Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Nate Drake goes comfortably numb at the vast number of improvements introduced in Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat.
IN BRIEF
Ubuntu 24.04 includes up to 12 years of support. This, combined with a dedicated firmware updater and security hardening, means it’ll likely outlive any hardware on which it’s installed.
SPECS
CPU: 2GHz dual-core
Mem: 4GB
HDD: 25GB
Builds: x86_64, ARM64, ARMhf, RISC-V, s390x, ppc64le (POWER8 and later)
This year is already special in that it marks 20 years since Ubuntu first graced Linux users’ desktops. April also marks the release of version 24.04 (code name Noble Numbat), the latest Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) release.
By default, Ubuntu 24.04 will be supported for five years, until June 2029. This covers all packages in the main Ubuntu repository.
However, Ubuntu Pro subscribers can also benefit from an additional five years of support. Personal subscribers use Ubuntu Pro for free on up to five machines. If subscribers also choose to purchase the Legacy Support Ubuntu Pro add-on, this provides another two years of coverage, effectively meaning that Ubuntu 24.04 can benefit from a total of 12 years of security and support coverage until 2036.
This support applies to the entire distro, not just core packages, which means Ubuntu now offers comparable levels of long term support to RHEL.
Noble Numbat is also available for a variety of CPU architectures. The ARMhf version has received an update to over 1,000 packages, which now use 64-bit over 32-bit values, solving the Year 2038 problem. (For more information on this bug, read Nate’s guide, p.78.)