Long term support and interim releases
-LTS or ‘Long Term Support’ releases are published every two years in April. LTS releases are the ‘enterprise grade’ releases of Ubuntu, and they are much more heavily used (something like 95% of all Ubuntu installations are LTS releases). For example, 12.04 LTS, 14.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS have successively taken the lead position on all public clouds as the most popular OS images.
-Every six months between LTS versions, Canonical publishes an interim release of Ubuntu - 17.10 was an example. These are production quality releases and are supported for their lifespan (which is sufficient to carry you through to the next version) but they do not receive the long term commitment of LTS releases.
+LTS or ‘Long Term Support’ releases are published every two years in April. LTS releases are the ‘enterprise grade’ releases of Ubuntu and are utilised the most. An estimated 95% of all Ubuntu installations are LTS releases, with more than 60% of large-scale production clouds running on the most popular OS images - Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04 and 14.04 LTS.
+Every six months between LTS versions, Canonical publishes an interim release of Ubuntu, with18.10 being the latest example. These are production-quality releases and are supported for their lifespan, with sufficient time provided for users to update, but these releases do not receive the long-term commitment of LTS releases.
Release components - debs, snaps, images, containers
The heart of Ubuntu is a collection of ‘deb’ packages which are tested and integrated so that they work well as a set. Debs are optimised for highly structured dependency management, enabling you to combine debs very richly while ensuring that the necessary software dependencies for each deb (themselves delivered as debs) are installed on your machine.
Ubuntu also supports ‘snap’ packages which are more suited for third-party applications and tools which evolve at their own speed, independently of Ubuntu. If you want to install a high-profile app like Skype or a toolchain like the latest version of Golang, you probably want the snap because it will give you fresher versions and more control of the specific major versions you want to track.
Snaps each pick a ‘base’ which might be Ubuntu16 or Ubuntu18 (corresponding to the set of minimal debs in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or Ubuntu 18.04 LTS but can now also include other versions of Linux too. Nevertheless, the choice of base does not impact on your ability to use a snap, it’s a choice of the publisher and should be invisible to you as a user or developer.
-A snap can be strictly confined, which means that it operates in a secure box with only pre-defined points of access to the rest of the system. For third-party applications, this means that you will have a very high level of confidence that the app can only see appropriate data that you have provided to it. Snaps can also be ‘classic’ which means that they behave more like debs, and can see everything on your system. You should make sure you have a high level of confidence in the publisher of any classic snap you install, since a compromise or bad faith behaviour in that code is not confined to the app itself.
+A snap can be strictly confined, which means that it operates in a secure box with only predefined points of access to the rest of the system. For third-party applications, this means that you will have a very high level of confidence that the app can only see appropriate data that you have provided to it. Snaps can also be ‘classic’ which means that they behave more like debs, and can see everything on your system. You should make sure you have a high level of confidence in the publisher of any classic snap you install, since a compromise or bad faith behaviour in that code is not confined to the app itself.
It is also common to consume Ubuntu as an image on a public cloud, or as a container. Ubuntu is published by Canonical on all major public clouds, and the latest image for each LTS version will always include security updates rolled up to at most two weeks ago. You may benefit from installing newer updates than that, but the base image you boot on the cloud should always be the current one from Canonical to ensure that it is broadly up to date and the number of updates needed for full security is minimal.
Canonical also publishes a set of images and containers that you can download for use with VMware or other local hypervisors and private cloud technologies. These include standard Ubuntu images on the Docker Hub, and standard images for use with LXD and MAAS. These images are also kept up to date, with publication of rolled up security updated images on a regular cadence, and you should automate your use of the latest images to ensure consistent security coverage for your users.
Maintenance and security updates
When an Ubuntu release reaches the end of its public maintenance commitment you should either add ESM for ongoing security updates, or upgrade to a newer release of Ubuntu, or both if the machine is using packages outside the base and needs the security coverage for those.
+Ubuntu LTS releases transition into Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) phase as the standard, five-year public support window comes to a close. It is recommended for users and organisations to upgrade to the latest LTS release or subscribe to ESM for continued security coverage.
This command will print the exact status of your system:
Ubuntu kernel release cycle
Canonical maintains multiple kernel packages for each LTS version of Ubuntu, which serve different purposes. Several of the kernel packages address the need for kernels with specific performance priorities, for example the low-latency kernel package. Others are focused on optimisation for a particular hypervisor, for example the kernel packages which are named after public clouds. You are recommended to use the detailed Ubuntu kernel guide to select the best Ubuntu kernel for your application.
