Canonical has significantly expanded support for its Ubuntu LTS releases, offering 12 years of support starting with Ubuntu 14.04.

Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro by far. Canonical is largely responsible for making Linux approachable to the masses, solving many of the pain points that plagued individuals trying to switch over from Mac or Windows. The company offers two releases of Ubuntu: an LTS (long-term support) version that is released every two years and an interim release that comes out every six months.

Canonical already offers five years of standard support for LTS releases, upgrading that to 10 years with Ubuntu Pro. Ubuntu Pro is free for personal use—with a limit on the number of machines covered—and a paid service for companies.

The company says it is expanding the optional 10 years of support to 12 years:

Long term supported Ubuntu releases get five years of standard security maintenance on the main Ubuntu repository. Ubuntu Pro expands that commitment to 10 years on both the main and universe repositories, providing enterprises and end users alike access to a vast secure open source software library. The subscription also comes with a phone and ticket support tier. Ubuntu Pro subscribers can purchase an extra two years of security maintenance and support with the new Legacy Support add-on.

“We’re thrilled to offer our customers additional years of security maintenance and support for Ubuntu LTS releases”, said Maximilian Morgan, Global VP of Support Engineering at Canonical. “Drawing on 20 years of excellence in open source, Canonical delivers expert security maintenance and support for customers around the world. With Legacy Support, we empower organisations to navigate their operational needs and investments into open source with confidence, ensuring their systems remain available, secure, and supported for many years to come”.

As Canonical points out, the company’s security team backports all the necessary security fixes to LTS releases, giving customers a stable and secure experience they can count on for more than a decade:

Security maintenance is part of a continuous process that proactively protects systems. It includes regular vulnerability scanning, evaluation and patch management. With Ubuntu Pro, Canonical provides continuous vulnerability management for critical, high and medium Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) across all software packages shipped with Ubuntu. Canonical’s security team actively backports these crucial fixes to all supported Ubuntu LTS releases, giving enterprises and end users peace of mind to keep their systems secure without requiring a major upgrade.

Ubuntu is the leading Linux distro for a reason and Canonical’s decision to expand LTS support is sure to help solidify that lead.