Canonical has announced that Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu, which came out in October, will reach its end of life on July 20 so it’s worth upgrading to Ubuntu 23.04 if you haven’t already. End of life means an Ubuntu release no longer gets important security updates.
As a bit of background, Canonical releases a Long Term Support (LTS) version of Ubuntu every two years in April. In between these releases, it pushes out a new version of Ubuntu every six months.
The LTS versions are supported for five years each but the interim releases are only supported for nine months. Ubuntu 22.10 is an interim release so July is when it reaches end of life.
Upgrading your Ubuntu desktop to version 23.04 is straightforward and shouldn’t take long to complete, especially if you have a good internet connection. To perform the upgrade, follow these official instructions:
- Run the update-manager application.
- In Update Manager, click the Settings... button, and enter your password to start the Software Sources application.
- Select the sub menu Updates from the Software Sources application.
- Confirm the "Notify me of a new Ubuntu version:" option is set to "For any new version", and change it if otherwise.
- Close the Software Sources application and return to Update Manager.
- In Update Manager, click the Check button to check for new updates.
- If there are any updates to install, use the Install Updates button to install them.
- Run update-manager.
- A message will appear informing you of the availability of the new release.
- Click Upgrade.
- Follow the on-screen instructions.
If you are on Ubuntu 22.10 and find nine months too short a period to keep performing an upgrade, you’re best sticking to an LTS release. New versions arrive every two years but you’re under no obligation to upgrade for five years; this can let you focus on just getting work done instead of doing upgrades all of the time.
