Canonical has announced Ubuntu 12.04 LTS for the desktop. It marks the fourth long-term support (LTS) release with maintenance updates guaranteed for five years.
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS includes support for desktop virtualization from Citrix and VMware, alongside Microsoft RDP 7.1.
“For large enterprise deployments with long-term planning processes, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is our best desktop yet,” said Jane Silber, CEO of Canonical. “Thanks to our expanded hardware partnerships, we’ll make regular updates to support new PCs from certified partners like Dell, HP and Lenovo.”
New to those upgrading from the last LTS release will be Unity, Ubuntu’s unique user interface.
“The migration of all existing users from Ubuntu 10.04 to the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release is something we are looking forward to rolling out and reaping the benefits of the improved ease of use and additional functionality built-in to the Unity-based desktop,” said Pawel Zieba, Senior IT Innovation Consultant at Capgemini BPO.
Canonical provides optional commercial support for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS in the form of Ubuntu Advantage. The program gives enterprise customers a choice of two levels of support, alongside access to the time-saving administration tool, Landscape, which includes audit, compliance and ongoing management features for large desktop deployments. Unlike other Linux distributions, Ubuntu customers have the choice to include their entire deployment in the support agreement, or just a subset they select.
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is already certified to run on over 20 laptops and desktops, with many more to follow in the weeks to come.
Rigorous policies have been implemented to optimize key parts of the code in the last two years. As a result, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is more robust than ever, booting even faster than its predecessor and extending laptop battery life significantly.
Download Ubuntu 12.04 LTS today at: www.ubuntu.com/download
See a list of certified machines at www.ubuntu.com/certification
