Like most software, Ubuntu has gone through many releases. Canonical now works on a six-monthly release cycle, and the latest version is 8.10, indicating the tenth month of 2008. Releases are known by names as well as numbers and the sequence to date is as follows:
- Warty Warthog – 4.10
- Hoary Hedgehog – 5.04
- Breezy Badger – 5.10
- Dapper Drake – 6.06
- Edgy Eft – 6.10
- Feisty Fawn – 7.04
- Gutsy Gibbon – 7.10
- Hardy Heron – 8.04
- Intrepid Ibex – 8.10
- Jaunty Jackalope – due 9.04
In general each release has been an improvement on the last, though there are reports of some features like wireless networking being broken between one version and the next. For users in this situation, Canonical maintains a downloadable collection of old releases at old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases. The latest versions of Ubuntu can be obtained from www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu. This in turn links to a large number of ‘mirror’ sites.
All official variants of Ubuntu are free open source software and can be obtained as ISO CD image files from the websites listed below. CDs and DVDs can also be bought from the site. Users on limited budgets can ask for some variants to be mailed out to them on CD for free, though there is a backlog and they may have to wait several months.
The ‘flagship’ variant of Intrepid Ibex which most users install is the GNOME-based Ubuntu Desktop Edition. It is distributed as a bootable ‘live’ CD which can also be used for hard disk installation. A Server Edition designed for web hosting PCs is available from the same page. This incorporates standard open-source hosting software such as Apache and MySQL ‘out of the box’.
Ubuntu screenshot 
Next in terms of popularity is probably the Kubuntu variant, which uses the KDE graphic interface rather than GNOME. This has its own website at www.kubuntu.org and a growing band of enthusiastic users. It provides an extensive revision of Ubuntu which uses KDE-related tools and utility software. KDE is allegedly more Windows-like and more flexible than GNOME, but both interfaces can be extensively customised and will run most of each other’s software, so the functional differences are not large.
Kubuntu screenshot
The same goes for Xubuntu, at www.xubuntu.org. This is designed for the XFCE graphic interface, and as this is an environment often used on older and slower PCs, Xubuntu is a lightweight system designed for speed and compact size rather than power and ease of use.
Xubuntu screenshot