Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS reaches end of life

[franksmcb]

As of 30 April 2023 Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS has reached EOL (End of Life) and is no longer supported.

Being a long term release (LTS), official Ubuntu flavors are only supported for 3 years, as opposed to Ubuntu's 5 years. This means MATE components of your system will no longer receive updates after today, but foundational components will continue to receive security updates from Ubuntu.

Please note that there is no upgrade path for i386 (32bit) systems.

How do I check?

See which version you are running by opening the System Monitor and checking the System tab.

To check the support level of your system, run this command in the Terminal:

ubuntu-security-status

What should I do?

To continue the retrospective future , we recommend upgrading to Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS or later.

If you're still running 20.04 LTS and are not ready to upgrade, don't panic! Your system will still be as secure as the Ubuntu base until April 2025, but please bear in mind some of your packages and applications will no longer receive updates.

To upgrade, open Software Updater and follow the steps. Alternately, via the Terminal:

sudo do-release-upgrade

[ColonelCoconut]

no it doesn't ubuntu pro, you forgot that didn't you, and you still have ubuntu pro, you obviously don't know about ubuntu pro

[abosio]

I'm guessing this was a version number that meant to be incremented to 22.04 LTS:

we recommend upgrading to Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS

[YKar]

For those who do NOT use Ubuntu LTS MATE distro, but rather install MATE
as a user interface GUI system under "stock" Ubuntu LTS, is the none
distro but package installation still updated for the supported life
interval of the "stock" LTS distro, or is an upgrade to the next "stock"
LTS upgradable (not fresh) install release required as soon as the
upgradable release is available?

[mailto:[email protected]]

[ColonelCoconut]

true, I have a ubuntu pro system, its not up to you, its up to canonical

[vikc]

Hi Bill

You stated:

"As of 30 April 2023 Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS has reached EOL"

and then

suggest:

"we recommend upgrading to Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS"

Something is here in collision, dont you, or I am wrong?

Best wishes and best regard

Vik

[guiverc]

@YKar

For those who do NOT use Ubuntu LTS MATE distro, but rather install MATE
as a user interface GUI system under "stock" Ubuntu LTS, is the

The flavor packages are coming to EOL which includes Ubuntu-MATE packages, but the base Ubuntu 20.04 LTS system (which are those packages from 'main' and are included on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Desktop, Server ISOs) come with five years of guaranteed support.

You can use ubuntu-security-status to confirm on your own install, which packages are still covered (ie. those from 'main') or those you've installed from 'universe' such as Ubuntu-MATE which only had 3 years of guaranteed supported life.

I'll provide a link to my equivalent warning post on Lubuntu's discourse (here) in case it's helpful. On a laptop of mine I get

[email protected]:~$   ubuntu-security-status 
This command has been replaced with 'pro security-status'.
2512 packages installed:
     1594 packages from Ubuntu Main/Restricted repository
     901 packages from Ubuntu Universe/Multiverse repository
     17 packages no longer available for download

To get more information about the packages, run
    pro security-status --help
for a list of available options.

This machine is receiving security patching for Ubuntu Main/Restricted
repository until 2025.
This machine is NOT attached to an Ubuntu Pro subscription.

Note: My paste was not from a Ubuntu-MATE system, but a Lubuntu/Xubuntu system, Lubuntu using LXQt/Qt5 has less in common with Ubuntu Desktop (GNOME/GTK3), but it's still indicative of what you may find. Your own results are the best indicator though!

Key is it doesn't matter what ISO you used; the 'universe' packages had 3 years of guaranteed supported life which is coming to an end; ie. the result is the same if you installed using a Ubuntu-MATE ISO, or added the packages to a 5 year support Ubuntu ISO.

Whilst bugs can still be reported on packages that are from universe (which includes packages of Ubuntu-MATE), and anyone from the Ubuntu community with upload rights can fix (MOTU etc) can SRU fixes/patches during the 5 years from release, the guarantees of this occurring will cease next month.

Your decision on what level of security matters to you, is your choice. My 2c anyway.

[Newbie_Bob]

Hi Frank: I'm a recovering Windows user evaluating MINT (currently 20.3 i think) but don't know how Mint is changed by end of LTS for Mate. Plz advise. Thanx.

Bewildered Bob
Palm Bay, FL

[ricmarques]

Hi, @Newbie_Bob

You wrote:

@Newbie_Bob

(...) I'm a recovering Windows user evaluating MINT (currently 20.3 i think) but don't know how Mint is changed by end of LTS for Mate. Plz advise. Thanx.(...)

Let me start by saying that I don't use the "Linux Mint" Linux distribution. Having said that, I've found that the "'Linux Mint 20.3 MATE' New Features" web page - https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_una_mate_whatsnew.php - mentions that "(...) Linux Mint 20.3 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2025 (...)"

[tkn]

Two mission critical systems I have are still running 20.04 since 22.04 can be unreliable and flakey in certain key areas (which, AFAICT is absolutely not MATE's fault but a problem with the underlying system, for the most part GNOME/GTK reliability problems ).

Don't take me wrong: For normal day-to-day desktop/laptop use, Ubuntu-MATE 22.04 LTS is perfect.
But for the high and strict reliability I need for my dayjob (i.e. I can't afford even a visual glitch), it fails.

I have absolutely no problem running an out-of-date desktop, as long as the underlying system is up to date. That means I can stay on 20.04 until 24.04 comes out.

I try to get used to the thought that I might have to switch to Ubuntu-Studio (KDE based, RT-kernel) on these machines one day, but it is actually too early to decide. Let's hope 24.04 turns out to be a masterpiece

I will stay on Ubuntu-MATE as long as possible ( I really really love this distro )