General comment regarding LTS

[Richard Thornton]

Xubuntu should avoid an LTS version and imitate what OpenBSD does, two
releases, with updates every six months. The Ubuntu approach is stupid
because the October releases lose support 3 months before the next release.
Users are forced over to LTS, which is quite annoying to me.

[Adam Eveleigh]

Post by Richard Thornton
Xubuntu should avoid an LTS version and imitate what OpenBSD does, two
releases, with updates every six months. The Ubuntu approach is stupid
because the October releases lose support 3 months before the next release.
Users are forced over to LTS, which is quite annoying to me.

No, LTS is no different to a normal release other than having a longer support cycle and a stronger focus on stability before release (meaning slightly less big changes, though 16.04 certainly bucked that trend with Snappy and Ubuntu Software, but it's an exception due to the strong focus on Ubuntu Next (Unity 8)). If you upgrade from 15.10 to 16.04, you should get a prompt to upgrade to 16.10 when it comes out. If you install 16.04 from scratch, you'll only get an upgrade prompt for 18.04.1, but you can change the setting in Software & Updates.

The benefit of LTS is largely for people and corporations who would rather upgrade once every 2 years or 4 years rather than 6 months. It's also less effort support-wise than having longer support periods for every release instead of having an LTS.