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I've understood that when I run the Software Updater GUI program, or when I execute do-release-upgrade on the command line, it should offer to upgrade to the latest LTS release if (1) I've got the release update behaviour set to lts, and (2) if the first point release of a newer LTS release is available.

I have a couple of machines running the Xubuntu LTS release 18.04. The contents of file etc/update-manager/release-upgrades on all these machines is

[DEFAULT]
Prompt=lts

That satisfies condition (1). Also, it seems that Xubuntu 20.04.1 is already released, satisfying condition (2). However, neither do-release-upgrade nor the Software Updater offers to upgrade to that release. Why?

Edited to add: It seems this question is a duplicate of "Why isn't an upgrade to 20.04 from 18.04 available yet?".

Teemu Leisti
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4 Answers4

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  1. The Ubuntu Release Team has delayed point releases in the past to ensure a safe transition for the largest number of folks.

  2. In this case, 20.04.1's release took place on a Thursday. The Release Team has historically been (understandably) reluctant to enable upgrades for millions of machines right before they leave for the weekend.

  3. Some systems cannot be upgraded quite yet due to blocking bugs

user535733
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  • I understand the reasoning of your point 2, but not points 1 and 3. Isn't the expected delay the one between the XX.YY and XX.YY.1 releases, and should the XX.YY.1 release not be the one that fixes any bugs that block upgrades from a previous release? Once XX.YY.1 is released, isn't it frozen? That is, if there are any blocking bugs in XX.YY.1, then should users not delay upgrading until a new point release, XX.YY.2, that fixes those bugs? – Teemu Leisti Aug 11 '20 at 08:25
  • @TeemuLeisti Ubuntu uses scheduled releases that generally occur six months apart. A critical bug blocking a release will not wait six months for the next scheduled release. – user535733 Aug 11 '20 at 11:47
  • OK, so does that mean that sometimes release XX.YY.1.0 is not considered an LTS release that do-release-upgrade will offer to upgrade to (without the use of the -d switch), but instead some later release XX.YY.1.n, where n > 0, might be? – Teemu Leisti Aug 11 '20 at 13:03
  • @TeemuLeisti only LTS releases have subsequent point releases. Migration from 18.04.x to 20.04 (April release) requires the -d flag because normal upgrade path for LTS is not opened until 20.04.1. It is standard for LTS-to-LTS migration to wait until XX.YY.1. Since it only occurs every two years, folks forget. – user535733 Aug 11 '20 at 14:10
  • OK, but I wasn't asking about the difference between XX.YY.1 and XX.YY.2, but rather XX.YY.1.0 (or whatever the version naming convention for the fourth level is) and XX.YY.1.n. My tentative reasoning is that since it seems that the first point release's first version, XX.YY.1.0, might not be of sufficient quality to be visible to do-release-upgrade (without using the -d flag), then it must be that the first visible version is XX.YY.1.n, where n > 0? – Teemu Leisti Aug 12 '20 at 13:07
  • To clarify: it seems I already have a version of Xubuntu 20.04.1, installed by commanding do-release-upgrade -d, as command hostnamectl on my machine outputs Operating System: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS. There must therefore be at least one version of 20.04.1 available for download. Since we're expecting a later, better version to be offered as an upgrade target when one commands do-release-upgrade (without switches), that must be a bugfix version? (I tried googling for information about how the Ubuntu releases work, and how they use bugfix versioning, but didn't find anything.) – Teemu Leisti Aug 12 '20 at 13:41
  • @TeemuLeisti When the Blocking Bugs are resolved, the fixes will go out to all Ubuntu systems that already have 20.04.1 installed via normal apt update. Your current 20.04.1 will be identical to a newly do-release-upgraded 20.04.1. The link to those Blocking Bugs is in paragraph 3 of the answer. – user535733 Aug 12 '20 at 14:56
  • Thanks for your patience with my questions. I'll mark this answer as accepted. – Teemu Leisti Aug 12 '20 at 16:40
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  • Was the first answer to this question to point at literally what blocks upgrade enablement. Thank you.
    • – Traveler Aug 13 '20 at 16:39
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    There is a lot of truth to this answer. I forced an upgrade a couple of days ago after the point release and it did not go well. It upgraded, but then applications started uninstalling when I was running apt upgrade and it killed my system. I ended up clean installing my system, but I am even seeing bugs as is. So, it is best still to wait which is what I am going to do with my other 18.04 LTS system. – Terrance Aug 13 '20 at 23:34