was developed to overcome scalability, security and other limitations with File Allocation Tabl ...

support (read/write) via NTFS-3G, and a revamped printing system with PDF printing by default.

Compiz Fusion 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 loa ...

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 unders ...

was added.

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)

Ubuntu 8.04 (''Hardy Heron''), released on 24 April 2008, is Canonical's eighth release of Ubuntu and the second long-term support release. Support ended on 12 May 2011 for desktops and ended on 9 May 2013 for servers. 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

References

External links

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