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Currently I have Ubuntu 14.04 in my laptop and now I want to update it to 15.04. I have Windows 8 and Kali Linux along with my Ubuntu. How should I update my Ubuntu to 15.04 without losing my other operating systems. I was thinking of downloading Ubuntu 15.04 and then installing it over Ubuntu 14.04, instead of updating Ubuntu 14.04 via terminal or update manager. Will that be a good option?

(Moreover I cannot update my Ubuntu via terminal or update manager as I use internet through a proxy server which requires authentication. I asked about it in my previous question and none of the techniques given by others worked)

Thanks in advance :)

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Prashant Kumar
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    In any case, you can not upgrade directly from 14.04 to 15.04, you need to upgrade to 14.10 first. If you download the 15.04 ISO then you would need to do a backup of your improtant files and basically a fresh install. – xangua May 05 '15 at 17:54
  • so installing directly from the iso file of ubuntu 15.04 from a bootable pen-drive would create a problem? – Prashant Kumar May 05 '15 at 20:39
  • If using the iso, just do NOT select the option to install Ubuntu "along side" choose something else and select the partition but do NOT select to format the partition in order to keep the home directory, always make a backup first. – mchid May 13 '15 at 06:37
  • The problem would be that you will have to reinstall a lot the applications you have now and the system will be a fresh install. – mchid May 13 '15 at 06:41

2 Answers2

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Directly upgrade to Ubuntu 15.04 from 14.04 is not possible, but this does not mean that you can't do this. No USB sticks etc. needed. I do the update through SSH from remote PC :)

Note:

Please keep in mind, that all operations below should be completed under root permissions or sudo, as you are modifying system settings.

Before you upgrade, you need to install these upgrade helpers:

sudo apt-get install update-manager update-manager-core

After that, go to /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades file and change Prompt=lts to Prompt=normal. Make sure that meta-release file in same folder looks like this. If it isn't there, add it at the bottom of the file: 

[METARELEASE]
URI = http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release
URI_LTS = http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release-lts
URI_UNSTABLE_POSTFIX = -development
URI_PROPOSED_POSTFIX = -proposed

Upgrading from 14.04 to 15.04 will looks like this: 14.04 -> 14.10 -> reboot -> 15.04 -> reboot -> done

Here are the next steps:

  • execute do-release-upgrade -d in terminal
  • [follow screen instructions], reboot at the end. 14.10 will be installed
  • execute do-release-upgrade -d in terminal
  • [follow screen instructions], reboot at the end. 15.04 will be installed

Enjoy! :)

P.S. All data and software will be preserved. Also after the upgrade don't forget to update custom apt repositories, as they probably will be disabled for the upgrade period.

Daniel
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Reishin
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  • This worked for me, thanks. But in the end the X server would crash each time I logged in. I used orphaner (deborphan) to remove much cruft from the system, it looked like some old versions of some libraries had not be removed. I had to revert to the text console -- to run the orphaner utility. My guess is these were causes conflicts and caused X11 to crash. After removing these and rebooting all worked fine. – psiphi75 Jul 07 '15 at 10:08
  • It's working in one step now. – k_g Aug 08 '15 at 23:11
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    @psiphi75, It could also be that you should not use the -d command line option because that gives you a developer version! – Alexis Wilke Aug 30 '15 at 02:54
  • It appears that the upgrade paths changed, when running do-release-upgrade from a 14.04 installation it will upgrade to 15.04 instantly. However, this upgrade path is bugged. It will fail to install some systemd packages that prevent the server from booting normally, so be very cautious when doing this upgrade. Also see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/init-system-helpers/+bug/1509816 – Oldskool Jan 12 '16 at 10:31
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It is best to download the ISO from Ubuntu website and create a live USB with it using UNetbootin. Then while booting from USB you will be given an option to upgrade. This will preserve your data.

Edit: As pointed out below, you will have to first update to 14.10 to upgrade to 15.04, but you can follow the same strategy.

Ron
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    Hold on, you're saying that this preserves data. I had the option to upgrade directly to 15.04 from 14.04 via USB, not from the desktop. Is it really necessary to upgrade to 14.10 first? – SNH Jun 17 '15 at 21:58