I went to the download page has two the first 18.04.3 LTS says 3 years LTS

the second is 19.01 and only for 9 months.

Are the desktops the same and why is the later only for 9 months?

Because that's the normal cycle length for Ubuntu. It seems to have lengthened; I remember when it was 6 months.

But one in every few releases is a long term support (LTS) release. This is for people who don't like having to upgrade constantly. LTS releases are maintained for a few years, until the next LTS release comes along. Bug and security fixes get back-ported to them.

The Linux kernel does the same thing btw.

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They do the Long Term Support (LTS) releases once every other year for the reasons mentioned. The in-between releases are done more to speed up the development process and give concrete goals on the way to the next LTS. The life-cycle for those is short so that they avoid wasting resources supporting the throw-away versions and can focus on advancing the distro. It seems to be a fairly good compromise.

One curious change coming up is that in addition to the normal 5-year LTS support planned for 20.04 LTS, there will be an extra 5-year extended support cycle for paying subscribers. That means 20.04 will be around for 10 years potentially. It signals some interesting changes in something behind the scenes but I am not sure what.

Speaking of change, I do hope that they start to clean house though and remove the microsofters that have gotten on the payroll. Their presence might explain why Canonical are so darn quiet about advertising Ubuntu in the face of the demise of Vista7. Worse, if they follow other companies with a similar problem, then the microsofters might be weaking Canonical for a buyout by M$.

Anyway, I digress. A new, 10-year LTS cycle signals some big changes inside the company. Who knows what though. If you're willing to file bug reports, 20.04 has some snapshots for download already. But if not, then wait for the release which is not until April.

That sounds ominous to me. What else are the paying subscribers going to get, I wonder, that the community won't get? Because people who hand over good money are going to want something extra for it.

There is also a well-known phenomenon (it probably has a name!) whereby "improvements" tend to depress the existing levels of service. For example, some years ago the UK Post Office introduced a first-class stamp, which would guarantee next-day delivery. Actually at the time, next-day delivery was not unusual for local post. It just wasn't guaranteed. But once an official first-class service existed, that service got next-day delivery and the (now) second-class service got steadily slower. Similarly when cheque cards were introduced to guarantee certain cheques, the result was that cheques presented without a card became worthless.

Every first release in an even year, so the next release will be a LTS one as that will be 20-04 (which means, released in april of 2020). The other 3 "in-between" ones are short-term, maintained only for about 8 to 9 months - that is until the next release plus a bit of overlap.

PS: ubuntu has a strict scheme of 2 releases every year, one in april (04) and one in october (10), so 19-10 is the current newest one, but not an LTS release.

The Ubuntu site with an explanation of the release cycle.

https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle

Yes have tried the latest 18.04 LTS and 19.10 has problems putting apps on the desktop. Then 18.04 does not make that easy either. I have made a Super Windows 10 from the LTS that can be seen at ginamiller.co.uk/superubuntu.php it has the normal desktop i think it is Gnome 3 and I have made another version with the cinnamon desktop.

I saw a video this morning about changing from Windows 7 to Linux and it recommended Linux Lite 4.10 I tried it and it is really good and I have made a Super Windows 10 with Lite 4.10. Taken all day to write it up but basically all it needs is to add the Windows 10 wallpaper you can see the result at ginamiller.co.uk/superlite.php

This is going to replace Linux Mint 19.3 as they have taken their eye of the ball leaving Gimp and VLC out. This distro is going to replace Mint as the beginners favourite OS I am sure.

Need to be added to the main list it is a great distro and it has the latest Gimp and VLC with a good selection on it's Menu.