PSA: Ubuntu 15.10 Hits End of Life Today

It’s time to wave awistful farewellto the Wily Werewolf, as Ubuntu 15.10 support endstoday.

Yup, those of you still using Ubuntu 15.10 on a laptop or desktop PCwill receive no furthersecurity updates , critical fixes,or newpackages from the main Ubuntu archives as ofJuly 28, 2016.

Done. Dusted. Ditched. Canonical has taken a silver bullet to its wearisome werewolf.

But will it be missed?

What Wily Wasn’t Was Pretty Much All It Was

Ubuntu 15.10is the most recent stable non-LTS release and has enjoyed a nimble nine-month run.

Amodest release, the Wily Werewolf saw no body-popping, shirt-ripping changes. It did ship withimproved version of the Unity desktop, new scrollbar behaviour and support for the Steam controller.

The number of users still onthis version of Ubuntu is unknown (but we’ve got a poll below you can lodge your version in).

Shuttering of official support doesn’t mean your desktop will stop working. It will continue to function and you maycontinue to receive updates fromthird-party softwaredistributed through private repositoriesorpersonal PPAs.

But it’s unlikely that this support will remain long-term.

Since 2013 all non-LTS (‘Long Term Support’) Ubuntu releasesreceive updates for 9 months . ForLTS releases thesupport cycle is 5 years.Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, which was released in April, will staysupported well intothe next decade.

How To Upgrade from Ubuntu 15.10 to 16.04 LTS

Canonical comments that all users running Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial Xerus as soon as possible.

This helps to protect you from any future security exploits that arise, will nix any critical bugs tocrop up, and ensure that runthe latest versions of coreapps like Mozilla Firefox.

The recommended upgrade path from Ubuntu 15.10 isto16.04 LTS. This transitioncan be handled fromthe desktop using the Software Updater application.

If you’remore comfortable withthe command line you canissue the following command to upgrade Ubuntu 15.10 to Ubuntu 16.04 directly:

sudo do-release-upgrade Are you still using Ubuntu 15.10?

What are you planning to do now thatofficial support has ended?

Share your thoughts with us in the comments, or by voting in the poll below. Not that you do not run, or have never run, Ubuntu 15.10 you do notneed to vote.