Ubuntu enters enterprise server market. Pats Sun on the back.

May 30, 2006 14:24 GMT  ·  By

Sun Microsystems and Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, have announced that Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Long Term Support) will support the UltraSPARC T1 (Niagara) processor on Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers.

According to dubious statistics on Distrowatch.com, Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distribution in the world. Until now, however, the desktop has been an almost exclusive target for the distro. This move puts Canonical & Ubuntu in the same marketplace with Red Hat and Novell, but mostly helps Sun take advantage of the popularity of Linux.

"There has been a vibrant community working with Ubuntu on SPARC for some time. Given the broadening of our offering from desktops to servers, and the power and promise of CoolThreads servers, official support for SPARC was a natural fit with our upcoming enterprise-ready release of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS," said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu.

The release, dubbed "Dapper Drake", which is due to be released at the beginning of June 2006 will include a server edition with an extended support period for enterprise customers, independent software and hardware vendors.