Ubuntu 18.04 Flavors Reach End of Life, Users Urged to Upgrade to 20.04 LTS

Ubuntu 18.04 Flavors

At the end of April 2021, all Ubuntu 18.04 LTS flavors reached end of life, including Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Studio, and Ubuntu Kylin.

Dubbed Bionic Beaver, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS was released in April 2018 and it is supported by Canonical with software and security updates for at least five years. But while Ubuntu itself receives this long-time support (LTS) of five years, the rest of the Ubuntu flavors only receive three years of support, which ended in May 2021.

The last maintenance update for the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) series was Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS, released in August 2020. From this moment on, there will be no further point releases published for the Bionic Beaver series, but Ubuntu itself will still receive regular updates that you can install via the software repositories.

Unfortunately, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Studio, or Ubuntu Kylin users aren’t so lucky, and they will have to upgrade their installations to version 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) as soon as possible.

After April 30th, 2021, the only supported LTS (Long-Term Support) release of Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Studio, and Ubuntu Kylin is version 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa), which receives support until April 2023.

It is highly recommended that you perform a fresh install of Kubuntu 20.04 LTS, Xubuntu 20.04 LTS, Lubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu Budgie 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu Studio 20.04 LTS, or Ubuntu Kylin 20.04 LTS, especially if you have a 32-bit version of 18.04 LTS installed on your system.

But, those of you who have a 64-bit version installed will be able to upgrade your Ubuntu 18.04 LTS flavors to the 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) flavors of Ubuntu by following the instructions provided by Canonical here or by reading my tutorial here.

Last updated 2 years ago

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