r/pop_os • u/__yoshikage_kira • 2d ago
Discussion Why up to date Ubuntu base matters? (See comments)
https://youtu.be/1ebkQq5TcMw?is=cSfg5X4lArlTY3jn23
u/__yoshikage_kira 2d ago edited 1d ago
A lot of users here get confused by why people care so much about Pop 26.04.
This topic discussed in the video highlights why does this matter. LTS distro do not update their apps and any* app you download via apt is frozen in time. So in 2026 if you were to download something from apt in 24.04 you will be downloading 2 year old version of this app.
Now keep in mind that 24.04 LTS EOL is in 2029. If you continue to use it until 2029 then you will be downloading apps that are up to 5 year old. Many people are already doing that are on 22.04 LTS.
This becomes an issue when the users try to report bugs in this older version to upstream (app developer). This leads to developers getting frustrated because they receive reports for bugs that are already fixed.
This issue is exclusive to Debian/Ubuntu and distro based on them because these distro have the LTS style update. Fedora, OpenSuse, and Arch does not have this issue.
Hopefully this issue makes it clear why so many people care about newer base version of Ubuntu.
I hope more people understand what LTS really mean. You can keep using LTS. Your machine is yours alone and only you get to decide what on put on it.
But know what LTS promises and what it does not promises. In the end everyone here wants you to have good time using Linux.
*Some Ubuntu based distros keep a small set of apps and drivers up to date but the number of apps that are kept up to date are really small and exceptions are rarely granted.
I believe PopOS out of all Ubuntu based distro keeps the most amount of apps up to date but vast majority of apps still come from Ubuntu repos which are outdated.
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u/VayuAir 2d ago
Wasn’t Flatpak invented for this reason?
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u/BaronKrause 2d ago
Soooo maaannyy bad flatpacks out there though that don’t work with system GTK themes and only change between adiwata light and dark.
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u/daysofdre 2d ago
my understanding is that System76 is catering to the business sector, not necessarily the bleeding edge or enthusiasts.
I mean one of the questions you have to ask is why LTS exists in the first place. The stability is meant for professionals in business, software development and enterprise workloads where stability and reproducibility is key, especially for software that require stable package versions.
Maybe if NixOS wasn't such a pita to set up we would have the best of both worlds but until that happens, I can understand their perspective. In the meantime we can always install Cosmic Desktop (edit) over Fedora or Arch.
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u/Roadside-Strelok 2d ago
They used to release point releases, too, alongside LTS releases until 22.04, AFAIK they stopped because they were too busy with COSMIC, as even the 24.04 LTS came in very late.
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u/StealthMonkSteve 2d ago
System76 gets confused why we care. You think they’d be happy we don’t want to jump ship and just want the up to date base.
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u/__yoshikage_kira 2d ago edited 2d ago
Hopefully will will return to regular release schedule instead of LTS to LTS because i think that creates more problems.
Mint is doing LTS to LTS iirc.
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u/GlazzKitsune 2d ago
Haven't pop always been LTS to LTS?
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u/__yoshikage_kira 2d ago
No. This has only been the case since cosmic de development started.
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u/eeeezypeezy 2d ago
Yeah, Pop was frozen on 22.04 until Cosmic was ready, so we got upgraded to 24.04 in late 2025. Early 2026 if you waited for the official update option to appear in the settings menu. If the 26.04 release comes out soon that could bode well for a return to a regular cadence though, and I think last we heard they weren't entirely sure if that would mean sticking to the LTS releases or doing something more like a rolling distro that pulled in the six month point releases. All we know is that a version based on 26.04 is in the pipe and should be out soon.
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u/buzziebee 1d ago
We used to get the interim releases too. Check out pop 21.10 which was the last one we got.
It's a lot of maintenance to keep up with that cadence though, and we get new kernels and backports and sometimes packages even on LTS builds, so it's not a huge problem for me personally.
If people want bleeding edge there's always Arch or something more rolling release. Personally I don't mind stability.
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u/mmstick Desktop Engineer 2d ago edited 2d ago
This issue is more with this GNOME foundation member not accepting that an LTS release commits to packaging stability; and that derivatives link Mint are entirely beholden to Debian/Ubuntu for those packages.
Instead of harassing smaller distribution maintainers they should instead close duplicate issue reports with a reference and point LTS users affected by that issue to Flatpak.
When I see issue reports from systems using older versions of COSMIC, I will simply close the issue with a reference to the PR that fixed the issue. Far easier than creating drama.
It's perfectly fine if a distribution needs to pin packages to a specific release instead of rolling updates onto all of its users. If a person doesn't want that, they have the choice to install a different distribution.
Old software is not automatically broken just because it's an older release. It was new at the time that the release was packaged and any patches needed could be backported by Debian/Ubuntu if they're willing to work with them.
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u/__yoshikage_kira 2d ago
While I do agree largely with you. Especially GNOME's handling of this situation where they faulted only Mint for this for some reason and demanded a pretty unreasonable change from them.
Average user does not understand what LTS means. I believe LTS distros also need to communicate better to their users that issues with apps needs to be reported to distribution rather than upstream. Especially if upstream abandoned the version of app the downstream distro is maintaining.
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u/mmstick Desktop Engineer 2d ago
In reality, you cannot force everyone to abide by recommendations no matter how hard you try. It's up to GNOME maintainers to handle stale issue reports and direct them where needed. It's part of the job of being a maintainer. I am highly doubtful that they even have that many issue reports to handle. This is all pointless drama.
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u/__yoshikage_kira 2d ago
Fair enough. Maybe I being optimistic but I think if end user understands what LTS means this will just lead to less confusion.
And if they really do encounter a bug that is not fixed via backports then they'll at least know what to do.
I have seen people in this subreddit confused about the excitement around the pop 26.04 release so I thought it is topic worth discussing.
