What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

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The Old Timer

Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by The Old Timer »

Hey xenopeek,

My mistake I didn't pay attention.

Thanks
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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Portreve »

It has always been my understanding that only core system stuff and security updates were included for LTS. Typically, I've upgraded to a newer version before the 5 year mark anyhow, so it's not particularly troubling for me.
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Mr.October

Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Mr.October »

Guys, it's even worse than what all of us think:
snapshot1.png
This is an excerpt (top left corner) of the large Ubuntu table found on Distrowatch at http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ubuntu :o
If this is true then Clem really has to hurry releasing MInt 18 or End of Life comes before the release date. :lol:
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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Cosmo. »

The table is obviously buggy: At first it does not mention 16.04 as LTS (the table mentions this for 14.04 and 12.04), at second the table would lead to the result, that the support time for 16.04 would end exactly at the same date as for 15.10 and that the support period would endure only 3 months.
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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Pjotr »

It would probably help, if some of you would support my comment (comment #1) in the Launchpad bug report for ubuntu-support-status:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1574670

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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Pjotr »

This is a promising new comment by Canonical developer Marc Deslauriers:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... comments/3

Key quote:
We are looking into updating the Supported field for Ubuntu 16.04, and releasing an updated ubuntu-support-status tool for earlier releases that will return accurate information.
Looks like we're going to get exactly what we were hoping for. :)
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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Cosmo. »

There are still things, which I do not understand.
First: Marc wrote, that he got for nginx 9 months reported as support time, but I get 5 years. :?:
Second: He says now, that the mistake is in the relevant field in the package file, or did I read it wrong?
Third: apt show shows - as from Marc described and as I can reproduce - the same output as the support tool. How shall correcting the support tool do any good for apt? :?:
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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Pjotr »

Cosmo. wrote:There are still things, which I do not understand.
First: Marc wrote, that he got for nginx 9 months reported as support time, but I get 5 years. :?:
Second: He says now, that the mistake is in the relevant field in the package file, or did I read it wrong?
Third: apt show shows - as from Marc described and as I can reproduce - the same output as the support tool. How shall correcting the support tool do any good for apt? :?:
This is how I understand it: apparently each package in the repo's has its own "supported" tag, which tells for how long that particular package will be supported.

In many tags on many packages, this information is currently incorrect. That's why both "ubuntu-support-status" and "apt show" give the same false information about support periods.

Marcc Deslauriers has announced that probably at least the tags of the 16.04 packages will be corrected. And that ubuntu-support-status will be rewritten in order to give correct information in older Ubuntu releases (15.10 and previous) whose packages also have wrong tags (but whose tags won't be corrected).
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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Cosmo. »

Pjotr wrote:This is how I understand it: apparently each package in the repo's has its own "supported" tag, which tells for how long that particular package will be supported.
My understanding also.
Pjotr wrote:In many tags on many packages, this information is currently incorrect. That's why both "ubuntu-support-status" and "apt show" give the same false information about support periods.
But why does Marc only speak about the support tool? What is the meaning of his suggestion, to remove it completely, if apt show still would show the wrong information? Why does he request in the first place the correction / removal of the tool and not the correction of the package meta data?
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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Pjotr »

Cosmo. wrote:
Pjotr wrote:This is how I understand it: apparently each package in the repo's has its own "supported" tag, which tells for how long that particular package will be supported.
My understanding also.
Pjotr wrote:In many tags on many packages, this information is currently incorrect. That's why both "ubuntu-support-status" and "apt show" give the same false information about support periods.
But why does Marc only speak about the support tool?
Well, as I read it, he does not.... :)

He speaks of two things:

1. The tags of the 16.04 packages, which will probably be corrected. So that the current unchanged version of the tool ubuntu-support-status will give the right information after all (likewise for "apt show").

2. The tags of the packages from 15.10 and older, which won't be corrected. And for whose sake probably a "fixed" version of ubuntu-support-status will be released, so that it will give the right information in spite of the wrong tags.
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The Old Timer

Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by The Old Timer »

Pjotr wrote:It would probably help, if some of you would support my comment (comment #1) in the Launchpad bug report for ubuntu-support-status:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1574670

Remember to stay friendly and civil.... The Universe developers are under no obligation to us at all. :)
"Remember to stay friendly and civil.... "

This seems to be a real problem when asking questions or making a comment.
It seems to be taken personally pulling out the knives and shields to go into battle if you disagree with certain posters opinions.

I personally believe it is way to early in this 16.04 release to actually know or actually foresee what will happen.

In my install I have no unsupported packages and all other packages are 5 year or 3 year support which I see no problem.
I have not downloaded any packages so that could be why I have no unsupported packages.

Lighten up guys and quit acting as if YOU developed this release.
It is only a week old lets give the developers a chance and see what happens.

I like the Ubuntu 16.04 new release and yeah I have some minor problems but I expected to have problems as it is a new release.

The Old Timer
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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Habitual »

I read LTS as "Shelf-Life".
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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Cosmo. »

The Old Timer wrote:In my install I have no unsupported packages
Did you open the language settings?
I had ticked during the install to apply available updates. When I started the freshly installed system I opened the language settings and it told me, that some language packs were missing. It are 2 English hunspell packages which get shown as unsupported.
The Old Timer

Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by The Old Timer »

Cosmo. wrote:
The Old Timer wrote:In my install I have no unsupported packages
Did you open the language settings?
I had ticked during the install to apply available updates. When I started the freshly installed system I opened the language settings and it told me, that some language packs were missing. It are 2 English hunspell packages which get shown as unsupported.
When I did my install I didn't check any of the boxes to install any available updates or to install any third party software as I will install it only if and when needed.
This could be the reason as to why I have no unsupported packages.

After the install when I ran the software updater it came back with only two security updates and that is all.
The Old Timer

Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by The Old Timer »

Even my Kubuntu 14.04 has very few unsupported packages.

xxxxxx@INTEL-DG33BU:~$ ubuntu-support-status --show-unsupported|more
Support status summary of 'INTEL-DG33BU':

You have 1575 packages (98.6%) supported until May 2019 (5y)
You have 4 packages (0.3%) supported until February 2015 (9m)
You have 8 packages (0.5%) supported until May 2017 (3y)
You have 4 packages (0.3%) supported until January 2017 (9m)

You have 0 packages (0.0%) that can not/no-longer be downloaded
You have 6 packages (0.4%) that are unsupported

No longer downloadable:


Unsupported:
kscreensaver kscreensaver-xsavers linux-headers-3.13.0-85
linux-headers-3.13.0-85-generic linux-image-3.13.0-85-generic
linux-image-extra-3.13.0-85-generic

xxxxxx@INTEL-DG33BU:~$
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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Pjotr »

The Old Timer wrote:Even my Kubuntu 14.04 has very few unsupported packages.
Of course. Because ubuntu-support-status currently shows incorrect results. Which is in the process of being fixed.

Right now: don't trust the output of ubuntu-support-status and wait for the Ubuntu devs to fix the issue.
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The Old Timer

Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by The Old Timer »

Ok so it is messed up on all Ubuntu based distros. Got it.
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Re: What does LTS really mean? The 5 years question.

Post by Pjotr »

The Old Timer wrote:Ok so it is messed up on all Ubuntu based distros.
Exactly. :)
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