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I have previous experience with Linux, but I am new to Ubuntu. I am planning on installing Ubuntu on my personal computer, and I was wondering which version I should install. On the Ubuntu website, I found installation instructions, as well as a download for Ubuntu 22.04. I understand that this is the latest version of Ubuntu, and it was released just last month.

I was wondering whether I should install Ubuntu 22.04. Since it was released just last month, I was concerned that there might be bugs, and the operating system might not be stable. I researched this issue on my own, and I found an article claiming that this is a stable version, and is what people should install. This article is at

https://linuxconfig.org/ubuntu-22-04-features-and-release-date

According to this, Ubuntu 22.04 is an LTS release, which means that it has long-term support. This article claims that LTS releases are stable, and users should install them. The Ubuntu website also states that Version 22.04 is an LTS release.

I believe the information in this article probably is accurate, and I doubt that the Ubuntu website would direct users to Version 22.04 if it were not stable. However, since I am new to Ubuntu, I thought I should ask the community about stability before I installed the operating system.

Thank you for your input.

Casper the Friendly Grue
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    If the LTS was not stable, it would not have been released. So long as your computer is sound, meaning it doesn't have a bunch of hacked together hardware from the late 90s that are holding onto their PCI ports with the help of duct tape and gravity, then you should be fine. I've been using 22.04 since January as my daily driver and it has never once errored on me. I regularly work with code, multiple browsers, databases, and lots of video calls. The release has performed remarkably well on my Lenovo ThinkPads. – matigo May 18 '22 at 01:59
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    Yes, Ubuntu 22.04 is stable, but... Some programs won't work with it because of missing dependencies. For example people can't use Ruby Version Manager (rvm) because it compiles Ruby with an old version of libssl, which isn't present in 22.04. Also I found I couldn't get Mendeley Reference Manager to work, though it works on earlier versions of Ubuntu. – John Small May 18 '22 at 17:41
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    There's "stable" as in unchanging and "stable" as in (relatively) crash-free. When people talk about releases being "stable", often it can be in the former sense, when your average user will think it's using the latter sense. – muru May 19 '22 at 02:13
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    No. (Proof: the 8.04 LTS swapped out the PostgreSQL major version thrice during LTS lifetime instead of sticking to a stable version, requiring manual interactions on upgrade before the next autoremove would drop your prod database. They also made it uninstallible for multiple 2-week timeframes due to kernel/module version skew with the installer insisting on those modules. Later LTS releases had different but similar fails during their lifetime.) Desktop use is also not long-term supported. If you want something stable, I really urge you to look at its FOSS parent Debian instead. – mirabilos May 19 '22 at 20:48
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    @mirabilos, 8.04 is from 2008, 14 years ago. Are you sure it serves as proof of how 22.04 is (going to be)? – ilkkachu May 19 '22 at 21:33
  • @ilkkachu of course not, but it’s the one I’ve observed for the longest, and the one where I had bad examples of Canonical’s behaviour right at hand; I’ve followed their progress over the years and am not amused. – mirabilos May 20 '22 at 18:59
  • Trying it out today: Skype app crashes, have to use web.skype.com, cannot add VPN connection from Network Manager (grayed out). – Lauri Elias May 23 '22 at 08:35
  • Also I cannot extend my display to a 4K screen. Windows did this automatically. – Lauri Elias May 23 '22 at 09:04
  • @mirabilos Wasn't 8.04 the first LTS release? It'd be reasonable to think that policies would still be a bit flexible for the first release as Canonical learns from the experience – muru May 24 '22 at 02:29
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    @muru Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (2006-June) release was the first LTS (late & didn't make it out in April) – guiverc May 24 '22 at 02:30

11 Answers11

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Yes, it's stable and there is no reason not to install 22.04 LTS.

However, if you are upgrading from a previous LTS version (say 20.04 LTS), conventional wisdom suggests waiting until the first point release (usually in October of the year of release) by which time a number of issues which have already been notified will be in place unless you wish to install it from the off.

