Canonical, the commercial company backing the Ubuntu project, had launched the Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix in February this year, based on Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot”, which was the current stable version Ubuntu back then. Just two months later, now that a real LTS release is out, a new version of the Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix too has been released, based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS “Precise Pangolin”.
Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix 12.04 carries five years of support and updates from Canonical. It’s available in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions for Intel/AMD compatible PCs.
Digging into the Business Desktop Remix
The Business Development Remix comes with a simple base image which can easily be implemented in a corporate and government organisation for their desktop infrastructure. It is basically meant to be used as a starting point for additional kind of customization. Canonical basically took the desktop version of Ubuntu 12.04, ripped out its consumer based applications and replaced them with applications that enterprises are more likely to use. That’s not to say you’re stuck with the software that Canonical has included in; you can add and remove additional applications as you see fit. Also, Ubuntu BDR is supposed to play really well with virtualization, both as a host and as a guest.
Additional new productivity features
In developing Ubuntu BDR, Canonical has cleaned Ubuntu out of most of its social features. There’s no Gwibber and no games. You won’t have much fun with this Ubuntu remix.
In fact, these things are replaced with “useful” tools, like the VMware View Client, OpenJDK 6 Java Runtime Rnvironment, and Adobe Flash. It boasts excellent translations, and includes a bunch of language packs. It includes built-in support for remote desktop viewing and serving, Microsoft RDP Protocol version 7.1, thanks to XRDP and Remmina. It also includes a Microsoft Office Visio diagram importer for LibreOffice Draw. These go that extra mile in making Ubuntu an attractive proposition to businesses.
A free download
Business users will find the Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix pretty convenient to use, thanks to the fact that Canonical has focused so well on the enterprise requirements. This has therefore made things simple for business organizations and enterprises by giving them what they need and avoiding the things that they don’t. The software is also compatible with wide range of Ubuntu certified applications, hardware and tools.
In order to download the software, you are need to register first. The registration is required because some of applications incorporated in this software carry a proprietary license, for which you need too accept an End-User Licensing Agreement. This is all free (as in free of cost), however.
Like the desktop version, Canonical offers Advantage Support for Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix, which is pretty cool as it gets you paid support for Ubuntu from the very guys who made it. After all, who knows the software better than the people who make it?
Check out our review of official Ubuntu 12.04 release, from a consumer point of view.
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