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I was searching info for 16.04.3 LTS (for Kubuntu & Xubuntu). It was great to find out about the cool features of those Ubuntu distributions.

However, I found something unusual; the EOL date of both is on April 2019, the exact same date as Trusty, not on the official EOL by Canonical, which is on April 2021.

Kubuntu (EOL date: April 2019):

IMG:

Xubuntu (EOL date: 3 years after release, April 2016 + 3 yrs = April 2019):

IMG:

Ubuntu (EOL date: April 2021, official date by Canonical):

IMG:

Can someone tell me why the EOL date of both is sooner than the official Ubuntu one?

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    Welcome to Ask Ubuntu. This a Q&A site. Accepting an answer is all that is needed to show that a question has been answered. Unlike forums, we don't use "solved" in the question. :)
    – chaskes
    Dec 23, 2017 at 18:16
  • @chaskes OK! Thanks for the info! I thought that "SOLVED" was necessary.
    – na-no.
    Dec 24, 2017 at 11:06

3 Answers 3

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The Ubuntu BASE has a 5 year support on ALL releases specified as LTS. The distribution specific software (ie. LXDE desktop, KDE desktop) have a 3 year support -from Canonical-.

Also mind that those 5 years are divided into 2 parts:

  • 2 1/2 years: hardware and maintenance
  • 2 1/2 years: maintenance

The 3 year LTS versions are supposed to start to prepare the newly released LTS (since that one is released every 2 years).

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    Base as in "a minimal rootfs for use in the creation of custom images for specific needs"?
    – RonJohn
    Oct 21, 2017 at 20:51
  • No, base as anything in repo "main".
    – Rinzwind
    Oct 21, 2017 at 20:57
  • 1
    wiki.ubuntu.com/Base "Ubuntu Base is a minimal rootfs for use in the creation of custom images for specific needs."
    – RonJohn
    Oct 21, 2017 at 20:59
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Please see the notes on LTS releases here.

The project will decide which flavours will be LTS and the support duration for each, early in the LTS development cycle.

In practice, Ubuntu/Canonical asks flavours themselves to decide on LTS participation and nominate a support period.

Normally that would be between:

  • Not LTS (9 months)
  • Short LTS (3 years)
  • Normal LTS (5 years)

Factors such as people available, technical state of the flavour's desktop stack, future plans etc, will influence that choice.

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Ubuntu is officially supported by the canonical. The rest are supported by the community. I supposed it has something to do with the financial ability of official Ubuntu to be able to support it for much longer

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  • You may be correct, but I'm not sure it's a financing issue with the community-created Ubuntu distributions.
    – na-no.
    Oct 21, 2017 at 11:07
  • Ubuntu is supported as you stated. That applies to everything in the 'main' repository (or everything on the install media) as listed very clearly in the docs, but not flavors. Everything in the flavors has support for up to three years (two is accepted as long as mentioned at release by flavor) if the packages are NOT found in Ubuntu main; five years for everything found in the 'main' (also called Ubuntu, or ubuntu-core). It's documented if you read it all, though you're not alone in mixing up Ubuntu (proper or really 'main') & the 'flavors' (as we call them in fridge/news/.. wiki pages)
    – guiverc
    Oct 21, 2017 at 11:19
  • @Bajiru look at the flavor main page, they don't list canonical as a major sponsor.
    – mrjayviper
    Oct 21, 2017 at 11:34
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    another try: its not just $s. Canonical (who support Ubuntu) require a commitment from official flavors that they'll support for a period (two, three years) for everything not in 'main'. that is a huge commitment for volunteers (two years, let alone three) so i think its fair. everything found in [ubuntu] 'main' gets the full five years in flavors anyway as guaranteed by Canonical.
    – guiverc
    Oct 21, 2017 at 11:35

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