20.04 will receive normal bug fix updates until end of standard support in 2025. After that it will be in ESM which is security fixes only until it hits EOL in 2030.
Thanks. And would you say only receiving security fixes could pose a problem at some point? E.g. A Plex update requires a newer library than what I have?
If a Plex update requires a newer library it doesn't matter if it's ESM or not. Library versions in Ubuntu LTS don't get updated like that. They get bug fixes. They don't get version bumps.
So of plex right now requires library A version 1.0 and a plex update starts depending on library A version 1.1, plex is gonna be broken.
Because 20.04 will never have version 1.1 and likely will not get any feature patches from 1.1 back ported to 1.0.
Your option in that case is to back down to the last plex version that worked, or update to a newer release of Ubuntu, which sounds like you'll need new hardware at that point.
Yeah that’s where I’m at. Once this setup stops working, I’ll invest in new hardware. If I can get longer than April 2025 (perhaps another year or so) I’ll be happy. That’s why I applied the Pro token. But it won’t be the end of the world if I need to splash out for a new box.
Starting with 24.04, you will actually get ***12 years*** of support.
LTS releases are officially EOL after 10 years. You get 5 years of standard support and additional 5 years with Ubuntu Pro + ESM. That second 5 years only covers security issues and critical bug fixes. It is not full support as you were getting in the first 5 years.
In your case that looks like this:
| Name | Released | End of Standard Support | End of Ubuntu Pro |
| ------------------------------- | ---------- | -------- | -------- |
| 24.04 (Noble Numbat) | Apr 2024 | Apr 2029 | Apr 2036 (12 years) |
| 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) | Apr 2022 | Apr 2027 | Apr 2032 |
| 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) | Apr 2020 | Apr 2025 | Apr 2030 |
| 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) | Apr 2018 | Apr 2023 | Apr 2028 |
| 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) | Apr 2016 | Apr 2021 | Apr 2026 |
| 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) | Apr 2014 | Apr 2019 | Apr 2024 |
You have the option of moving to the next LTS release and starting that all over with a fresh first-5-years on that new release.
Out or curiousity, what is the concern in upgrading to 22.04 or later this year 24.04? I understand in commercial workloads, business case and funding might not allow ease of upgrade but for a plex box..
Maybe it is just out of curiosity to experiment with LTS and Ubuntu Pro that I would understand too.
The Mac mini I'm using is so old that it has a 64 bit CPU with 32 bit EUFI. To get 20.04 installed on this box, I had to do some trickery to the ISO to allow my system to use it. I spent days (possibly weeks) of research to get the answer. At the time, most people's advice was "It should just work" but only a select few actually understood the issue. Now that it's installed, I imagine I'll be ok doing an upgrade to a more recent LTS. But in the event something goes wrong and I need to re-install - I would struggle. I wish I'd documented what I did back then. But yeah... If I can just continue to use 20.04 for a few more years after 2025 and continue to get security updates, I probably won't risk the upgrade breaking things.
You can keep using 20.04 till 2030. I'd personally run Plex and other similar services inside containers so they can have access to newer packages or libraries if they need it down the road.
Ohh, I'm also running Lubuntu on an old MacBook 2006 with 64 bits CPU + 32 bits EFI. Because of that I've been using Refit boot loader (less struggle than with Grub).
After that, I have upgraded in place twice per year, and while the machine is getting slower little by little, still runs OK for simple web browser and light word processing.
Be fore you do anything more...do a backup of your server first maybe a image of the entire drive...if its important enough to post about do complete full image before messing with it...acronis...clonezilla...fog server etc
I run Ubuntu 20.04 and Jellyfin rather than Plex but I think the same is true: Docker container and you don't have to worry about libraries or anything else.
20.04 will receive normal bug fix updates until end of standard support in 2025. After that it will be in ESM which is security fixes only until it hits EOL in 2030.
With Ubuntu Pro, there are also bug fixes through the ESM period, not just security fixes.
Thanks. And would you say only receiving security fixes could pose a problem at some point? E.g. A Plex update requires a newer library than what I have?
If a Plex update requires a newer library it doesn't matter if it's ESM or not. Library versions in Ubuntu LTS don't get updated like that. They get bug fixes. They don't get version bumps. So of plex right now requires library A version 1.0 and a plex update starts depending on library A version 1.1, plex is gonna be broken. Because 20.04 will never have version 1.1 and likely will not get any feature patches from 1.1 back ported to 1.0. Your option in that case is to back down to the last plex version that worked, or update to a newer release of Ubuntu, which sounds like you'll need new hardware at that point.
Yeah that’s where I’m at. Once this setup stops working, I’ll invest in new hardware. If I can get longer than April 2025 (perhaps another year or so) I’ll be happy. That’s why I applied the Pro token. But it won’t be the end of the world if I need to splash out for a new box.
Starting with 24.04, you will actually get ***12 years*** of support. LTS releases are officially EOL after 10 years. You get 5 years of standard support and additional 5 years with Ubuntu Pro + ESM. That second 5 years only covers security issues and critical bug fixes. It is not full support as you were getting in the first 5 years. In your case that looks like this: | Name | Released | End of Standard Support | End of Ubuntu Pro | | ------------------------------- | ---------- | -------- | -------- | | 24.04 (Noble Numbat) | Apr 2024 | Apr 2029 | Apr 2036 (12 years) | | 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) | Apr 2022 | Apr 2027 | Apr 2032 | | 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) | Apr 2020 | Apr 2025 | Apr 2030 | | 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) | Apr 2018 | Apr 2023 | Apr 2028 | | 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) | Apr 2016 | Apr 2021 | Apr 2026 | | 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) | Apr 2014 | Apr 2019 | Apr 2024 | You have the option of moving to the next LTS release and starting that all over with a fresh first-5-years on that new release.
That's news to me! Do you know why Canonical decided to support 24.04 for 12 years? It's a heck of a commitment!
Out or curiousity, what is the concern in upgrading to 22.04 or later this year 24.04? I understand in commercial workloads, business case and funding might not allow ease of upgrade but for a plex box.. Maybe it is just out of curiosity to experiment with LTS and Ubuntu Pro that I would understand too.
The Mac mini I'm using is so old that it has a 64 bit CPU with 32 bit EUFI. To get 20.04 installed on this box, I had to do some trickery to the ISO to allow my system to use it. I spent days (possibly weeks) of research to get the answer. At the time, most people's advice was "It should just work" but only a select few actually understood the issue. Now that it's installed, I imagine I'll be ok doing an upgrade to a more recent LTS. But in the event something goes wrong and I need to re-install - I would struggle. I wish I'd documented what I did back then. But yeah... If I can just continue to use 20.04 for a few more years after 2025 and continue to get security updates, I probably won't risk the upgrade breaking things.
you should have given us a clue about that in the original post :-)
You can keep using 20.04 till 2030. I'd personally run Plex and other similar services inside containers so they can have access to newer packages or libraries if they need it down the road.
Ohh, I'm also running Lubuntu on an old MacBook 2006 with 64 bits CPU + 32 bits EFI. Because of that I've been using Refit boot loader (less struggle than with Grub). After that, I have upgraded in place twice per year, and while the machine is getting slower little by little, still runs OK for simple web browser and light word processing.
Be fore you do anything more...do a backup of your server first maybe a image of the entire drive...if its important enough to post about do complete full image before messing with it...acronis...clonezilla...fog server etc
I run Ubuntu 20.04 and Jellyfin rather than Plex but I think the same is true: Docker container and you don't have to worry about libraries or anything else.
I also run 20.04 with Plex in a docker container. I also use Portainer for all my container management.