That is the model I will follow although, in the meantime, I have 22.04 LTS installed on a scratch PC for testing/configuration and thus far it has not proved problematical. There are differences in the user interface which, if you are a new user to Ubuntu, you may as well experience now, rather than later.

You might wish to reference the Ubuntu lifecycle and release cadence publication for further detail.

graham
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  • Thank you for your reply. From your link, I see that Version 20.04 is supported until 2030. If I were to install this older version, then I believe I could be sure that there are no bugs, and I could use it until 2030. Is there any reason not to install Version 20.04? – Casper the Friendly Grue May 19 '22 at 05:31
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    There are reasons, why you could prefer to install the most current version 22.04. For example if you have a very new system, hardware support is probably better with the latest Linux kernel found in 22.04 LTS. Hardware and maintenance support for 20.04 ends 2025. For most users it is recommended to switch until this point. – Sonyfreak May 19 '22 at 07:17
  • Thank you for the explanation. Looking at the page again, I see that maintenance and hardware support end in 2025. – Casper the Friendly Grue May 19 '22 at 07:29
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    "It's stable, but wait till the issues are fixed." Conventional Linux wisdom, indeed. – Num Lock May 19 '22 at 07:50
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    @CaspertheFriendlyGrue: If you don't already have an Ubuntu system and are installing it fresh, start with the latest release. It's unlikely you'll run into any problems on your hardware, but starting with newer kernel an X11 versions is more likely to help than hurt, unless your hardware is already quite old. (Even then usually still fine.) If you run into any showstoppers while installing, you can always try an older version, otherwise at some point in the future you'll probably be glad you're already running newer software, not older. (Or unaware of an incompatibility problem avoided) – Peter Cordes May 20 '22 at 20:50
  • @PeterCordes: Thank you for your reply. I have a used computer which I purchased in 2020. So, the hardware is not new. I understand that Version 20.04 is fully supported until 2025. So, I do not think I will run into any software compatibility issues. I am a scientist, and I mostly will be writing papers with LaTeX, making plots, and doing numerical computations. The software I need is available from the GNU project. I doubt I will use any software requiring the latest version of Ubuntu. I do not want to run into any bugs, and I believe it would make sense to go with the older version. – Casper the Friendly Grue May 21 '22 at 05:10
  • @CaspertheFriendlyGrue: Bugs are pretty rare, and new versions tend to be a bit nicer than old versions even for things like GNU coreutils (ls and so on) and bash. A newer GCC version should on average compile more efficient binaries, and newer R and octave are presumably not worse. Languages like Python keep adding stuff, so probably at some point you'll want to try a code example or use a function yourself that requires some language version. Also a newer web browser is rarely a bad thing. But you're right that if you don't need to install 3rd-party software, old is less of a problem – Peter Cordes May 21 '22 at 13:28
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This depends on your definition of ‘stable’.

The normal sense typically used in the Linux world with reference to a particular version of a particular distribution means that the ABI (the binary level interfaces the kernel and libraries provide to user applications) and API (the high level interface definitions used when developing software) are guaranteed not to change in a backwards incompatible manner for that release. What this means in effect is that if you build some piece of software now on Ubuntu 22.04, it will almost certainly still work the same way without needing modification in roughly five years when normal support for Ubuntu 22.04 ends upstream.

In this sense, the very fact that a given version of a distro has been released usually means it is stable. Barring special cases like Arch or Gentoo that use a rolling-release model, all the big name distros provide this guarantee from the day a release is officially created until the point in time when they stop supporting that release, though the exact semantics involving versioning may vary (Ubuntu, Alpine, and openSUSE guarantee it for major/minor versions, but not patch releases, Debian and RHEL (and most RHEL clones) guarantee it for major versions but not minor versions (which are just indicators of incremental improvements, Fedora just uses major versions and only guarantees it for those).

So, for this definition of stable, yes, Ubuntu 22.04 is stable.

However, there’s a rather important other sense of the term ‘stable’ that is much more common in the Windows world (especially among gamers) which instead means that there are no (known) major bugs in the software in question.

