I know some of us had a discussion about skipping or delaying upgrades, but as I am getting alerts daily now, I just need to be sure.
I am remotely taking care of my mom’s computer which is Kubuntu. It is ready for the 24.04 Ubuntu LTS upgrade. The message says:
“This version will stop receiving updates and security fixes in 3 days.”
Does that mean I will no longer get any updates? Not even those needed to run the hardware/software of the system?
I am not worried so much about security updates, but when they say the above, I worry if things will stop working well. As I do not know when I will be going to see her, hopefully by September or October, I was advised not to upgrade until I am physically there since I made that mistake with Linux Mint and have not been able login to that OS since.
If it runs the hardware now, it will continue to run it forever.
If you update, it may even stop running the hardware… worst case
It is difficult to know what any distro’s next upgrade includes and whether it is worth it.
Most of us do like you and accept every upgrade… just in case there is something important coming.
Best strategy for you is to get some redundancy into your mothers computer situation.
because
the most important thing there is that something works.
Can you find her a second computer, preferably the same as the current one?
Not without me, probably. I would have to get her a laptop here (so technically not same specs, but close), then lay the Linux OS on it and ship it to her. That’s the only way I know to do it so it is done right. Trying to have a non-Linux user there do as I direct via video phone call is not gonna cut it.
That is what I did for the current desktop: took one of mine, set it up dual boot with LM & Kubuntu and set a live usb in one of the ports so in case I did need to direct someone to boot to a live session. I had already installed the RDP app and made my connection to it from here so it was simple to reconnect once it was there.
I may need to look at accessing all of her stuff from my end. As it is right now, I login to all of her bill payment sites, medical sites, etc. and if I need a code from her phone, it is connected to her computer so I just grab the code from it and login.
If I could accomplish that, and maybe only use her email to get codes for logins, then it would be a backup to accessing hers in case anything went wrong.
Hi Sheila
Clearly you could consider upgrading software in one, if you had a spare on site ready to go.
If you dont upgrade, what breaks it eventually is not the hardware, but compatability gliches with other software, especially internet software.
You have a big responsibility, little things can help
Regards
Neville
@Sheila_Flanagan
If it is running well then leave it alone, linux is easy to break, especially with version upgrades. You should be able to put Kubuntu on the extended upgrade, as I have Ubuntu, as it is still running Ubuntu 22.04.
I have a client in linux mint 14 some 10 years old, he has never done an update, upgrade nothing. Mainly as he has forgotten his password and will not pay me to sort it.
But he still has internet access and can do email without problems. Except the banking which has an issue with https … still he prefers to go into the branch to sort whilst he still has one.
I have another on lubuntu 32 bit cannot remember version number. Unable to upgrade as no longer supported 32 bit system. Every day he gets a message your system is no longer supported. He clicks ok and then continues to work as normal. No updates and no path forward. Money issues stop him buying a new computer but everything works just occasionally I reset his desktop screen as he looses the menu or taskbar, or has so many taskbars he cannot see the desktop. All down to user errors.
So bottom line yes the system will continue without major problems without doing anything.
Security updates are there for a reason, I let them install…
Since I use Debian, I never-ever had anything to stop because of an update.
System, upgrade is a different story, say when moving from a 11 (Bullseye) to 12 (Bookworm).
Such an upgrade is not urgent at all -well definfitely not for me.
What version is that?
Is it a 23.10 version by any chance?
I don’t recommend regular users to use an intermediate release, only LTS releases. Those intermediate releases of Ubuntu are supported for a limited time, and they act much like “beta” versions.
Upgrading to 24.04 is still too early, I think. Over here there are various reports, some succeed without a problem, some fail totally, and need to reinstall from scratch (that would not be very funny for your mom, right?)
Exactly. No more updates, vulnerabilities remain unpatched.
The most smart decision now.
If I were you I’d postpone the upgrade as well, and do a fresh install the next time when visit…
I recommend you to install then an LTS version for her, or maybe not even Ubuntu, but Debian instead (maybe LMDE )…
That’s very unlikely to crash once set up and running.
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.8
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.110.0
Qt Version: 5.15.10
Kernel Version: 6.5.0-41-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i5-6400 CPU @ 2.70GHz
Memory: 15.5 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030/PCIe/SSE2
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
Product Name: M32CD_A_F_K20CD_K31CD
I installed the latest version at the time. This was before I understood about all these LTS and rolling releases, etc.
So Debian does not upgrade often, but it does upgrade, right?
What about a rolling release? More or less issues than LTS? I have switched to rolling release on most of my Linux distros, but still use Debian on my home server, due to the stability and simplicity needed there.
I will have to see how closely I can get it to look like LM. She was fine on that one but since switching to Kubuntu, she is lost. Of course, she only knows how to navigate by rote, has no understanding of why things are accessed a certain way, thus if you change anything, she has no idea how to do anything.
Don’t get me started on navigating a smart phone—no clue…LOL.
Thanks for the suggestions. For now, glad to know I can just ignore the warnings and leave things as they are. When I get there sometime this fall, I will not only get LM working again for her, but will upgrade Kubuntu and maybe just triple boot with Debian.
