13.10 Ubuntu Mandatory Update
When people choose to install Ubuntu, they usually grab the latest release because we have been conditioned to think that newer = better. Sometimes that is true, but not always.
All the people who installed Ubuntu 13.04 should be updating to 13.10 soon. There isn’t really any choice.
No Choice? Really?
That is correct. Support for 13.04 ends in January 2014, 3 months before then next release.
Running a non-supported/non-patched OS really isn’t an option, so 13.10 is the only real choice for Ubuntu users not on 12.04 (an LTS release). See the Official Ubuntu Release Support as reference.
So, get updating to 13.10 and when 14.04 is released, update to it, but stop there. 14.04 is an LTS release – supported until 2019. Ubuntu doesn’t always force new installs every 6 months, but we each have to be smart about which release we install.
12.04 Users
Be happy. You can wait until 14.04 is released AND it becomes convenient to migrate. I’ll probably wait until June for my first install, but will probably take a year to migrate my servers from 12.04 up. Heck, I’m stull running a few 10.04 LTS servers – supported until 2015 and still working perfectly.
If you like getting a new release every 6 months, fantastic! I need longer between releases, so LTS is all that I’ll use for non-toy installations.
