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I am a bit confused on the releases naming of QGIS.

On the website you read everywhere QGIS 2.18 = new LTR (that I suppose stands for "Long Term Release"), QGIS 2.14 = previous LTR. Neverthless the *-ltr linux repositories point to QGIS 2.14, and so do all the ubuntugis repositories.

So, is it safe to install on ubuntu 16.04 the 2.18 version?

Will it be supported for some time ?

Which repository should I use (I would like to install also GRASS)?

If I use the *-ltr repository, will I soon (when?~) get the 2.18 with a simple apt-get update ?

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Take a look at the QGIS roadmap:

The 2.18 release will replace the 2.14 release as LTR, but not replace 2.14 in the LTR package repositories before 3.0 is released.

You find a time line for QGIS 2.18.x and 2.14.x releases as well, until February 2019.

I suggest to stick to the 2.18.x regular release versions as long as the LTR repo contains the 2.14.x releases (i.e. until QGIS 3.0 is announced for relase). Then you can switch to the LTR repo to obtain the future point releases of QGIS 2.18 without any break.

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QGIS 2.18 is the current LTS version, as 2.14 is now expiring. Unless you feel comfortable compiling from source or adding alternate repositories, your best bet is to stick with your distro's release. QGIS 2.14 is quite usable, but that depends more on your requirements for functionality.

In your case, looking at the Debian/Ubuntu section on qgis.org, we see that "Default Debian and Ubuntu software repositories often hold older versions of QGIS. [...] To have newer versions, you have to add alternative software repositories, by adding one of the deb-lines below to your /etc/apt/sources.list file."

Here you can see your options for installation, including adding alternate package sources. As long as you configure your repos correctly to account for all dependencies and have no package conflicts, you will be fine installing 2.18 on Ubuntu 16.04.

A simple tutorial to get you started can be found here. If you want an answer on when Ubuntu will release the new LTS, you'll have to ask the package maintainers. According to the QGIS governance page, that would be:


* Jürgen E. Fischer <jef[at]norbit.de>
* Tim Sutton <tim[at]linfiniti.com>
* Jachym Cepicky <jachym.cepicky[at]gmail.com>
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  • Thank you for the info, but the point of my question is that the LTR repository on the page you linked (on the official qgis.org repository, not a distinct project like ubuntugis) still hosts the 2.14 version, and to have the "new LTR" you need to instead enable the latest-release repository. As 2.18 is the new LTR I would have expected instead to have 2.18 in the LTR repository.
    – Antonello
    Dec 4, 2017 at 5:38
  • I agree it's unfortunate, and this is why it leads with the disclaimer of Debian and Ubuntu often holding older versions of QGIS. Like many open source projects, they depend on voluntary package maintainers, so the project's LTR really only refers to the source release.
    – Eron Lloyd
    Dec 5, 2017 at 0:15

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