Hello Linux Geeksters. The Canonical developers have announced yesterday that Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail will reach end of life (EOL) starting with the 27th of January 2014, meaning that Canonical will not create security updates for it.
Ubuntu 13.04 is the first Ubuntu release with 9 month support only (reaching EOL earlier than Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal). Also, Ubuntu Raring was the first Ubuntu system coming with Gnome 3 and Kylin (a special desktop environment for the chinese) flavors.
Since Ubuntu 12.10 has two year support and Ubuntu 13.04 only nine months, Canonical will create a server to show the direct upgrade as an available option, enabling the users to skip some Ubuntu version, released between Ubuntu 12.04 and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
So, when the users run the classical system upgrade command:
$ sudo do-release-upgrade
They will be able to jump from Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin directly to Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander or Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.