Xfce Forum

Skaperen

Member

From: right by Jesus, our Saviour

Registered: 2013-06-15

Posts: 862

Xubuntu 18.04 installer images

today. i suddenly realized that my upgrade plans are all wrong and i need to install Xubuntu 18.04 real soon.   i thought the LTS support had been expanded to 5 years (i got this info a long time ago) but it only applies to the server editions; the desktop editions remain at 3 years.  since i need to tweak my partitions, this will need to be a full fresh install.  so i need to find Xubuntu images (now that i am a happy Xfce user) of 18.04 for amd64.  i'm sure these are common somewhere, but until today i have been ignoring 18.04 so i have no idea how things have moved around, especially for Xubuntu.

i should try to figure out why my information is wrong, but it could simply be a misunderstanding somewhere.  i don't even remember which language i read it in.

Last edited by Skaperen (2019-03-07 06:48:14)

Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: Xubuntu 18.04 installer images

Ubuntu LTS Desktop has 5 year support, but Xubuntu LTS has 3 years. It's kind of hard to explain, because Xubuntu uses the same repositories that Ubuntu (updates and security), so technically you should be safe on Xubuntu for 5 years. But you won't get any support on the official #xubuntu IRC channel or on the mailing lists (of course if it's a general issue, you always can try on Ubuntu support channels). Also, Xfce and Xubuntu specific packages won't be updated during that 4th and 5th year. So yeah, it's probably a better choice to just stick with upgrading Xubuntu LTS release every 2 years.

You can find the newest Xubuntu ISO images here - http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/rele … 4/release/ (18.04.2 release is what you're looking for). Mirrors are on the official website - https://xubuntu.org/download

EDIT: Note that I'm talking from a desktop point of view, so home/work usage. If someone uses Ubuntu Server professionally and has Xfce as a GUI "just in case", that person should be fine with Ubuntu's 5 year support.

Last edited by Spass (2019-03-07 13:12:46)

Skaperen

Member

From: right by Jesus, our Saviour

Registered: 2013-06-15

Posts: 862

Re: Xubuntu 18.04 installer images

i do have Xfce* packages and Xubuntu* packages installed on an Ubuntu 16.04.5 install.

so i really can wait until April or May of 2020 to install the next LTS and install Xubuntu?

Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: Xubuntu 18.04 installer images

That's not advised, but yes, you could do that. You will still get security updates of the base system (kernel etc.).

But you should be aware of what that decision means - you will no longer get any updates (in the 4th and 5th year) of the Xfce and Xubuntu specific packages that could potentially have a major bug or a security flaw. The risk is (and that's not a fact, just my opinion) pretty small.

Skaperen

Member

From: right by Jesus, our Saviour

Registered: 2013-06-15

Posts: 862

Re: Xubuntu 18.04 installer images

will there be any backports of the Xfce/Xubuntu packages from bionic to Xenial or should i go ahead and do a fresh install of Xubuntu 18.04 Bionic LTS to run me up just past April 2020?

i don't yet know how much work it might be to get my multiuser setup and run code to work in Bionic.  but it would be an opportunity to repartion/reformat to resize /dev/sda1 from 16GB to 24GB or 32GB and change the passphrase to my partitions.  my laptop has 2x 1TB drives and a 120GB SSD and a 32GB SDHC card port, each with a bootable install of Xenial on them.  i'd first put Bionic on the 2nd HD so o can multi-boot between larger systems.

Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: Xubuntu 18.04 installer images

will there be any backports of the Xfce/Xubuntu packages from bionic to Xenial

Almost certainly not. Xubuntu Team will be focused on the current (and future) releases.

Skaperen

Member

From: right by Jesus, our Saviour

Registered: 2013-06-15

Posts: 862

Re: Xubuntu 18.04 installer images

will there be any backports of the Xfce/Xubuntu packages from bionic to Xenial

Almost certainly not. Xubuntu Team will be focused on the current (and future) releases.

current and future releases of Xfce or of Ubuntu?  by "backports" i mean having the latest versions of Xfce packages and the latest versions of whatever is in the Xubuntu packages ported back to an older version of Ubuntu, such as 16.04.

i'm wanting to get the latest Xfce without having to (for now) adapt my own software to Ubuntu 18.04.  i have been planning to do that with Ubuntu 20.04 next year.

Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: Xubuntu 18.04 installer images

current and future releases of Xfce or of Ubuntu?

I meant the releases of Xubuntu.

Newest Xfce packages (so from 4.13 development branch) would be very tricky (if possible at all) to get on 16.04 LTS. There are some development PPA's (Personal package archives) [1] provided by the Xubuntu Team with newer Xfce packages, but only for 18.04 LTS and newer, since 16.04 is almost EOL (End-of-life).

In Ubuntu repos Xfce packages are mostly maintained and "pushed" by the Xubuntu Team. And they are focusing on current (supported) and future releases of Xubuntu. So if you want 16.04 LTS with the newest Xfce packages possible, you'll probably have to put some work in it, and it can potentially break many things. 16.04 may have too old base libraries (GTK3 version for example) for the Xfce 4.13.

So, if you want to stay on 16.04 until 20.04 comes, it's better to use Xfce 4.12.

[1] Listed here: https://launchpad.net/~xubuntu-dev