Canonical announced the latest Ubuntu release, 14.04 LTS desktop is available for download from www.ubuntu.com for free. The Long Term Support (LTS) release is supported and maintained by Canonical for five years, making it the most stable, reliable, secure and cost-effective desktop for long-term, large scale deployments within enterprise and public sector organisations today.

 The upgraded Operating System will facilitate full touch compatibility on both laptops and mobile phones and would come with full five years free update.

For servers users, the latest Ubuntu release would deliver more, particularly in the areas of automation, cloud computing and virtualisation.

“The 14.04 LTS release offers a solid, intuitive experience which is easy to manage,” Jane Silber, CEO at Canonical comments. “It is a viable and affordable alternative for those organisations considering a switch from Microsoft, and specifically those replacing XP or Windows 7 as they come to the end of life.”

Today, Ubuntu desktop is being used extensively in enterprise, government, education and other organisations such as French Gendarmerie, Penn Manor School District, Uttar Pradesh Government, University of Delhi, and the Government of India. Many of these organisations have replaced Windows and are realising significant benefits and cost savings. For example, the French Gendarmerie has reduced costs by a ratio of 40%, while Penn Manor School District in the US saved over $360,000 in the first year*.

“Ubuntu has offered us immense possibilities to perform tasks that were unimaginable before. The boundless freedom of Ubuntu has offered personalisation, repository building, and importantly, for seamless sharing, opened new opportunities for Kerala schools to emerge as IT enabled education centres. Ubuntu was the main instrument for us in enabling FOSS based applications to reach much wider groups including general public,” comments K Anvar Sadath, Member of the National Resource Group of RMSA (Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan) by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt of India.

Ubuntu is currently sold across the world, pre-loaded on hardware from partners including Dell, HP and Lenovo. Canonical works closely with these partners to test and certify Ubuntu and will continue to do so for 14.04 LTS. “Dell PC’s alternative operating system is focused on Ubuntu; we are shipping volume of desktops, All-in-One PCs, and notebooks with Ubuntu each year across every corner of the country. We are committed to giving customers a choice of OS like we are committed to giving customer a choice on all the key hardware components. Ubuntu based products are available in most of the retail stores which sell PCs. Moving forward we will certify and ship the latest Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on most of our PCs,” says Indrajit Belgundi, Director and General Manager, End User Computing, Dell India.

Ubuntu provides a strong, secure baseline and this release will receive five years of free security updates. The UK’s CESG, the security arm of the UK government that assesses operating systems and software, recently found Ubuntu to be the most secure desktop or mobile operating system among the eleven it tested. The test criteria were similar to a standard set of enterprise security best practices. Ubuntu 14.04 LTS includes more security features and timely security updates for five years, with the option of installing updates automatically. It includes full-disk encryption, added AppArmor profiles and policy, as well as AppArmor improvements for interprocess communications between confined applications.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS provides a seamless migration path for organisations upgrading from the previous 12.04 LTS. Users will notice a slicker experience, with improvements to the Unity UI. The release also includes all the tools required for business use including remote delivery of applications, compatibility with Windows file formats, browser-based cloud solutions and the Microsoft Office-compatible LibreOffice suite.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is optimised for desktops and laptops with multi-touch trackpads and touchscreens, as well as support for high pixel density (DPI) screens. This means users can make the most out of the newest hardware on the market.

The 14.04 LTS release also signals continued development toward Canonical’s vision for true convergence across desktop, phone and tablet. Ubuntu’s application store is growing with apps from Ubuntu’s ecosystem of developers who are using the Ubuntu SDK to create apps that run across phone, tablet, desktop – in effect, any Ubuntu device. These apps automatically resize and adjust to make the best use of the space available while exposing the same core functionality, all from the same code-base. Ubuntu developers can build once and deliver to a full universe of devices running Ubuntu.

In Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, users also have the option to experience Unity 8, the next-generation user interface currently running on Ubuntu phones and tablets, which will underpin a single experience across multiple devices. The early preview showcases the convergence vision and demonstrates applications that work across all Ubuntu devices. 14.04 LTS will also form the basis of the first commercially available Ubuntu tablets, from Canonical’s OEM partners.

Ubuntu’s dedicated Chinese operating system, Ubuntu Kylin is also being released on the 17th April. The OS has been designed and developed on Ubuntu locally by the China Software and Integrated Chip Promotions Centre (CSIP) and the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), Canonical and the Ubuntu community. The previous version of Ubuntu Kylin received over 2.5 million downloads in the first six months.