Download Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS Download | TechSpot

Ubuntu will work with your existing PC files, printers, cameras, music players and smartphones – and it comes with thousands of free apps.

Our Long Term Support (LTS) releases are supported for five years – ideal for organizations undertaking large deployments. To install Ubuntu, you will need to create an installation CD or USB stick after the download is complete.

If you are interested in trying Ubuntu 12 on your current computer without running any risk, please check our guide: Running Linux from a USB drive as a virtual machine or bootable disk.

Installation Instructions:

• Do you use a CD?
  • Installing Ubuntu from a CD is easy. Here’s what you need to do:
  • Insert the Ubuntu CD into the CD/DVD drive.
  • Restart your computer. You should see a welcome screen asking you to select your language and giving you the option to install Ubuntu or try it from the CD.
  • If you do not get this menu, read the boot from CD guide for more information.
• Are you using a USB drive?
  • Most newer computers can boot from USB. You should see a welcome screen asking you to select your language and giving you the option to install Ubuntu or try it from the CD.
  • If your computer doesn’t do it automatically, you may need to press the F12 key to bring up the boot menu, but be careful not to hold it down – it may cause an error message.
• Prepare to install Ubuntu
  • We recommend that you connect the computer to a power source
  • You should also make sure that you have enough space on your computer to install Ubuntu
  • We recommend you select Download updates while installing and install this third-party software now
  • You should also stay connected to the internet so that you can get the latest updates while installing Ubuntu
  • If you’re not connected to the internet, we’ll help you set up wireless in the next step
• Set up wireless
  • If you are not connected to the Internet, you will be prompted to select a wireless network, if available. We recommend that you connect during installation so that we can ensure that your machine is up to date. So if you’re configuring your wireless network at this point, it’s worth clicking the Back button to go back to the last screen (Preparing to install Ubuntu) and checking the box labeled ‘Download updates while installing’.
• Allocate station space
  • Use the checkboxes to choose whether you want to install Ubuntu together with another operating system, delete your existing operating system and replace it with Ubuntu, or – if you are an advanced user – select the “Something else” option
• Begin the installation
  • Depending on your previous choices, you can now confirm that you have chosen the way you want to install Ubuntu. The installation process starts when you click the Install Now button.
  • Ubuntu needs about 4.5 GB to install, so add a few extra GB to allow for your files.
  • Not sure about this step? Windows users can use the Windows installer, which will install and uninstall Ubuntu in the same way as any other Windows application. It’s easier and completely safe.
• Choose your location
  • If you are connected to the internet, this should be done automatically. Verify that your location is correct and click “Forward” to continue. If you are unsure of your time zone, enter the name of the city you are in or click on the map and we will help you find it.
• Select the desired keyboard layout
  • Click on the language option you need. If you’re not sure, click the “Discover Keyboard Layout” button for help.
• Enter your login and password details
• Learn more about Ubuntu while the system installs… or make a cup of tea!
• That’s it.
  • All that’s left is to restart your computer and start enjoying Ubuntu!

What is new:

