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I am running Ubuntu 20.10 on a machine which apparently would suffer audio issues with the 21.04 kernel. Now that 21.10 has been released, I'd like to upgrade directly from 20.10 to 21.10, but update-manager is offering to upgrade only to 21.04. I've tried following general instructions about updating to 20.10 as well as the generic upgrade instructions, both to no avail.

Is it possible to upgrade directly from 20.10 to 21.10 or must I upgrade via 21.04?

glyn
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    Does this answer your question? Can I skip over releases when upgrading? or How to install software or upgrade from an old unsupported release?. It's not recommended. Since 20.10 is past EOL, it's generally better to cleanly install a supported release. In the future don't let your OS go EOL. LTS releases are supported for 5 years, vs 9 months for standard releases. – Nmath Oct 19 '21 at 07:28
  • Download the image and take a backup of important data. Then check if the audio works properly with a live USB. Then perform a fresh install. – Archisman Panigrahi Oct 19 '21 at 07:28
  • Ubuntu 20.10 was only QA-tested to upgrade to 21.04; so you wish to go outside of supported or QA-tested upgrade procedures - it's up to you. FYI: In QA-testing I did do an upgrade via re-install or install using existing partition where I did a impish upgrade over a 20.10 desktop (Lubuntu/LXQt; 20.10 had just reached EOL & I thus didn't need it anymore) install without issue; so the upgrade via re-install option is always a choice. – guiverc Oct 19 '21 at 07:29
  • FYI: the upgrade via re-install or install using existing partition is an install type that means packages I had installed get re-installed automatically (if available for the new release from Ubuntu repositories) & no user file/config is touched. It allows me to use my selected (not installed by default on a Lubuntu/Xubuntu/Ubuntu..) mp3 player & have my music ready on the system without needing to backup/restore etc. Regardless you should still backup as it's easy to make a mistake with any installation (it allows you to re-install same release; later, backwards etc) – guiverc Oct 19 '21 at 07:37
  • @guiverc is upgrade via re-install or install using existing partition a new type of installation procedure? I hadn't seen it and can't find any recent information on it. It sounds like the ideal procedure for people like me who keep upgrading their system twice a year, yet would like to start afresh but don't want to reinstall their packages. – Jos Oct 19 '21 at 07:51
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    no @Jos; used to be an option you could see on (upgrade installation) ubiquity for some releases; but is just re-using your existing partitions (ie. something else, Manual Partitioning (calamares) or Manual (KDE-Qt skin on ubiquity) without any format selected - which triggers this install type. Lubuntu has used it as a testcase since using calamares (I recently documented it here - https://discourse.lubuntu.me/t/testing-checklist-understanding-the-testcases/2743 for Lubuntu; but it's not new as I've been using it since 11.04) .. it's easier on the new canary builds :) – guiverc Oct 19 '21 at 07:56
  • @namath You wrote "In the future don't let your OS go EOL." Generally, I agree, but please note I was avoiding a known issue and I didn't really want to install 21.04 and then upgrade the kernel. – glyn Oct 19 '21 at 10:23
  • @guiverc Thanks. I'm going to try upgrade via re-install and will report back. – glyn Oct 19 '21 at 10:36
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    I tried upgrade via re-install, but couldn't figure out the partitioning step without risking formatting my home directory, so I upgraded via 21.04 instead (which was pretty smooth). – glyn Oct 23 '21 at 08:04
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    Well done for getting the release-upgrade completed! Yeah, upgrade via re-install was an easy option on older ubiquity before getting hidden away (inside something-else), and thus isn't a widely used feature, but the plan is for the replacement installer to make it easier to use (ie. my mention of canary builds in prior comment - alas it's not working there yet; but it's planned to be there before 22.04) – guiverc Oct 23 '21 at 08:17

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