Ubuntu – End of Standard Support and End of Life

release-managementsupportversions

What do these terms mean?

  • End of Standard Support
  • End of Life

Does this mean that I can't use this specific Ubuntu version, or something else?

Best Answer

From Wikipedia:

"End-of-life" (EOL) is a term used with respect to a product supplied to customers, indicating that the product is in the end of its useful life (from the vendor's point of view), and a vendor stops marketing, selling, or rework sustaining it. (The vendor may simply intend to limit or end support for the product.)

With this in mind, we can deduce that end a Ubuntu version in EOL means that it won't get supported in any way by Canonical, that is, it won't get any updates or support.

But what about a product that is in End of Standard Support? According to this article made by Canonical,

As Ubuntu LTS releases transition from the standard, public maintenance window, Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) is available for organisations with their workloads on Ubuntu LTS releases to maintain that stability and continuity, ensuring system security and compliance. With the end of its five-year standard support window in April, Canonical is announcing the availability of ESM for 14.04 starting 25 April 2019.

ESM for 14.04 provides ongoing kernel security fixes through a secure, private archive for three years until April 2022. This continued protection from major security vulnerabilities enables development and operations teams to plan and manage application upgrades in a failsafe environment.

ESM is available as a feature of an Ubuntu Advantage subscription.

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