Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Desktop To Be Supported for Five Years

By , Published October 21, 2011

Next April’s release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS will provide desktop users with five years of support and maintenance releases Canonical have announced. 

Previous ‘Long Term Support’ releases provided 3 years of support for desktop users, whilst 5 for server users.

The increased support period is a ‘response’ to the popularity of LTS usage in businesses, Canonical have said.

The five year support period, which consists of 2 years of hardware updates and three years of maintenance updates, will make Ubuntu 12.04 a desirable choice for companies seeking to roll out or upgrade large deployment of Ubuntu, with a mind on costs and technology.

‘ability to keep pace’

“Ubuntu has always been known for its ability to keep pace with the latest applications and hardware”, Ubuntu’s Engineering Director at Canonical, Rick Spencer says.

“But as our user-base grows and matures the ability to plan for the longer term is vital. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS will give desktop users the perfect combination of keeping pace with hardware changes and extended support depending on their needs”.

Support for Ubuntu’s previous LTS release, Ubuntu 10.04, ends in April 2013.

Ubuntu 12.04 is scheduled for release in April 2012.

source

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  • Anonymous

    Too bad if 12.04 ships with firefox 7, when support is done it will like 20 versions behind. They need to update the apps.

    • http://twitter.com/josian_220 José Antonio

      it will probably ship with at least firefox 8, which at least is truly 64 bit, making skype the only massively common application in 32 bit for linux.

    • Anonymous

      Hopefully by then they will fix the bug that keeps applications from updating. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/software-center/+bug/578045

      • Anonymous

        yes, exactly. They need to try their best to get this one in for this upcoming LTS, before is launched  or with an update after launch.

    • http://profiles.google.com/krnekhelesh Nekhelesh Ramananthan

      Well, Firefox 8 will be released this november 9th. So I really hope that Ubuntu 12.04 which will be released 6 months later come with firefox 9 or even firefox 10. 

      • Anonymous

        With firefox’s 6 week release schedule at the time of ubuntu 12.04 it will be firefox 12
        https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OtherProjectSchedules

        • http://profiles.google.com/krnekhelesh Nekhelesh Ramananthan

          oh!! Well in that case I hope atleast firefox 11 makes it. Firefox 12 is too close to the final release..

      • http://buhartr.com Önder Bakırtaş

        Maybe the Firefox goes the same version number. :].

      • https://launchpad.net/~chrisccoulson Chris Coulson

         12.04 will release with Firefox 11, with a security update to 12 on pretty much the day of release, unfortunately

    • http://castrojo.tumblr.com Jorge Castro

      Firefox updates are always pushed out to the supported stable releases. (with the notable exception of 10.04, which will keep 3.6.x until Mozilla EOLs it)

      • Anonymous

        i think firefox was just an example (which has been fixed now). I believe he means most apps in general.

      • Anonymous

        Firefox was an example.
        I am referring to any user visible app, like thunderbird, empathy, libreoffice ect.
        New users don’t know what repos are. To them its like an app store. The Mac App store and soon to be win8 app store will have their apps always updated, why the hell not ubuntu?

        • http://castrojo.tumblr.com Jorge Castro

          You can enable backports if you want, and applications sent through developer.ubuntu.com can be updated whenever the author wants.  (Thunderbird is also updated out of band)

          • Anonymous

            This doesn’t really solve the issue. He’s talking about the elephant in the room: the app updating model for the desktop Linux is broken.

            Users not only *want* the latest version, they better do have it. Newest versions are not just about new features, they are also about security, stability, maturity, etc. It’s silly to expect desktop users to stay with the same version of an app for 5 years.

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_6CLU5ZOTFN5KZODOREOPZ27B7Q John Nelson

            I was at a law office the other day wherein all the secretaries were using Microsoft Office 2003 on their Windows XP computers.  In the corporate world, users stick to apps for years.  That’s the issue that having a 5-year LTS on the desktop addresses.

