9 Months Support

[JoHubb]

I run 18.04 and use LibreOffice every day. I am considering upgrading to 18.10 but I notice it will only be supported for 9 months.

What will be my options after that? Back to 18.04? A new version of 18.10?

Thanks.

[acheron]

Upgrade to 19.04, or as you say, go back to 18.04 and wait for the 20.04 LTS.

[chimak111]

What is the connection between using LibreOffice and moving from 18.04 to 18.10? Do you want a newer version of LibreOffice? If that is your only reason, there are ppas available:

https://launchpad.net/~libreoffice/+..._filter=bionic currently offers 6.1.3

I use that ppa to install LibreOffice Calc and Writer:

$ apt list --installed | grep -i libreoffice

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

libreoffice-base-core/bionic,now 1:6.1.3~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libreoffice-calc/bionic,now 1:6.1.3~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 amd64 [installed]
libreoffice-common/bionic,bionic,now 1:6.1.3~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 all [installed,automatic]
libreoffice-core/bionic,now 1:6.1.3~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libreoffice-help-en-us/bionic,bionic,now 1:6.1.3~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 all [installed]
libreoffice-kde5/bionic,now 1:6.1.3~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 amd64 [installed]
libreoffice-math/bionic,now 1:6.1.3~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libreoffice-style-breeze/bionic,bionic,now 1:6.1.3~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 all [installed,automatic]
libreoffice-style-colibre/bionic,bionic,now 1:6.1.3~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 all [installed,automatic]
libreoffice-style-tango/bionic,bionic,now 1:6.1.3~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 all [installed,automatic]
libreoffice-writer/bionic,now 1:6.1.3~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 amd64 [installed]
$

[jglen490]

Kubuntu has a 6 month release cycle, so a a new version (i.e., 17.04, 17.10, 18.04, 18.10, 19.04, 19.10, etc.) every 6 months. Every two years one of those is a Long Term Support (LTS) release (i.e., 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, 20.04). The LTS releases have a long support cycle of a few years, while the other, intermediates are supported for much shorter (9 month) cycle. This is all based on the Ubuntu release cycle.

[JoHubb]

What is the connection between using LibreOffice and moving from 18.04 to 18.10?

"Kubuntu (18.10) has seen some exciting improvements, with newer versions of Qt, updates to major packages like Krita, Kdeconnect, Kstars, Peruse, Latte-dock, Firefox and LibreOffice, and stability improvements to KDE Plasma".

I ran the code you posted and am updated. Thanks.

[JoHubb]

Kubuntu has a 6 month release cycle, so a a new version (i.e., 17.04, 17.10, 18.04, 18.10, 19.04, 19.10, etc.) every 6 months. Every two years one of those is a Long Term Support (LTS) release (i.e., 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, 20.04). The LTS releases have a long support cycle of a few years, while the other, intermediates are supported for much shorter (9 month) cycle. This is all based on the Ubuntu release cycle.

Thanks for the clarification. I'll wait for 20.04 before I jump ship.

[jglen490]

Just my opinion, but there is no great disadvantage to using an LTS release. The related PPAs are usually pretty solid so if you believe you need to "lean forward" a bit on some software versions you should be fine. Me, I just like a stable release that is well supported with security patches. It's just whatever approach solves your priorities ...

[oshunluvr]

Just my opinion, but there is no great disadvantage to using an LTS release. The related PPAs are usually pretty solid so if you believe you need to "lean forward" a bit on some software versions you should be fine. Me, I just like a stable release that is well supported with security patches. It's just whatever approach solves your priorities ...

Even better, use KDEneon. Then you get LTS longevity with the latest Plasma packages. AFAIK; Peruse, Latte-dock, Firefox, and LibreOffice have nothing to do with Kubuntu - meaning those updates will come regardless of the Kubuntu version (might require a couple extra PPAs).

[JoHubb]

Even better, use KDEneon. Then you get LTS longevity with the latest Plasma packages. AFAIK; Peruse, Latte-dock, Firefox, and LibreOffice have nothing to do with Kubuntu - meaning those updates will come regardless of the Kubuntu version (might require a couple extra PPAs).

My quote #5 post above came from the 18.10 release blurb on the Announcements page.

I am pretty happy with what I've got, but thanks for the KDENeon suggestion.

[oshunluvr]

My quote #5 post above came from the 18.10 release blurb on the Announcements page.

Yeah, I understood that, but it's not technically always true.

What I meant was - and I could be wrong in some cases - Canonical does not develop Firefox, for example, they just package it for Ubuntu. IME, they re-package something that for every supported version. If you look here near the bottom of the page:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox

you'll see that every supported Ubuntu release has the same version of Firefox available to it up to but not including 12.04 ("Precise..."). 12.04 is end-of-life so no more Firefox updates. The point being that if getting updates to a package that not actually an Ubuntu package is what you want - upgrading to the next release every 6 months nay not be necessary. Another example - LibreOffice is updated weeks or months before Canonical re-packages it. If you want the latest-and-greatest LibreOffice, don't even use the Ubuntu package and install it from the LibreOffice website instead.

All of this is just to explain my point of view: Keeping the parts of your installation that are important to you up-to-date may not require the continual re-install of releases. Personally, I don't like having to redo all my settings and modifications every six months. Of course, using the "do-release-upgrade" feature will avoid some of that, until it doesn't. We've all read about or experienced stories where a release upgrade ended up not working and the user had to suffer through a downgrade reinstall or some other horror. I actually USE my Linux computer (actually several of them) for work as well as personal things. Even chancing leaving myself without an operating reliable system is totally a NO-GO in my world.

My personal method is to only use LTS releases for actual work. Then I have two years of reliable system use until the next LTS release. Then I install it along side (as in "dual boot") and slowly transition from the older version. I do this by booting into the new version when I'm having "play time" and test it, add my own modifications, etc. Then when I feel it's ready - I change the default boot to the new install, keeping the old one as a backup in case something breaks. I finally changed over to 18.04 full time only about a month ago.

I will sometimes install a new release or a different distro just to check it out or see how it compares to KDEneon/Kubuntu (like verifying a problem I'm having with my system is the same elsewhere) but these are always sacrificial. I can only think of one time I was "forced" to upgrade due to a package change. That was back in 2012 when the newer kernels coming out were not being made available to the 10.04 releases and I needed a file system tools upgrade that required the newer kernels and hardware stack. It was easier to upgrade to 12/04 than attempt to compile an unsupported kernel.

The final answer for you will depend on your tolerance for the potential problems that come with a new release vs. occasionally delaying a package upgrade to retain stability.

[Snowhog]

And adding to what oshunluvr said, if one has installed applications from outside the official repositories; either added PPA's or downloaded/installed packages from a 'tar ball', all bets are off. Plain. Simple. Period. Once you venture outside the safety of the enclosure, you are on your own.

[JoHubb]

Thanks guys. All good advice. Stability is more important than newness for the sake of it. If it works I don't fix it, unless something new makes it work better. So I can see the sense of oshunluvr's dual-boot playtime version.