{"id":388,"date":"2024-02-02T00:12:44","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T00:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serverhost.com\/blog\/vscode-ends-support-for-ubuntu-18-04-devs-express-discontent\/"},"modified":"2025-03-04T07:45:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T07:45:04","slug":"vscode-ends-support-for-ubuntu-18-04-devs-express-discontent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serverhost.com\/blog\/vscode-ends-support-for-ubuntu-18-04-devs-express-discontent\/","title":{"rendered":"VSCode Ends Support for Ubuntu 18.04: Devs Express Discontent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft Visual Studio Code<\/a> (VS Code) has discontinued support for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS \u2014 a decision resulting in problems<\/a> for numerous developers.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The ‘January 2024’ update (VS Code 1.86) has seen Microsoft raise the essential build requirements for the text editor’s widely used remote dev tools to \u2265glibc 2.28 \u2014 an upgrade which is incompatible with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS as it utilizes glibc 2.27, therefore, they can no longer function together.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Despite Canonical providing support to Ubuntu 18.04 until 2028 (through ESM), a significant glibc upgrade is not anticipated.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Consequently, this “breaking change” is genuinely disrupting workflows:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n

“Yeah this has completely screwed me. I have a number of older servers and I can\u2019t get into any of them now. The only way is for me to downgrade and never update VS Code. Doesn\u2019t seem like a good solution.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

~thekendog <\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I\u2019m neither a developer, nor someone super-familiar with VS Code\u2019s release cadence, and developers of any size supporting any software are entitled to stop supporting things if needed \u2014 it happens all the time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

But in this case, it sounds like it wasn’t handled well at all.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It seems affected developers were caught off-guard as this (rather impactful) change was not signposted before, during, or after the VS Code update (which is installed automatically for most, and<\/em> the update was pushed out to Ubuntu 18.04 machines).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Indeed, most only discovered this issue after the update was installed, they tried to connect to a remote server, and discovered it failed. The resulting error message does mention deprecation and links to an FAQ<\/a> on the VS Code website with workarounds (i.e. downgrade).<\/p>\n

But as one developer politely put it:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAn update like this, which is \u201cmajor\u201d IMHO, should have a security mechanism involved. It could have checked the libc versions and refused the update. Now, many people are screwed in the middle of their work. A lot of room for improvement here\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

~juxeii <\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All is not lost.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Two choices exist for those who desire to persist with VS Code; other word processors as well as remote development tools are also accessible:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n