Oh, it’s so exciting! The latest Ubuntu, Breezy Badger, hot off the web and on my desktop. Judging by previous Ubuntu Linux releases, the preview edition is a pretty good indication of what to expect from the final product, which usually just gets a slight tune-up just before release date.

In times past, the only way to see if Linux would work on a given PC was to install the OS. Times change. These days there are many so-called Live CD versions of Linux that boot and run from a CD-ROM. Ubuntu Linux, the winner of our 2005 World Class Award for Best Linux Distribution, has a Live CD version available for download.

Among Linux distributions, Ubuntu received the highest number of students at 14, one ahead of the only other participating Linux distribution — Fedora Core. […] According to Ubuntu Project Manager Jane Weideman, Ubuntu received 236 official applications, as well as many more informal inquiries for the Google Summer of Code internship.

Ubuntu (www.ubuntulinux.org; free free free) is much closer to the mark. It’s a snap to install and useful straight from the box; all in all, it’s the perfect choice for the Linux-curious.

The emerging Ubuntu and Debian Core Consortium developments take the distro in unexpected directions.

Indeed, if there was any downside to the presentation, it was the fact that Ubuntu — the Debian-based distribution founded by South African dot-com billionaire Mark Shuttleworth that’s proven wildly popular since it launched in October 2004 — had declined to participate. That led me to wonder: Are we witnessing the beginnings of a new Debian standards skirmish — the DCC Alliance’s formal standard versus Ubuntu’s de facto one?

The word “Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language,” writes Archbishop Desmond Tutu in “No Future Without Forgiveness.” It means “you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have.” Ubuntu Linux calls itself the “Linux for human beings”. In less than six months from its introduction in October 2004, Ubuntu Linux became the most popular Linux desktop distribution in the United States.