Developed and managed in conjunction with the open source community and Canonical, Ubuntu is one of the most popular distributions of the Linux operating system. The name itself is a nod to the synergistic, “share and share alike” philosophy that is considered a pillar of the open source movement. Ubuntu is a word used in Xhosa and Zulu that is roughly translated as humanity, compassion, or the whole is better than the sum of its parts. Atlantic.Net offers several Ubuntu distribution in one of our Linux cloud hosting options.
Obviously, “Ubuntu” was a great language choice by the developers of the OS. It attempts to capture the passion of open source, a feeling shared by some of our staff. However, once you start looking at technical requirements, you want to know that you are getting what you need. One thing that you may want to do is use a version of Ubuntu that has LTS.
What is LTS?
LTS stands for “long-term support.” If your company is risk-averse, long-term support is crucial so you continue to receive security patches. Not all versions of Ubuntu are supported long-term. Since enterprises tend to be risk-averse, we offer LTS versions for all our SSD Ubuntu virtual machines.
According to the “LTS” Page from the Ubuntu Wiki, Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server are released twice a year. That way you can have access to the most cutting-edge open source applications. Free security updates last for nine months on non-LTS versions of both systems.
Here are the last 12 releases of Ubuntu (the last one due out late 2015) so you can see how this works:
Operating System Version |
Security Update Commitment |
| Ubuntu 15.10 | nine months of updates |
| Ubuntu 15.04 | nine months of updates |
| Ubuntu 14.10 | nine months of updates |
| Ubuntu 14.04 LTS | five years of updates |
| Ubuntu 13.10 | nine months of updates |
| Ubuntu 13.04 | nine months of updates |
| Ubuntu 12.10 | nine months of updates |
| Ubuntu 12.04 LTS | five years of updates |
| Ubuntu 11.10 | nine months of updates |
| Ubuntu 11.04 | nine months of updates |
| Ubuntu 10.10 | nine months of updates |
| Ubuntu 10.04 LTS | five years Server, three years Desktop |
Five characteristics of LTS are:
- Limited features, with user option, to download individually.
- Lack of significant structural changes.
- Designed to meet the needs of enterprises.
- Device compatibility, as explained on the wiki: “We will make point releases throughout the development cycle to provide functional support for new server and desktop hardware.”
- Longer Beta cycle, shorter development cycle.
LTS in 30 Seconds
If you love the Ubuntu operating system, we will always give you access to the latest LTS release. As indicated in the above video, you can provision a Cloud Server with us in less than 30 seconds, starting from $0.005 per hour.
Atlantic.Net can also assist with dedicated, managed and HIPAA-compliant cloud hosting solutions – contact us today for a consultation.
