LTS means long term support and it is meant to give a stable platform, originally for enterprise, but it is open to all users.
There are periodic improvements as noted by Jeff. The difference is the move from 14.04 to 14.04.1 will not involve the upgrade tool. The root partition is not cleaned out and all new packages installed resulting in potential problems. It is just an upgrade within the 14.04 installation. You will get a new kernel version that will likely be a few versions behind the 6 month's version and some new drivers that will be thoroughly tested as you might expect. There should be few problems because the six month cycle has been running that kernel for a long period.
Jeff is correct, but I want to allay any fears that the LTS could become less than it is intended to be. It is meant to be stable and easy to use with modest improvements at long intervals using the package manager.
If you want Mint Qiana it will come out about a month after Ubuntu 14.04 (end of May, but no fixed date), using the Mate and Cinnamon desktops and later if you want XFCE or KDE versions. It too will be LTS and Mint has already said that it will use the same base for the next three six month cycles as well.
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2594
Jeff's strategy of upgrading over re-installing until it is otherwise necessary is becoming the norm. I do that myself and have successfully upgraded four at least four versions now without having to resort to a fresh installation, which is what I did previously. Yes the process has become that good.
It is a good idea to also clean out the cruft which Jeff mentions using a tool or doing it manually. You can clean out your caches and settings folders quite easily and start your desktop fresh. It will just rebuild the folders as you need them. Often with an upgrade a minor problem can become magnified by leaving traces behind in your home folder. Most of the time these are in hidden folders which you need to find or you can use a cruft removing tool like Sweeper or Cruft. Keeping a clean system and having few PPAs is the best way to make upgrading painless, in my experience.
Roy
On Friday, April 11, 2014 12:06:17 AM, J <dreadpiratejeff@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 8:30 AM, Linux Canuck <linuxcanuck@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> There are advantages to both upgrade cycles. Five years gives you stability and you do not have to worry about things not working for five years. Six month cycles give you the latest and greatest versions of the applications and kernel with drivers.
Just to blur the lines a little more, this is not entirely correct.
At some point later this year, 14.04.1 will release and will have a
slightly different kernel (no idea which yet).
Then in October, 14.10 will release with a new kernel, probably 3.15
or something along those lines.
Shortly after that will be 14.04.2 which will be build on the 14.10
kernel and graphics stack.
Then 15.04 will release in April of 2015
then 14.04.3 will release using the kernel from 15.04.
Point is, the LTS point releases will generally be based on the
kernel+SRUs form the previous release.
So 14.04.1 should probably be mostly 3.13 SRU fixes and such
and after that a new LTS point release will appear every six months or
so, shortly after a non-LTS release, and will be based on the kernel
and updates in the newest non-LTS release.
Generally, the LTS release is now looked at like the "Daily use for
everyone" release and the non-LTS releases are looked at more like
"Development/Bleeding Edge playground" releases. The non-LTS releases
will still be completely usable, but as Roy has said, support for
non-LTS (meaning updates and bug fixes) will cease after 9 months
while the LTS will continue to receive support for 5 years.
> Re-installation never scares me. Many experienced users actually prefer to do this than to upgrade. It gives you a fresh start.
True, very true... though personally I kinda like just upgrading
straight through until the upgrades finally break. Or until the next
LTS anymore. Heh... the best I did was to upgrade from 9.04 all the
way to 11.10 before I finally did a fresh install at 12.04 just
because I had accumulated so much cruft in my filesystem from all
those upgrades and abandoned packages I often forgot to clean up :)
There are tricks, and the number one trick is to have a separate home
partition. My setup is usually about 60GB for the root filesystem and
everything else goes to /home (with about 2GB for swap). That way I
can re-install from scratch with all my personal data in place and
safely tucked away on its own partition. That also comes in handy for
multi booting, unless you end up with conflicting config files or
other stuff.
Cheers
Jeff
>
> There are advantages to both upgrade cycles. Five years gives you stability and you do not have to worry about things not working for five years. Six month cycles give you the latest and greatest versions of the applications and kernel with drivers.
Just to blur the lines a little more, this is not entirely correct.
At some point later this year, 14.04.1 will release and will have a
slightly different kernel (no idea which yet).
Then in October, 14.10 will release with a new kernel, probably 3.15
or something along those lines.
Shortly after that will be 14.04.2 which will be build on the 14.10
kernel and graphics stack.
Then 15.04 will release in April of 2015
then 14.04.3 will release using the kernel from 15.04.
Point is, the LTS point releases will generally be based on the
kernel+SRUs form the previous release.
So 14.04.1 should probably be mostly 3.13 SRU fixes and such
and after that a new LTS point release will appear every six months or
so, shortly after a non-LTS release, and will be based on the kernel
and updates in the newest non-LTS release.
Generally, the LTS release is now looked at like the "Daily use for
everyone" release and the non-LTS releases are looked at more like
"Development/Bleeding Edge playground" releases. The non-LTS releases
will still be completely usable, but as Roy has said, support for
non-LTS (meaning updates and bug fixes) will cease after 9 months
while the LTS will continue to receive support for 5 years.
> Re-installation never scares me. Many experienced users actually prefer to do this than to upgrade. It gives you a fresh start.
True, very true... though personally I kinda like just upgrading
straight through until the upgrades finally break. Or until the next
LTS anymore. Heh... the best I did was to upgrade from 9.04 all the
way to 11.10 before I finally did a fresh install at 12.04 just
because I had accumulated so much cruft in my filesystem from all
those upgrades and abandoned packages I often forgot to clean up :)
There are tricks, and the number one trick is to have a separate home
partition. My setup is usually about 60GB for the root filesystem and
everything else goes to /home (with about 2GB for swap). That way I
can re-install from scratch with all my personal data in place and
safely tucked away on its own partition. That also comes in handy for
multi booting, unless you end up with conflicting config files or
other stuff.
Cheers
Jeff
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March 21st, 2014 at 8:51 am