          • Anonymous

            I 100% agree, and this bugged me for years. I think this is the single biggest inhibitor to the adoption of Linux but the Linux world doesn’t want to address the issue.

          • Anonymous

            @yahoo-6CLU5ZOTFN5KZODOREOPZ27B7Q:disqus
            So? First you forget to notice that MS office costs money and most people see no reason to shell out  $100+ per license every few years when the old version is STILL UPDATED.

            Second, we are also looking at the average home user here, corporate users have an IT department who (should) not be updating every single time an update pops up in the update manager. They should do some testing then schedule some downtime.

    • Bilal Akhtar

      The policy has changed since 11.04. Firefox stable updates are now pushed to all supported releases, both LTS and non-LTS.

      • Anonymous

        I’m not talking only about firefox.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremy-Newton/512458865 Jeremy Newton

        that policy for libreoffice would be good to see too.

        On a side note, is Oneiric going to have gnome 3.2.1 or 3.2.2 (when it comes out)? It seems silly not to have point releases included in each release, as gnome releases them to fix issues, not introduce features.

    • http://www.facebook.com/andrew.somerville Andrew Somerville

      The latest Ubuntus are actually automatically upgrading Firefox. I noticed this when it broke my GWT plugin going from 5 to 6. 

    • Akshat Jain

      Hey, do you understand what ‘Maintenance Updates’ mean? 

      • Anonymous

        Right…
        So we should fallow suit with Microsoft and copy them (keeping everyone on IE6).

        A new version of firefox, empathy or whatever is not some crazy update to the kernel.

    • http://hector-macias.blogspot.com Hector Macias Ayala

      Can you people try to think a lil bit before commenting nonsense BS? its pretty f*cking obvious it wont be FF7 by then,.

      • Anonymous

        Its pretty f*ckung obvious I was referring to the latest release of Firefox at that time and that it would not be updated beyond that. Its also obvious that I’m not only talking about Firefox.

    • https://login.ubuntu.com/+id/R4szkb7 Jo-Erlend Schinstad

      Firefox gets upgraded. It’s been like that for quite a while now.

  • Anonymous

    How long will Server last? Like ten years?

    • Anonymous

      I think seven years should be doable. Isn’t that what Red Hat offers?

    • Anonymous

      They might just do 5 years for both. Keeps  support simple I guess. And it’s not like there isn’t going to be new LTS’ in that time.

      • http://profiles.google.com/nathanlee2 nathan lee

        or two

        • Anonymous

          Thus the apostrophe

      • Anonymous

        Well if i’m not mistaken, Dapper drake server just died in june. I think that was two

        • Anonymous

          Dapper was the first LTS release. Every fourth release thereafter was an LTS. So Hardy, Lucid, Precise.

  • Anonymous

    This is good for Ubuntu. Now they will have “a strong, bulletproof desktop” that companies can use without having to worry about antivirus and stuff
    If only companies made business programs for Ubuntu. Then the IT departments of le big companies could switch operations over to Ubuntu without having people complain about how they don’t know how to use some program like gimp or libre office, and without having the security threats they risk every day with windows as a server platform (not saying windows server isn’t any good, just not as good as Ubuntu server could be)

  • http://www.manishsinha.net Manish Sinha

    The complete mail sent by Allison to Devel list (for geeks)
    https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2011-October/034275.html

  • juzzlin

    Great move!

  • Eylem Koca

    I applaud Canonical for this initiative. I hope to see 12.04 stable and polished, more than deserving the LTS badge.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3BEMYXZR3QTBZF676TUAEKATHM syncdram
  • David Gagnon

    Ubuntu needs to become a true rolling-release distro. Period. I’ve been a Ubuntu user since the very beginning in 2004, and I switched to Arch about a year ago, and never looked back. I’m running all the greatest and latest software, and I didn’t have to “upgrade” at any time, I just run the regular updates everyday to keep up-to-date. If Ubuntu was like that, it would be awesome. One version, always up-to-date.

