How long will VirtualBox 5.1.x be supported?

[Vsevolod-linuxoid]

VirtualBox 5.0.40 was released on April 29, 2017. VirtualBox 5.1.0 was released on July 12, 2016.

That is, the support for the 5.0.x series was slightly less than a year after the release of 5.1.x.

Recently released a series of VirtualBox 5.2.x - how long will support the 5.1.x series after that? I certainly tried to google, but for some reason I could not find the info.

And which one is better to use, if new features are not particularly needed, but more important is the quality of work: 5.2.x or 5.1.x?

P.S. Sorry if my English is not very good: it is not my native language.

[mpack]

Does it matter how long support lasts? I assume you don't have a support contract, so for you support always last 0 (seconds, days, years - makes no difference).

I would just install 5.2.0 as I'm not aware of any huge reason why not.

[Vsevolod-linuxoid]

To mpack

5.1.x in development for about a year, and 5.2.x came out a couple of days ago. Therefore, 5.1.x has fewer uncorrected bugs. The only question is whether the bugs will continue to be corrected in the near future. Of course, I will go to 5.2.x when it is sufficiently tested.

[mpack]

Therefore, 5.1.x has fewer uncorrected bugs

On the other hand, 5.2.0 is a direct development of the late 5.1.x codebase AND has just been through a longish beta program.

5.2.0 is a minor version increment. If it was VirtualBox 6.x then perhaps I'd wait and see. AFAIK the main changes in 5.2.0 are cosmetic, mostly having to do with the front end. The VM itself has changed very little.

The decision about what numbering to give a new release is often dictated by marketing, not by engineering. Would you have been less concerned if the new release had been called 5.1.32? I prefer not to be distracted by such things: I regard 5.2.0 as a simple continuation of the last 5.1.x releases, based on what changes were involved. It is not akin to a rewrite.

If you don't trust me then you could take a look at the build numbers, which kind of tells you the internal version numbering used by the devs. The 5.2.0 release is build #118431. The 5.1.30 release is build #118389. The 5.1.26 release was #117224, so judging by the build numbers the change from 5.1.26 to 5.1.30 is bigger than the change from 5.1.30 to 5.2.0.

[Vsevolod-linuxoid]

AFAIK the main changes in 5.2.0 are cosmetic, mostly having to do with the front end. The VM itself has changed very little.

Unfortunately, I have problems exactly with the front end on my Debian 8 gnome. But this is a topic for the new post, that I will create tomorrow as soon as I can publish URLs.

Thank you for help!

[mpack]

But this is a topic for the new post

Actually, feedback for 5.2.0 should be posted in the existing Discuss the 5.2.0 Release topic.