The friendly Old Battery Warning in Ubuntu

Ubuntu is friendly enough to provide a nice and friendly warning to me about the status of the laptop battery that I currently use. With Microsoft Windows (at least Windows XP), the laptop simply dies when the battery looses its juice.

old and broken battery warning

Its nice to have this sort of reminder when you really need to change the battery.

Ubuntu Release, Maintenance and Support Schedule

Mark Shuttleworth has written a good blog post detailing about future Ubuntu release schedule and the length of support for a particular release, whether its a standard release or an LTS (Long Term Support) release.

In his post, he also explains about the point release concept for the LTS, which each Long Term support installation will receive continuous updates up until the next release of LTS. Which is due to be released in two years time. This point release will allow fresh LTS installation to receives new patches and updates without going through the hassle downloading them through the internet.

Standard releases will continue to receive patches and updates for one and a half-year and Server LTS release will continue to receive updates for 5 years.

For more information read Mark Shuttleworth post, The Art of Release

Using lsb_release to get Ubuntu release information

Sometimes when you are about to ask questions or to get help about something related to your Linux computer, you might be asked which distro and the release of the distro you are using.

Same goes if you need to fix something or install binary packages on someone else’s computer. The first thing you should know, is the name of the distro and the release they are using. The simplest way is to use “lsb_release” command, which are included on most modern GNU Linux operating system.

Just run : lsb_release -a
And you will be given information you need to install binary packages, submit a bug report or to determine which solution best for the particular distro.

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 7.10
Release:        7.10
Codename:       gutsy