Canonical Extends Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Linux Support to 10 Years | Hacker News Reader

Canonical Extends Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Linux Support to 10 Years

serverwatch.com

76 pointsmisnome23 comments

I wonder if Canonical is seeing any increase in traffic/business interest after IBM acquired Red Hat, and if this increase in LTS lifespan was planned prior to that or if it is an intentionally timed incentive to attract people away from RHEL at a time when they might already be inclined to be exploring other options.

One wonders who would be the likely acquirer-suitor. Microsoft?

Why would MS acquire Ubuntu when they could just spin their own distro? What does Ubuntu have to offer to justify what would likely be a massive premium over just hiring whatever developer shortfall they may have?

You could make the exact same argument about Red Hat.

Ubuntu's (and by extension Canonical's) value is in its brand and existing customer relationships, neither of which Microsoft would have if they rolled their own distro.

You're serious right now? You think if Microsoft released Microsoft Linux tomorrow they wouldnt have brand recognition?

I know there's a lot of MS hate around here, but that's ridiculous. Literally everyone would know what Microsoft Linux was within a month. It would be a headline on every tech site across the internet.

They would have brand recognition, but it might be of the negative kind. Whereas Ubuntu is a venerable known brand.

Besides, I just suggested one potentil buyer, I want to hear who else besides boring answers like Google.

>They would have brand recognition, but it might be of the negative kind.

Outside of the people who are going to hate MS no matter what, I don't know what reasonable CIO would have a negative connotation of MS Linux. They ALREADY maintain multiple branches/distros internally for things like their network OS; and anyone older than a millennial should know they wrote Xenix which was one of the most successful UNIX variants ever sold...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Linux_distributions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

You are in "hipster news", they have their own reality with no knowledge of actual IT trends.

I'd say that any CIO with a bit of savvy would think twice before betting too heavy on a Microsoft Linux product, at least while Windows is still a thing in the eyes of Microsoft. Should Windows really be relegated to the annals of history this might change but until that time it'd be unwise to assume Microsoft would allow its Linux distribution to become a potential replacement for its Windows products, the simple reason being that Linux can be had elsewhere.

I'm sure somebody will think along the lines of "they are selling me Linux with support now, maybe they'll find a way to force me buy Windows in a few years". Embrace, extend, estinguish. I'm not trusting Microsoft, which has its own OS, not to play tricks like that.

Microsoft Linux is my most favorite oxymoron now

I'm wondering exactly how far this promise of support will go.

It's no secret (although it still surprises some) that only software in the "main" suite is supported by LTS, so all the useful stuff in "universe" for example, may see no updates.

But there are a lot of large pieces of software in main that are already problematic for support across 5 years, let alone 10.

For example what about Django, which is at version 1.11 in Ubuntu 18.04 and uses Python 2. The Django project doesn't intend to release another version that uses Python 2, and Python 2 goes EOL in 2020. So how is Canonical planning to support a complex web framework out to 2028 when the framework is EOL and the scripting language it is based on is also EOL in 2020?

Realistically I think the answer is going to be, "it can't; install it yourself from upstream, or rely on a snap provided by upstream." But that's what the answer always was, and a few answers like that make the promise of 10 year support for main rather hollow.

Is the promise of support just for the kernel and base OS?

I create a virtualenv and add to it whatever Python or pip I need. I've got many of them and I really don't care about which language versions my Ubuntu comes from. Same for Ruby, Node, Elixir, Erlang. And if that doesn't work for something there is docker.

Operating systems are a bit like the computers used to run them. Years ago when Ubuntu was new your computer would be out of date in two years and an upgrade of the hardware was needed. Nowadays it is not like that and machines older than five years are perfectly fine to use on a daily basis. So it is good that your operating system doesn't expire with no further updates given half way through the machine's life.

This is even more so in server-land than desktop, a functional web server that has worked for years shouldn't need upgrading to a new virtual machine so often. Two to three years can fly by in ways that didn't happen when hardware had to be constantly upgraded.

This sounds huge. I'm hoping it is a trend that is either already common and I didn't realize it, or that catches on in the industry.

The rapid iteration of many parts of our industry is fun, at times. There is something for stability of foundation, though.

Microsoft supported Windows XP for 12 years. They didn’t even need to use the “LTS” branding. (That may have changed now that they’ve moved to rolling updates.)

Neither Apple nor Google do anything comparable.

Yeah. I feel Apple and Google are a large part of the wave that destroyed this behavior. They both took major kudos for their rapid release cycle.

I almost think people thought it was fun to constantly update, for a while. To their credit, it used to be somewhat safe to do.

I wish my updates didn't get borked recently with some grub efi/non-efi issue :-( Amazing news otherwise

Good point. 10 years is great, IF you have an easy-to-use backup/snapshot system in place. (Like, say, Mint does)

What are you talking about? It's the whole point of efi.

This will be a lot of extra work for desktop distros.

How so? Downstream distros can end support whenever they want.

Ah, they don't have to keep supporting Bionic for 10 years instead of 5?

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