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Will users of Ubuntu GNOME 17.04 be automatically upgraded to regular Ubuntu 17.10 when it's released?

Asking in light of all the recent news (discontinuing Ubuntu GNOME flavor, GNOME as default desktop in 17.10 & future releases).

Rebel
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  • No upgrades are not automatic. I HIGHLY ADVISE you read ALL the release notes first and strongly suggest testing a live 17.10 flash drive and fresh install due to the number of changes 17.10 brings. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/ReleaseNotes#Upgrading_from_Ubuntu_17.04 – Panther Oct 20 '17 at 01:47

3 Answers3

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Yes and No. No, this requires a specific 'yes I want to do the upgrade'. But yes, if you perform the upgrade, you will be upgraded to Ubuntu 17.10. There will be no Ubuntu-Gnome 17.10. See this blog post. If you are already using Ubuntu-Gnome 17.04, there are several guides about how to do this, and the basics are:

  1. Disable/remove all third party repositories.
  2. Run: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
  3. Reboot.
  4. Run: sudo do-release-upgrade
  5. Reinstall any needed third party repositories.

EDIT: removed -d after do-release-upgrade

David Foerster
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Charles Green
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    I believe the question was about what happens when doing what you describe here, as there will (probably?) not be a Ubuntu-Gnome 17.10 to upgrade to. I am just as curious myself! :) – leo Jul 01 '17 at 17:12
  • It will be interesting, as gnome becomes the default desktop. Perhaps Ubuntu-Gnome disappears? Currently in the daily builds at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/daily-live/20170701/ there is both Ubuntu, and Ubuntu-Gnome – Charles Green Jul 01 '17 at 17:34
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    So people are fully informed, the -d option upgrades Ubuntu to the latest devel-release (if possible). You might not want to do that if system stability matters to you. – authentictech Jul 17 '17 at 13:45
  • Just for your information: The upgrade process will disable third party repositories, but yeah, it doesn’t really hurt to be proactive. – dontbyteme Sep 14 '17 at 11:50
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    This doesn't seem to address the main issue. There will be no "ubuntu-gnome 17.10", so will do-release-upgrade upgrade to ubuntu 17.10? (with the ubuntu styling: a dock etc) will it upgrade to something that looks like ubuntu-gnome (ie a fairly vanilla gnome experience) or will it fail (since there is no 17.10)? – James K Sep 17 '17 at 18:27
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    @JamesK As far as I can tell, there is an Ubuntu-Gnome 17.10, but apparently it is identical to Ubuntu in 17.10 - the current available downloads for Ubuntu-Gnome are here – Charles Green Sep 17 '17 at 19:23
  • I would like to think the Ubuntu and Ubuntu Gnome flavours will be different. Mainly because Ubuntu is providing a modified version of Gnome in it's main release. The Ubuntu Gnome flavour uses vanilla Gnome which I would prefer (and currently using). – Sandeep Bansal Sep 21 '17 at 09:46
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    Just to add, I've just successfully "upgraded" using "update-manager -d" this upgraded me to the latest beta/test version of Ubuntu 17.10 and still uses the vanilla gnome experience. – Sandeep Bansal Sep 21 '17 at 12:35
  • I HIGHLY ADVISE you read ALL the release notes first and strongly suggest testing a live 17.10 flash drive and fresh install due to the number of changes 17.10 brings. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/ReleaseNotes#Upgrading_from_Ubuntu_17.04 – Panther Oct 20 '17 at 01:49
  • I HAVE UPDATED THIS ANSWER AND IT NO LONGER MENTIONS UBUNTU-GNOME 17.10 –  Dec 13 '17 at 01:40
  • What packages will be upgraded / removed ? I have highly customized system (I use i3gaps as WM) and don't want my packages to be removed - only upgraded. – Michal Przybylowicz Feb 20 '18 at 20:36
  • @MichalPrzybylowicz I don't think packages would be removed. I would strongly encourage you to test your setup in a VM prior to doing an upgrade, however. – Charles Green Feb 20 '18 at 23:05
  • @CharlesGreen I did the upgrade yesterday and during the process there is an information that packages will be adder / upgraded and removed. But there is an option to review what will be done. At some point user is presented with option to see more details by pressing the d key. I strongly recommend anyone to write the output of this command to a file - it will be easier to re-add removed apps. – Michal Przybylowicz Feb 21 '18 at 13:12
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The other answers on this thread are very old and were written based on outdated information. We now know thanks to a blog post on the Ubuntu GNOME blog that after 17.04 there will no longer be two separate Ubuntu flavors.

According to that post:

Next year, if you are using either Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 LTS, you will be prompted to upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. For normal release users, this upgrade should happen with the release of 17.10.

Meaning that users of both Ubuntu and Ubuntu GNOME will be placed into the same upgrade path.

Kyle Piira
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Unity will be discontinued, gnome will be the default desktop in 17.10 and on. Announcement from Canonical. And just as Charles said, updates will be like normal, with user input required.

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