Xubuntu () is a Canonical-recognized, community-maintained derivative of the Ubuntu operating system. The name Xubuntu is a portmanteau of Xfce and Ubuntu, as it uses the Xfce desktop environment, instead of Ubuntu's customized GNOME desktop.
Xubuntu seeks to provide "a light, stable and configurable desktop environment with conservative workflows" using Xfce components. Xubuntu is intended for both new and experienced Linux users. Rather than explicitly targeting low-powered machines, it attempts to provide "extra responsiveness and speed" on existing hardware.
History
Xubuntu was originally intended to be released at the same time as Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger, 13 October 2005, but the work was not complete by that date. Instead the Xubuntu name was used for the xubuntu-desktop metapackage available through the Synaptic Package Manager which installed the Xfce desktop.
The first official Xubuntu release, led by Jani Monoses, appeared on 1 June 2006, as part of the Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake line, which also included Kubuntu and Edubuntu.
Cody A.W. Somerville developed a comprehensive strategy for the Xubuntu project named the Xubuntu Strategy Document. This document was approved by the Ubuntu Community Council in 2008.
In November 2009, Cody A.W. Somerville stepped down as the project leader and made a call for nominations to help find a successor. Lionel Le Folgoc was confirmed by the Xubuntu community as the new project leader on 10 January 2010 and requested the formation of an official Xubuntu council.
In the beginning of 2016, the Xubuntu team began the process to transition the project to become council run rather than having a single project leader. On 1 January 2017, an official post on the Xubuntu site's blog announced the official formation of the Xubuntu Council. The purpose of the council is not just to make decisions about the future of the project, but to make sure the direction of the project adheres to guidelines established in the Strategy Document.
Releases
Xubuntu 6.06 LTS
The first official stand-alone release of Xubuntu was version 6.06 long term support (LTS), which was made available on 23 June 2006.
It was introduced with the statement:
The version used Linux kernel 2.6.15.7 and Xfce 4.4 beta 1. Applications included the Thunar file manager, GDM desktop manager, Abiword word processor and Gnumeric spread sheet, Evince PDF document viewer, Xarchiver archive manager, Xfburn CD burner, Firefox 1.5.0.3 web browser, Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 email client and the GDebi package manager.
Xubuntu 6.10
Xubuntu 6.10 was released on 26 October 2006. This version used Xfce 4.4 beta 2 and included Upstart, the Firefox 2.0 web browser, the Gaim 2.0.0 beta 3.1 instant messaging client along with new versions of AbiWord and Gnumeric. The media player was gxine which replaced Xfmedia. The previous xffm4 file manager was replaced by Thunar. It introduced redesigned artwork for the bootup splash screen, the login window and the desktop theme.
The developers claimed that this version of Xubuntu could run on 64 MB of RAM, with 128 MB "strongly recommended".
Xubuntu 7.04
Xubuntu 7.04 was released on 19 April 2007. This release was based on Xfce 4.4.
Michael Larabel of Phoronix carried out detailed benchmark testing of betas for Ubuntu 7.04, Kubuntu 7.04 and Xubuntu 7.04 in February 2007 on two different computers, one with dual Intel Clovertown processors and the other with an AMD Sempron. After a series of gzip compression, LAME compilation, and LAME encoding tasks he concluded, "in these tests with the dual Clovertown setup we found the results to be indistinguishable. However, with the AMD Sempron, Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn Herd 4 had outperformed both Kubuntu and the lighter-weight Xubuntu. Granted on a slower system the lightweight Xubuntu should have a greater performance advantage".
Xubuntu 7.10
Xubuntu 7.10 was released on 18 October 2007. It was based upon Xfce, 4.4.1 and added updated translations along with a new theme, MurrinaStormCloud, using the Murrine Engine.
Application updates included Pidgin 2.2.0, (Gaim was renamed Pidgin) and GIMP 2.4. This Xubuntu version allowed the installation of Firefox extensions and plug-ins through the Add/Remove Software interface.
The developers claimed that this version of Xubuntu could run on 64 MB of RAM, with 128 MB "strongly recommended".
Xubuntu 8.04 LTS
Xubuntu 8.04 Long Term Support (LTS) was made available on 24 April 2008. This version of Xubuntu used Xfce 4.4.2, Xorg 7.3 and Linux kernel 2.6.24. It introduced PolicyKit for permissions control, PulseAudio and a new printing manager. It also introduced Wubi, that allowed Windows users to install Xubuntu as a program on Windows.
Applications included were Firefox 3 Beta 5, Brasero CD/DVD burning application, Transmission BitTorrent client, Mousepad text editor, AbiWord word processor and Ristretto image viewer
Xubuntu 8.10
Xubuntu 8.10 was released on 30 October 2008. This version of Xubuntu brought a new version of Abiword, version 2.6.4, the Listen Multimedia Player and introduced the Catfish desktop search application. It used Linux kernel 2.6.27, X.Org 7.4. There was an installation option of an encrypted private directory using ecryptfs-utils. The Totem media player was included.
Xubuntu 9.04
Version 9.04 was released on 23 April 2009. The development team advertised this release as giving improved boot-up times, "benefiting from the Ubuntu core developer team's improvements to boot-time code, the Xubuntu 9.04 desktop boots more quickly than ever. This means you can spend less time waiting, and more time being productive with your Xubuntu desktop".
Xubuntu 9.04 used Xfce 4.6, which included a new Xfce Settings Manager dialog, the new Xconf configuration system, an improved desktop menu and clock, new notifications, and remote file system application Gigolo.
