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I have previous experience with Linux, but I am new to Ubuntu. I am planning on installing Ubuntu on my personal computer, and I was wondering which version I should install. On the Ubuntu website, I found installation instructions, as well as a download for Ubuntu 22.04. I understand that this is the latest version of Ubuntu, and it was released just last month.

I was wondering whether I should install Ubuntu 22.04. Since it was released just last month, I was concerned that there might be bugs, and the operating system might not be stable. I researched this issue on my own, and I found an article claiming that this is a stable version, and is what people should install. This article is at

https://linuxconfig.org/ubuntu-22-04-features-and-release-date

According to this, Ubuntu 22.04 is an LTS release, which means that it has long-term support. This article claims that LTS releases are stable, and users should install them. The Ubuntu website also states that Version 22.04 is an LTS release.

I believe the information in this article probably is accurate, and I doubt that the Ubuntu website would direct users to Version 22.04 if it were not stable. However, since I am new to Ubuntu, I thought I should ask the community about stability before I installed the operating system.

Thank you for your input.

Casper the Friendly Grue
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11 Answers11

43

Yes, it's stable and there is no reason not to install 22.04 LTS.

However, if you are upgrading from a previous LTS version (say 20.04 LTS), conventional wisdom suggests waiting until the first point release (usually in October of the year of release) by which time a number of issues which have already been notified will be in place unless you wish to install it from the off.

That is the model I will follow although, in the meantime, I have 22.04 LTS installed on a scratch PC for testing/configuration and thus far it has not proved problematical. There are differences in the user interface which, if you are a new user to Ubuntu, you may as well experience now, rather than later.

You might wish to reference the Ubuntu lifecycle and release cadence publication for further detail.

graham
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20

This depends on your definition of ‘stable’.

The normal sense typically used in the Linux world with reference to a particular version of a particular distribution means that the ABI (the binary level interfaces the kernel and libraries provide to user applications) and API (the high level interface definitions used when developing software) are guaranteed not to change in a backwards incompatible manner for that release. What this means in effect is that if you build some piece of software now on Ubuntu 22.04, it will almost certainly still work the same way without needing modification in roughly five years when normal support for Ubuntu 22.04 ends upstream.

In this sense, the very fact that a given version of a distro has been released usually means it is stable. Barring special cases like Arch or Gentoo that use a rolling-release model, all the big name distros provide this guarantee from the day a release is officially created until the point in time when they stop supporting that release, though the exact semantics involving versioning may vary (Ubuntu, Alpine, and openSUSE guarantee it for major/minor versions, but not patch releases, Debian and RHEL (and most RHEL clones) guarantee it for major versions but not minor versions (which are just indicators of incremental improvements, Fedora just uses major versions and only guarantees it for those).

So, for this definition of stable, yes, Ubuntu 22.04 is stable.

However, there’s a rather important other sense of the term ‘stable’ that is much more common in the Windows world (especially among gamers) which instead means that there are no (known) major bugs in the software in question.

Some Linux distros provide a guarantee along these lines for releases alongside the above-mentioned guarantee. In general, distros that provide this type of guarantee do not have a fixed, predetermined release date, instead releasing when the developers feel things are stable enough (by this definition of stable) to be ready. Debian in particular is very well known for this type of release policy.

Ubuntu, however, does not provide such a guarantee. They have a predetermined target release date, and they only let it slip for serious issues with the core system functionality (for example, if screen lock functionality is broken), but they will generally not postpone it for issues with less common usage, or things that are not part of the core system (and 22.04 actually had a couple such issues on release). This is, in general, why the common advice for people already using LTS releases of Ubuntu is to wait to upgrade to the next LTS release until after the first point release (22.04.1 in this case).

In this sense, Ubuntu 22.04 is not stable yet, but probably will be in the near future.

Austin Hemmelgarn
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10

Ubuntu releases are declared stable, not measured stable. This is because

a) they pull in packages from Debian testing, which is not Debian stable, and

b) their release dates are known in advance, in contrast to Debian stable releases.

As an example, vagrant+virtualbox were unusable after 22.04 release due to [1] and only fixed recently.

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vagrant/+bug/1964025

Damian
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10

Ubuntu itself is stable, but 22.04 introduces a big change with respect to 20.04: it uses Wayland as its graphics server instead of the age-old X. There are plenty of programs that still don't work properly with Wayland, like Zoom for example, so you will encounter bugs. Which are not Ubuntu's fault, but still will negatively affect your user experience.

If you're not interested in getting the latest and greatest software, but just something that works reliably without giving you headaches, I would recommend installing 20.04.

Mateus Araújo
  • 323
9

All released version of Ubuntu are stable.

This includes Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (the 2022-April release), Ubuntu 21.10 (2021-October release), and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (the 2020-April release).

The unstable releases are known by codenames, eg. Ubuntu kinetic will become Ubuntu 22.10 (2022-October) release when it's released.

