As the title says. What's the point of the LTS if I have to update anyway at least every 2 years because the packages aren't updated to new versions and hence quickly contain non-supported versions?
Asked
Active
Viewed 384 times
1 Answers
6
Any update to your system has the potential to break something.
- Break compatibility with other software that depends on certain behaviour
- Break compatibility with configuration the user has customised
- Introduce new bugs (regressions) into the software itself
As such it is advantageous from a system administration point of view to minimise unnecessary updates - that is, any update that isn't fixing a critical or security related issue. And even then, updates should as far as possible be restricted to only fixing the specific critical issue.
The LTS and non-LTS releases of Ubuntu are both stable releases, in that after installation the packages remain largely unchanged with updates restricted to critical issues only. However the non-LTS releases are only supported for about 9 months, forcing a whole of system upgrade twice a year with a 3 month grace. By contrast the LTS releases only force a whole of system upgrade once every 4 years with a further 1 year grace.
thomasrutter
- 37,804