With Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) slated for a Long Term Support later this summer, three variants of the Ubuntu platform: xubuntu , which is Xfce-based; Kubuntu, which is KDE-based; and Edubuntu, which is a Educational ecosystem are also preparing for a LTS release in April this year. Ubuntu Technical Board made this decision after receiving proposals by each of the editions seeking LTS plan.
Xubuntu LTS
Xubuntu proposal is the simplest of the three requests before the Ubuntu Technical Board. Developers at Xubuntu are looking at three-year Long Term Support cycle. The milestones would include image-testing i386/amd64 along with updates for post release on a point release system; fixing of critical and high bug fixes and Security fixes for Xfce packages.
Kubuntu LTS
Kubuntu 12.05 will be a second LTS release for it, its first being 10.04 LTS.
Kubuntu developers propose to support Kubuntu 12.04 release over 5 years, following Canonical’s extension of desktop support to five years, similar to its Server Edition, for LTS release. Since, Kubuntu typically follows Ubuntu’s LTS support systems for Desktop, with the exception being 8.04, users can expect the same here as well.
Additionally, with Upstream Qt and KDE support cycles are being built, LTS proposal appears to be ideal. Qt is already working on Qt5, with plans to ship it at the earliest. Similarly, KDE too is working on KDE Frameworks 5 and is expected to ship immediately after Qt 5. With both Qt 4 as well as KDE Framework 4 being mature and stable, they will be ideal for supporting over five year period.
The point releases too are finalized with 12.04.1 in Oct 2012, Kubuntu 12.04.2 in Jan 2013; Kubuntu 12.04.3 in Aug 2013 and Kubuntu 12.04.4 in Jan 2014.
Edubuntu LTS
Edubuntu team proposes to release its 12.04 as a LTS release for a five-year period. Since most of the packages of Edbuntu that do not come with Ubuntu are supported by Kubuntu, it is following Kubuntu’s 5 years LTS and will therefore be covered for security updates as well as support.
Developers initially proposed the following-There is to be a list of packages that will be dropped as they will be difficult to support for a five year period. Heading this list is Mono. Since Ubuntu does not ship it anymore, Edubuntu too proposes to drop it. This extends to GBrainy as well, since it will be difficult to support mono dependencies for 5 year cycles. It is likely to arrive as extra meta-package. iTalc too will be abandoned and Epoptis, though with lesser features will be supported.
However, they later updated that mono and Gbrainy will remain since mono are in main. Java runtime however was dropped.
