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Will the upgrade process work all the way from 12.04.1 lts 64 bit to 18.04 lts, or is it better to back up and install 18.04 lts from an iso?

thanks...

user996910
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    Obviously a fresh install is needed. – Pilot6 Sep 17 '19 at 19:55
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    If you want to upgrade, the path will be 12.04->14.04->16.04->18.04. So it's better to have a clean install to avoid that many hassles – Kulfy Sep 17 '19 at 19:58
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    Thanks, much appreciated. I am downloading it now. joe – user996910 Sep 17 '19 at 20:49
  • You can do it the hard way and end up with a lot of errors and have to do a clean install, or just backup and save yourself a lot of work. – crip659 Sep 17 '19 at 20:49
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    If it were me, I'd backup your data, then re-install from the 18.04 LTS ISO using 'something-else' and ensuring I didn't format the partitions but re-used existing. This takes note of your added software packages, wipes system directories, installs, re-adds back added software & reboots without touching user data (unless you had format ticked!) It allows you to 'skip' upgrades because it's a re-install but this way allows most of your additional software to be re-installed automatically (if from Ubuntu repos) – guiverc Sep 17 '19 at 22:10

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Most folks would suggest backing up and verifying your data (twice, or more) and then wiping the hard drive including 12.04 and installing 18.04. I feel it will be quicker and less troublesome.

A key point is, was your 12.04 install 32-bit or 64-bit? If it was 32-bit, you have no choice but backup-verify, backup-verify, erase, and install anew. Run uname -i to check; if you see x86-64 you have 64-bit. If you see i686 or i386, you have 32-bit.

It may work, if you upgrade
from 12.04 64-bit to 14.04 64-bit, then
from 14.04 64-bit to 16.04 64-bit, then
from 16.04 64-bit to 18.04 64-bit.

Ref: https://askubuntu.com/a/1055003/197910 and https://askubuntu.com/a/47812/197910

K7AAY
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    Are you sure this will work? Both 12.04 and 14.04 have reached the end of their lives. That means one cannot get the latest updates for 12.04 which is a prerequisite step before distribution upgrade to 14.04. Second, Ubuntu 14.04 reached end of life in May 1, 2019 which means the 14.04 repositories have been moved to archives. Which in turn means when the distribution upgrade is started, the process may try to connect to 14.04 repositories that do not exist in the expected location. – user68186 Sep 17 '19 at 22:01
  • @user68186 I must rely on the sources above, as I've never let a system get that far out of date. – K7AAY Sep 18 '19 at 15:22
  • The "resources above" may be too old. – Pilot6 Sep 18 '19 at 15:25
  • I have to agree with @Pilot6. I have no first hand experience with out of date versions either. The first source specifically changes repository location to old releases archive with a sed command. I have no idea if this "trick" will work or not, but surely without something like it, the upgrade will fail. The link points to upgrading from CD-ROM using gksu which is deprecated and I didn't find any shell script called cdromupgrade in the desktop 18.04 ISO. There is no "Alternate CD" for Ubuntu anymore. – user68186 Sep 18 '19 at 15:38