Not all of Ubuntu’s flavours have applied for long-term support status in next year’s 26.04 release.
Per the outcome of a recent Ubuntu Technical Board meeting, only 7 of the 10 official offshoots are designated LTS releases:
- Xubuntu
- Lubuntu
- Ubuntu Budgie
- Ubuntu Cinnamon
- Ubuntu Studio
- Edubuntu
— Oh, and the ‘oh yeah, that’s a flavour’ flavour:
(No shade; I just always forget about little ol’ Kylin).
However, two Ubuntu flavours did not apply for LTS status for 26.04:
No Ubuntu Unity LTS? Expected in light of challenges facing the distro (there was no Ubuntu Unity 25.10 release) because the incumbent project lead is, reportedly, now busy with higher education. Upside: new contributors want to take over1 and keep it going.
No Ubuntu MATE LTS? It has produced an LTS release every 2 years since it became an official flavour in 2015 but, like Ubuntu Unity, is low on contributors stepping up to keep things going. Ergo, resources rather than will is likely the reason it opted-out.
Anyway, that’s the state of things right now. Things could change (appeals, etc), and both Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Unity are still able to request to release non-LTS versions.
What of Kubuntu?
Kubuntu is not listed in the technical board decision announcement that Canonical’s Robie Basak posted, but I expect that Kubuntu 26.04 will be an LTS.
The Ubuntu cdimage server lists daily build ISOs for Kubuntu 26.04 LTS and, as the longest-serving Ubuntu flavour kitted out with one of the most popular Linux desktop environments, it’d be weird if it had chosen to sit this one out.
What Does This Mean?
Flavours lacking an L, T and an S aren’t doomed. They can still release a non-LTS version, and their respective teams can fix bugs, address issues and push out updates through the regular repos for the duration of the standard2 LTS cycle.
Official Ubuntu flavours only provide 3 years of guaranteed support anyway, not the 5 years regular Ubuntu receives (which extends to 10 years with Ubuntu Pro, and up to a further 5 years with ESM from Canonical).
Flavours don’t stop getting updates after those 3 years, though. Nor do their maintainers lose the ability to issue updates.
Similarly, non-LTS flavours in an LTS cycle get the same foundational updates, including hardware enablement (HWE) stacks. They don’t, however, issue point releases that roll those updates, fixes and kernel uplifts in a new ISO at periodic intervals.
Even so, fans of these flavours will lose the rubber-stamped guarantee of getting three years of smooth (as humanely possible) usage.
But honestly? It’s better that flavour maintainers don’t over-commit to support what they can’t humanely deliver. A lack of long-term support may be bland, but better that than a bitter taste.
- Ubuntu Unity’s future will rely on more people stepping up to help maintain it. There is impetus within its community to keep the flavour going, but developers who can understand, maintain and improve the Unity 7 codebase are required. ↩︎
- The way that in-series updates are processed/approved during the other 5-10 years (Ubuntu Pro/ESM) of an LTS skews more towards security coverage and high-impact issues. ↩︎
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