    • Anonymous

      totally agree. the upgrades confuses regular users and mess up all their ppa’s. and LTS at the moment stays behind in terms of latest software.
      rolling distro now!!!

      • Jack Musick

        Well, in regardless of how Ubuntu is designed and meant to be used, it’s not used (mostly) by regular users.

        • http://www.cjschris.com/ cjschris

          but that isn’t a good thing.
          if it wants to compete it should be accessible for everyone, not just typical linux users.

    • Anonymous

      You don’t have to download another ISO and burn another CD to upgrade ubuntu if you don’t want to so I don’t see why its such a big deal. But, if you have /home on a separate partition from /, you can install the new version from the CD and get a squeaky clean new system every 6 months without backing up all your files :D

      • http://twitter.com/ux92 uvazquez

        That might be true, but sometimes one doesn’t want to reinstall mostly all applications like games and stuff, and reconfigure almost most of them.
        By the way I use this method, I’m just pointing its low aspects.

        • Anonymous

          Any consideration provided to ability to synch apps between computers?  If that is the case, a clean upgrade my actually pull in your desired packages.  This could be a nice feature for upgrades, where the user is able to have a predefined set of packages/applications they want installed and PPAs they use.  The repository apps are installed in-line with upgrade and the PPAs are checked to see if working with new upgrade and then re-enabled.  Just rambling I guess.  :)

      • Matt Sturgeon

        Theses days if you boot from the CD and choose “Upgrade Ubuntu 11.10″ it will erase everything outside /home then installs the CD into the partition as normal, leaving /home untouched it then attempts to restore most of the packages installed before (not sure exactly how it does this, the only time I did an upgrade this bit just said it failed).
        Alternatively you can backup /home and then restore it after install… I prefer not to partition if possible as you get better use out of the space when its not split up, but for this purpose it is probably the cleanest meathod

    • Anonymous

      Disagree. Distros build up bloat over time, and none more so than a rolling release. If anything, Ubuntu should have one year release cycles, so each release is rock solid, and there is less bloat.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremy-Newton/512458865 Jeremy Newton

        Disagree, I don’t think it bloats if you know what you’re doing, although not all users know what they’re doing or care about to know/do the maintenance. Considering the crowd that uses Ubuntu, I would agree that it shouldn’t be rolling.

        Also, to add to your suggestion, I would love to see a Debian style testing rolling release over an annual basis for Ubuntu. I like Debian’s system but it’s far too slow.

        • Brandon Kalashian

          Linux mint debian…

          • http://profiles.google.com/butyourecooltoo Thomas Howe

            I prefer pizza.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremy-Newton/512458865 Jeremy Newton

            Agreed, pizza is pretty damn delicious

      • Anonymous

        Rolling releases do not build up bloat over time.
        I dare you to find one Gentoo or Arch machine that is bloated more then Ubuntu, that was not caused by the user himself.

        • Anonymous

          That’s not a fair comparison. You need to have features to build bloat.

          • http://twitter.com/poltak_ Jaian

            I honestly don’t thing you know what you’re talking about… A distro will not magically accumulate “bloat” over time with no user playing a part. It’s the user who accumulates bloat on his/her machine over time.
            +1 for Ubuntu being rolling release. The worst thing about it is the constant updates every 6 months.
            The best thing I think would be to make the mainline Ubuntu rolling release and release a frozen-to-a-point LTS version that doesn’t “roll” every 2 years, for stability and mass distributions and such.
            Probably won’t happen, since it is pretty exciting when that time comes around every 6 months for everyone (even me as a non-Ubuntu user anymore), and it does attract a lot of publicity in the form of reviews and such on many different tech websites that aren’t necessarily aimed at Linux users. So, personally, I don’t think it will happen. Wish it would though…

          • http://zadco.me Zadco
          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_K5BNQWWBNHNJ7WLMRKJULWTBAQ Vampir achtneunacht

            A Rolling Release doesnt bloat. Especially when its Vanilla (like Archlinux). The only thing that can bloat is the software you install (for example some people treat KDE4 more bloaten than KDE3 in case of desktop effects are enabled by default).

