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Hi My wife's laptop is running Ubuntu 12.04LTS and looking to update to latest 16.04 LTS, I have created a startup USB with latest iso file + performed data backup of the account :-

1) Can the system be updated directly from laptop downloads location OR does it need to be booted from USB ( SD card drive ?) to perform the update ?

2) The backup probably only contained account data and not any existing programs - when I do the system update - does the HD get erased and ONLY a system image installed i.e I lose all other programs ?

3) Is there a way to backup existing programs and re-install once the new system is installed?

4) Any other gotchas I need to prepare for ?

user68186
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George Archer
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1 Answers1

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One note - if you wait a month, you can get 18.04

  1. It's possible to boot the .iso and install from a hard drive but it's probably easier to use a USB. I've only managed to do it the first way on systems with more than one physical drive, and I had to edit some grub configuration files to do it.
  2. You are offered options when you do the install. Here is what the options screen looks like on a preliminary version of 18.04:

enter image description here

Note that as @user68186 mentioned in a comment, there is an option to "upgrade" while keeping your files and your programs "where possible". I personally haven't used this option.

  1. You can use aptik to back up the list of your installed programs and reinstall them.
  2. Make sure you have solid, tested backups of your data.
Organic Marble
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  • A few years ago the Ubuntu installer gave a choice to install while preserving data and programs if it found an older version of Ubuntu installed. I don't know if that is still the case. When I tried it, not all programs were preserved. So, backup is a must. – user68186 Mar 17 '18 at 13:22
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    @user68186 thanks for that comment. Since I always use "something else", I didn't read the other options carefully. Updating answer. – Organic Marble Mar 17 '18 at 14:03