1. If you are happy with how Ubuntu 16.04 works for you, you get to keep it and you receive support until 2021.
2. With Ubuntu 16.04.2, you get the option to switch to a new path of updated Linux kernels. If you do so, your Linux kernel will get updated every six months, until 2021.
For the first update with Ubuntu 16.04.2, you can enable to get the 4.8 kernel that was used/tested in development version of Ubuntu 16.10.
In the subsequent update with Ubuntu 16.04.3 (around July 2017), you will be updated to that Linux kernel that was used/tested in Ubuntu 17.04 (to be released in April 2017).
And so on.
The command to switch you to the new path of updated kernels (updated every six months), is
One key item to note is that switching to upgraded kernel path breaks live kernel patching at this time.
I was considering switching I saw this caveat...
"For clarity, the Canonical Livepatch Service is only available and supported against the generic and lowlatency GA kernel flavours for 64-bit Intel/AMD (aka, x86_64, amd64) builds of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial) release. HWE kernels are not supported at this time."
Just to clarify, that is how Ubuntu's LTS [Long Term Support] releases are intended to work. The 'point one' release fixes bugs in the initial release and keeps the same kernel. It winds up being the actual release that is supported 'Long Term'. Releases 'point two' and later get updated kernels...and potentially new bugs to go with new features.
I won't say that the End of Life illustration is easy to interpret, but it shows how Ubuntu releases work:
Hey that's great. My biggest complaint from running 14.04 LTS for a couple years was the lack of kernel upgrades. Fortunately it's not that hard to install a kernel package from a more recent Ubuntu on it, but I had to find out how to do it and it's more manual than I was expecting for a LTS release.
Thank you for providing this summary. I assume this means that if one has a fleet of servers running 16.04 that one keeps up-to-date, but choose not to update to .02 - one would have to use install media for 16.04 (sans .02) when installing new/replacement servers to fit in with the existing fleet?
It's a little bit surprising coming from Debian stable releases, but makes sense.
No, just doing updates gets you all the benefits of the point release, as you would expect. If you want a newer kernel, install the hwe kernel when it appears, it will roll until the next LTS and stabilise then in line with 18.04 (it is basically later release kernels built on 16.04).
1. If you are happy with how Ubuntu 16.04 works for you, you get to keep it and you receive support until 2021.
2. With Ubuntu 16.04.2, you get the option to switch to a new path of updated Linux kernels. If you do so, your Linux kernel will get updated every six months, until 2021.
For the first update with Ubuntu 16.04.2, you can enable to get the 4.8 kernel that was used/tested in development version of Ubuntu 16.10.
In the subsequent update with Ubuntu 16.04.3 (around July 2017), you will be updated to that Linux kernel that was used/tested in Ubuntu 17.04 (to be released in April 2017). And so on.
The command to switch you to the new path of updated kernels (updated every six months), is
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends xserver-xorg-hwe-16.04