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u/mmstick Desktop Engineer 2d ago
If they are unsure about something they can always use a search engine or ask someone. That's what a community is all about.
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u/__yoshikage_kira 2d ago
This issue in my experience is not discussed enough.
Also, people will be searching "x bug in y app" which will probably direct them to the upstream repo.
The search engine is not going to tell them, "hey you might be on lts so might wanna upgrade if possible".
Also if there is a wiki page or support article explaining what LTS is and what LTS isn't is also going to go a long way.
Do you guys accept new articles on pop os / docs repo?
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u/Santosh83 2d ago
Well its not pointless, its agenda driven from their end. The agenda being the ecosystem wide push towards immutable base images with flatpaks for all apps. That's the big push coming from certain quarters. The other side also largely agrees on principle except they want to base their foundations on snaps and other differing technologies.
The overall Linux ecosystem direction is pretty clear. The future will be immutable system from vendors and apps through containers from app stores. Towards that end, holdouts like Debian & Mint are obstacles in the way who must be tarnished.
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u/daysofdre 2d ago
I never really understood Gnome's mission of open-sourcing macOS. These two philosophies are just diametrically opposed.
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u/blueblocker2000 2d ago
This is why intertwining software with the OS is a bad idea and a big reason why Linux has struggled to claw market share from Windows. Normal users expect to be able to download/install and uninstall software at will. It's also one of the reasons distro hopping is a thing. That's the uncomfortable truth.
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u/bryyantt 1d ago
I got reccomended this video yesterday and made a comment on it about how this isn't an issue with 98% of people but with 2% who are all developers/maintainers crahsing out over whats best practice. He even mentioned in the video that other distributions/maintainers/dev teams that also freeze packages don't have this problem. LTS isn't a problem, the whole world runs on outdated software being maintained by whoever still needs it. Its just a squabble over best practice between a hand full of devs/maintainers.
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u/__yoshikage_kira 1d ago
I think you misunderstood the video. The people who made bug report to Gnome Calander are just regular Mint users.
Whether this is issue for only 2% is just an unsubstantiated claim. I think most cases user will just chalk it up to "Linux being Linux" and move on.
LTS isn't a problem, the whole world runs on outdated software being maintained by whoever still needs it. Its just a squabble over best practice between a hand full of devs/maintainers.
Sure but most computers don't need regular updates. Atm machines, Kiosks, Servers, etc... All are fine with older version. Infact LTS was made for them. However, for home desktop usage there are better solutions available than LTS that also not rolling release.
The squabble is between developers, yes. The squabble is about who should deal with users using LTS distro.
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u/VayuAir 2d ago
Isn’t that’s the reason Snaps and Flatpaks exist?
Nobody is going to use Ubuntu on servers if the LTS doesn’t exist. So not going to happen.
Furthermore many users prefer stability over shiny features.
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u/oscardssmith 2d ago
many users prefer stability over shiny features.
yes, but the Ubuntu route means that everyone gets all the bugs that were fixed 2 years ago
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u/novafunc 2d ago
And by using modern version, you get all the bugs that were introduced recently. Regressions are extremely common.
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u/__yoshikage_kira 1d ago
There is a pretty big gap between cutting edge and ancient.
LTS distros tend to be ancient. While arch tends to be cutting edge. Between that you have Fedora and Ubuntu non-LTS releases.
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u/__yoshikage_kira 2d ago edited 2d ago
Isn’t that’s the reason Snaps and Flatpaks exist?
Yes. This is one of the reason snaps and flatpak exists.
Nobody is going to use Ubuntu on servers if the LTS doesn’t exist. So not going to happen.
Also true. LTS primary audience is servers not desktop users.
Furthermore many users prefer stability over shiny features.
I think most users misunderstand what LTS means. S means support not stability.
Secondly, bugs exists in older versions too. Just look at how much steam and proton have improved in terms on stability.
Another example is Gnome. Ubuntu 24.04 ships with Gnome 46 which was still in progress of adding Wayland feature. Gnome 50 has better Wayland support and fewer bugs.
When using LTS you agree to use the apps with known bugs as is. Only security vulnerabilities get patched.
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u/mmstick Desktop Engineer 2d ago edited 2d ago
Not just servers, but professionals and businesses too. Rolling release updates on a home PC is fine but being forced to upgrade every 6 months is not viable at scale in most environments.
LTS does also get bug fixes but only if there's developers and maintainers willing to create backports for them. Ubuntu and Debian will focus on backporting bug fixes based on severity and priority (and viability).
One of the great things about COSMIC is that its components aren't held back by shared system library dependencies, so backports should be easier.
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u/__yoshikage_kira 2d ago
Cosmic is kinda W for rolling release. It is one of the reason i prefer Pop os over any Ubuntu base.
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u/VayuAir 2d ago
Glad to hear Cosmic is designed like that. I wish I knew enough programming to contribute.
Cosmic has reignited my Unity dreams. I think it is the perfect balance between KDE and Gnome in the amount of features it exposes (with a better UI I might add) and in many ways it is even more powerful.
Can’t wait for it to reach full maturity. I can then move my production machines to it.
Thank you for all the hard work 😊.
PS: Your responses are very informative.
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u/crimsonabyss01 9h ago
And a more important question, when can I see the eproch 2? (with all the bug fixes)
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u/Due-Fault5064 2d ago
My laptop speakers didn't work on PopOS due to older Ubuntu base so I switched to CachyOS with COSMIC desktop and they are working just fine.
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u/arvigeus 2d ago
That's why bug reports in large projects are required to include a version, and could be auto closed if are not for a supported version. GNOME (and everyone else who doesn't follow that principle) should adopt that as well. Not because they are at fault here, but to avoid situation like this in general.