Ubuntu 5.04

Andy Hudson hopes this is one hedgehog that won’t get squashed.

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This review originally appeared in LXF068. The Ubuntu team only launched its first release (4.10, aka The Warty Warthog) in October 2004. Since then, Ubuntu has become one of the most downloaded distros available today. What’s its secret? The slogan says it all: Linux for human beings. This is a distro that you shouldn’t have to be a geek to use. Version 5.04 – The Hoary Hedgehog – comes on a single CD and doesn’t even use its full capacity. It doesn’t baffle the new user with a puzzle of software choices. In fact, you don’t even select individual packages for installation; you’re given a predetermined set of software recommended by Ubuntu.

First, we upgraded our test laptop from Warty using Synaptic. Ubuntu is based on Debian, which, as LXF readers are aware, has a superb package management tool in Apt. After Synaptic downloaded and installed 798 packages (approximately 400MB), Ubuntu upgraded itself flawlessly. Moving seamlessly from Gnome 2.8 to Gnome 2.10 shows the strength of Apt and how smoothly it handles dependency issues. After about an hour, Synaptic proclaimed that it had finished.