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How to install software or upgrade from old unsupported release?

I am using Ubuntu 11.04 at the moment. I like GNOME 2 and its classic desktop environment. I would prefer to stay with it for as long as I can, even after it reaches EOL (end of life).

However, I am not fully satisfied with Natty and am considering downgrading to 10.10, which expires in April this year.

Suppose I install Ubuntu 10.10 after April, will the existing updates be available, or will Canonical kill off the repositories for 10.10 completely? Will the Software Centre still be functional then?

Community
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Pringles
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1 Answers1

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From memory, the repositories for end-of-life releases are moved within weeks of the EOL date.

To clarify - they are moved, not removed. EOL release repositories are available at http://old-releases.ubuntu.com

End-of-support means that Canonical will no longer actively push out updates and security patches. You will be responsible to do this yourself - probably through downloading sources yourself, compiling and installing.

As time goes by, though, you will find that the usual source of newer software - PPAs, will tend to dry up as the maintainers move onto newer versions of ubuntu.

Moving the repositories doesn't mean that you will be unable to install software - you will just need to repoint your sources to the old-releases area:

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and change 'archive.ubuntu.com' to 'old-releases.ubuntu.com'

You can do this with sed

sudo sed -i -e 's/archive.ubuntu.com/old-releases.ubuntu.com/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

then update with

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Thus - synaptic/software-center etc will still work correctly.

fossfreedom
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