End of life for three Ubuntu editions on 9 May

The Ubuntu developers have announced the end of life is approaching for three different releases of Ubuntu on 9 May. On that day, support for 2008's long term supported (LTS) Ubuntu 8.04, "Hardy Heron", comes to an end; anyone still running 8.04 is encouraged to upgrade to the current LTS release, 12.04 "Precise Pangolin", by first upgrading to the previous LTS release, 10.04, and then upgrading to 12.04. This should only affect users of the server edition as support for the desktop edition ended in May 2011.

The desktop edition of Lucid Lynx, 10.04 LTS, is also seeing its support end on the same day, three years after its release. Support for the server edition will continue for another two years. Upgrading to 12.04 LTS, it is worth noting, means an upgrade to the first Ubuntu release with five year support for server and desktop; previously it has been three years for desktop and five for server.

Away from the LTS releases, support has only lasted for 18 months which means the end of life is also due for Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot, which was released in October 2011. Again, the recommended update is to Ubuntu 12.04. Future non-LTS releases will see an even shorter 9 month support life after changes were made in how Canonical and Ubuntu handle the overall development cycle.

(djwm)