            I never seen a Ubuntu System Upgrade running smooth, if people do an upgrade they expect everything is like before but better.

            That can not be, they had 6 Months no product upgrade, how can this go well?

            The 12.04 Release, as every other release, will cause a lot of crashes an non-bootable machines in case of this stupid 6 Months release cycle.

            Im installing a pre-configured Archlinux with a graphical system-configuration tool an package management. People are lucky with that because its same easy to use it than Ubuntu from this point on (even easier because you can graphical setup deamons and lot of things like that)

            The Only thing why people threat ubuntu is “easy” is because the installation is awesomely easy and everything is pre-setup. Thats its most advantage and in the same time most disadvantage.

            If you have someone who setups your computer, you dont have to care if installation is easy, so you dont care what distro is installed.

            Rolling Release needs less maitnaince because you dont have huge releases. Just run Software Upgrades once a day (or at least once a week) and you will go fine for hundret of years.

    • Eylem Koca

      I think Ubuntu needs to separate the Desktop line from LTS and Server lines, and make the Desktop versions true rolling-releases with 6-month snapshot releases just like it goes now. This would still give Ubuntu the media attention that many people are concerned about when they think of rolling-release, and would give the Desktop version users the cutting-edge software they need along with continuous security and hardware support. Cutting-edge doesn’t mean unstable or buggy if the software/kernel/etc updates are done cleverly.
      The LTS version would be a clone of one of those snapshots every two years just like it is now and would see more limited software updates and probably no kernel updates. This way, LTS version would remain much more stable and relatively conservative, and Ubuntu could easily provide 5-year support.
      This way Desktop version would more closely target the mainstream users both from the Linux community and from Windows converts, and the LTS version would still make the businesses feel safe.

    • Anonymous

      No.
      Canonical isn’t some happy dancing group of software developers. Power users are not their target audience.
      What enterprise is going to update their systems everyday.
      EDIT: although for users like me rolling distros are superior, which is why I use one now.

      • Terri Surdzis

        Hear hear. I love rolling distros, and I really miss Gentoo (well, sorta… got a bit frustrating whenever it took fifteen minutes to install one little program), but I don’t think Ubuntu ought to start rolling themselves. It wouldn’t really serve their target, because (in my experience) rolling releases tend to break pretty often, and while it might be fun to try fixing them, it really pisses you off when all you want is a production environment that chugs along happily.

        So I agree with @new_user — Ubuntu should stay as it is, and keep rolling distros for the computer enthusiasts.

    • http://profiles.google.com/nathanlee2 nathan lee

      You know… if you update every 6 months it’s not exactly far off from a rolling release. True, it’s not full of the latest and greatest and buggiest software on a daily basis, but that design decision allows developers to stay sane and focused on predictable improvement schedules.

      Besides, if you absolutely HAVE to have the latest and greatest and buggiest software, you can always install ppa’s from the individual developers. Many people get their web browser, WINE, Banshee, and other favorite programs updated as such.

      • Anonymous

        What do you not understand about latest and greatest “stable” releases. How the hell is the newest stable release of chrome of firefox buggy?
        Debain testing is more stable then Ubuntu (desktop, Ubuntu server is great).

    • http://mark-y-a.myopenid.com/ Marky

      I used Gentoo a long time ago but very short time only. Didn’t like it any bit. Didn’t hate it too. There was just something too much about it that I can’t quite get. Took too long to install, etc, etc…. Ordinary computer users would have a hard time installing it on their systems too.  Anyway that is just my opinion….  peace :D

    • http://www.twm-kd.com/ BigWhale

      No. I strongly disagree. Rolling release is good for you, (for now) you have all the time in the world to configure Arch (or Gentoo for that matter) and you can spend time configuring it and tinkering with it, running constant upgrades and so on and so on.

