Ubuntu announced its 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) release almost 5 years ago, on April 21, 2016. As with the earlier LTS releases, Ubuntu committed to ongoing security and critical fixes for a period of 5 years. The standard support period is now nearing its end and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS will transition to Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) on Friday, April 30th, 2021.
Users are encouraged to evaluate and upgrade to our latest 20.04 LTS release via 18.04 LTS. The supported upgrade path from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS is via Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Instructions and caveats for the upgrades may be found at:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BionicUpgrades for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FocalUpgrades for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and 20.04 LTS continue to be actively supported with security updates and bug fixes. All announcements of official security updates for Ubuntu releases are sent to the ubuntu-security-announce mailing list, information about which may be found here:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-security-announce
Canonical provides Extended Security Maintenance for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to customers through Ubuntu Advantage. The announcement including details about how and where to purchase extended support can be found here:
https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-16-04-lts-esm-migration-path
https://www.ubuntu.com/esm
Since its launch in October 2004, Ubuntu has become one of the most highly regarded Linux distributions with millions of users in homes, schools, businesses and governments around the world. Ubuntu is Open Source software, costs nothing to download, and users are free to customise or alter their software in order to meet their needs.
Originally posted to the ubuntu-annouce mailing list on Fri Mar 12 17:20:43 UTC 2021 by Łukasz Zemczak