Newest Gnome versus LTS

[Bret Busby]

On 17/07/2019, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Jul 2019 at 09:14, <J.Witvliet at mindef.nl> wrote:
>
>> Due to network-instability of 18.04 we might skip it alltogether, and jump
>> from 16.04 to 19.04
>

I am wondering what is this "network-instability of 18.04"?

I am running 18.04 on one of my computers, and, whilst, as I have said
elsewhere, I have some issues with 18.04, I have not encountered any
problems with network stability.

I have my 18.04 computer as one of the computers that I connect via
wifi to my cellphone as a wifi hotspot, and, have found it to be
stable in its connection. Previously, the 18.04 computer was connected
via ethernet, to a modem/router via a LAN switch, without any problems
(in terms of the network connectivity of the 18.04 computer - the
problems that I had encountered, were to do with the series of
modem/routers provided by the ISP, and, were independent of the
operating systems used on the client devices).

With 16.04, from what I understand, support lasts until April 2021
(five years, as 16.04 is an LTS version), for 18.04, also an LTS
version, five years' support means it is to be supported until April
2023, but, for 19.04, being not an LTS version, EOL is expected in
January - six months from now, due to the life of support, being only
nine months, for non-LTS versions.

See
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EOL
and
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases


So, if you go through the required sequence of updates,
16.04 -> 16.10 -> 17.04 -> 17.10 -> 18.10 -> 19.04
(as you want to skip 18.04, and, if all of those versions are still
available, and, if that path of system upgrades is possible)
then, within the next six months, you will need to perform yet another
system upgrade, as 19.04 has forecast EOL, and, End Of Standard
Support, in January 2020, six months from now.

I am clearly no Linux expert, but, as 16.04 has EOL 15 months after
EOL of 19.04, if you  are afraid of upgrading from 16.04 to 18.04,
then, I suggest that you stay with 16.04. 16.04 still has another 21
months of security updates, and, in April 2021; EOL for 16.04, it may
be time to replace the hardware, anyway, with a system with an i12 CPU
or equivalent (given that i9 systems are currently available).

Or, you could simply perform an LTS system upgrade, from 16.04 to
18.04, depending on what exactly is the issue of the
"network-instability of 18.04", and, whether it can be resolved.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
 Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
 "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
 A Trilogy In Four Parts",
 written by Douglas Adams,
 published by Pan Books, 1992

....................................................