      I used Gentoo for years and I got sick of all the upgrades and compile time and broken dependencies with almost every big update. And this was just for my working machine. I can’t imagine how it would look on a set of 50 machines that need to be maintained.

      The ‘correct’ solution would be one year release cycles with a few official PPAs for some applications. Libre Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, …

      Five year LTS is actually a very good news for everybody. Third party developers can now dedicate time to actual development instead to porting from one version to another.

    • Fidel Viegas

      I disagree with that. You are looking from a home user point of view, which is quite irrelevant when compared to a business point of view. Businesses want stable software, because if a software breaks, people don’t work, and if they don’t work, they lose money.

      I think Arch Linux is a wonderful Linux distribution, but because of its rolling nature, I don’t really use it in production. I only use it to test the latest software, because if you use it in production you may eventually come across incompatibility problems, as I have come before when testing it.

      I prefer to work with stable releases, than to have the latest software release available, and have customers call you in the middle of the night because their software is not working. And the rules for any good system administrator is to always test the software before upgrading. You need to be certain that it will work, period! And this applies to any operating system or piece of  software, not just Linux.

      Regards,

      Fidel.

    • Thomas Bray

      its called debian testing ubuntu needs to slow down if it wants to offer the maturity of redhat or suse

  • Dragonbite

    This sounds pretty good.  I have been sticking with the LTS on the family desktop for a while and feels like it is falling behind on application versions unless I use PPAs.

    I think people are getting tired of the rapid updates every project is running under (Chrome, Firefox, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.) and having to update and hope (it doesn’t break something else) or hold off and miss out on goodies.

    One application that will have to get pushed is going to be LibreOffice. It is probably used in businesses using Ubuntu and is the app they will want upgraded for the latest features, stability and compatibility even more than updating the OS.

    So long as apps get updated, most businesses (outside of the IT staff) doesn’t care about the OS/desktop it is running so long as it can run the programs they need to get their job done!

    • http://profiles.google.com/nathanlee2 nathan lee

      Chrome  (and recently Firefox) have become ridiculous with their update schedule. Once upon a time, those were selling points for great media attention and customer predictability. Now, you have no idea what’s going on over there.

      I don’t think of LibreOffice as requiring the latest, greatest, and buggiest. I would imagine that as long as it does what it’s supposed to do – write decent documents – it wouldn’t matter that much.

      Your right though about the OS/Desktop though. It’s a “who cares” mentality, so long as they can get done what they want to.

  • Dragonbite

    I think this is a good move for Ubuntu because their LTS will be their “stable” version for people that don’t like constant updates while those people that want to try the latest, and are willing to risk a little instability there is the 6 mo. release.

    Satisfies two parties, while a rolling-release would only satisfy one.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3BEMYXZR3QTBZF676TUAEKATHM syncdram
    • Anonymous

      ? Did you want to show us how obviously retarded anti-unity trolls can be if only they try hard enough ? Or is that your opinion? Or.. was that YOUR post in a different forum that you linked? I don’t get it.

  • http://facebook.com/domcan2 1roxtar

    I can’t wait for 12.04.  I plan to upgrade all my kid’s and customer’s computers to Pangolin and pretty much just use my laptop to install the regular 6 month releases.  This is gonna be a great selling point for my computer repair business that I operate from my home.  I am already promoting and installing Ubuntu on a lot of customer computers and they love it.  A five year LTS is gonna be the sweet spot.  Thanks Canonical!!!

    • Anonymous

      This doesn’t stop the upgrade notice from popping up when update manager runs.  If you or your supported customers are not buying support from Canonical, u could use your analogy for any release, regardless of the years of support from Canonical.  