In general, all of the LTS kernel packages will use the same base version of the Linux kernel, for example Ubuntu 18.04 LTS kernels typically used the 4.15 upstream Linux kernel as a base. Some cloud-specific kernels may use a newer version in order to benefit from improved mechanisms in performance or security that are material to that cloud. These kernels are all supported for the full life of their underlying LTS release.
In addition, the kernel versions from the subsequent four releases are made available on the latest LTS release of Ubuntu. So Ubuntu 16.04 LTS received the kernels from Ubuntu 16.10, 17.04, 17.10 and 18.04 LTS. These kernels use newer upstream versions and as a result offer an easy path to newer features and newer classes of hardware for many users of Ubuntu. Note however that these kernels ‘roll’ which means that they jump every six months until the next LTS. Large scale deployments that adopt these ‘hardware enablement’ or HWE kernels should manage those transitions explicitly. These newer HWE kernels are accompanied by a collection of userspace tools closely tied to the kernel and hardware, specifically X display enablement on newer graphics cards.
-These can be installed manually, or are automatically shipped if installing from 12.04.2/14.04.2 and newer release media. These newer enablement stacks are meant for desktop and server and even recommended for cloud or virtual images.
The Ubuntu kernel support lifecycle is as follows:
Ubuntu kernel release cycle
Ubuntu kernel release cycle
Ubuntu OpenStack release cycle
Ubuntu OpenStack release cycle
For more information on previous and upcoming Ubuntu OpenStack releases please see the Ubuntu Cloud Archive wiki page.
- - -Charmed Distribution of Kubernetes® release cycle
-The release cycle of the Charmed Distribution of Kubernetes (CDK) is tightly - synchronised to the release of upstream Kubernetes®. - The current release and two prior releases are supported, giving an effective - support period of nine months, subject to changes in the upstream release - cycle.
-The CDK support lifecycle can be represented this way:
For more information on previous and current releases of CDK, please see the CDK release notes.
-Charmed Distribution of Kubernetes® release cycle
+The release cycle of the Charmed Distribution of Kubernetes (CDK) is tightly + synchronised to the release of upstream Kubernetes®. + The current release and two prior releases are supported, giving an effective + support period of nine months, subject to changes in the upstream release + cycle.
+The CDK support lifecycle can be represented this way:
+For more information on previous and current releases of CDK, please see the CDK release notes.
+What’s new in Ubuntu {{lts_release_full}}?
What’s new in Ubuntu {{ latest_release }}?
-Ubuntu {{ latest_release }} comes with cutting-edge new features.
+Ubuntu {{ latest_release }} comes with a host of improvements and bug fixes giving you the snappiest GNOME experience.
-
-
- Yaru, the new community theme is now the default -
- Thousands of updated snaps and packages such as Spotify, VLC, Skype, Slack, Discord and Telegram -
- The latest version of the GNOME Desktop including many performance upgrades -
- Manage your Thunderbolt devices through a new settings panel -
- Disks application now supports VeraCrypt, allowing you to share important content more securely -
- Optional automatic bug reporting +
- Thousands of updated snaps and packages such as Spotify, VLC, Skype, Slack, Discord, Visual Studio Code and Telegram +
- The latest version of the GNOME Desktop including many performance upgrades and reduced memory footprint +
- New fractional scaling allows you to scale your displays independently - available for Wayland and as an experimental option for Xorg +
- Improved experience for alt-tab, Ubuntu dock and right click +
- Installing Ubuntu desktop on VMware will now automatically install open-vm-tools providing greater integration between Ubuntu and the host system
Alternative downloads
-There are several other ways to get Ubuntu including torrents, which can potentially mean a quicker download, our network installer for older systems and special configurations and links to our regional DVD image mirrors for our older (and newer) releases. If you don’t specifically require any of these installers, we recommend using our default installers.
+There are several other ways to get Ubuntu including torrents, which can potentially mean a quicker download, our network installer for older systems and special configurations and links to our regional mirrors for our older (and newer) releases. If you don’t specifically require any of these installers, we recommend using our standard downloads.
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ What’s new in Ubuntu 19.04?
++ From the Linux Kernel to Openstack and Kubernetes: find out why the + latest Ubuntu release is our most advanced to date. +
+ +
+ 
+