How a Microsoft Update Broke VS Code Editor on Ubuntu

Microsoft's Visual Studio Code editor now includes a voice command that launches GitHub Copilot Chat just by saying 'Hey Code.'

But one Linux blog notes that the editor has suddenly stopped supporting Ubuntu 18.04 LTS — 'a move causing issues for scores of developers.'

VS Code 1.86 (aka the 'January 2024' update) saw Microsoft bump the minimum build requirements for the text editor's popular remote dev tools to â¥glibc 2.28 — but Ubuntu 18.04 LTS uses glibc 2.27, ergo they no longer work.

While Ubuntu 18.04 is supported by Canonical until 2028 (through ESM) a major glibc upgrade is unlikely. Thus, this 'breaking change' is truly breaking workflows...

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 the update was pushed out to Ubuntu 18.04 machines). Indeed, most only discovered this issue after 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 on the VS Code website with workarounds (i.e. downgrade).

But as one developer politely put it.... 'It could have checked the libc versions and refused the update. Now, many people are screwed in the middle of their work.'

The article points out an upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS will address the problem. On GitHub a Microsoft engineer posted additional options from VS Code's documentation:

If you are unable to upgrade your Linux distribution, the recommended alternative is to use our web client. If you would like to use the desktop version, then you can download the VS Code release 1.85. Depending on your platform, make sure to disable updates to stay on that version.
Microsoft then locked the thread on GitHub as 'too heated' and limited conversation to just collaborators.

In a related thread someone suggested installing VS Code's Flatpak, which was still on version 1.85 — and then disabling updates. But soon Microsoft had locked that thread as well as 'too heated,' again limiting conversation to collaborators.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.