      • http://profiles.google.com/nathanlee2 nathan lee

        Being supported doesn’t just mean you can buy support from Canonical. It means they’ll keep fixing bugs, security problems, and so forth.

        And yes, they might get a “upgrade to 14.04″ option in two years. However, it’s not forced upon them in some annoying way. So, while he didn’t use any actual analogies, he does have a valid point. These are great selling features for ubuntu  through his computer repair business.

        • http://gkn.me.uk/ Greg K Nicholson

          A couple of years back Canonical tried to draw a distinction between Maintenance—security fixes etc.—and Support—help using it.

          The LTS releases are actually long term maintenance releases, but the name LTS had already stuck.

          https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackageMaintainednessPresentation

    • Anonymous

       you doing a great job, thank you.

  • Anonymous

    non unity lovers may not like it lol

  • nrundy

    2 years hardware, 3 years maintenance. So beginning in April 2014, if i buy a new computer, I will HAVE to use 14.04 in order to have hardware support for it. But if I stay on the same computer, I will continue to be able to use 12.04 for three more years.

    Do I understand this support plan correctly?

    • http://profiles.google.com/nathanlee2 nathan lee

      Close, but I took a different perspective on it. You have 2 years of hardware support (meaning hardware compatibility updates I believe), and 5 y ears of software maintenance support.

      So, if you buy a new computer mid-2014, and you (because you’re masochistic) installed 12.04 on it, you’ll have 3 more years of software support. However, you probably won’t get any updates to support your brand-spanking new hardware. You would only really need that though if you chose components that weren’t already supported.

      But that’s just my humble half-baked opinion.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

    This is great news for my dad, who’s stubborn to the extreme and never wants to update anything except antivirus on my parent’s desktop’s Windows XP partition. I dual-booted it with 10.04 to give them something faster and more secure to use, and while my mom’s grown to like it and uses it for anything other than browsing her IE-only school website, my dad’s still never really sat down to try it out (he always says he “doesn’t have the time to learn it”).

    Their hard drive is starting to have problems, and he just wants to do the “usual” of copying everything over to a new hard drive and sticking that in along with the older ones, ad infinitum…he creates a decent number of problems that I end up having to fix, which to be honest gets harder the longer I have not been using XP (roughly 3 years now). I’m currently advocating they pitch their decade-old machine and get a new Windows 7 desktop, which could then be dual-booted with 12.04 LTS. Maybe then, 5 years for desktop support *might* be enough time for him to get used to it…

    • Anonymous

      If they like Ubuntu, why not try getting a computer without Windows pre-installed?

  • Anonymous

    Simple fact. Users come for Apps. Apps are hard to develop when the target is continually moving. I think this is a very wise move and will bring more for profit developers over to ubuntu. Which will bring more users.

    • Anonymous

      Excuse me but how exactly will apps be upgraded? So you’re an app developer targeting this LTS and release a version in 2012, another one in 2013, then a year after, etc. But none of your users will be able to upgrade because updates are just for security. At the same time, you won’t be supporting 12.10, 13.04, etc. because of the “moving target”. WTF?

    • Anonymous

      Users come for apps, absolutely. What I don’t understand is why is it such a moving target from one version to the next? There obviously a technical reason but can this be overcome? For e.g., I was able to install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 8.04 and 11.04 with the same Chrome package, but most other apps require a certain version. So is it technical or can this be overcome politically? The fact it is a moving target inhibits developers writing software for Linux.

      • juzzlin

        One reason is that applications usually depend on some shared libraries that are not necessarily backwards compatible. They might use some features that are not available on the older version of the library. On Windows it is common that applications bring all the libraries with them. Some applications does this also on Linux and I think Chrome might be one of them. However, this means that there might be multiple copies of the same library installed and if the library gets a security update, all the applications must update their own copy of the library themselves.  

