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Red Hat/Fedora, GNOME, KDE and others have brought things that can be used in the Linux Community, like NetworkManager, Plymouth Boot Splash, a friendlier desktop system, etc. I would like to know what Ubuntu has brought to the Linux Community.

Things that I know of are Unity Desktop and UTouch (which I find to be an excellent feature). Note that I am not talking about obvious things like look & feel, huge community, etc. I am talking about features that it has added or enhanced in the Linux community.

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My personal opinion is that Canonical and Ubuntu biggest contribution to the Linux Community is LaunchPad.net itself.

The ease to which developers can rapidly produce testing packages, from a myriad of indicators, to the latest 'cutting-edge' software which can be easily added to Ubuntu and any Debian based distro is simply amazing. Filing accurate bug reports are so simple - and are often answered by the smaller developers is more than I've encountered on sites such as bugzilla and sourceforge.

It wasnt that long ago when you had to get busy with the command line to compile your own software.

Thank-fully those days are now over.

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I believe these 2 are Ubuntu specific and made a big impact:

  • Ubuntu Software Center is a utility for installing, removing, and purchasing software in Ubuntu. It replaces several other utilities, which makes the overall experience easier to understand, improves user safety, and frees space on the Ubuntu CD. The next version will be 3.2, allowing ratings and reviews of software. Later versions may include recommendation features, replace Synaptic, APTonCD, and most of the Computer Janitor, and integrate with Update Manager.

From muktware.com: "We already agreed that we would like the current Ubuntu Software Center to be improved and used in various distributions. If this happens, then we will have the same software center in many distributions, but this doesn't mean that the available applications have to be exactly the same in every distribution. There are no plans to merge software repositories for now, nor package managers."
Samuel Verschelde (aka Stormi), Mageia contributor, mageia-app-db project lead.

  • Upstart is an event-based replacement for the /sbin/init daemon which handles starting of tasks and services during boot, stopping them during shutdown and supervising them while the system is running. It was originally developed for the Ubuntu distribution, but is intended to be suitable for deployment in all Linux distributions as a replacement for the venerable System-V init.
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  • what other distro's uses the USC? besides those Ubuntu-based?
    – Uri Herrera
    Jun 2, 2011 at 23:25
  • Upstart replaced sysvinit in Fedora 9. it replaces sysvinit. Upstart also in Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 release Debian was eventually considering a switch for the Squeeze release. openSUSE has included upstart as of version 11.3 Milestone 4, but not as default. Upstart replaces the sysvinit in the Maemo 5 operating system for Nokia Internet tablets. Upstart is used in Palm's webOS for the Palm Pre smart phone. Upstart is also used in Google's Chrome OS. Upstart is targeted for replacement by systemd for the Fedora 15 release.
    – hansioux
    Jun 3, 2011 at 1:50
  • @Uri Herrera none yet but a unified Software Center has been talked about since beginning this year. See my edit ;)
    – Rinzwind
    Jun 3, 2011 at 5:28
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Well, 2 years later and I find this baby: http://www.canonical.com/contributors

So some of the great things that Ubuntu has brought to the Linux community or enhanced are:

  • Software Center
  • Upstart
  • Bazaar
  • Juju
  • Launchpad
  • LightDM
  • Mir Display Server
  • Zeitgeist Library
  • DesktopCouchDB
  • Apport

And this are the only ones I have used. The rest are in the list.

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