Upgrade paths

Ubuntu supports the ability to upgrade from one LTS to the next LTS in sequential order. For instance, a user on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS can upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, but cannot jump directly to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. To do this, the user would need to upgrade twice from Ubuntu 16.04 to Ubuntu 20.04.

For a complete list of releases and current supporting status see the Ubuntu Wiki Releases page.

Upgrade checklist

• Check the release notes for the new release for any known issues or important changes.

• Fully update the current system. The upgrade process works best when the current system has all the latest updates installed. It is also suggested that users reboot the system after all the updates are applied to verify a user is running the latest kernel.

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt upgrade
    
  sudo reboot
  

• Users should check that there is sufficient free disk space for the upgrade. Systems with additional software installed may require a few gigabytes of disk space.

• The upgrade process takes time to complete, be patient.

• Third-party software repositories and PPAs are disabled during the upgrade. However, any software installed from these repositories is not removed or downgraded. Software installed from these repositories is the single most common cause of upgrade issues.

• Back up all data. Upgrades are normally safe, however, there is always the chance that something may go wrong.

Upgrade

It is recommended to upgrade the system using the do-release-upgrade command on server edition and cloud images. This command can handle system configuration changes that are sometimes needed between releases.

do-release-upgrade

To check for any available new versions to which you can upgrade, run the following command:

This will check Ubuntu’s servers for any available updates and informs you which version of Ubuntu you’ll be upgrading to.

To begin this process, run the following command:

Upgrading to a development release of Ubuntu is available using the -d flag:

sudo do-release-upgrade -d