Some Linux distros provide a guarantee along these lines for releases alongside the above-mentioned guarantee. In general, distros that provide this type of guarantee do not have a fixed, predetermined release date, instead releasing when the developers feel things are stable enough (by this definition of stable) to be ready. Debian in particular is very well known for this type of release policy.

Ubuntu, however, does not provide such a guarantee. They have a predetermined target release date, and they only let it slip for serious issues with the core system functionality (for example, if screen lock functionality is broken), but they will generally not postpone it for issues with less common usage, or things that are not part of the core system (and 22.04 actually had a couple such issues on release). This is, in general, why the common advice for people already using LTS releases of Ubuntu is to wait to upgrade to the next LTS release until after the first point release (22.04.1 in this case).

In this sense, Ubuntu 22.04 is not stable yet, but probably will be in the near future.

Austin Hemmelgarn
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    Thanks for your nice answer! One minor issue of your answer is that the first point release is going to be 22.04.1, instead of 22.04.01, by Ubuntu's version naming convention. – Siu Ching Pong -Asuka Kenji- May 19 '22 at 19:42
  • @SiuChingPong-AsukaKenji- Noted. I work with enough variety of different distros that I have trouble keeping track of their versioning conventions sometimes. I’ll update the answer to correct this. – Austin Hemmelgarn May 19 '22 at 20:57
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Ubuntu releases are declared stable, not measured stable. This is because

a) they pull in packages from Debian testing, which is not Debian stable, and

b) their release dates are known in advance, in contrast to Debian stable releases.

As an example, vagrant+virtualbox were unusable after 22.04 release due to [1] and only fixed recently.

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vagrant/+bug/1964025

Damian
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Ubuntu itself is stable, but 22.04 introduces a big change with respect to 20.04: it uses Wayland as its graphics server instead of the age-old X. There are plenty of programs that still don't work properly with Wayland, like Zoom for example, so you will encounter bugs. Which are not Ubuntu's fault, but still will negatively affect your user experience.

If you're not interested in getting the latest and greatest software, but just something that works reliably without giving you headaches, I would recommend installing 20.04.

Mateus Araújo
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    You can disable Wayland and use X without much hassle. – Phil May 19 '22 at 20:34
  • Sure you can. The person asking the question is new to Ubuntu, though, so I think we should answer them with the default Ubuntu configuration in mind. Changing the graphics server counts as a headache in my book. – Mateus Araújo May 20 '22 at 18:51
  • Gotta challenge this continual view that everything is hard. It's not 1996 any more. It's a a single line change in a single file, followed by a restart. – Phil May 29 '22 at 20:51
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All released version of Ubuntu are stable.

This includes Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (the 2022-April release), Ubuntu 21.10 (2021-October release), and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (the 2020-April release).

The unstable releases are known by codenames, eg. Ubuntu kinetic will become Ubuntu 22.10 (2022-October) release when it's released.

The LTS releases are technically no more stable than a non-LTS release, the LTS tells you it's a long term support release. Yes fewer risks are taken with LTS releases, meaning they may have older software, but the decisions on what to include are more related to long-term-support.

