An Ubuntu LTS is a commitment from Canonical to support and maintain a version of Ubuntu for five years. In April, every two years, we release a new LTS where all of the developments from the previous two years accumulate into one up-to-date, feature-rich release. These releases focus on performance enhancement.
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will be supported until April 2023. The next Ubuntu LTS release will be Ubuntu 20.04, which is planned to be released on April, 2020. Because its development has just started, we don’t know much about what it will include at this point, but stay tuned.
Here is what our research found. lTS releases are the ‘enterprise grade’ releases of Ubuntu and are used the most. An estimated 95% of all Ubuntu installations are LTS releases. Every six months between LTS versions, Canonical publishes an interim release of Ubuntu, with 21.10 being the latest example.
Another query we ran across in our research was “What is the difference between a Ubuntu version and LTS version?”.
Releases of Ubuntu get a development codename (‘Groovy. Gorilla’) and are versioned by the year and month of delivery – for example, Ubuntu 20.10 was released in October 2020. LTS or ‘Long Term Support’ releases are published every two years in April. LTS releases are the ‘enterprise grade’ releases of Ubuntu and are utilised the most.
How long will Ubuntu support the next LTS?
In fact, it will be the next LTS (Long-Term Support) series, supported for at least 5 years, and, according to the release schedule published by Brian Murray, development will kick off with the usual toolchain upload just a week after the release of Ubuntu 21.10, on October 21st.
How long is Ubuntu supported after release?
Every six months between LTS versions, Canonical publishes an interim release of Ubuntu, with 21.04 being the latest example. These are production-quality releases and are supported for 9 months, with sufficient time provided for users to update, but these releases do not receive the long-term commitment of LTS releases.
When will Ubuntu 22 04 LTS be released?
After six months of hard work, the final release will hit the streets on April 21st, 2022. Of course, it’s too early to know the new features of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, but being a long-term supported release, most probably Canonical will stick with well-tested components for that extra stability and reliability.
One thing is for sure, Ubuntu 22.04 will be the first Ubuntu LTS release to ship with the latest GNOME 40 desktop environment series. Most probably, it will feature a recent release like GNOME 41 or 42, which could mean trouble for those upgrading from the current LTS release, Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa), which ships with GNOME 3.36.