Am I missing important Security Updates by staying with 20.04?

Support & Help Requests
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Hi all,

I have a question: Are there important security updates which do NOT come from Ubuntu directly, but from Ubuntu MATE?

Or is Ubuntu MATE "only" providing updates to improve the MATE desktop and keep it compatible with the latest software?

Background of the question(s): I am still running Ubuntu MATE 20.04 and Ubuntu PRO is still providing lots of updates for it, security and other. 20.04 runs flawlessly on my somewhat older PC and it does all I want from it.

I tried upgrading to 22.04, but I had to get back a deprecated theme from Github to get the "skeumorphic" icons back to which I was used and an "Arctic Greeter" would have been necessary to restore the login screen to what it was. Otherwise, everything worked, but -sorry- little real gain. So I restored the disk-image from before upgrading.

Therefore my question: Am I putting my PC at risk by just staying with 20.04, as long as Ubuntu supports it?

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Hi, @Oldie and welcome to the Ubuntu MATE Community!

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  1. Considering security, a person puts at risk himself and not his computer.
  2. It depends on PC usage mode.
  3. Nowadays the highest risks are inherent to networked applications, i.e. browsers, e-mail clients and messengers.
  4. I think that snap installations of Firefox and Thunderbird are safe as long as they support UM 20.04. Same for Google Chrome .deb from the Google repository.
  5. I think that OS updates have virtually no effect on security of an average home PC user.
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As long as you aren't doing anything with Wine or WSL (both working with DLL interfaces connecting with OS), you should be OK using just Linux-targetted FOSS Apps.

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Ubuntu flavors dropped support for 20.04 LTS back in 2023-April; so the MATE desktop (and the majority of packages from universe) will not get security updates; as the ESM updates do focus on the packages that larger enterprises use that pay for Pro/ESM contracts.

Ubuntu Desktop packages (GNOME) came in main thus do get more fixes, and your MATE system will benefit from some of those as MATE used the same GTK3 toolkit/libraries as the GNOME system, but you should have noted it was only those that got updates (plus a few used by server apps too)

You read the security notices, and changed the required deb packages to snap package as per the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS ESM Security notices? as for desktop packages, that is how a number of packages get their security fixes (ESM does focus more on server installs for deb).

You may also find many 3rd party apps can no longer be update (esp. desktop apps), as your machine's libraries are just too old; though snap packages will be a workaround for this (less so flatpak; as the flatpak infrastructure won't likely get updates)

If you're using your system offline; there will be no problems, for online though you do need to follow the security notices and make package changes as per notices when ESM started (May 2023) as for some packages the fixes only came via snap

Yes you will be missing security updates; how important they are will depend on what packages you have installed, and how you use your system. The result maybe significant if you use your system online, to minimal risk (if you're careful, don't use the machine for anything important or stick to the packages that are being updated), or none if you use your system offline.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS doesn't have community support though; support is now only provided by Canonical, though generic GNU/Linux support sites will still be a choice.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS support has already ended

This is a follow-up to the Extended Support warning sent one month ago to confirm that as of May 29, 2025, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS standard support has ended. No more package updates are planned to be accepted to the primary archive of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

Remember that if you can’t upgrade to 22.04 LTS or later immediately, Canonical provides Extended Security Maintenance for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS to users with Ubuntu Pro.

with extended support now coming from the company Canonical. You need to read their notices on what they provide support for,

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Dear all,

woww - thanks for the nice welcome and the quick responses! :slight_smile:

I am using this PC for Office, Browsing and as a host for VirtualBox-VPC’s. (Modern Windows-Versions belong into kind of a …well… High Security Prison.) :slight_smile: Matter of fact, Windows 11 installs well and runs agreeably fast on this PC of mine, which I built in 2013, from components for almost 900 €. BUT: Only if you use VBox and Tiny11 to install it. It will be needed to run e.g. my Canon Printer/Scanner, because Canon never bothered to make good Linux-drivers. (It works, via USB-passthrough to the VPC.) And NO, I will NOT make a fully operational PC electronic waste, just because MS would like to sell me a new OS-license for the new Mainboard + Ventilator + Memory + … which I would need to fulfill their new requirements!! :frowning:

As for the Windows-VPC’s , they can also handle MS-Office and stuff that was never developed for Linux, such as “StarMoney”, a german program for handling my finances, indispensable for my tax-declaration.

So that’s what I do with that PC. Wine - forget it. Browsing anything other than trusted sites? Why not via VBox, with another Linux from inside this one, which has to go through the VPN installed on the Host ? Leak tests just fail on this configuration. :wink:

@guiverc: Still, your post makes me a little insecure. I never bothered to switch certain packages to snap. I just discussed this issue with Bing once and “he” found no indication of an important security update coming from Ubuntu MATE and not from Ubuntu PRO.

But if you want to find out what an AI says if it does not know for sure, just google for “Elephant Lice”… :wink: :smiley:

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I'd always suggest reading the release notes, and taking note of the announcements put out by teams, eg.

Ubuntu's Discourse (where the Ubuntu Summit 25.10 is being held currently) also highlights what is supported in the Support and Help section where you'll note (open the Before Asking detail) only questions about Ubuntu Mate 24.04 LTS, 25.04 & 25.10 are included. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Desktop and Server questions are still on-topic, but not even Ubuntu-MATE 22.04 LTS is. If you'd have asked this question on the Ubuntu Discourse, I (or another moderator) would have likely quoted from that page & closed your question as off-topic; as 20.04 isn't supported (even using Ubuntu Desktop; Ubuntu Discourse is Ubuntu support, and not the Canonical discourse).

You mention browsing, which was one area where support is really limited except via snap packages in focal (20.04) so I do suggest you read the security notices for your chosen release. Most of the deb packages still receiving updates are for server platforms, not desktop (clients) in the browsing area.

This site has a more relaxed status where the MATE desktop is specified (even where 20.04 is EOL/EOSS), as this is ~both a MATE and Ubuntu-MATE site.

If security matters to you, read and learn about what you're using, and don't just trust AI (it's correct maybe 85% of the time [my current opinion], but do especially poorly in regards accuracy in 'timing', as AI uses older texts as its knowledge base)

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I use 22.04 and I am "sticking with it."

Sometimes O.S. upgrades "break things" that worked fine with an older version.

Good luck.

No O.S. upgrades for me.

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Thank you all for your replies.

The bottom-line for me was: “To be on the safe side, I better do it.” So I sat down on the weekend and did 2 upgrades in a row. Now I have 24.04.3.

I had to overcome a number of issues, but there were solutions for all on the internet. The most serious one was, that the open-source Nouveau driver of 24.04 does not work well with my Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card. (Black screen on resume, strange behaviour of some windows.) Switching to the proprietary Nvidia driver v570 cured that completely. The rest had to do with getting back the “look and feel” that I am used to, suitable for somewhat poor eyes.

By now I have a safer and slightly faster PC.

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