guiverc
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  • I'm using the development which could also be called unstable release of Ubuntu kinetic. This install was made in mid-late 2017, and I release-upgrade every 6 months remaining on the development cycle. What I'm using would be treated as unstable, Most of the time the machine is what I'd consider stable, but it's not always that with occasional issues discovered. If you want stability use a released product of Ubuntu. – guiverc May 18 '22 at 02:14
  • I'll also suggest if you want accurate advice on Ubuntu releases; stick to official sources. Most Ubuntu sites (eg. wiki) have a date of last edit, or history pages, so dated advice can in most cases be detected rather quickly. Third party sources can mislead; but support-length is not the same as stability. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS uses the LTS libraries/toolkits; just as Ubuntu 22.04 LTS does. That doesn't mean problems won't occur.. just that security fixes will be applied for a longer time. – guiverc May 18 '22 at 02:17
  • I had an issue with the Qt5 library found in 20.04; it wasn't a security issue thus was when it was fixed in a later release; it wasn't back-ported to the Qt5 version used in 20.04.. Thus it was fixed in Ubuntu 20.10 and later releases, but not the LTS release.... Were it a security issue; no doubt it would have been back-ported to 20.04 LTS. LTS = long term support – guiverc May 18 '22 at 02:19
  • FYI: LTS releases tend to have more 3rd party software support; a benefit - but this doesn't relate to stability. If interested why I'm on development (unstable) it's because I'm involved with Ubuntu teams & QA; and my discovering problems during the development cycle helps us detect & fix them prior to release.. It's not intended for end-users, though almost all the time it's stable - but it's not called that for a reason ! – guiverc May 18 '22 at 02:26
  • The 20.04 upgrade to 22.04 isn't open yet, as 20.04 is from the prior development cycle thus a lot has changed.. (the development cycle started with 20.10, then 21.04, 21.10 before finishing with the LTS of 22.04.. the prior cycle started with 18.10 ending with 20.04 LTS). All fixes for upgrading from prior cycles (20.04 LTS to 22.04 LTS) are being completed now & the upgrade process will open after the release of Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is stable for new installs, or upgrades from within the development cycle; ie. prior users of Ubuntu 21.10. – guiverc May 18 '22 at 02:30
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    All Ubuntu releases have codenames. 22.04 LTS has the name Jammy Jellyfish. – doneal24 May 20 '22 at 12:33
  • True @doneal24, but I'm currently on according to lsb_release Description: Ubuntu Kinetic Kudu (development branch), ie. there is no mention currently of 22.10, only the codename... Ubuntu releases are known by their codename until they reach RC or Release Candidate stage where a name-change occurs and the release (22.10) is introduced into the description/name of the OS itself; ie. Kinetic Kudu will become Ubuntu 22.10. That was my attempted point. – guiverc May 22 '22 at 23:38
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Most LTS releases are stable, but 22.04 is an exception. Ubuntu team added snap and wayland to that release. Both packages are known to be highly buggy and causing other software to break as well.

A few known bugs include:

  • drag-n-drop not working [wayland]
  • cannot reload gnome without crashing the entire user session [wayland]
  • gnome extensions management not working [snap]
  • firefox failing to download/save files [snap]
  • applications randomly crashing [snap]

My suggestion would be to stick to previous LTS 20.04 until snap and wayland get either fixed or removed from 22.04.

Alternatively you might try to remove both packages manually but it would be a lot of work, and might cause even more instability if some software requires them.

Ondra Žižka
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HubertNNN
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  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS was not the first release with Wayland the default; in fact with 22.04 LTS it wasn't the default for all machines/hardware anyway. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS was also not the first release with snap as it's been present for many releases. A full release cycle started with Ubuntu 20.10, included 3 non-LTS releases before the final LTS release of the cycle. Upgrades from 20.04 LTS are still not yet open, and need to be forced using the development option. – guiverc Jul 13 '22 at 08:46
  • It may not be the first release with those packages, but its the first LTS release with Wayland and the first LTS that is using Snap instead of apt for installing most software. – HubertNNN Jul 13 '22 at 08:50
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    I have seen only one of these bugs in 22.04 and it was the last item on your list which I managed to fix some of it. It should be noted that reporting bugs is important otherwise nobody will be informed that the bug exists. – karel Jul 14 '22 at 04:26
  • Snap has already been included in 20.04 and (probably) 18.04, but there were no default applications (by "default" I mean installed with the system) installed as snaps (except Snap Store aka Ubuntu Software). In 22.04 Canonical moved to have Firefox installed by default as snap only. In 20.04 snap format was already preferred if you used Ubuntu Software to install apps, but you can ignore Ubuntu Software and install .deb versions using apt or Synaptic. I guess you still can in 22.04. However, there are apps (like Chromium - already in 20.04) that are available only as snaps. – raj Aug 19 '22 at 09:38
  • @raj True, but since 22.04 Ubuntu will install snap versions of software even if you try to install it with apt (deb package). I even added a custom ppa with firefox and apt still reverted back to snap version after an update. – HubertNNN Aug 30 '22 at 09:37
  • @HubertNNN I have seen descriptions on this site how to change snap version of Firefox to .deb for good in 22.04 (so that it doesn't revert to snap). – raj Aug 30 '22 at 19:45
  • Yeah, I used those, they worked for some time and then reverted back to snap. Probably if I would put more time into it I would be able to get a more permanent solution, but it just feels bad to have to spend multiple hours just to get a working Firefox. Especially on Ubuntu, since the main reason I am using this distro is for the ability to install software fast and reliable. – HubertNNN Aug 31 '22 at 05:08
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yes it is. I'm new user too and im using 22.04 LTS, but I have little experience with older versions (18 or 20) and i had many problems with it, i figured it out my hard disk is NTFS Format and Linux doesn't support it very well. i suggest backup your data and let Ubuntu format your entire disk. You can also check this link to see if your device is tested on Ubuntu or not:

