I’ve started out with Ubuntu 22.10 with my new laptop (12th ed, i7). Honestly I like the new quick access menu and all.
That said, it seems like only LTS versions are really supported around here? Nearly all the forum hits are for 22.04. Are many of y’all upgrading or just sticking with the LTS?
FWIW I’ll probably upgrade every interim release until 24.04 hits then stick with an LTS for a bit but… maybe not if there are many support issues or other reasons I shouldn’t be doing this with frame.work.
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The only time I’d ever consider using an interim release is if there were some new hardware that required such an installation.
The last non-lts release I’ve used would be Jaunty Jackalope back in 2009 (Ubuntu 9.04). Constantly having to upgrade or reinstall got boring for me a long time ago. Though the first release I installed and used was Gutsy Gibbon (ubuntu 7.10), which itself was an interim/intermediate release.
As far as this framework laptop is concerned (gen12 i7 1260p) I am quite happy with the performance on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Probably because of the way I use it I have not encountered any problems worth mentioning yet. I never use sleep or hibernation, I have it plugged into mains power >90% of the time; my installation is either on all the time or completely powered down and I set the UEFI charge limit to 65% to limit battery wear etc.
Interim/intermediate releases tend to be used by Canonical as testing grounds for new features whereas LTS releases are meant to be more stable/better tested with respect to OS features and hardware compatibility. For a new bit of hardware like the Framework laptop I’d tend to recommend an LTS release, but if you’ve got a bit of experience with Ubuntu/Linux generally then interim releases should be OK.
I can understand though why the Framework support team recommend using an LTS, the 5 year window of support given to LTS releases is very convenient compared to only 9 months for interim releases. By the way if you do find an LTS release that you particularly like the support can be extended out to 10 years with an ESM (Extended Security Maintenance) subscription from Canonical (free to any user on up to 3 installations with a subscription; for an Ubuntu member up to 50 installations per subscription) These ESM options have been available with LTS releases since 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) Edit: it seems they have been available since 12.04.
Good luck with whichever installation path you choose.
Cheers, yeti.
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I’m the person who any Linux ticket is escalated to, so I can speak for the support staff on this. LTS in general, just has more time to establish itself and is better tested. That said, 22.10 has been tested working well and I am supporting it.
Strictly my personal view and not an official view, non-LTS is generally a testing ground for new features. And let’s face it, new features are just cool - hence why people upgrade on launch day for these .10 releases.
My long time advice on this sort of things is as follows:
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If you enjoy new features, have no problem with experiencing potential bugs still being worked out, and understand the relatively short shelf life of the release, .10 releases are just fine. Going with .10 releases are also a good way to get to newer software, desktop, etc.
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If this is for a business or an environment where downtime isn’t something you can tolerate, LTS all day long.
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