What happens in 2011 with Ubuntu LTS?

[matthew]

I thought Dapper was supported for 3 years on the desktop and 5 on the server. Why would there be another one before at least 3 years?

Not everyone wants to upgrade more often than that. In some instances, it is preferable to install and let the installation sit for 3 full years with only security updates, then migrate the data and do a fresh installation.

[FuturePilot]

But I mean if Gutsy +1 is supposed to be the next LTS, it will be well before the 3 year life of Dapper is done.

[matthew]

But I mean if Gutsy +1 is supposed to be the next LTS, it will be well before the 3 year life of Dapper is done.

Other people like to update from stable version to stable more often, every 2 years or so, to get the latest versions of software packages and so on.

[FuturePilot]

Ah, now I see. Thanks.

[Liquid Punk]

I thought Dapper was supported for 3 years on the desktop and 5 on the server. Why would there be another one before at least 3 years? Just wondering. I'll be looking forward to the next LTS It would be cool if you could go from Dapper straight to the next LTS.

Well, RHEL2 is supported until 2009, and RHEL5 has recently been released, so Ubuntu certainly wouldn't be alone in doing this. It gives users more flexibility about when and how to upgrade.

About the original question, you could tell him to install Debian Etch, you can count on support for that for a while to come. Plus it is extremely robust and as 'Free' as humanely possible.

[Solicitous]

This is personal opinion. I don't think there will be major issues in upgrading from 6.06 to 11.04 when it is released. There will probably be appropriate procedures in place to make this possible. The area that issues will more than likely arise is custom apps, php, ???sql databases etc....anything essentially added to the system after install. However after 6 years of running on the same box, I'd personally think of either a) time to retire the machine and replace with something new. After 6 years the old hdd are probably worn out and coming to the end of their cycle. I know I know, there are probably people out there who have run the same server for 10 years or more, yet if I was responsible and required reliability, the minor expense in purchasing a new server would be well worth the money, and b) the system would more than likely wind up a bit messy ie; 6 years of applying little hacks and fixes etc for short term problems.

I can understand being worried about it now, get in early to resolve the problems. But i think by then things would have changed for Ubuntu as a distro and yourself when it comes to requirement of business and the server.

Just my 2 cents.

[macogw]

I thought Dapper was supported for 3 years on the desktop and 5 on the server. Why would there be another one before at least 3 years? Just wondering. I'll be looking forward to the next LTS It would be cool if you could go from Dapper straight to the next LTS.

So you have time to upgrade...there'll be a year of time to prepare and test (sysadmins like to run their own tests before deployment) and upgrade. If you have a lot of servers it can take a while.