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I am using Ubuntu 12.04. I wish to upgrade it to 14.04.

My current partitions are - enter image description here

I want to upgrade without wiping out my data. What should be the appropriate partitions ? I have a 14.04 iso image with me.

EDIT - I am not getting the option to upgrade while booting via USB. Other two options are to install in along side or erasing and installing a fresh 14.04. Is it anything I can do to upgrade , without erasing? If no, please suggest me some partition examples so that I can partition my space right now and then erase only the required space.

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  • You won't need to touch your partitions while upgrading. Just boot from the 14.04 ISO and you'll be presented with an "upgrade 12.04 to 14.04" option. It will go ahead and upgrade your system, keeping all your files and applications after the upgrade.
    – Alaa Ali
    Aug 23, 2014 at 22:09
  • Oh that's cool then. Also, can you give in suggestions for what is the preferred partitioning scheme, if any.
    – iamkhush
    Aug 23, 2014 at 22:11
  • Yeah, apparently that upgrade option was in the "alternate CD", but that has been discontinued. Look at sbergeron's answer. Before doing that though, please expand /dev/sda4 to show the partitions under it in your GParted and post a screenshot.
    – Alaa Ali
    Aug 23, 2014 at 23:45
  • Also, there is no "preferred partitioning scheme". The most "basic" scheme is a root partition (/, size maybe 80 GB if you don't install games), a swap partition (usually the size of your RAM), and then the rest is whatever you want: make it your home partition, make it another normal partition for data, make it an NFTS partition so that it can be accessed from Windows.
    – Alaa Ali
    Aug 23, 2014 at 23:48
  • @AlaaAli - Thanks. If I partition /, into say 200 GB and rest in /media, it shouldnt cause any trouble while booting or anything , right? Also, I see there is a boot flag. This will be in / partition and not in /media, right?
    – iamkhush
    Aug 24, 2014 at 8:37

2 Answers 2

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If you need absolutely to do it from the liveusb then choose something else then select that large partition as the root partition / and use the same username and password and it should just save your home folder and documents, but it will not retain packages in any way reliably.

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  • if you want to save packages you can use dpkg-repack (look it up, I think there is an ubuntuforums entry on google) to save the packages you want and install them later
    – sbergeron
    Aug 24, 2014 at 15:01
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If you have internet then go into a terminal and run sudo do-release-upgrade and it will upgrade from 12.04 to 14.04.1 or whatever the latest update is with no data loss or changed settings.

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  • Thanks, but I remember it takes a lot of time. I have a 1Mbps broadband. That is why I have downloaded the ISO. I'll probably make a bootable flash drive then and start. I was wondering should I partition the disk? Does it make things read quickly ? If so, how should I do it?
    – iamkhush
    Aug 23, 2014 at 22:15
  • @iamkhush you have plenty of free space - so when you boot from the flash drive, it should give an option to upgrade. That option will retain your existing partition layout.
    – muru
    Aug 23, 2014 at 22:18
  • overall using an upgrade from the command line is faster even over that speed than upgrading all the packages from a new install
    – sbergeron
    Aug 23, 2014 at 22:51
  • Backup - as in do you have one? Just in case? Aug 23, 2014 at 22:52
  • sudo do-release-upgrade gives me result No new release found
    – iamkhush
    Aug 24, 2014 at 8:16

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