  • http://twitter.com/compileordie compileordie

    So does this mean that Canonical will stop pushing updates to the 12.04 repository three months after they release 12.10, or are they just going to stick to the usual one-month grace period?

    • Anonymous

      Security and maintenance updates will be sent over the entire cycle, whenever the need arises.

  • Anonymous

    Great Canonical….i think it’s due to Canonical and Hp agreement with Open Stack

  • Anonymous

    Great! Ubuntu will really be a force to be with recon with!

  • Anonymous

    Now that’s the sort of thing we like to hear!

  • Anonymous

    I can’t imagine how obsolete applications will become on a 12.04 release running in 2017. How many versions behind in Firefox? Like forty? And what about LibreOffice?

    It isn’t even funny. Such a long term support for a system that can’t update apps is ridiculous.

    • http://hector-macias.blogspot.com Hector Macias Ayala

      You comment isnt even funny. Most Linux users know how to add a repository and have the latest version.

      But perhaps youre 12 years old.

      • Anonymous

        You may know that adding PPAs to your system can make it unstable, which is a nice irony when applied to a LTS release…

        What does age have to do with this?

        • http://hector-macias.blogspot.com Hector Macias Ayala

          Yours has a lot, PPAs of unstable programs will very obviously make any Linux unstable. Stable PPA are meant for STABLE versions.

          • Anonymous

            I won’t enter into details about shared libraries. You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.

            Regarding my age: no seas tan listo, Héctor.

    • Isaac Trumbo

      They can always update the software center to auto-update apps like Android or iOS does…. They don’t have to release a new Ubuntu to do that.

      • http://profiles.google.com/butyourecooltoo Thomas Howe

        I thought it allready did that? i get browser updates from the update manager…

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_4QP2TJADZYZRLO7ZDLZ64TXM5Y chet siang

      imo average user more concern about their productivity rather than spending time to keep updates, tweaking, config OS. They  just need an OS to help them finish their job faster. That’s why winXXX success and popular (I’m not flaming xD). BTW, I do agree extending 12.04 support time frame will benefit majority user.

      • Anonymous

        One of the reasons Windows is succesfull is precisely because it can run newer versions of apps as soon as they are available.

        You can’t do that in Linux.

        To everyone posting about how Firefox is updated: it’s an exception. Almost every other app doesn’t get updated.

        So for five years you’re stuck with old apps. LibreOffice gets a brand new version that improves MS Office compatibility (for example)? You’re out of luck, unless you abandon the safety of your precious LTS. Maybe you get some updates of LibreOffice since it’s a very popular app, but you get the point. Most of the 30.000+ apps will be completely outdated by the second year of your LTS release, and you still have three years to go…

        Meanwhile, your lucky colleagues using Windows and OSX get all the updates, all the time…

        When will Linux separate system updates from application updates? If you read most forums, never. It’s not a priority for the devs. They actually BELIEVE the way it is today IS the right way.

        • http://hector-macias.blogspot.com Hector Macias Ayala

          “You can’t do that in Linux.”

          WRONG!!!

          I had Libreoffice and latest Opera running in 10.04 x64 they performed all fine.

    • Thomas Bray

      Firefox 3.6 is still receiving updates from mozilla

      • Anonymous

        It was just an example and you should know that. Almost ervery app BUT Firefox will be left behind.

    • http://twitter.com/Paul_IRL1 Paul Hill

       Firefox will be updated properly come 12.04 as it does in 11.10…

      • Anonymous

        It was just an example and you should know that. Almost ervery app BUT Firefox will be left behind.

  • Gabriel Rousseau

    I think that, with this change, they should release a new LTS every 4 years and a new version (with 2 years of support) every 12 months. Something like 12.04 LTS, 13.04, 14.04, 15.04, 16.04 LTS. =]

  • Jay Cool

    This is awesome news!  I Can’t wait for 12.04!
    I think somewhere down the road if canonical wants to compete with Red Hat fully they should go for 7 Years (in the Server) 

    But hey I like Red Hat too, and I feel Ubuntu is strongest on the desktop at the moment.

