[ghomem]

Like 12 years of life cycle is not enough for you to plan a transition?

You can use the entire life cycle but not one is forcing you to. You can update from one LTS to another every 2 years, or 4 years, or 5 years... you decide.

[kbolino]

I don't really think we're in disagreement here. The longer you wait, the harder the transition will be. LTS is a good foundation, and usually the right choice for "enterprise" or "business" settings, but you should not rely overmuch on any one LTS release's way of doing things, when the wider Linux ecosystem moves much faster.

[ghomem]

The longer you wait the harder the pain. The less you wait the more frequent the pain. So it depends on the function that converts intensity and frequency to suffering :p But, most importantly, the fact that LTS gives you a choice is what I was highlighting.

For the scope I operate, which is pretty standard Linux packages (PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Nginx, Docker, OpenVPN, OpenSSH) the changes between 16.04 and 22.04 have been quite OK to deal with.