Per the general end-of-life policy, as the 18.04 LTS release of Ubuntu will go out of support five years later in April 2023, questions asked about it afterwards will be closed on sight as off-topic, with the user directed to upgrade to a supported release.

However, I think there's an argument to make that we should continue to allow questions about it even after that date.

One major factor is that this is the last supported version of Ubuntu with a 32-bit release. All newer currently supported official versions are exclusively 64-bit releases. This means that users who are running a 32-bit build will be unable to upgrade to a newer release. This includes the following categories of users:

• users with 32-bit processors
• users who've installed a 32-bit build on a 64-bit processor long ago and have generally otherwise been upgrading for support
• users who'd otherwise install a 64-bit build but are running some software that has compatibility issues with 64-bit builds

It's worth noting that for many years now, Ubuntu has supported PAE, meaning that 32-bit versions can address 64 GiB of RAM instead of only 4 GiB, and a processor supporting PAE has been a required prerequisite to install Ubuntu.

Additionally, some official flavors of Ubuntu, such as Lubuntu, don't support upgrading from 18.04 LTS to newer builds, even on 64-bit releases.

In summary, while it's generally been easy in the past to upgrade from an unsupported release to a supported one, it would be difficult for a lot of users to upgrade from 18.04 LTS to newer versions for the above reasons, and I'd expect a lot of users would continue to use it even after April 2023. Doing so requires at best a complete clean install (for the second bullet above and for flavors that don't support upgrading), and at worst is completely impossible.

Would it be a good idea to make an exception to the normal end-of-life policy for the 18.04 LTS releases of Ubuntu and allow questions about it to be asked even afterwards?

Per the general end-of-life policy, as the 18.04 LTS release of Ubuntu will go out of support five years later in April 2023, questions asked about it afterwards will be closed on sight as off-topic, with the user directed to upgrade to a supported release.

However, I think there's an argument to make that we should continue to allow questions about it even after that date.

One major factor is that this is the last supported version of Ubuntu with a 32-bit release. All newer currently supported official versions are exclusively 64-bit releases. This means that users who are running a 32-bit build will be unable to upgrade to a newer release. This includes the following categories of users:

• users with 32-bit processors
• users who've installed a 32-bit build on a 64-bit processor long ago and have generally otherwise been upgrading for support
• users who'd otherwise install a 64-bit build but are running some software that has compatibility issues with 64-bit builds

It's worth noting that for many years now, Ubuntu has supported PAE, meaning that 32-bit versions can address 64 GiB of RAM instead of only 4 GiB, and a processor supporting PAE has been a required prerequisite to install Ubuntu.

Additionally, some official flavors of Ubuntu, such as Lubuntu, don't support upgrading from 18.04 LTS to newer builds, even on 64-bit releases.

In summary, while it's generally been easy in the past to upgrade from an unsupported release to a supported one, it would be difficult for a lot of users to upgrade from 18.04 LTS to newer versions for the above reasons, and I'd expect a lot of users would continue to use it even after April 2023. Doing so requires at best a complete clean install (for the second bullet above and for flavors that don't support upgrading), and at worst is completely impossible.

Would it be a good idea to make an exception to the normal end-of-life policy for the 18.04 LTS releases of Ubuntu and allow questions about it to be asked even afterwards?

Per the general end-of-life policy, as the 18.04 LTS release of Ubuntu will go out of support five years later in April 2023, questions asked about it afterwards will be closed on sight as off-topic, with the user directed to upgrade to a supported release.

However, I think there's an argument to make that we should continue to allow questions about it even after that date.

One major factor is that this is the last supported version of Ubuntu with a 32-bit release. All newer currently supported official versions are exclusively 64-bit releases. This means that users who are running a 32-bit build will be unable to upgrade to a newer release. This includes the following categories of users:

• users with 32-bit processors
• users who've installed a 32-bit build on a 64-bit processor long ago and have generally otherwise been upgrading for support
• users who'd otherwise install a 64-bit build but are running some software that has compatibility issues with 64-bit builds

It's worth noting that for many years now, Ubuntu has supported PAE, meaning that 32-bit versions can address 64 GiB of RAM instead of only 4 GiB, and a processor supporting PAE has been a required prerequisite to install Ubuntu.

Additionally, some official flavors of Ubuntu, such as Lubuntu, don't support upgrading from 18.04 LTS to newer builds, even on 64-bit releases.

In summary, while it's generally been easy in the past to upgrade from an unsupported release to a supported one, it would be difficult for a lot of users to upgrade from 18.04 LTS to newer versions for the above reasons, and I'd expect a lot of users would continue to use it even after April 2023. Doing so requires at best a complete clean install (for the second bullet above and for flavors that don't support upgrading), and at worst is completely impossible.

Would it be a good idea to make an exception to the normal end-of-life policy for the 18.04 LTS releases of Ubuntu?

Per the general end-of-life policy, as the 18.04 LTS release of Ubuntu will go out of support five years later in April 2023, questions asked about it afterwards will be closed on sight as off-topic, with the user directed to upgrade to a supported release.

However, I think there's an argument to make that we should continue to allow questions about it even after that date.

One major factor is that this is the last supported version of Ubuntu with a 32-bit release. All newer currently supported official versions are exclusively 64-bit releases. This means that users who are running a 32-bit build will be unable to upgrade to a newer release. This includes the following categories of users:

• users with 32-bit processors
• users who've installed a 32-bit build on a 64-bit processor long ago and have generally otherwise been upgrading for support
• users who'd otherwise install a 64-bit build but are running some software that has compatibility issues with 64-bit builds

It's worth noting that for many years now, Ubuntu has supported PAE, meaning that 32-bit versions can address 64 GiB of RAM instead of only 4 GiB, and a processor supporting PAE has been a required prerequisite to install Ubuntu.

Additionally, some official flavors of Ubuntu, such as Lubuntu, don't support upgrading from 18.04 LTS to newer builds, even on 64-bit releases.

In summary, while it's generally been easy in the past to upgrade from an unsupported release to a supported one, it would be difficult for a lot of users to upgrade from 18.04 LTS to newer versions for the above reasons, and I'd expect a lot of users would continue to use it even after April 2023. Doing so requires at best a complete clean install (for the second bullet above and for flavors that don't support upgrading), and at worst is completely impossible.

Would it be a good idea to make an exception to the normal end-of-life policy for the 18.04 LTS releases of Ubuntu and allow questions about it to be asked even afterwards?