Difference between Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and Ubuntu 13.04

[carmen2012]

I've gone through the information at http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop and can't seem to find anything that tells us what are the features of version 12.04 and what is new in 13.04.

Is there another link that might explain the difference between the two versions?

Thank you

[craig10x]

I ran 12.04 LTS then 12.10 and now 13.04 and i like 13.04 best...there has been many unity improvements in 13.04 and on my computer it is very rock solid and stable...things just seem to be smoother and faster...
Only drawback is they cut support to 9 months (instead of 18 months)...where as the LTS ones like 12.04 have 5 years of support...

The next LTS will be 14.04 in April 2014....i plan to use 13.04 until 13.10 comes out, then upgrade to that, and fresh install 14.04 and go on a 2 year cycle with that (new LTS release are every 2 years)...
I wouldn't stay with an LTS for 5 yrs because you would be missing a lot of newer versions of software you use on ubuntu...

[snowpine]

The #1 difference is that the software in 12.04 is from April 2012 and the software in 13.04 is from April 2013.

The #2 difference is that 12.04 is "long term support" with 5 years of support.

To read more about the many other differences, a good place to start is the Release Notes: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes

[Bucky Ball]

Thread moved to Recurring Discussions.

Previous posters seems to have covered it well.

I'll only add that the best thing from a user perspective is to burn the LiveCD, boot from it, try them all and see which you like best. They all use Unity for their desktop environment so not a lot of difference, apart from the ones previously mentioned regarding software versions. For production machines and servers, LTS. If you're looking to use it as a stable workhorse a good choice as you don't need the cutting, or bleeding, edge. Unlikely an update will kill an LTS (don't quote me on that!).

I use the LTS as home base and have a few spare partitions for playthings. Why not try something with a different desktop environment, Xubuntu or something more exotic (and minimal) like Puppy Linux? I tried that tonight from a CD and it was great.

[MadmanRB]

One has longer support but one has more recent software.
Its a pick your poison, though I will say that for me i actually find Ubuntu 13.04 better then 12.04.
I just wish it was supported more then 9 months, I just hope that 13.10 doesnt suck.