EOL Upgrade Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS (Bionic Beaver)

Question

I would like to upgrade my Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS (Bionic Beaver) to latest/greatest version because the current one is going to be EOL in May 2023. Any one done this upgrade please provide the steps.

However I tried upgrade my server using below command but it says my current OS is not LTS and I need to try to non-LTS. What is wrong?

sudo do-release-upgrade -d

You should run these commands in order: sudo apt update, sudo apt full-upgrade and then sudo do-release-upgrade (do NOT use the -d option). Please provide output for each in your question. Thanks. — Artur Meinild, May 09 '23 at 07:13
Also in any case, make sure you have a backup of your important data - just because... — Artur Meinild, May 09 '23 at 07:14
Did you look at any of the release announcements or upgrade instructions, ie. most have this (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FocalUpgrades) and other links which outline the procedure (note: that link isn't all I'd read as others provide troubleshooting & other use-case scenarios). — guiverc, May 09 '23 at 07:16
The -d option is used to release-upgrade to the development release; ie. from 23.04 to the current mantic release - thus it's not a release-upgrade you currently have available to you. Your usage of -d is a user error. — guiverc, May 09 '23 at 07:17
Does this answer your question? How do I know what version `do-release-upgrade` will upgrade to? — guiverc, May 09 '23 at 07:18
FYI: If you found some really old documentation that said to use -d for the upgrade from 18.04 to 20.04, that only applied until 20.04.1 was released (ie. before https://fridge.ubuntu.com/2020/08/06/ubuntu-20-04-1-lts-released/) as the development status for the upgrade was removed [days after that release actually]. Ubuntu 20.04 is currently at 20.04.6 — guiverc, May 09 '23 at 07:26
Does this answer your question? Can I smoothly upgrade from one LTS to next LTS release? — karel, May 09 '23 at 10:23
Does this answer your question? Can I skip over releases when upgrading? — guiverc, May 31 '23 at 23:31

Artur Meinild · Answer 1 · 2023-05-09T07:30:47.050

You should normally not use the -d option with do-release-upgrade.

Let's check the man page:

 -d, --devel-release
        If using the latest supported release, upgrade to the development release

The -d option should only be used when you are on the latest supported release (at this time Ubuntu 23.04), and want to upgrade to the next development release. In addition, the -d option will also be relevant right after the release of a new LTS version (say when Ubuntu 24.04 is released), and you want to upgrade an existing 22.04 version before the first point release (24.04.1) unlocks the LTS upgrade window (usually in August) - but this should be considered an advanced usecase.

Instead, you can use the -c option to check which version you will upgrade to:

 -c, --check-dist-upgrade-only
        Check only if a new distribution release is available and report the result via the exit code

So to verify the upgrade path run:

do-release-upgrade -c

Afterwards, perform a normal upgrade command with no options:

sudo do-release-upgrade

EOL Upgrade Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS (Bionic Beaver)

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