I still need to have more than one Linux installed just in case what happened with LM happens in another distro. That way, I can have someone assist me in getting the other one booting, then I can update grub to switch which distro boots first after that.
Thanks, Daniel. I guess because I knew less about the versions at the time I started using Linux (and set the same up for her), I automatically moved up to 23.10, after starting with 22.04.
I will definitely not make that mistake again as I do not get there but maybe once per year to deal with anything that requires my physical presence.
I am guessing it is running version 23.10 that reaches end of life today.
It won’t get security and maintenance updates to any program that come from Ubuntu’s repositories. This includes the web browser. Eventually, you won’t be able to install new deb packages from Ubuntu’repositories as the repo would have been archived.
If you are going to see her in September/October, you should do the upgrade at that time.
Thanks @abhishek. I have read on some forums folks having some issues after the upgrade, so I think you are right and I will wait till the fall.
When I upgraded LM a couple of months back, it would not boot to the login screen and I had to have someone boot it into Kubuntu (as I had purposely setup dual boot Linux just in case of this scenario). Then I switched the first boot position to Kubuntu.
It has been fine since, but as I stated earlier, I did not think about “upgrades” remotely and any issues they might cause as my upgrades have never had any.
When you’re physically present, it might be smart to copy all of her data to external storage and take it with you. Second, I never upgrade an OS. I make a copy of all the data I want to preserve and do a clean install of the new version. Then I repopulate with the data I’ve copied. Upgrades don’t seem to clean out the corners the way a clean install does.
I also have a desktop app for MEGA.NZ so that my Home folder is constantly synchronized in the cloud. Seems to run itself quite nicely.
“LTS releases are considered the ‘enterprise-grade’ releases. They are typically used for production servers that need security and reliability,”
-and-
“LTS releases are supported and maintained with security updates and bug fixes for five years after the initial release. Due to this, LTS releases are always the most stable and secure.”
5 years is a long time to not worry about being supported.
I believe LM is always based on a LTS release of Linux.
Ubuntu announced sometime last year they were extending that to 12 years. That is for those using Ubuntu Pro support. But that is free for up to 5 computers for home users.
As far as upgrading 23.10 to 24.04, I’d want to be there for sure. Also, I agree with Howard. I prefer a clean install with data restored.
Maybe a USB stick to boot from in case there is some remote rescue that needs to be done would be good. Once you are onsite and can walk through the USB boot process once, your mom could probably handle that with you on the other end of a phone.
Um…no, @pdecker Mom is 82 and can do what I tell her if she can find where it is on the screen…LOL. I tried once to have her on video call and point her phone to the screen…all I could see was maybe the floor or the keyboard. She has no concept that looking at the phone screen on the front is where you are pointing the camera.
I have the USB flash drive with live LM, Kubuntu, Debian & gparted, and maybe clonezilla on it sitting in her front USB port on the desktop. That is so I can have my daughter who lives there or my granddaughter nearby do those types of things with me on video call. Heck, when LM would not boot, I got the neighbor girl to video call me and show me the monitor screen so I could tell her how to arrow down in GRUB to Kubuntu to boot up the computer.
But I would rather not have to depend on someone else to do something as intense as troubleshooting so I will wait on the update. Once I get there and we have 5 more years, I don’t think I will need to worry about it.
I will try as you and @easyt50 as well as @kovacslt suggested and just backup any personal files (there are not many) and do a clean install. Then I may go ahead and install Debian alongside LM & Kubuntu just to ensure we can boot one out of three should something else go wrong.
Thanks @easyt50. You are right, 5 years is a long time and she did best on Linux Mint, so I will get that installed along with Kubuntu & Debian so we are better assured while I am not there that I have enough options.
I will do that. The only things I really need are her legal files & the spreadsheet I created for all of her financial dealings and bills. And of course the backups of any apps for finances. I have not yet decided on one that works, thus the spreadsheet solution. Being a bookkeeper all of my life, spreadsheets are my thing
And as you said, I definitely should do a clean install rather than an upgrade. I don’t know why I have never run into any issues with upgrades, but so far I have not.
And she does have a mega account so what little personal files she has are backed up there.
The best way to do that is do the new install on a fresh partition, then run the two
linuxes multiboot until you are satisfied, then erase the old release.
That makes sense. I am still thinking about how I am going to handle everything, but I may see if I can find another mini pc like I got for my home server and set that up with all partitions and installs onto each and take it with me. Then I can just copy the files she needs (mainly that I need) over to it.
That could be instead of a laptop (she would only use it like a desktop anyway). That way I could set it up in the kitchen on a small computer stand and she would have that redundancy you spoke of.
With two computers dual/triple booting, we should be okay till I get back there next year. And, of course, it may not be that long before she ends up living with me and then there will be no worries about remotely doing all of this.
)…
Mom is 82 and can do what I tell her if she can find where it is on the screen…LOL. I tried once to have her on video call and point her phone to the screen…all I could see was maybe the floor or the keyboard. She has no concept that looking at the phone screen on the front is where you are pointing the camera.