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Today I got this message:

enter image description here

I clicked on settings and this screen appeared:

enter image description here

I changed the last line from:

  • Long term-support versions

to

  • Never

What would be the right thing to do?

WinEunuuchs2Unix
  • 102,282
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    You are asking for an opinion . Does 18.04 offer some feature you want not available in 16.04? Do you have a back up of your data? Have you read the release notes? Have you booted an 18.04 live usb to test your hardware? You might do your footwork forst. – Panther Aug 28 '18 at 04:33

1 Answers1

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Changing upgrade options to Never is a good idea so that you don't accidentally click the Upgrade button when you aren't prepared.

The first thing you should know is no backup is made when you upgrade. So you should perform a full system backup. You can buy a 16 GB, 32 GB or 64 GB USB Flash drive for this purpose at a reasonable price.

The second thing you should do is search on 18.04 above in the Ask Ubuntu Search Bar and see all the other users that are having problems after upgrading. Be forewarned! Pay special attention to software you use and if it is supported or not.

The third thing tp be aware of is the new Gnome interface on the horizon and that stated intentions that the Unity interface you are used to is about to dropped in the next two to five years (or perhaps longer). This is a good chance to get a Live USB with 18.04 on it and play with the new interface for a couple weeks / months to see if you like it.

The fourth thing you can do, assuming you can shrink Windows enough, or have enough empty disk space is create a partition to clone your 16.04 to and run the 18.04 upgrade on the clone. This could potentially save you $$$ and time learning ahead of time that something is broken. I've created a script just for this purpose: Bash script to clone Ubuntu to new partition for testing 18.04 LTS upgrade

I hope many people take care upgrading to 18.04 and test it thoroughly before making the leap because it's saddening to see those who unwittingly plunge into chaos.

I've upgraded 16.04 to 18.04 many times since late April 2018 and I must say it is getting better each time but I still use 16.04 as my go-to OS 99% of the time.

WinEunuuchs2Unix
  • 102,282
  • +1 if only for the clone-partion-and-upgrade advice. I did this on our home server because I was worried about the upgrade. As it happens, it went fine, but I now have a 16.04 install as a backup should I need it. Going forward, when 20.04 comes out, I'll clone the 18.04 install to the other partion, etc, etc (I don't buy hardware often). – Organic Marble Aug 28 '18 at 01:38
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    @OrganicMarble Today I was thinking of cloning 16.04, upgrading to 18.04 and then installing 16.04 over the cloned upgrade (without reformatting and erasing everything!) to see what needs to be done to downgrade 18.04 to 16.04 :) – WinEunuuchs2Unix Aug 28 '18 at 01:43
  • I usually play those games in virtual machines because the snapshot function comes in so handy. – Organic Marble Aug 28 '18 at 12:51