End of support for Mint 16... What does it mean?

[randolindso0]

I'm very new to Linux, having moved from Windows XP a few months ago. I felt it was time to make the change- and to try Linux- and I'm glad I did. I tried to do my homework as far as what Linux Distro to move to and decided on Mint 16 Cinnamon. I've been reading about Mint 17 coming out soon and support for 16 ending in July. What exactly does that mean...end of support? Will I no longer receive updates via the Update Manager? Will I still be able to post questions about 16 in the forums? Should I migrate to 17, even though I'm satisfied with 16? Unlike XP, from which I was forced to leave because of security issues (so they say), that is surely not the case with Mint 16. Lots of questions, I guess, about what it all means. I stuck with XP for many, many years and really liked it, resisting the temptation to go to Vista, 7, then 8 because, frankly, XP just worked for me. Even though my time with Mint has been short I"m feeling the same about it- it just works. Any thoughts are truly appreciated.

[Hecubus]

You are correct that it means there are no more updates once support ends. You would still be able to use the OS, but it would not be recommended. I will be updating to 17 once the time comes.

The good news is that Linux Mint 17, which may be out by the end of May, is LTS (long term support) and will be supported for some years so you shouldn't have to update the OS for a long time.

As far as questions about unsupported versions go, you can ask them but many people would just simply tell you to update.

[Monsta]

What exactly does that mean...end of support?

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 40#p803252

[Wulf]

You are correct that it means there are no more updates once support ends. You would still be able to use the OS, but it would not be recommended. I will be updating to 17 once the time comes.

The good news is that Linux Mint 17, which may be out by the end of May, is LTS (long term support) and will be supported for some years so you shouldn't have to update the OS for a long time.

As far as questions about unsupported versions go, you can ask them but many people would just simply tell you to update.

Thank you for the clear answer

I must say that it strikes me as odd, these quickly changing releases with the limited support. As much as I hate Windows, MS provides years and years of support. If you do anything more than simply browsing, an upgrade quickly is a pain in the ass. The later, the better. So I am happy to see that 17 will be LTS. From a marketing perspective (I am an economist), having to upgrade every so many months/close to a year is not that desirable. You want your customers stable and happy. I do understand the development teams want to move on and release their great new products to the world, so it is a difficult subject.

[WinterTroubles]

Hi Wulf.

I'm in much the same position as yourself in being a late mint convert from XP who installed mint 16 cinnamon recently. As such I asked myself the same question regarding the time limited support of many releases, consequently I googled and read alot (because it fills a hole in my soul, rather than necessarily being essential ).

What I understood from my research is that LTS (long term support) releases are sequenced to overlap, meaning that to continue receiving updates a new install is only required at 5 year intervals. The releases that come between LTS releases allow users to enjoy updated functionality etc, if desired, without the development team having to dedicate limited resources to making new developments designed for a new environment work immediately in an old one. Which would delay releases.

What we as users end up with, compared with XP that had 13 years of tweaking and updating, is an OS that has a considerably smaller footprint and is based on much more recent programming design, rather an OS that has been patched to within an inch of it's life in an attempt to keep it functioning in a computing world that didn't exist at it's design stage.

Some of the above is, of course, opinion. That said, I can certainly say that my experience so far shows mint 16 to run noticeably better than my well maintained XP ever did.. so my guess is that the development team must be doing something right

[turtlebay777]

From a marketing perspective (I am an economist), having to upgrade every so many months/close to a year is not that desirable. You want your customers stable and happy.

Oh so you paid for Mint 16 did you? A large sum of money was it? As much as you would pay for a copy of Windows?

No!

Mint 16 was and is, free!

You paid nothing towards it's development nor it's upkeep, nor it's security patches.

Remind me not to consult you as an economist!

That's the point, you pay for Windows and rightly expect them to provide you with support and security patches, but Linux is free so you cannot expect them to provide any support.

Read this - Linux is not Windows, http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

[Bolle1961]

You paid nothing towards it's development nor it's upkeep, nor it's security patches.

Odd remark since we don't know (and don't have to know) if he made a donation.

[joejohnston3]

It means you need to switch to LMDE and then never have to worry about end-of-life again! Honestly, I just switched to LMDE because of the desire to avoid having to upgrade and it has been wonderful.

[bobafetthotmail]

From a marketing perspective (I am an economist), having to upgrade every so many months/close to a year is not that desirable. You want your customers stable and happy.

You missed the LTS releases. that's 5 years of support.

ANyway, it's either that or breaking stuff at random intervals ala Windows. You have no idea of the amounts of times that a patch to something broke a production-critical script or program and half the employees had to wait 3 hours while techs were restoring most PCs in the company.

From an IT tech point of view, this way is vastly superior because you know when you can have issues with a clear schedule, which means you can prepare for them. Besides, reinstalling is not hard nor long (possibly because you don't need to download 4 gb of updates after a reinstall like with Windows).

LMDE is more or less the same thing, rolling release but the UpdatePacks can break stuff (but being released with a schedule you can plan for that), so you cannot just sit back and relax.


If you want stability, choose Android. After a few updates the device will keep the same firmware for the rest of its life.

[fu-sen]

Security issues of OpenSSL occurred recently.
In contrast, a package is not updated formally in Linux Mint 15.
Ubuntu 13.04 that Mint 15 was based on stopped package update in this January.

In Mint 14, a Ubuntu package stops soon. (The time limit that was April is originally prolonged)
The Ubuntu package is going to stop at Mint 16 in July.

Update to Mint 17 released later is the correspondence that is important in order to avoid security damage.
Or you may choose Mint 13 (LTS version 2 years ago, deadline for packages update support is April, 2017)
or LMDE as the contribution of others reply it.

But this forum goes to past Mint for a topic now, The support from a user will be provided to some extent in past Mint.

[bobafetthotmail]

Security issues of OpenSSL occurred recently.

That was issue for servers only (desktops don't handle those requests at all unless you are running a webserver on it, so vulnerable or not makes no difference for most end users). There is no reason to run Mint on servers (it is a desktop-oriented distro, a server needs nothing of what it offers on top of Ubuntu/Debian), and Ubuntu Server isn't a major server distro either.

Debian, BSD and Redhat (main server distros I can think of) patched the packages in repositories within a reasonable timescale. As in 99.99% of the cases it's then up to the server admin to do the actual update, because auto-updates on a server are outright dangerous (can break stuff at random times, and you need the server to run 24/7).