Canonical Releases Ubuntu 24.04 LTS With Lifetime Support for .NET 8

Canonical today announced the release of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, the 10th long-term supported release of its popular Linux distribution. Among the notable advances in this release, .NET 8 will be fully supported on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for its entire life cycle.

“Ubuntu 24.04 LTS takes a bold step into performance engineering and confidential computing to deliver an enterprise-grade innovation platform, supported for at least 12 years,” Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth said. “For developers, we are delighted to announce TCK certified Java, an LTS for .NET, and the latest Rust tool chain.”

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS comes with the latest Linux kernel, version 6.8, and includes all the advancements delivered in the previous three interim releases of the distribution. On the developer end, it includes Python 3.12, Ruby 3.2, PHP 8.3, Go 1.22, and, perhaps most notably in these quarters, .NET 8. .NET 8 will be fully supported on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (and 22.04 LTS) for the entire life cycle of both releases, Canonical says.

“This is the first time that a .NET release is available from day one in the official Ubuntu feeds,” Microsoft’s Richard Lander says. “Microsoft and Canonical are collaborating on servicing and support. To that end, Microsoft gives security and functional fixes (via a private channel) to Canonical ahead of Patch Tuesday releases, with time for building and testing. We do the same thing with Red Hat. It’s our goal that .NET fixes are available everywhere, simultaneously.”

The 12 years of support thing is a bit of a misnomer, as Canonical is committed to supporting Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with free security maintenance and support for only 5 years. An Ubuntu Pro subscription extends that support to 10 years, and subscribers can purchase an extra two years of support with a legacy add-on to hit the 12-year mark.

You can learn more about Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on the Ubuntu website.