this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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244
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS To Get 12 Years of Updates (news.itsfoss.com)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 136 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Laugh at or complain about Ubuntu all you wish... but this type of effort really puts Linux as a compelling competitor to Windows for enterprise desktop users. Rather than paying for the Windows software license and then Microsoft or 3rd party support for the OS on top, the fees would be for dedicated operating system and package support against criticial vulnerabilities. Wouldn't a business rather have something that "just works as it is" over the long term, rather than something that leaves sysadmins holding their breath every Patch Tuesday with Microsoft randomly shoehorning in "features" here and there that have to be shutoff in GP editor?

More people using Ubuntu means more will be comfortable switching away from mac/Windows. Plus the free software components benefit from having a dedicated team securely supporting the packages over the long term.

The longstanding issue that remains is all the industry-specialized software either crappily-coded or riddled with DRMs and whatnot don't support Linux well yet.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

This is valid for end users too. Ubuntu Pro is free for up to 5 machines. People can install 22.04 and stay on it for 10 years or 24.04 for 12 years. That's the kind of boring stable desktop operation that only Windows XP has managed to muster and people loved it. It's perfect for the kind of folks who hate having to do major OS upgrades, as well as people who support others for free. Cough ... family IT ... cough. You bet your ass the family members I support would stay on 22.04 for a looong time!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Absolutely. Perfect for the people that get spooked at one pixel not being where they were used to it being. (It could be me 😳)

[–] [email protected] -4 points 9 months ago

Windows has much better forward and backward compatibility than Linux, that's why 10 year old Windows is still fine. 10 year old Linux on the other side just means nothing modern will work on it. That's really only usable in extreme edge cases. Flatpak and Snap somewhat address this, but that also puts you back into the forced-upgrade treadmill, as Flatpak runtimes don't have LTS support (not sure how Snap handles this).

[–] [email protected] 70 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I wonder how angry will the maintainers be in 2036:

aaaa, why do we have to support this ancient release, why did we promise 12 years of support

[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That's how you get successful, do something others don't

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago

Humorously, in 12 years we can say “well, it still works on Ubuntu” 🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Not a problem. Ship the component as a snap instead. 😊

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"Oh no, we're getting paid to do this thing instead of some other thing."

Part of having a job is working on things that need to be worked on, not because they're fun.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

That still causes internal screaming and when you reach the point where you feel you don't learn anything new because you only babysit some legacy shit you leave.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (1 children)

To note: this appears to be a move from 5 years (standard, free) + 5 years (extended, paid) to 5+7. Users not paying Canonical aren't getting anything different as to with prior LTS releases.

Standard free support for 24.04 is still 2024-04 through 2029-06.

https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Isn't ubuntu pro free up to 5 devices

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Free for personal use, so yes-ish. That'll certainly be a deal-breaker for some.

Realistically, people who are using it for personal use would probably be upgrading to the next LTS shortly after it's released (or in Ubuntu fashion, once the xxxx.yy.1 release is out). People who don't qualify to be using it for free anyway are more likely to be the ones keeping the same version for >5 years.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (4 children)

So next LTS might have to be resilient to the 2038 bug (32 bit signed timestamps overflow). I wonder how many softwares are vulnerable 🤔

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ubuntu is already immune to the 2038 bug. The Linux kernel even supports using a 64 bit time_t on 32 bit systems now. Of course some poorly written software could still be affected, but that's not the fault of the kernel or operating system.

The 2038 bug will certainly cause problems in some embedded systems that still use a 32 bit time_t if they are still running by then.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's not poorly written software if it's is old. Likewise the y2k bug is often declared as bad programming, but at the time the software with the y2k bug was written memory was measured in kilobytes and a lot of accounting software and banking software was written in a time when 64k was the norm. Oh, and I'll tell you now I know of at least some accounting software that is based on code written for the 8088 and has been wrapped and cross compiled so many times now it's unrecognisable. But I know that 40 year old code is still there.

So 2 digits for year was best practice at the time and at the time software vulnerable to the 2038 bug 32bit epoch dates was the best practice.

Now, software written today doing the same, could of course be considered bad, but it's not a good blanket statement.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean, Ghost Recon Wildlands which came out in 2017 for example has save dates written as a 32-bit date so it's prone to the 2038 bug, I set the date to 2040 and tested a bunch of software and while you can save the date overflows and shows as 1969. I bet there are still people using 32-bit dates even if unintentionally.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean, technically you could use unsigned 32bit if you don't need to handle dates before 1970. But yes, the best course of action now is to use 64bits. The cost is pretty much nothing on modern systems.

I'm just cautious of people judging software from a time with different constraints and expectations, with the current yardstick.

I also wonder what the problem will be. People playing ghost recon in 2038 are going to be "retro" gaming it. There should be an expectation of such problems. Would it prevent you loading or saving the file is the question?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nope, saving and loading works on that game (and pretty much every other game I tested), it's just you lose the date display in-game so you don't know when you really last saved.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Yeah, that's my point. It'll be a retro game by 2038 and anyone playing it will know it's "one of those quirks"

The bigger problem is software where the date really matters.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Software also looks at future dates, so the problem is actually going to start to occur much sooner. The kernel will be fine, it's all the other random software floating out there that you should worry about. A lot of in-house calendar and booking software is probably going to start to blow up soon.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Suspiciously all current LTS expire on Dec 2026 there is nothing planned ahead of this. And 3y for 6.6 is the shortest of any LTS I remember. My bet is Linus retiring then LF taking over everything.

@Bogasse @ylai

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Wouldnt 12 years update add up to 2036 and not 2038?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

They did say next LTS

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)

meanwhile windows 10 is already off the update cycle

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Their long-term support variant (called LTSC) is supported until 2032.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s 17 years after release. Just shy of being able to vote.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Yes and no.

The original 2015 release (10240) has support from 2015 - 2025. The latest 2021 release (19044) 2021 - 2032.

The product as a whole has around 16.5 years of support from go to woah, but each individual release is supported for 10 - 11.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot/iot-enterprise/whats-new/release-history#windows-iot-enterprise-ltsc

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

That's awesome! I wish more OS-es follow, especially Debian. Having support for an OS that can cover the whole perceived lifecycle of the hardware is something that was once (in the 2000s) the standard. This is something crucial for businesses, but it's also great for home users.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

With Ubuntu Pro. I'll stick with Alma, thanks.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Laughs in Solaris 10

... for 27 years.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Holy shit I had no idea it was still in support lol, that's wild

Solaris 11 came out in 2012 and is supported until 2035!!

What do you use it for?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Melts in long term support

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Well, fuck. They just made Ubuntu the most relevant distro. Not like it wasn't before, but now they knocked it up a notch - BAM!