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I know that Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS comes with five years of security and maintenance updates, guaranteed, and that 15.10 only had nine months of support.

Why would you chose 15.10 if it will be unsupported soon? What are the benefits of 15.10?

Tim
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M. Vahid
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  • This is not really option based BTW - it's asking for a comparison now, not which is better. – Tim Oct 25 '15 at 18:08
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    has been asked over and over again: http://askubuntu.com/questions/16366/whats-the-difference-between-a-long-term-support-release-and-a-normal-release – Mateo Oct 25 '15 at 20:52

6 Answers6

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LTS is long term support - as you say it has 5 years of updates and will have reached 14.04.5 by the time it is end of life.

However, because the developers are focusing on stability and reliability (especially for business users who rely on their networks working), they don't add masses of features. Early on their is a feature freeze and they make sure there are no bugs.

This means that Ubuntu 14.04 is less cutting edge - both because it was released in April 2014, 1.5 years ago, and because it was never intended to be chock full of features.

Ubuntu 15.10 on the other hand has had new features added to it, including the following:

  • Unity polish and fixes
  • Steam controller support
  • New scrollbars Linux
  • Kernel 4.2 Updated apps, including LibreOffice 5
  • Ubuntu Make update
  • Python 3.5 Support

But this will only be supported for the next 9 months. Why? In 6 months there will be another release - 16.04 (an LTS release, incidentally), which you will be able to update to.

Updating every 6 months is a hassle - but that's the price you pay for latest features.

So which is better depends on what you need. If you want the latest features - and don't mind 6 monthly updates then go for the latest release.

If you want to know that you will have a system that works and is secure for the next 5 years then go for 14.04 (what I have)

If you are planning to update to 16.04 when it's released, you may as well get 15.10. But from there it's your choice to update to 16.10 if you want the latest features, or stay at 16.04 for stability and support.

Also note that here on Ask Ubuntu, we only offer answers to Ubuntu version that are currently supported - another reason to stay with a version that is current. If you are worried you won't want to update that frequently, it's better to get an LTS release - then there is no danger of it not being updated.

Tim
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Generally it is recommended to use the Ubuntu Long Term Support version which is very stable.
Ubuntu 14.04.03 is well tested and as you already said supported for a time frame of five years.
If you are a more experienced user you can consider to install the final version of Ubuntu 15.10.
It is also stable and the main advantage is, that it brings along more current software packages.

cl-netbox
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LTS releases are designed to be stable platforms that you can stick with for a long time and they are designed to be more polished, while the standard releases bring you the latest features that may not be completely finished yet. Upgrading to the latest releases will give you the latest versions of software.

If you want to have the latest versions of all your software, and use the latest features before they make it to the LTS version of Ubuntu you should upgrade to the latest release.

Tim
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Better is kind of subjective. The newer version can provide support for newer hardware and will provide newer version of applications.

However if you download 14.04.3 it will include the newer kernels and graphic stacks, which is where most of the hardware support comes from.

You may be stuck with older versions of some software but many will update to the newer version in the backport software sources. Many others will have a ppas you can add to use newer versions of software than is included in the standard repositories.

If you need more info about how to add ppas or enable the backports source, there are plenty of great answers here on how to do that so there is no need for me to go into it.

In short, there will be very little difference between the newest version and the HWE version of 14.04. If you have a new computer with all of the newest hardware you might find it works better but otherwise it should not matter.

HWE stands for Hardware Ennoblement Stack. The first version of any LTS will only keep the same kernel and graphic stack version(it will still be updated but never a new version). This is done so that corporation and non power-users don't risk newer kernels breaking stuff(it is rare but it happens). After the next non-LTS version is released the LTS version is updated to the newer kernels so that you can stay updated and possibly get better performance if you wish to accept the minor risk of having to fix a bug that breaks you system.

TrailRider
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  • Atually, 15.10 has the 4.2.X kernel which is much newer – Tim Oct 26 '15 at 10:30
  • @Tim I didn't know exactly what kernel it included but I new it would be newer. My point was that 14.04.03 should be updated to that kernel after 15.10's release. (I think it runs a month or so behind) There is no snark in this question; Did I get this wrong or will it be updated to 4.2 at some point? and BTW you had a great answer, if you had not posted it while I was typing mine I would have saved myself the trouble.... – TrailRider Oct 26 '15 at 15:02
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Using the latest version has the advantage that you get newer version of all the packages installed on your system. Many desktop users choose to go with the newest version for this reason. The disadvantage is that you'll be forced to do dist upgrades every 6 months, and things can break when you do that. Things can also break when individual packages are upgraded.

In contrast, LTS is supported for 5 years and has an emphasis on stability. Major components such as the kernel and graphics drivers still receive updates, and all packages receive security updates. The advantage is that things are very stable and it is unlikely that things will stop working once you configure them. The disadvantage is that some of the software is old version (more than a few years old). Firefox is one of the packages that is backported by default (so that you get a new version), but most software is not backported. If you want newer version of software, you'll either have to compile it yourself or install a backport from a ppa.

Personally I use LTS because bumblebee-nvidia has a tendency to break with frequent upgrades. As I mentioned, firefox is backported so it's already the latest version. I used custom ppas to install backports of the latest versions of LibreOffice and KiCad. I also compiled my own version of xfwm4 so it would include the titleless maximize option.

Robert Stiffler
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It's your opinion. If you have a slower computer that might not be able to keep supporting newer systems, I would go with 14.04.3, like mine. But if you have a faster computer that can hold up with more updates, going to 15.10 and keep updating might be best, as you can keep more updated. But like I said, it is your opinion.

tempforFind Me In The Woods
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    15.10 and 14.04 have very, very similar demands on a system. The big change was 12.04 to 12.10 with the discontinuation of Unity 2D. – Tim Oct 25 '15 at 17:48
  • yes, if you have a slower computer, using an older version of ubuntu doesn't make any difference unless you go way back to version 10 something before unity – mchid Oct 25 '15 at 17:49
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    To add to Tim's comment, if you have a very slow computer, you would need to use the derivatives of Lubuntu or Xubuntu, they are specifically designed to have low system demands for significantly better performance. (on older or systems with little RAM) – TrailRider Oct 25 '15 at 17:52