In this PopularMechanics article, Jamie Hyneman, most famous for the show “Mythbusters” describes his Tech Headaches, including his frustration with the “bloated” features in Vista among other irritations. He offers solutions to many of the problems, and apparently, Ubuntu is the solution to Vista.

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Ubuntu (IPA: [ uːˈbuːntuː] in English[2], IPA: [ùbúntú] in Zulu) is a predominantly desktop-oriented Linux distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. Ubuntu aims to use only free software to provide an up-to-date yet stable operating system for the average user, and features a strong focus on usability, regular releases, and ease of installation at the expense of platform diversity. Ubuntu is sponsored by Canonical Ltd, owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. The name of the distribution comes from the southern 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.[3]

Kubuntu and Xubuntu are official subprojects of the Ubuntu project, aiming to bring the KDE and Xfce desktop environments, respectively, to the Ubuntu core (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.[4] Gobuntu is an official subproject that is aimed at adhering strictly to the Free Software Foundation’s Four Freedoms.[5] The newest official subproject is JeOS. Ubuntu JeOS (pronounced “Juice”) is an efficient variant of the popular desktop and server operating system, configured specifically for virtual appliances.

Ubuntu releases new versions every six months, and supports those releases for 18 months with daily security fixes and patches to critical bugs. There are also Long Term Support (LTS) releases, which have three years support for the desktop version and five years for the server version. The most recent LTS version, Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake), was released on June 1, 2006 (updated to Ubuntu 6.06.1 on August 10 2006); the next LTS version will be 8.04 (Hardy Heron), scheduled for release in April 2008. The most recent version, Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon), was released on 18 October 2007.

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