Extended Security Maintenance settings for Ubuntu 18.04

Οut of curiosity Ι tried researching what options I have if I still use my Ubuntu 18.04 after April 2023. So I came across Extended Security Maintenance, which is free for 3 devices for personal use, as I saw. I logged in with my email and they provided me with a token:

sudo ua attach MYTOKEN

after that:

sudo ua status

gives the result:

Does this mean that I will now receive extended updates for up to 10 years for my PC?

Are the disabled options beneficial?

Thanks for helping. I have been using Ubuntu for quite a lot of years now, but this is something new to me, so I'm looking forward to any insights.

Solution 1:

On 18.04 ESM, you will only receive security patches between 2023-2028.

Not bugfixes

Not new versions

Not community support.

There is no benefit to using ESM while the release is still in the 5-year Standard Support period. ESM gets the same support and uses the same repositories until Standard Support ends (in 2023 for Ubuntu 18.04). As long as you retain the normal/correct LTS package sources, there is also no penalty.

If you disable the normal repositories and enable only the ESM repository before 2023, the only consequence is that we will gently chide you into undoing the change when you show up to ask why most of your software choices have vanished.

Opinion: ESM is designed to be a wheelchair for your elderly system: ESM is a commercial product that may keep your system active and safe long enough for you to carefully and deliberately migrate your complex enterprise workflow and custom services to a supported, thoroughly-tested new system. If you choose to use ESM for another purpose, that's entirely up to you. Most users do not need ESM, and should not view ESM as extended support (it's not).