<html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> On 27/11/11 09:53, Alex Cockell wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:1322384035.5407.8.camel@Nokia-N900-02-8" type="cite"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <meta name="generator" content="Osso Notes"> <title></title> Hi all. I'm worried now. In order to sidestep Windows Vista, I have bought both my Thinkpad R61i and Ideapad S12 preinstalled with Ubuntu from Linux Emporium. i have therefore never installed Linux myself, only accepted updates and LTS upgrades as required. i now hear that the user environment has completely changed, and I risk having my machines bricked when 12.04.1 comes around... </blockquote> Actually _nothing_ special will happen when 12.04LTS comes around. 10.04LTS desktop will still be supported for a year, but nothing special will happen in 2013 either. There is no reason why you shouldn't use your machine with that OS until the machine's EOL actually; that routinely happens with WinXP, and it especially happened with Win98 after its EOL. This is a bit different though because of all the included software, but you have to consider two facts there: 1) much of the included software has become obsolete even _now_, there won't be any new versions introduced, even while supported; 2) most of the significant bugs will be fixed by then, so not much problems should remain (except those bugs which have already been fixed for newer ubuntu versions but never backported to the old LTS). If you need newer and more secure software which connects to the Internet (like Mozilla programs), you can always install them from the PPA-s, most easily from the Ubuntu Tweak program. Another thing, "server version" will be supported until 2015, and because desktop and server share the same base system, those components not directly connected to the desktop use will still be updated until then. You can even use the OS until then, even though the desktop software will be unsupported. And other than lack of updates, nothing bad will happen, so even though it's not quite recommended you could still happily use that system until 2020 for that matter. Also the OS will work as good with your hardware as it does today. Now, for the alternatives which you could install (perhaps even in that period between 2013 and 2015, if you should still have the same computer), you could try a newer Ubuntu, LTS or not (the next LTS version would be easiest for you to upgrade to), perhaps in the Xubuntu flavoras someone suggested, because of the classic, familiar interface of Xfce desktop and because it's easier on the system resources which might be significant for an older machine (you can easily do it by installing "xubuntu-desktop" package, then chose "Xubuntu Sesion" on login). Other alternative could be Mint like you mentioned, you can freely download it and install, but that's much harder to do than upgrading to a newer Ubuntu. If you know how to do it (backup data then clean install), or you have someone else to do it for you, then it could be an option... For me personally, the option of choice I'd do would be the first one - to upgrade to 12.04LTS in 2013 and use it as Xubuntu. I actually already did something similar on my laptop, although not to LTS - I've been using 10.04LTS Ubuntu for a year and a half, now I use 11.10 Xubuntu (not normally possible as a direct upgrade though) :) <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- A.Kromic - No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.</pre> </body> </html>