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

Posted by msmash on from the XP-moment dept.

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.

15 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. XP moment: not quite by DogDude · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "In what's shaping up to be Canonical's Windows XP moment"

    In another 5-10 years, this may be true. Mainstream support for XP lasted a decade, and some versions were supported for 13 years. 5 years support for an OS is, as The Orange Asshole would say, "Sad!".

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
    1. Re:XP moment: not quite by amiga3D · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

    2. Re:XP moment: not quite by LVSlushdat · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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..

      --
      THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
  2. Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was thinking about moving to Linux from Windows 7. But is there a way to install cygwin in Linux? I need cygwin to run git and other tools for development.

    1. Re:Help by Desler · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's this new invention called a joke.

    2. Re:Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hmm, I think you should run Cygwin in WINE. That will give you the best of both worlds for sure.

  3. Why is more recent valued over more stable? by Cesare+Ferrari · · Score: 2

    It has always interested me to know what drives companies to upgrade their systems. Let's say you have a farm of 1,000 servers that you've had for 5 years, doing useful stuff, running 12.04 - what incentive is there for you to upgrade?

    If they are web facing, and under attack - sure, I get it.
    If you are developing cutting edge software for deployment to other hosts - I get it.

    But if you are using them to actually do work for your company, say, running some data mining, or hosting a big kafka cluster, why change? The logical point is when you rip the lot out and install new hardware (and decide on a new machine config, including OS) but for existing hardware, shouldn't the OS choice live for the life of the server?

    1. Re:Why is more recent valued over more stable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      1) Even internal servers should be running versions receiving security patches to prevent easy pivots once you're inside the perimeter.
      2) Vendor support only lasts so long and some companies need/require it to ensure they meet SLAs.
      3) Non-homogeneous hardware deployments but homogeneous system builds.
      4) Perpetually developing against old libraries will eventually cause you issues when you are forced to upgrade.

  4. Re:Why 12.04? by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Informative

    For a long time you needed 12.04 to build Android, though recent releases allow 14.04 and I think 16.04 without issue But if you have a range of Android versions, 12.04 will build a lot of them.

  5. SystemD by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's quite obvious.

    If you must upgrade try FreeBSD. We don't change things for the sake of changing them their and it is a very stable conservative version of Unix.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
    1. Re:SystemD by Desler · · Score: 2

      If that were the reason then there is 14.04.

    2. Re:SystemD by DrStrangluv · · Score: 2

      Or bite the bullet, install a SystemD distro on your desktop so you can learn to live with it.

      I'm not a fan, but it's obvious that systemd is where things are heading. Like it or not, the sooner I get on board and learn how to use it properly the easier things will go for me long term.

    3. Re:SystemD by Vladus2000 · · Score: 2

      My desktop is 16.04 (well, whatever the Mint equiv is), but my two servers are still 14.04 and I have no plans to upgrade them. If I replace the hardware I may end up with systemd, but I am trying to avoid it for server as long as possible. For my desktop I care a lot less and it is becoming more difficult to get a newer linux desktop without it. I do not run server type services on my desktop machine, so my interaction with systemd is virtually none. I do have to use linux machines at work that run systemd though, so I am becoming somewhat familiar with it. Every time I need to run journalctl I want to scream.

  6. Re:Why 12.04? by Hadlock · · Score: 2

    12.04 was the first widely used version of Ubuntu in the mainstream. It also ironed out a bunch of the weirdness from it's predecessors and the versions after it (13.x and especially 14.04) are basically the same on the server side so there was very little reason to upgrade from 12.04 and then after that 16.04 has all it's systemd weirdness that people are actively trying to avoid until 14.04 goes EOL at which point enterprise folks might start doing preliminary testing on it.
     
    If 12.04 weren't going EOL, I'm sure many, many people would happily continue spinning it up and using it; it's perhaps the most well publicly documented version of linux, 14.04 being close behind.

    --
    moox. for a new generation.
  7. Insert systemd FUD by LVSlushdat by najajomo · · Score: 2

    I've been using Ubuntu since at least 12.04 and am currently on 16.04 on low spec hardware and can honestly say I haven't noticed any problems in general or with systemd, booting, suspend, resume and shutdown are all quite acceptable quick.

    ref: "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"..