The LTS releases are technically no more stable than a non-LTS release, the LTS tells you it's a long term support release. Yes fewer risks are taken with LTS releases, meaning they may have older software, but the decisions on what to include are more related to long-term-support.

guiverc
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4

Most LTS releases are stable, but 22.04 is an exception. Ubuntu team added snap and wayland to that release. Both packages are known to be highly buggy and causing other software to break as well.

A few known bugs include:

  • drag-n-drop not working [wayland]
  • cannot reload gnome without crashing the entire user session [wayland]
  • gnome extensions management not working [snap]
  • firefox failing to download/save files [snap]
  • applications randomly crashing [snap]

My suggestion would be to stick to previous LTS 20.04 until snap and wayland get either fixed or removed from 22.04.

Alternatively you might try to remove both packages manually but it would be a lot of work, and might cause even more instability if some software requires them.

Ondra Žižka
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HubertNNN
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2

yes it is. I'm new user too and im using 22.04 LTS, but I have little experience with older versions (18 or 20) and i had many problems with it, i figured it out my hard disk is NTFS Format and Linux doesn't support it very well. i suggest backup your data and let Ubuntu format your entire disk. You can also check this link to see if your device is tested on Ubuntu or not:

Ubuntu certified hardware

and if you have 2 disks (E.g. SSD with HDD) check this article to create your /Home Directory on Your HDD: Check Here

Good Luck! :)

Bushida
  • 51
1

To Be fair an honest Ubuntu 22.04 is not Stable.

I have recently ditched Windows 8 for Ubuntu 22.04.. These are my observations in Lenovo G580 i5 with no hardware modification..

1)Booting is incredibly slow; In windows it was less than 20 secs; Ubuntu 22.04 goes way beyond 60 secs;

2)Firefox is the default browser which is very slow at startup (installed preload still not much improvement). Everyone is blaming it on the snap package system.But I don't care.I want progams to work simply and efficiently

3)Lack of Software Support. I am a programmer.Vs Code and Jupyter Notebook are not well maintained.I think it is same for every software.Linux has market share of 2% only which doesn't give any incentive for developers to create better programs. Many troubleshooting errors have a repository for windows and Mac but not Linux.

Verdict:- Opt for dual boot,Install Ubuntu 22.04 without ditching Windows.I have not seen any considerable improvement rather the performance has deteriorated in my system. It might get well once bugs in systems are fixed.

Anirban Patra
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1

I've found Ubuntu LTS releases to be entirely stable for my use. It's my habit, as @24601 suggested, to wait a while before installing. "Never install version 1.0" is a rule I learned a long time ago.

I don't necessarily wait until the next point release, though. Two or three months seems to me to be plenty. It gives the community time to find and iron out any problems that didn't show up in pre-release testing. So it might be about time for me to upgrade to 22.04.

MDeBusk
  • 1,386
1

Here's How I Measure If It is "Stable"

I've been running 22.04 for 4-6 weeks now. I'm running all the apps I ran on 20.04 on 22.04. All of those apps work as well or better on 22.04.

Have I Had Any Problems?

I had some initial problems.

Remmina wouldn't send an ALT-TAB (cycle through running apps) to Win10 remote boxes. -- Discovered solution was to run proper NVidia drivers which moved me from Wayland windowing system back to X11

Command That Resolved All My Problems

All my problems were resolved with this command: $ sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

It seems that since I have the NVidia card (shown below) that I needed these specific drivers. After that everything was fixed.

Since I've been on the correct drivers & X11 everything has worked exactly as on 20.04.

Which Apps?

  • Visual Studio Code
  • Remmina (remote desktop -- connect to win10 & Apple Mac Mini)
  • Thunderbird (email)
  • FireFox
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Android Studio (android development)
  • Rust via Cargo (software development)
  • NodeJS
  • React
  • Kicad - electronic schematic design tool
  • FileZilla - file transfer GUI
  • GIMP image manipulation
  • Arduino IDE - this one I have had a slight issue with USB ports being not accessible -- had to use $ sudo chown /dev/ttyUSB0 to get ownership continually
  • VNC client to connect to Mac Mini
  • Oracle Virtual box -- use for Win10 VM
  • vokoscreen - free screen recording app.
  • .NET Core 6.x -- the installation was very challenging for me since I was early to installing it. Since then there have been fixes for the installation.

Here's a look at my computer:

computer settings

raddevus
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0

I will answer this question that way: based on what I already read on this site about multiple problems with 22.04, when my currently used 20.04 goes EOL, I will probably not install the next Ubuntu release (whatever it will be then). I will switch to some other distro, don't know yet which one...

And one more thing worth to note, I think: if you want maximum stability, never do a release upgrade when you want to switch to a new version of the OS. Backup your data and config, fresh install the new release, then restore. You would probably have to recreate some config manually, as application versions might change in an incompatible way and they won't be able to read old configs, but - also from what I read on this site - people just have too much problems with upgrade between releases, that it is simply not worth trying. It's better to put more time and work at the beginning in setting everything up, but then you will have everything set up properly and save yourself a lot of problems.

raj
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