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I'm really surprised to see so many people are currently (after release of 14.04) installing Ubuntu versions 13.04 and older. Apart from 12.04, these are not supported any more. I can see that someone really conservative will install Ubuntu 12.04, but anything else is just surprising to me. Can someone enlighten me?

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I would assume in 99% of cases it's lack of awareness: they don't realise their version is out of date.

Other reasons may include:

  • Don't have enough internet speed/quota to download an up-to-date CD image so they install from a bought/borrowed physical CD that's out of date.

  • They need an older version of some software (and don't realise the security ramifications of downgrading the entire OS for just one piece of software).

  • They installed Ubuntu some time ago and have never bothered upgrading (possibly partly because they don't have the internet speed or quota).

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We have a few answers to this...

It's what we know works. Fiddling is not free. People here know how to install 12.04 and 12.10. Also we often have a ready made virtual machine for Ubuntu 12.10 and all the software has been installed correctly.

We know that Ubuntu 13.10 has issues.

  • The biggest one is that unity is there. Besides confusion, it broke vncserver.
  • vncserver is extremely important to me. Serving a gnome desktop doesn't work.
  • Virtual box guest top additions are problematic. Screen re-sizing doesn't work.

We know Ubuntu 14.04 has issues.

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  • Confused by your use of "we" - are you claiming that these are valid reasons for using an end-of-life release or that these are just some of the (invalid) reasons you've heard other people use? Most of it seems to boil down to "we want stability" in which case use the LTS release: 12.04 is still supported and will be for a few more years - or "we want a specific version of one piece of software" in which case it doesn't justify the downgrade of the entire OS to an EOL version for the sake of one piece of software (but if you do downgrade, as I said there's still 12.04 which is supported). Jul 21, 2014 at 6:37
  • There are some good reasons to stay at an older release, especially if one can still pay Canonical for support. Yet it is now perhaps past time to look at 18.04 lts or 19.04 (I like staying on LTS releases). Since it is at 18.04.3 you know it is about as stable as it is going to get. At the moment These older Ubuntu releases are now in Extended Maintenance (ESM): Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS (Precise Pangolin) › Ubuntu 14.04.6 LTS (Trusty Tahr) ›
    – user306987
    Sep 14, 2019 at 0:37

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