  • Anonymous

    I’m personally going to be very interested in seeing how canonical reacts when businesses take one look at Unity and run away.. 

    • https://login.ubuntu.com/+id/R4szkb7 Jo-Erlend Schinstad

      Why would they do that? Office users typically appreciate keyboard shortcuts and being able to multitask properly. These are areas where Unity really rocks.

      • rv riveravaldez

        Is not a philosophical issue?
        The idea behind any open OS is that the user is free to modify and adapt it to his preference. Something like “Unity”, is not like a Mac/Windows choice?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_KYFDUQMYW3Y26ILDVI7S2CAOYA boyet

    love that…. 5 or more years is a very nice idea.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_43A6RDZ2XZK7BMRWWIWSKJBUOM hossein

    Hello

    I
    have a big problem in ubuntu 11.10 with my graphic card

    Effects
    were not active in unity Desktab and Compiz will not work

    It
    will enable Compiz in Ubuntu 11.04

    First
    I thought the graphics card problem

    My
    graphic card : Ati mobility radeon x2300 in laptop asus z53jseries

    But After
    installing kde Desktab effects were active and compiz was activated

    i
    need help , I cant espeak English very well.

    How
    ever Help me pleas !

    Tell
    me in my mail : gmhosseini@yahoo.com

  • http://twitter.com/jackluu7 Luu Huynh Viet Van

    great idea, we’re gonna have more Ubuntu users. Normal users are usually afraid of “changing” their computer. Look at xp. So many people still stick to it even though they know how awful it is.

  • Isaac Trumbo

    I plan to switch my company over to Ubuntu 12.04. Three servers and all the desktops… slowly. I’m really excited! Already sent Canonical a sales request.

  • Anonymous

    Good decision. I was using Ubuntu 8.04 for over 3 years because it still did everything I wanted it to do, trouble free. As along as they can keep the necessary updates going though (e.g. for apps, hw support). 

  • http://twitter.com/drumboy_ Aaron H

    Looking forward to 12.04 being the best version of Ubuntu since I started using it in version 10.04.  Love the fact the the updates will last longer for us IT folks.  Keep it up!

  • http://twitter.com/UbuntuPirates Jham

    Yes 7  years is enough but sometimes we know that every distro’s has an stable release and updates

  • Jonathan Almeida

    I love April releases, they’re always on my birthday. :D

    This ones going to be extra special since it’s LTS. I ain’t upgrading to 11.10, I’m downgrading to 10.04!

  • http://twitter.com/paulkaiser98 Paul Michael Kaiser

    This is definitely a great development. I’ve only been an Ubuntu user for eight months, so I can’t really say I’ve experienced an LTS. I’d like to try one, as I did a fresh install for 11.04 and 11.10.

  • Anonymous

    Looks like they are finally starting to listen to me.

  • Marcel Werner

    Please backdrop 10.04 for 5 Years support also

  • Felipe Amado

    Please, someone must tell the developers to use default font size 1 pixel smaller and shorter animation delays.

  • Michel Thielen

    to wait 5 years is really so much i think the sys admin should upgrade more up them computer beacuse there’s a lot of changes during the time

  • Anonymous

    Problem is that Ubuntu with Unity is Linux for Dummies. And I don’t see any reason for Business to use it at all. For anyone smarter then their smartphone, Ubuntu is all but useless. Especially if you need to get real work done.

    Social networking, web surfing or checking your e-mail? Yea, it’s fine for that. But I have real stuff that needs to get done. And Ubuntu/Unity just don’t cut it.

    But hey, that’s just my opinion. And I am entitled to it. Your opinion? Your entitled to it too. But if you like the new Ubuntu/Unity. Well ….. Good for you. And good luck with it.

    Oh, and I wouldn’t put the fact that you use it on your resume. Just saying.

 
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