Was using the terminal to update/upgrade and began to notice advertisements for “Ubuntu Pro.”
Get more security updates through Ubuntu Pro with ‘esm-apps’ enabled
And then a link to this site.
Is this anything we should care about? Is it actually advantageous at all for any of us to “register for personal use?” Is it actually important? Just more telemetry nonsense?
The in-depth post about ubuntu pro is here Ubuntu Pro - FAQ - Ubuntu Pro - Ubuntu Community Hub
In terms of Ubuntu Budgie (and all official flavours) - ubuntu pro is still applicable. We all share the same archive and all security fixes to the underlying software such as graphics, kernel etc applies. So if you intend to run any flavour for more than 3 years you still a similar security assurance as ubuntu itself.
Still - if you are the type of user that enjoys living on the edge - upgrading every 6 months - ubuntu pro obviously has very little interest to you.
So you are saying it is worth registering if we plan to run an Ubuntu Budgie stable release long term? And that it won’t somehow screw up our Budgie install?
I should have read the FAQ first. It seems like it is only really applicable for business use for a business that wants to maintain the same Ubuntu version (not “upgrade” versions) for up to 10 years?
certainly won’t mess up any official flavour - well at least not intentionally!
I can’t comment on what will happen with unofficial flavours since they do some weird and wacky things with packages.
EDIT:
I am aware of quite a few business who depend on Ubuntu Budgie. Some of them have graciously donated to us in the past. So yes - ubuntu pro is more applicable to any user / business who have an interest in stability rather than “cutting edge”
Ok, thanks for the info!
Would Vivaldi web browser and graphics drivers continue to receive security updates on pro or are they dependent on the latest LTS version?
Will third party packages continue to receive security updates on pro or are they dependent on the latest LTS version?
Pro is very specifically orientated towards selected packages from the main repo and elsewhere which Canonicals customers need.
Most Opensource graphics in main and the kernel would be part of Pro.
Vivalidi is a third party solution so its upto that third party to maintain it.
The question is how long third party packages would be maintained on a legacy version of ubuntu.
I discussed it with a member of ubuntu discourse. What I got out of it was that there is no guarantee that third party software will be updated security wise to the standard that it would on a current version of ubuntu.
Based on that I would think twice about not upgrading to the next LTS. Not much point to pro if you want to use third party services…
Thanks for getting back to me on it pal.
If you depend on third party software then yes you should carefully consider potential security issues - especially browsers.
Personally I would dare to suggest for high risk software such as browsers I would use self contained packages such as flatpak’s and snaps which are portable and dont depend on the underlying distro to any great extent. Deb based third-party software will likely not be maintained beyond the scheduled end-date of 5 years. Sometimes shorter - 3 years or less.
Good to know. Thanks again.
Interesting. I saw Ubuntu Pro updates listed for the first time on my machine today. Ended up here from searching.
I’m left scratching my head still though honestly. So there are more security updates that non-pro users are not receiving? Or not receiving yet?
And it is still free either way for personal use. So they just want an email address? Which they already have if you have an Ubuntu One account?
There are some specialised security updates that aren’t really applicable to the wider Ubuntu available via Pro but not available generally. FIPS security module comes to mind. Unless you are into high security stuff for Government Defence, dare to suggest you may not be interested…
Yes - via your Ubuntu One account is enough - see this tutorial
After my initial post here I went ahead and signed up for the “Pro” updates and there did seem to be packages on my machine that got updates they might not have as a result. I say that but I can’t come up with any specific examples at the moment. Either way it certainly didn’t seem to have any negative impact on my system.
What I gathered from this discussion and the other little research I did was that it may only be valuable to those people or businesses who don’t upgrade to a new LTS version when one comes out. Like if one wanted to continue to run a system based on 20.04 for example instead of moving to 22.04 or even 24.04.
So, if that is the case, it doesn’t really seem to apply to me in particular as I would always plan to upgrade to a new LTS when available.