Ubuntu 11.04 was released on April 28, 2011, which is 18 months ago, which means that support officially ends today.
The Natty Narwhal, like all non-LTS Ubuntu releases, only received ongoing security and high-impact bug-fixes for one a half years. Canonical can’t support each release forever, of course.
As of today the support window is over.
Unity’s Debut
The Ubuntu 11.04 release was notable for a couple of reasons.
It was the first release of Ubuntu to come with the Unity desktop as default, the first to ship Banshee as its default music player and the first to include Libreoffice which was, at the time newly forked from OpenOffice.
Ubuntu 11.04 was also the first version of Ubuntu since 8.04 to not offer a separate edition tailored for low-power netbooks.
Upgrade to stay covered
The main upgrade path from Ubuntu 11.04 are – without re-installing – is to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.10. That release is supported until April 2013 with ‘security updates and select high-impact bug fixes’.
Alternatively, a fresh upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 will give you support until April 2017.
Are you still using Ubuntu 11.04? What are you planning to do now official support has ended? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.