Canonical Preps Security Lifeboat, Yells: Ubuntu 12.04 Hold-Outs, Get In (theregister.co.uk)

Gavin Clarke, writing for The Register: Canonical is extending the deadline for security updates for paying users of its five-year-old Ubuntu 12.04 LTS -- a first. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS will become the first Long Term Support release of Canonical's Linux to get Extended Security Maintenance (ESM). There are six LTS editions. All others have been end-of-lifed -- and given no security reprieve. LTS editions of Ubuntu Linux are released every two years. Desktop support runs for three years and the server edition receives security patches and updates for a period of five years. Security updates for 12.04 were scheduled to run out on April 28, 2017 but that now won't happen for those on Canonical's Ubuntu Advantage programme. They'll now receive important security fixes for the kernel and "most essential" userspace packages on their servers running 12.04. In what's shaping up to be Canonical's Windows XP moment over at Microsoft, the Linux spinner rolled out the lifeline because customers are clinging to 12.04.

Comments

Re:XP moment: not quite

[amiga3D]

I think people are hanging onto 12.04 because the next LTS release is where Ubuntu started to go off the rails.

Re:XP moment: not quite

[LVSlushdat]

Umm.. As far as I'm concerned, the next LTS, that being 14.04, is just fine... Its the following one, 16.04 that DEFINITELY "went off the rails", that being systemd.. All my systems are staying on 14.04 until close to its EOL, in April 2019, giving me 2 more years to find a non-systemd alternative to Ubuntu.. I'd rather stay with a Debian-derived OS, but its looking like I may be going back to my Linux "roots", that being Slackware, where I started with Linux in 1994..

Re:XP moment: not quite

[LVSlushdat]

I seriously doubt Patrick Volkerding is gonna go down the systemd "rathole"... Although if for some insane reason, he did do that to Slackware, like you say, theres always the 'BSD's, which wouldn't be so bad to replace Linux...