This release also brought all new artwork and incorporated the Murrina Storm Cloud GTK+ theme and a new XFWM4 window manager theme. 9.04 also introduced new versions of many applications, including the AbiWord word processor, Brasero CD/DVD burner and Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client. It used X.Org server 1.6. The default file system was ext3, but ext4 was an option at installation.
Xubuntu 9.10
29 October 2009 saw the release of Xubuntu 9.10, which utilized Xfce 4.6.1, Linux kernel 2.6.31 and by default the ext4 file system and GRUB 2. This release included the Exaile 0.3.0 music player, the Xfce4 power manager replaced the Gnome Power Manager and improved desktop notifications using notify-osd. Upstart boot-up speed was improved.
The release promised "faster application load times and reduced memory footprint for a number of your favorite Xfce4 applications thanks to improvements in library linking provided by ld's --as-needed flag".
Xubuntu 10.04 LTS
Xubuntu 10.04 Long Term Support (LTS) was released on 29 April 2010. It moved to PulseAudio and replaced the Xsane scanner utilities with Simple Scan. It also incorporated the Ubuntu Software Center, which had been introduced in Ubuntu 9.10, to replace the old Add/Remove Software utility. The included spreadsheet application, Gnumeric was updated to version 1.10.1 and new games were introduced. Because of incompatibilities in the gnome-screensaver screensaver application, it was replaced by xscreensaver. The default theme was an updated version of Albatross, designed by the Shimmer Team.
This version of Xubuntu officially required a 700 MHz x86 processor, 128 MB of RAM, with 256 MB RAM "strongly recommended" and 3 GB of disk space.
Xubuntu 10.10
Xubuntu 10.10 was released on 10 October 2010. It included Parole, the Xfce4 media player, XFBurn CD/DVD writer in place of Brasero and Xfce4-taskmanager replaced Gnome-Task-Manager. These changes were all to lighten the release's memory footprint. AbiWord was updated to version 2.8.6 and Gnumeric to 1.10.8. This release also introduced the Bluebird theme, from the Shimmer Team.
Xubuntu 11.04
Xubuntu 11.04 was released on 28 April 2011. This version was based upon Xfce 4.8 and introduced editable menus using any menu editor that meets the freedesktop.org standards. This version also introduced a new Elementary Xubuntu icon theme, the Droid font by default and an updated installation slide show.
Although the developers have decided to retain a minimalist interface, Xubuntu 11.04 has a new dock-like application launcher to achieve a more modern look.
Xubuntu 11.10
Xubuntu 11.10 was released on 13 October 2011, the same day that Ubuntu 11.10 was released.
In this release gThumb became the new image viewer/organizer, Leafpad replaced Mousepad as the default text editor and LightDM was introduced as the log-in manager. The release also incorporated pastebinit for cut and paste actions.
Xubuntu 12.04 LTS Xubuntu 12.04 incorporated many changes including some default shortcuts which were altered and new ones added, plus there were many appearance changes, including a new logo and wallpaper. Fixes were included for Greybird, Ubiquity, Plymouth, LightDM, and Terminal themes.
The release shipped with version 3.2.14 of the Linux kernel. Pavucontrol was introduced to replace xfce4-mixer as it did not support PulseAudio. The Alacarte menu editor was used by default.
The minimum system requirements for this release were 512 MiB of RAM, 5 GB of hard disk space, and a graphics card and monitor capable of at least 800×600 pixel resolution.
Whisker Menu, a new application launcher for Xubuntu, was introduced via a Personal Package Archive for Xubuntu 12.04 LTS. It proved a popular option and later became the default launcher in Xubuntu 14.04 LTS.
Xubuntu 12.10
Xubuntu 12.10 was released on 18 October 2012. This release introduced the use of Xfce 4.10, as well as new versions of Catfish, Parole, LightDM, Greybird and the Ubiquity slideshow. The application menu was slightly reorganized, with settings-related launchers moved to the Settings Manager. The release also included updated artwork, new desktop wallpaper, a new look to the documentation and completely rewritten offline documentation. On 32-bit systems, hardware supporting PAE is required.
The release included one notable bug fix: "No more window traces or "black on black" in installer". This release of Xubuntu does not support UEFI Secure Boot, unlike Ubuntu 12.10, which allows Ubuntu to run on hardware designed for Windows 8. It was expected that this feature would be included in the next release of Xubuntu.
Xubuntu 13.04
Xubuntu 13.04 was released on 25 April 2013. It was intended as a maintenance release with few new features. It incorporated updated documentation, a new version of Catfish (0.6.1), updates to the Greybird theme, GIMP and Gnumeric were reintroduced, a new version of Parole (0.5.0) and that duplicate partitions are no longer shown on desktop or in the Thunar file manager.
This was the first version of Xubuntu with a support period of 9 months for the interim (non-LTS) releases, instead of 18 months.
Starting with this release the Xubuntu ISO images will not fit on a CD as they now average 800 MB. The new image target media is at least a 1.0 GB USB device or DVD. The decision to change the ISO image size was based upon the amount of developer time spent trying to shrink the files to fit them on a standard size CD. This ISO size change also allowed the inclusion of two applications that had been previously dropped due to space constraints, Gnumeric and GIMP.
Xubuntu 13.10
Xubuntu 13.10 was released on 17 October 2013. This release included some improvements over the previous release, including a new version of xfce4-settings and a new dialog box for display settings. There was also a new color theme tool and gtk-theme-config was added as default. This release also included new wallpaper, new GTK+ themes, with Gtk3.10 support and the LightDM greeter. The official Xubuntu documentation was also updated.