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Is it possible to upgrade for example from Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04 or even 10.10 to the latest version of Ubuntu (11.10 in this case). Am not asking to download the DVD/CD or to upgrade from one version to the other until you get to 11.10. I want to know if an older can upgrade from 9.10 directly to 11.10 or something like this.

And of course if yes or no, has this been thought about in any talks like a way to make it so that users have it easier to upgrade to the latest version in cases where it could not be done for a long time (Like moving around the world for 2 years with Ubuntu 9.10 and then coming home and looking at Unity in 11.10).

INFO - I know this 2 already exist:

How to upgrade effortlessly from Ubuntu 10.04 to Ubuntu 11.10 on the same machine

Is it possible to skip releases during an upgrade?

If the answer is still no, maybe more information about if any talks have been made to this kind of work or idea.

2 Answers 2

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As far as I know, upgrade only works from one version to the next, i.e. from 11.04 to 11.10 to 12.04. Also, it is possible to upgrade one LTS release to the next (10.04 to 12.04).

I think there are good reasons why upgrading works this way - the upgrade procedure is developed and tested against a system in a particular state (i.e. fully upgraded 11.04) so migration scripts have some idea what to expect.

It may be very tricky have a generic migration procedure which can upgrade from some arbitrary machine state without going through each intermediate step. I'm finding that even upgrading from a not fully upgraded Ubuntu N to Ubuntu N+1 tends not to work.

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  • Well you got a good point there about testing it in a particular state. Makes since for very big differences between distro versions. Or between distros for that matter. Oct 28, 2011 at 2:39
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You should be able to upgrade from one version to the next but I would recommend backing up your files and doing a fresh install. I have had it hit or miss on if the Ubuntu upgrade has gone smoothly.

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  • Making a fresh install to upgrade is "how things were in Linux 10 years ago". Distribution upgrade is a killer feature of Ubuntu, and it works well for many people. We need to popularize that :)
    – Sergey
    Oct 28, 2011 at 3:11
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    I am just saying that I have not had the best experience with it, its been hit or miss for me Oct 30, 2011 at 0:36

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