jxself.org

Introducing Long-Term Support

Mon, 1 Apr 2013

I began maintaining an APT repository for Linux-libre, graciously hosted by the Free Software Foundation Latin America, in September 2011.

My repository has always provided the latest version available. I will continue to do that but today I am announcing expanded support by also providing Long-Term Support (LTS) versions.

What's the difference? The latest version provides all of the latest changes and features but is only supported for about 3 months - you then need to upgrade to a newer stable release series to continue to receive support.

In contrast, the long-term versions are suported for at least 2 years but won't necessarily have the latest stuff. If you want to use Linux-libre and prefer a kernel that isn't changing as much, the long-term versions are probably what you want.

A new long-term version will be selected roughly once each year, and versions will be refreshed every year to maintain at most 2 versions in 2 years. Kernel 3.4 will be the initial long-term kernel in my repository, supported until October 2014.

Instructions for using the repository can be found at http://jxself.org/linux-libre/.