• Desktop interface
  • There is a new way to quickly search and access menu and indicator actions, called “HUD” (Heads-Up Display). Press the Alt key and type in some letters and words and it will display the corresponding entries, including some fuzzy matches; then press enter to perform the action. The search will include all menu entries for the application in question, as well as all indicator facilities (such as managing e-mail, audio list or logging out of the session). It learns from your previous choices to make the search more and more accurate for you.
  • System Preferences has several new “options” to customize Unity’s appearance and behavior.
  • Nautilus quicklist support has been added to the Unity launcher.
  • ClickPad devices are touchpads where the physical button is integrated into the touchpad’s surface. Ubuntu 12.04 now has improved support for these devices. When the button is pressed on a ClickPad device, another finger can be used to drag the cursor.
    • ClickPad support requires additional handling that conflicts with “Click Action” support. Click Actions allow separate actions when multiple fingers are active on a trackpad. The default Ubuntu settings enable right button behavior when two fingers are in contact with the trackpad surface and the physical trackpad button is pressed. Due to conflicting behavior, ClickPad devices do not support click actions in this release.
    • Most ClickPads from the Synaptics brand are recognized straight out of the box. Apple MacBook trackpads are also recognized. Support for Apple Magic Trackpads and more Synaptics-branded ClickPads will follow in the next release.
  • Network Manager now uses dnsmasq for improved DNS reliability and support for split DNS on VPN connections. You can learn more here.
  • IPv6 and IPv4 are now equally supported in Network Manager: an IPv4 address is no longer required for a connection to be considered working.
• Desktop applications
  • The default music player has been switched to Rhythmbox, which again includes the Ubuntu One music store.
  • LibreOffice has been updated to 3.5.2.
  • GNOME has been updated to 3.4.1. Read the GNOME 3.4 release notes to find out what’s new and improved. A few highlights include:
    • Files (Nautilus) now have undo support.
    • Several games have been modernized with helpful help, simplified menus and a less cluttered interface.
  • Remmina with FreeRDP is the new default remote desktop client, replacing Vinagre and rdesktop.
  • The IcedTea Java plugin is no longer installed as part of the ubuntu-restricted-addons package, but it is still available for installation (889171)
• Software Center
  • When you install new software through the Software Center, corresponding language support packs (translations, spell check modules specific to that software, help files, etc.) are now installed alongside automatically. This removes the need to open “Language Support” after installing new software.
  • The user can sign up for personal recommendations. This will show global recommendations, categories and recommendations per application to the user.
  • PayPal payment support.
  • Online directory to share applications with your friends.
  • Support for multiple screenshots and videos is now available.
  • Boot time and overall responsiveness were improved.
  • Improved support for installing multiple versions via the ubuntu-backports project.
• Ubuntu One
  • The all new control panel now provides an installer, setup wizard, ability to add/remove folders to sync and more.
  • Proxy support is now fully functional.
  • Ubuntu One contact sync in Evolution is no longer supported and has been removed.
• Shared infrastructure
  • Until Ubuntu 11.10, administrator access using the sudo utility was granted via the “admin” Unix group. In Ubuntu 12.04, administrator access will be granted via the “sudo” group. This makes Ubuntu more consistent with the upstream implementation and Debian. For compatibility purposes, the “admin” group will continue to grant sudo/administrator access in 12.04.
  • Hibernation (suspend to disk) has been disabled by default, as it was found to be unreliable, very slow and confusing to have two suspend modes. See bug 812394 for details. If you want to reactivate it, follow this recipe.
  • pm-utils now has two new scripts to turn off USB and various PCI devices in battery mode. A number of desktop packages were fixed to wake up less often. Both of these reduce power consumption and thus improve battery life.
  • resolvconf is now used to manage /etc/resolv.conf on all Ubuntu systems. You can learn more here
  • Backports are now more readily available — to enable users to more easily receive new versions of software, the Ubuntu Backports repository is now enabled by default. Packages from backports will not be installed by default—they must be explicitly selected in package management software. However, once installed, packages from backports will automatically upgrade to newer versions.
  • DVD Images — The DVD images have been cleaned up and reduced in size to around 1.5 GB for ease of consumption. The remaining software remains available via download.
• Linux v3.2.14 kernel
  • Ubuntu 12.04 LTS ships with an updated kernel that moves from the mainline v3.0 series to the mainline v3.2 series. At release we ship with the Ubuntu 3.2.0-23.36 kernel which is based on the v3.2.14 upstream stable Linux kernel. Mainline v3.0 to v3.2 stable serial updates bring a number of new features. Some highlights include:
    • ext4 gains support for larger base block sizes
    • btrfs has more work to do to address data integrity issues
    • entity mapping gets thin provisioning and recursive snapshots
    • more work to improve performance under high writeback load
    • network improvements for congested networks
    • ext3 switches to using file system barriers
    • memory allocator improvements
    • VFS scalability improvements
    • a new iSCSI implementation
    • software wait gets bad block management
      • Important changes in the Ubuntu kernel since 3.0.0-12.20 The Ubuntu kernel that shipped in the 11.10 Ubuntu release includes:
    • Rebase to upstream stable Linux kernel v3.2.14.
    • The amd64 -generic and -server kernel flavors have been merged into a single generic kernel flavor for Ubuntu 12.04. Given the few differences that existed between the two flavors, it only made sense to merge the two and reduce the overall maintenance burden over the lifetime of this LTS release.
    • Support for a new armhf kernel flavor has been introduced.
    • The non-smp PowerPC kernel flavor has been removed. All hardware currently supported by the non-smp PowerPC kernel flavor should also be supported by the smp PowerPC kernel flavor.
    • RC6 is enabled by default for Sandy Bridge systems. RC6 is a technology that allows the GPU to enter a very low power consumption state when the GPU is idle (down to 0W). It results in significant power savings when this step is enabled. When comparing under idle load with engine condition where RC6 is disabled, improved power consumption of around 40-60% has been seen.
    • An improved set of jack detection patches has been backported from the upstream v3.3 Linux kernel.
    • An updated AppArmor patchset is included to better adapt to what lands upstream.
    • Used and enabled the seccomp-filters feature which uses the packet filtering (BPF) engine to restrict access to system calls.
    • A set of arm kexec fixes from v3.3-rc1 have also been backported.
    • We have also conducted an extensive review of the Ubuntu kernel configurations and made a number of configuration changes as a result.