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This is a notice regarding releases of Ubuntu that have reached end of life.

The following versions of Ubuntu and derivatives are officially end of life as of January 27, 2014:

  • Raring 13.04

New questions regarding the above posted after the aforementioned date may need to be considered off-topic. Old questions (posted before the end of life date) that are still being answered regarding these releases should have a comment included on them about upgrading to a supported release to continue to get support for their versions of Ubuntu.

This information can be confirmed on the official Ubuntu Wiki page that lists all current, development, and end-of-lifed releases

The date "January 27, 2014" was established in an IRC discussion with the release team. It has been confirmed in this announcement email.


Confirmation of this End of Life date was published to the Security Announcements mailing list, here confirming that Raring 13.04 is now End of Life.


Please make note that this is the first time that we will have a release EOL before an older release other than LTSes. 12.10 is not EOL-ing at this time, and has an EOL date of April 2013.

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  • 2
    This post does NOT state that old questions should be deleted, nor does it say old questions regarding an EOL release should be closed or nuked. It simply serves as a reminder / notice that the 13.04 release of Ubuntu will be considered End of Life for new posts as of January 27, 2014 (give or take, depending on when the release team officially announces 13.04 is EOL)
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Jan 6, 2014 at 23:28
  • 14
    Well that was alarmingly fast.
    – Oli Mod
    Jan 7, 2014 at 0:07
  • 1
    @Oli indeed. It went by quickly. Still, it never hurts to have the EOL reminders, right?
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Jan 7, 2014 at 0:11
  • 1
    Wow, seems like the versions are going by much faster. Makes sense, because they are, but Canonical sure is pushing this upgrade cycle eh? Jan 7, 2014 at 13:06
  • January 27th seems confirmed.
    – Rinzwind
    Jan 7, 2014 at 13:53
  • @Rinzwind Yep, it does, I was gonna link to that announcement. :)
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Jan 7, 2014 at 16:05
  • @RPi they changed the support cycle to be 9 months for non-LTS starting with 13.04. Not sure if they're pushing the upgrade cycles or not, I don't remember the reasoning behind the change.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Jan 7, 2014 at 16:10
  • Reason: askubuntu.com/q/270529/169736
    – Braiam
    Jan 7, 2014 at 21:21
  • @chaskes I think that's better suited for another discussion thread in meta, and not on this thread which isn't about 14.04
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Jan 9, 2014 at 1:44
  • @chaskes this thread is not the thread about how to handle the upgrade track once 14.04 is out, this thread serves solely as a reminder to people that they should consider reminding people using 13.04 (and asking questions about it) to upgrade to 13.10 or some similar action before the EOL date. It also acts as a reminder that, per policy, on January 27, 2014, any new 13.04 Raring questions will be offtopic because of the policy for EOL releases (see the help center), save for "How do I upgrade from Raring to $some_release".
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Jan 9, 2014 at 1:48
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    So a user still using 13.04 after Jan 27 is out of luck even if all they want is to ask a question? I suggest that after the magic date valid questions are still valid even if Canonical is no longer supporting the release?
    – haziz
    Jan 21, 2014 at 21:04
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    @haziz we had this discussion before about how we treat EOL releases here and here. Per Oli's answer to the meta about handling EOL releases we came to an agreement to follow the support timetables. The basis of closing these questions and such is to encourage people to NOT use unsupported software and use supported releases that continue to get security updates.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Jan 22, 2014 at 16:55
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    I'm sorry but I find this ridiculous. Fair enough if Canonical doesn't want to support it, but what is wrong with asking the community a question? Fine encourage people to upgrade, but why make the ultimatum - no one is allowed to help you if you are using software that is not supported by a company
    – Anake
    Jan 25, 2014 at 16:10
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    @Anake discuss it in another meta thread. Note that there's already consensus as WHY We don't support old EOL releases here: because of old, not supported, insecure software
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Jan 25, 2014 at 20:33
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    I hope in future releases won't EOL before next release comes out !lol. Jan 30, 2014 at 7:23

1 Answer 1

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Today, January 27, 2014, is the day that 13.04 Raring reached End of Life.

While this means new questions (stressing the new) about 13.04 are off topic, older questions (both answered and unanswered) that were around before the EOL date should not be closed or deleted.

This is done here with the consensus of the moderators which is that the primary reason for is not supporting EOL releases is because those versions no longer receive updates or security support, and you should not use those versions because of the lack of security updates. This is not just my opinion, but has reached some consensus here on meta in other threads.

Also note that 13.10 is still supported. as is 12.10.


If you have an issue with how we handle EOL releases, you need to bring up this issue in a different thread. This thread here is NOT a valid thread for arguing against the EOL policies. This thread is simply a notice that, in accordance with the CURRENT moderation policies, these questions are offtopic because of the End of Life date.

We already have a thread that came to a generally-accepted stance regarding EOL releases, and Oli, one of our moderators, stated this point very well, summing up why we don't support EOL releases at this answer. To quote Oli♦:

"Running fine" is hard to swallow given everybody who asks a question has a problem.

We should close EOL questions because as a community of both Ubuntu users and internet denizens, we should want people to stop using

unsupported software.

Many years ago I... Well let's just say I had more than a passing interest in computer security. Something that I saw again and again and again is that software running on the internet without updates is software that gets hacked and cracked wide open.

We should care because it's that computer that goes on to infect another dozen unpatched computers, send out spam and DDOS networks you care about.

Lucid (10.04) is off-topic on the desktop because its software is now lagging behind. Firefox is seven months old and that means known security flaws that are being exploited in the wild. Desktop 10.04 users are a liability to the internet. We all have a personal interest in them upgrading.

I don't think it's unreasonable cost that people have to use supported software to get support and by enforcing that through closing questions, we show users that we won't help them run dangerous software.

This is why we are not supporting EOL releases. We may not be a medium of support run by Canonical, but there's a LOT of good reasons why they don't support EOL releases, and a lot of those reasons apply here, still, including the fact that the old systems are RIDDLED with unfixed security bugs that will not be getting fixed. Because of that, users should NOT be using old, unsupported software, after Canonical EOL's the software.

As well, the comments on Oli♦'s answer are important and also need to be known:

Thanks for the feedback Oli. I still feel this is a Q&A site. Its purpose is to allow volunteers to answer other people's questions. All I am saying is people should be allowed to ask questions about the version of Ubuntu they are using, and people who have answers to those questions should be allowed to give them. - Darren Cook

That sentiment would have us supporting 90% of Ubuntu and Debian spin-offs. I do agree that it's nice to be helpful but it's more than just a scope issue here. It's dangerous to run outdated software and by extension it's dangerous to help somebody to remain on outdated software. It's something we should be militantly protective against. – Oli♦

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  • What about issues (issues being some error, a weird message, etc.) of unanswered questions?
    – Braiam
    Jan 27, 2014 at 23:53
  • @Braiam elaborate and give examples?
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Jan 27, 2014 at 23:54

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