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I'm trying options to bring an old-ish Xubuntu 20.04LTS up to 22.04. This thing has had some problems that made me very wary of problems along the way, so I did a dry run just now.

  • Installed 20.04 LTS on an empty partition (without internet).
  • plugged internet back in
  • Booted into the new partition and did apt-get update and apt-get upgrade
  • So far so good
  • Tried a "do-release-upgrade" and it promptly told me to "install all available updates" and it quit.
  • I tried apt-get upgrade again and it told me it did not do anything, but 36 updates had been held back.

I did not do anything else. This all happened in the last hour, so it's not like I forgot one little thing along the way.

What's holding these back, and how do I undo it?

ForDummies
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  • If you've had 'problems on the way' then you should probably consider doing a clean install of 22.04. it's easier to do a clean install than install old and then upgrade – Thomas Ward Feb 25 '24 at 01:34
  • I have considered that, but the amount of configuration I would have to reconstruct is truly daunting. There's about 20 years of background... – ForDummies Feb 25 '24 at 01:45

1 Answers1

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I would suggest just doing a clean installation of 22.04 instead of trying to start old and then upgrade in place. A lot more can go wrong that way.

However, if you INSIST on doing this, then replace sudo apt upgrade with sudo apt dist-upgrade -y. This does not upgrade you to the next release of Ubuntu, but will install any packages that require other packages and dependencies to be updated or replaced as well and get you to the point of do-release-upgrade working.

I strongly recommend you try clean-installing 22.04 first though.

Thomas Ward
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  • THANK YOU! I can't say I understand why dist-upgrade works and plain upgrade does not, but it's true, and at least this test run was a success. Now on to fixing my system... Whatever I do next involves a whole lot of configuration stuff, and the path I'm choosing has the least known unknowns. – ForDummies Feb 25 '24 at 02:07
  • The apt dist-upgrade is closest to apt full-upgrade. If you read the man page (ie. man apt ) you'll read "full-upgrade performs the function of upgrade but will remove currently installed packages if this is needed to upgrade the system as a whole" ie. it catches what apt upgrade does not.. To read on dist-upgrade you'll need to read the man apt-get manual page; but it's performing an apt full-upgrade in apt terms... ie. "dist-upgrade in addition to performing the function of upgrade, also intelligently handles changing dependencies with new versions of packages" – guiverc Feb 25 '24 at 03:59
  • FYI: I'd personally use a unclean install so my manually installed packages re-installed automatically during a re-install of 22.04 as per my answer https://askubuntu.com/questions/1505594/how-to-revive-an-os-after-end-of-life/1505595#1505595 on an earlier/similar?? question you asked. – guiverc Feb 25 '24 at 04:02