That’s awesome! I wish more OS-es follow, especially Debian. Having support for an OS that can cover the whole perceived lifecycle of the hardware is something that was once (in the 2000s) the standard. This is something crucial for businesses, but it’s also great for home users.
Suspiciously all current LTS expire on Dec 2026 there is nothing planned ahead of this. And 3y for 6.6 is the shortest of any LTS I remember. My bet is Linus retiring then LF taking over everything.
Software also looks at future dates, so the problem is actually going to start to occur much sooner. The kernel will be fine, it's all the other random software floating out there that you should worry about. A lot of in-house calendar and booking software is probably going to start to blow up soon.
Ubuntu is already immune to the 2038 bug. The Linux kernel even supports using a 64 bit time_t on 32 bit systems now. Of course some poorly written software could still be affected, but that’s not the fault of the kernel or operating system.
The 2038 bug will certainly cause problems in some embedded systems that still use a 32 bit time_t if they are still running by then.
To note: this appears to be a move from 5 years (standard, free) + 5 years (extended, paid) to 5+7. Users not paying Canonical aren't getting anything different as to with prior LTS releases.
Standard free support for 24.04 is still 2024-04 through 2029-06.
Free for personal use, so yes-ish. That'll certainly be a deal-breaker for some.
Realistically, people who are using it for personal use would probably be upgrading to the next LTS shortly after it's released (or in Ubuntu fashion, once the xxxx.yy.1 release is out). People who don't qualify to be using it for free anyway are more likely to be the ones keeping the same version for >5 years.
Laugh at or complain about Ubuntu all you wish… but this type of effort really puts Linux as a compelling competitor to Windows for enterprise desktop users. Rather than paying for the Windows software license and then Microsoft or 3rd party support for the OS on top, the fees would be for dedicated operating system and package support against criticial vulnerabilities. Wouldn’t a business rather have something that “just works as it is” over the long term, rather than something that leaves sysadmins holding their breath every Patch Tuesday with Microsoft randomly shoehorning in “features” here and there that have to be shutoff in GP editor?
More people using Ubuntu means more will be comfortable switching away from mac/Windows. Plus the free software components benefit from having a dedicated team securely supporting the packages over the long term.
The longstanding issue that remains is all the industry-specialized software either crappily-coded or riddled with DRMs and whatnot don’t support Linux well yet.
This is valid for end users too. Ubuntu Pro is free for up to 5 machines. People can install 22.04 and stay on it for 10 years or 24.04 for 12 years. That’s the kind of boring stable desktop operation that only Windows XP has managed to muster and people loved it. It’s perfect for the kind of folks who hate having to do major OS upgrades, as well as people who support others for free. Cough … family IT … cough. You bet your ass the family members I support would stay on 22.04 for a looong time!
Windows has much better forward and backward compatibility than Linux, that’s why 10 year old Windows is still fine. 10 year old Linux on the other side just means nothing modern will work on it. That’s really only usable in extreme edge cases. Flatpak and Snap somewhat address this, but that also puts you back into the forced-upgrade treadmill, as Flatpak runtimes don’t have LTS support (not sure how Snap handles this).
That still causes internal screaming and when you reach the point where you feel you don’t learn anything new because you only babysit some legacy shit you leave.
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