Some people have asked me what the difference is between Linspire and Xandros update cycles and how does Freespire fit in. Freespire, Linspire and Xandros are all based on the LTS versions of Ubuntu. We dont do any of their incremental releases. Freespire typically gets a base update about a year after Ubuntu releases their LTS. When 16.04 was released we didnt update the base system until 2017. When 18.04 was released we didnt update the base system until 2019. When 20.04 was released we didnt update the base system until 2021. With Linspire and Xandros the base update cycle is what causes confusion. Linspire being the consumer release gets the base updated 1 and a half years after the release. With 16.04 we didnt update until late 2017, with 18.04 the base system got updated fall of 2019. With 20.04 we didnt update the base until July 2021. Xandros is the longest supported release that we have. The base gets updated every 3 years. With 16.04 we didnt update the base until 20.04 because we skipped the 18.04 base completely. It did use the 18.04 kernel but we didnt update all the base packages. Xandros is supported for 10 years. Linspire is supported for 5 years.
This update cycle will be a little longer because we are switching the base system unless something really drastic happens. Which we will talk about later. But the current systems will be updated to the 22.04 kernel. Freespire will get new kernel November of 2022, with the new base about April 2023. Linspire will get the new kernel January 2023, with the new base around fall 2023. Xandros will get the new kernel winter 2023 and the new base in 2024.
Xandros gets updated later because its our Enterprise release with incremental releases every 6 to 9 months and major releases every 3 years and we do that because enterprise customers don't upgrade quite like consumers do. Consumers tend to upgrade every year to year and a half and Enterprise customers don't usually upgrade for 5 years with some of them waiting out the 10 years.
So why do we wait so long before we do base updates? Testing takes up a lot of that time. This also gives time for bugs to get ironed out and any security issues to be patched. When we change the base whether its to Fedora or Debian the upgrade cycle will follow the same timetable that we have established
