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View Full Version : [all variants] long-term shelf life of version??


andalus
June 17th, 2009, 06:03 PM
I understand that stable versions are supported for approx 18 months. What happens after the version is no longer supported? Will the software remain stable and usable? Will the package manager still access the repositories?

I have been using kubuntu 8.04 for 6 months and love it. Recently tried to upgrade to 9.04 with Canonical CD. KDE 4 is not user friendly; couldn't figure out the new package manager at all. Couldn't even find where the drives and storage media were available. Dumped it and reinstalled 8.04. I've read about using KDE 3 with the newer version 9.04, but I don't do command lines, codes, etc. (former 20 year Mac user)

So, I will be using 8.04 until a more user-friendly version is available. Hence, my opening questions.
Ubuntist
June 17th, 2009, 06:05 PM
8.04 is an LTS ("long-term support") release and will be supported for three years.
raymondh
June 17th, 2009, 06:12 PM
from the wiki

Releases are timed to be approximately one month after GNOME releases, which are in turn about one month after releases of X.org. Consequently, every Ubuntu release comes with a newer version of both GNOME and X. Release 6.06 (Dapper Drake)—and recently 8.04 (Hardy Heron)—have been labeled as a Long Term Support (LTS) , to indicate support with updates for three years on the desktop and five years on the server,[50] compared to 18 months support for non-LTS releases.[51] Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop was released on April 23, 2009. It includes the latest enhancements and is maintained until October 2010.

Hardy (8.04) was released April 24, 2008
Mighty_Joe
June 17th, 2009, 06:23 PM
KDE 4 is not user friendly; couldn't figure out the new package manager at all. Couldn't even find where the drives and storage media were available.

As a long-time KDE user, KDE 4 threw me for a loop too. I remember I couldn't figure out, once I drilled down into the program menu, how to get back out (oh, there's a thin band down the left side that has a small arrow on it? How could I miss it?!?!?)
It breaks the mold in a lot of ways, which can be a good thing, but right now I'm using Gnome.