LTS vs normal newer release?

[Shephard]

Can anyone explain why you would choose a newer release over LTS?

When I think of the newer release, for example the new Ubuntu, I think of it as a beta. It says it's only supported 9 months. The LTS version is supported for 4 years.

The new release could be very buggy and would you risk your files on something like that?

I would guess people just put it on a computer for browsing and movies, not a serious computer with backups or basically everything you have.

 

[Jodell88]

Can anyone explain why you would choose a newer release over LTS?

When I think of the newer release, for example the new Ubuntu, I think of it as a beta. It says it's only supported 9 months. The LTS version is supported for 4 years.

The new release could be very buggy and would you risk your files on something like that?

I would guess people just put it on a computer for browsing and movies, not a serious computer with backups or basically everything you have.

Each release is tested extensively by Canonical and the community before each release. I would not worry about bugs or data integrity on any version of Ubuntu.

I use a rolling release distro. I've been through numerous kernel, software, and driver updates with no problems. Sure a newer kernel, software, or driver may have bugs, but it hasn't been a show stopper yet.

 

[Shephard]

I don't get it though.

LTS says it's supported. So it gets updates?

Does the new version not get updates?

What happens when the 'supported period' of the new release ends?

I hear people are still using Ubuntu 10. something. Why would they still use this?

Also I am not just referring to Ubuntu because it seems like every distro I have tried has an LTS and a normal release.

 

[Jodell88]

LTS means Long Term Support. You'll get updates for a longer period of time. This is ideal for businesses and the like because it is supported for four to five years. The other releases only have support for nine months after their release.

 

[Shephard]

I still don't get it.

So both get updates, the LTS gets them longer.

What exactly are the updates? If the new verison has 'new and improved' stuff, what is the LTS getting? Security? I thought security wasn't a problem for Linux.

 

[ControlD]

I still don't get it.

So both get updates, the LTS gets them longer.

What exactly are the updates? If the new verison has 'new and improved' stuff, what is the LTS getting? Security? I thought security wasn't a problem for Linux.

You will get security updates and bug fixes with LTS but you won't necessarily get the latest versions of everything is what my experience has been. For example, the current Mint LTS (Mint 13 I think) is quite a bit behind in the version of KDE that is being supported. If you want the latest and greatest versions of everything then you need to move to a newer release. Part of running at the cutting edge is accepting that there may be some bugs that have to be worked around but I haven't found anything too serious.

Security is a problem everywhere. When holes are found in the Linux kernel and/or support packages they are patched up same as any other operating system.

 

[azhangvroom]

Can anyone explain why you would choose a newer release over LTS?

When I think of the newer release, for example the new Ubuntu, I think of it as a beta. It says it's only supported 9 months. The LTS version is supported for 4 years.

The new release could be very buggy and would you risk your files on something like that?

I would guess people just put it on a computer for browsing and movies, not a serious computer with backups or basically everything you have.

You won't get the latest bells and whistles (as quickly, if ever) as new packages roll along. For example, if LTS shipped with Firefox Version N and then Firefox Version N+1 comes out, you will still be stuck at Firefox Version N, the only updates you get are security updates. LTS aims for more enterprise operations (e.g., servers) where stability is more important than bleeding edge technology.

 

[Shephard]

but you can manually update Firefox so why does that matter?

 

[F1shF4t]

You won't get the latest bells and whistles (as quickly, if ever) as new packages roll along. For example, if LTS shipped with Firefox Version N and then Firefox Version N+1 comes out, you will still be stuck at Firefox Version N, the only updates you get are security updates. LTS aims for more enterprise operations (e.g., servers) where stability is more important than bleeding edge technology.

LTS does get "some" updates for the first 2 years. For example I'm running Kernel 3.5 on my 12.04LTS install. (It should also get updated to 3.8 in 12.04.3 sometime in august)

As far as Firefox goes it gets regular updates, there is a short lag though. I'm on version 21 right now.

 

[mv2devnull]

(RedHat Enterprise Linux, Fedora) is an another LTS-bleeding pair.

RHEL does get both security fixes and some updates, but mainly preserves same feature-set over its (long) lifetime. Fixes are backported to it from bleeding edge, so it does not fall behind as badly as the formal version numbers make one think. You can (mostly) trust that if you did set up your server (for example web or database) on first release of RHEL 6, then it will function without major reconfigure for years.

Every new Fedora release is a brand new package, and support drops for older releases very soon. One has to upgrade to new release every so often and things will change every time. That might not be so bad on personal desktop, but in larger office there is simply no time to reinstall and educate everyone and thing yearly.

Believe or not, there are commercial, proprietary, ancient, binary-only applications that have been compiled in conservative environment. In LTS you can usually set up the required libraries once, and the app will run. In bleeding edge you would have to repeat the setup after every upgrade (or simply fail in some generation).