Whether it is ubuntu fedora debian opensuse or centos.. What are (especially with UBUNTU GNOME) the dis advantages of staying with LTS instead of moving on to 14.10 or 15.04.
Advantages?
Having tried tons of distros. I really want to make this post not only for myself but I wish for somebody to list these in a detailed fashion?
Help :D
The advantage of an LTS is that things won't change on you for a very long time. Ubuntu MATE is based on 14.04 instead of 14.10 because the LTS provides a stable base, which will likely be appreciated by people who appreciate the familiar interface of MATE. Release upgrades can be complicated and things sometimes break or go away. You don't have to worry about that as often with LTS releases. You just get bug fixes and security patches, without all the changes in direction that might happen from release to release, such as ditching upstart for systemd as is happening in the jump from 14.10 to 15.04 (if you don't know what I'm talking about, be grateful for your ignorance).
On the other hand, regular releases get the newer things. This has become a fairly fashionable thing lately with users seeking the bleeding edge in desktop environments and improvements in the kernel for filesystems like btrfs or drivers for some new gadget or whatever it may be. That's why rolling releases are popular as well, because you basically get new software as it rolls out instead of having to wait for a release cycle. It's important for some people, but not everyone.
If your in a corporate environment or server environment that doesnt change much LTS versions can be benificial.
If your on a desktop in the home or dont need a 'must not change' environment, there's next to no advantage to using LTS.
As @Eden already mentioned, it is mainly beneficial in server / corporate enviroments, where you configure dozens (hundreds?) of systems and users are only supposed to use the system as it is.
On a personal / desktop computer it doesn't (for me at least) make any sense, since your missing out on new features and improvements (especially important for gaming) the newer kernels bring (due to the fact that the Linux kernel is a monolithic one).
Kernel 3.18.6 here (ArchLinux)
I wouldn't limit it to just server/corporate. Imagine what you might install on your mom's or your grandfather's laptop. Something that will work without you having to babysit it.
I understand where you're coming from, but my mom / dad wouldn't administrate (i.e. update) their own PC :D
BTW at the rate / cation big distros are putting out their kernels (looking at you, Debian) I doubt anything would ever happen.
I only had an issue ONCE with a new kernel which caused my Wifi-card to work incorrectly. Reported to the bug tracker, in the next release (about 2 weeks later) it was fixed.
Unfortunately Canonical didn't choose to go with Rolling Release, so the LTS versions might be released in very stupid moments, so they get stuck with old software and stuff like this. The only distro I know that had the latest software and was very stable was Sabayon, an awesome distro.
Agreed. We use LTS releases for our servers in our labs for stability reasons. We ONLY upgrade LTS versions on our servers and even then we aren't that motivated unless we need to actually upgrade for some reason.
For those of you who think LTS releases don't make sense for desktop user clearly have extra time on your hands. An LTS is for anyone who appreciates stability and not having to worry about things breaking. Very helpful for businesses, and servers, but they also have tailored distros for those environments. Running Linux Mint or the default Ubuntu (with Unity) wouldn't be my first choice in server computers, yet those distros have LTS releases. A big part of Linux is definitely the ability to explore the system, customize, break, and repair the system, and LTS releases do take away a that part of the experience, but not all of us have the luxury of time or the will power for all of that. Linux is obviously a very powerful and very stable system when set up properly, which is why LTS exist, even on the desktop space.
Desktop-oriented LTS releases are just for those types of people. I have a Linux Mint LTS running on my laptop I use for school and I know that is rock solid and I can confidently burn the midnight oil without worrying about crashing, or an update breaking my some part of my system (I've broken xorg a few times, and I usually just reinstall after fumbling around with config files for a few hours), or some bug robbing performance or battery life. I had one of my laptops running 24/7 for 6 months straight without a single reboot while keeping up with updates, just as an experiment, because Windows couldn't go one week without an update forcing a restart, or crashing. On my main desktop machine, I'll run the latest and greatest version of Mint, as well as new systems such as arch, Ubuntu, Slitaz, etc, because it isn't vital for me to have that system running.
Point is, if you aren't interested in learning the ins and out of linux, and just need a stable system to use day in and day out, LTS is for you. You certainly can break an LTS, but at least you'll know it wasn't from an update or a bug.
Long Term Support ---> its as simple as that
LTS -Long term support, is litterally just that. If you have a system that MUST always be running perfecto without reboots for any longer than you can think of leaving your pc running unattended, then this is what you want. Now granted unless you are a software developer, running a webserver or in the IT Security business you will not care much for LTS when all your friends are running the latest desktop plugins. :P So go for the latest release and run with scissors on the stable-ish bleeding edge.
Thank you all for the replies. Man I guess I should go with Utopic... Simply because I do want those kernel improvements in the gaming environments. I just thought of LTS being steams main packaging focus it would be more compatible but assuming steam is starting to make large binaries I may opt for 14.10.
JUST TO START A WAR
GNOME is WAY more awesome than mate in my opinion. Though I have great justification for this.
My hierarchy of DE's
Gnome
KDE
XFCE
Cinnamon
LXDE
MATE (personally dont care much for mate myself. It just doesnt suit my ultra customization of everything type attitude..) I found it personally the hardest to mod everything in it without sacrificing stability.
"One who doesn't know the diff between LTS and rolling releases cannot start a DE war." -- Unix Rule #334
LTS = Things will often be well supported because it'll be around for a while, and less changes = less breakage
Non-LTS = Things will often be supported and/or break because of changes or odd versions of things.
Example: If you try to install Steam on Ubuntu 15.04, Steam will be broken. Here's the fun time I had trying to get it going.
First of all i do know the difference...... I just wanted to see what was generally agreed upon.. And hell if I want to start a de war I will XP lols
Yeah.. Well im not going to use Ubuntu anymore.. Opensuse 13.2 is far better.. Yast is a God send
On a recent build I installed the latest Ubuntu Desktop 14.10. Got pretty far along installing everything I wanted when I started to notice that my mouse would disappear in a window when I clicked the control button. Went to see if anyone submitted the bug to the chronicle team. Yep, it's been an open bug for a while now with no hope of any fix any time soon since they haven't been able to reproduce all the scenarios in which the bug appears. I learned from my mistake, never wonder far from the stability tree.
Yeah well Ubuntu is terrible with the broadcom proprietary driver for the bcm4364.. I literally have zero issues on other distros.. It was a deal breaker for ubuntu because if I can't watch the dumbest people on youtube do dumb stuff and have no Internet.. I wont be a happy camper lols
Why are you using a Broadcom and how long ago did you try it?
It broke recently.. And by broke it keeps locking up my system... And this was after it updated via sudo apt-get upgrade.. I tried purging it and reinstalling it.. To no luck my pce ac66u.. Refuses to work right but it does on other distros so.. Im thinking it may be a bug..