Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are'. The Ubuntu distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.
Ubuntu is a community developed, Linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need - a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more.Ubuntu is provided free of cost by canonical limited. Its architecture is designed in such a way that its free of viruses. Ubuntu supports a variety of softwares and applications which meets our requirements,all that we need to have is a net conection to download softwares. Unlike windows ubuntu is free and open source.Ubuntu will always be free of charge, including enterprise releases and security updates.Ubuntu comes with full commercial support from Canonical and hundreds of companies around the world.Ubuntu includes the very best translations and accessibility infrastructure that the free software community has to offer.
Ubuntu is more user friendly than windows. Ubuntu is an debian linux. i.e. its supports debian (.deb) packages/softwares. The viruses which are common today are of .exe extension,which wouldnt run on Ubuntu. Ubuntu also supports a feature/software called wine to support windows application.
Canoncal issues newer version of Ubuntu in every six months(SERVER & DESKTOP).
Ubuntu 9.04 introduced 'EXT4' file system,and its enables the booting faster (around 20s).
Ubuntu has various derivatives like KUBUNTU.EDUBUNTU,GOUBUNTU etc.
One thing I could say is that once you start using Ubuntu you will never feels to leave it
Ubuntu can be downloaded from their site:
http://www.ubuntu.com