Ubuntu certified hardware

and if you have 2 disks (E.g. SSD with HDD) check this article to create your /Home Directory on Your HDD: Check Here

Good Luck! :)

Bushida
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    Normally one would shrink the NTFS partition and install Linux in the newly created free space. That way you can go back to Windows if things do not work out. – Rasjid Wilcox May 21 '22 at 09:50
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To Be fair an honest Ubuntu 22.04 is not Stable.

I have recently ditched Windows 8 for Ubuntu 22.04.. These are my observations in Lenovo G580 i5 with no hardware modification..

1)Booting is incredibly slow; In windows it was less than 20 secs; Ubuntu 22.04 goes way beyond 60 secs;

2)Firefox is the default browser which is very slow at startup (installed preload still not much improvement). Everyone is blaming it on the snap package system.But I don't care.I want progams to work simply and efficiently

3)Lack of Software Support. I am a programmer.Vs Code and Jupyter Notebook are not well maintained.I think it is same for every software.Linux has market share of 2% only which doesn't give any incentive for developers to create better programs. Many troubleshooting errors have a repository for windows and Mac but not Linux.

Verdict:- Opt for dual boot,Install Ubuntu 22.04 without ditching Windows.I have not seen any considerable improvement rather the performance has deteriorated in my system. It might get well once bugs in systems are fixed.

Anirban Patra
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    I've been maintaining the Jupyter installation instructions for Ubuntu for a few years. My instructions for installing Jupyter Notebook in Ubuntu 22.04 are in this answer. I have also posted some answers about Jupyter Notebook on Stack Overflow. – karel Jul 14 '22 at 04:14
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    Firefox in 22.04 is slow at startup because Canonical decided to move from native .deb package to a snap package. Snap programs are generally slow at startup, because they run in a sandboxed environment that must be created before the program starts. There is a way to remove the snap Firefox and replace it with (unofficial) .deb version of Firefox - this topic has been already discussed on this site. – raj Aug 19 '22 at 09:33
  • 60 seconds sounds odd. I have around 15 seconds boot time on my 3 years old HP laptop. Maybe something is booting that you don't need? Maybe some network issue?
  • VS Code is a Microsoft product, and just like MS Teams, it's Linux version is not great. Try IntelliJ IDEA, even the free edition is superior to VS Code.
  • Linux has 2 % market share in general. But for developers, it's higher - I'd say around 10 %. With the upcoming crisis, I expect that to get higher, as Apple products will become too expensive for software companies.
    • – Ondra Žižka Dec 13 '22 at 13:52
  • You have hit a relatively non-stable release, mostly because Ubuntu moving to Wayland and Snap. I've ditched Windows for Ubuntu around 12 years ago, and 22.04 has brought me so fat the most troubles. The only one I couldn't fix so far is no sound in some game (Minetest or such).
    • – Ondra Žižka Dec 13 '22 at 13:54