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My Ubuntu 11.04 installation refuses to perform updates for the past month.

I decided to upgrade to 12.04 LTS. I have a separate partition for /home. How can I upgrade without losing my programs and data?

The update manager does not show anything as possible upgrade.

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    11.04 has reached End of Life about a month ago, which means no repositories and no updates. I'd suggest a clean install of 12.04 in place of 11.04, as upgrading 11.04->12.04 is unsupported, and likely won't work. Nov 28, 2012 at 8:32

4 Answers 4

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11.04 has reached End of Life about a month ago, which means no repositories and no updates. I'd suggest a clean install of 12.04 in place of 11.04, as upgrading 11.04->12.04 is unsupported, and likely won't work.

You can't keep the installed packages when reinstalling, but it's possible to save them into a list and reinstall afterwards, although some of the packages (like GDM or mono) won't be available or needed:

save to list

dpkg --get-selections > package_list

restore from list

cat package_list | sudo dpkg --set-selections && sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade

Info Source

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I finally solved the problem. The Update Manager at last proposed me to upgrade to 11.10 and through this I managed to update to 12.04 LTS, without losing any data or installed program. Now everything seems to work fine. Bye

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Unresolved Issues:

  • Unless you resolve the updates problem, for the currently installed release, is is not recommended to attempt to upgrade to the next release.

  • You can only upgrade from 11.04 to 12.04 LTS, by first upgrading to 11.10.


Strongly Suggest:

Backup all user data, critical settings, and list all installed software. Then do a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.


UPDATE:

It is possible that your update problem is a non-isue, and simply that there are no updates available. (as noted by @mikewhatever.)

You are still better off to do a fresh install.

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I don't believe upgrading will necessarily fix the problem you have with updating. Could you provide additional details in the form of errors, environment, specs etc. so that we can troubleshoot why you are unable to update?

To answer your question, to upgrade from 11.04 to 12.04 you can simply boot from the 12.04 CD or insert the CD while you are logged into your Ubuntu session. Ubuntu will recognise that you have 11.04 installed and offer to upgrade to 12.04, you will not lose any of your installed programs or data, one of the fantastic features of Ubuntu!

Having a separate /home partition is fine, you will not have any problems.

So either boot from the 12.04 CD and follow the install prompts or insert the 12.04 CD while you are logged in to proceed with the upgrade.

milo

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  • I didn't know it was possible to upgrade directly from 11.04 to 12.04. What's the source of that info? Nov 28, 2012 at 8:26
  • Here are two links for upgrading from CD: help.ubuntu.com/community/PreciseUpgrades and liberiangeek.net/2012/04/… For the first link scroll down to the following heading Upgrading Using the Alternate CD/DVD
    – kingmilo
    Nov 28, 2012 at 8:33
  • So, those links tell you how to go from 11.04 to 12.04 directly? Where exactly? And what does the Alternate ISO has to do with it? Nov 28, 2012 at 8:41
  • Nope, the links explain from 11.10 but the principal is the same. As you know the Alternate CD provides you with more install options than the Desktop install CD.
    – kingmilo
    Nov 28, 2012 at 8:46

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