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So, you say you want really, really long-term support for your Linux? Boy, does Canonical have a deal for you!
Some people really don’t want to switch their enterprise operating system gears. They’re the kind of people who are still running Windows 2003 (yes, really) or CentOS 7 in production. Of course, they’re taking their chances by running servers on operating systems that are long, long out of date.
But what if I told you that you could still run old operating systems with full support or security? That’s what Canonical is doing with its new Ubuntu Pro Legacy add-on 15-year support offering.
Canonical’s Legacy add-on now extends support for all Ubuntu Long Term Support (LTS) releases, starting with 2014’s Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr), out to a full 15 years from their original release date. The enhanced support builds upon the standard five years of free maintenance, five years of Expanded Security Maintenance (ESM) available via Ubuntu Pro, and introduces an additional five years through the premium Legacy add-on.
This isn’t the first time Canonical has offered users who prefer stability over all other things in their operating systems an extended support life cycle. Last year, Ubuntu extended support to 12 years.
This extended life cycle is particularly targeted at enterprises and regulated sectors, such as banking, health care and manufacturing, where downtime from major upgrades can be costly or infeasible.
Throughout the 15-year stretch, Ubuntu Pro users receive security fixes for critical, high and key medium common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) affecting the base system and major components, along with compliance features like live kernel patching and long-term vulnerability management.
At the same time, however, Canonical has become known for supporting newer technologies in its releases. For example, the next LTS version of Ubuntu, Ubuntu 25.04, will include sudo-rs, a version of sudo written in memory-safe Rust.
However, as Jon Seager, Canonical’s vice president of engineering for Ubuntu, wrote on LinkedIn, “We’ve attracted lots of attention in the past months by shifting Ubuntu to adopt more modern tools (sudo-rs, uutils), which I firmly believe is the right move for the long term. That said, the reality is that many organisations struggle with migrations and find themselves in compliance traps which necessitate running older versions for extended periods of time.”
Hence, the release of this new program for old distros.
Specifically, this extended support program will bring continuous security maintenance across the entire Ubuntu base, kernel and key open source components. During this period, Canonical will actively scan, triage and backport critical, high and select medium CVEs to all maintained LTS releases.
Break/fix support remains an optional add-on. When production issues arise, you can get access to Canonical’s support team through this service and troubleshoot with Ubuntu experts.
This does come wth a premium price. The Legacy add-on for beyond year 10 will cost about 50% higher than the usual Ubuntu Pro subscription. Smaller businesses may find this a burden, but then migrations aren’t cheap either. Larger businesses that want truly long-term support will doubtlessly see it, though, as a cost-effective way to ensure continuity and security without forced upgrades.
The upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS (Resolute Raccoon), slated for April 2026, will be the first new release launched with an immediate path to 15 years of support — from launch through 2041 for paying subscribers.
As long as this new support program is, it’s not the longest currently being offered by a major enterprise Linux distributor. That honor goes to SUSE with its brand-new SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 16.0 release. The latest SLES comes with a total of 16 years of support: 10 years standard plus six years extended life cycle support. However, unlike Canonical, SUSE offers only 13 years of support for its older major distribution version releases.
