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I have tried upgrading in the past with zero success doing a backup of stuff and futilely attempting to enter my stuff into the new version. My email accounts and folders, my bookmarks and web browser info and of course my photos. In the past I have received messages that the back up files were done using version XXX and cannot be read by the new system, as an example.

I need a hand-holding tutorial to go from 11.04 to 12.10. What are the actual step by step mechanics?

Frustrated Non-Geek

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The easiest way is to actually just make a backup image of your entire Ubuntu partition. This way if anything goes wrong you have a perfect backup you can restore from to get back to square one. What I recommend:

  1. Boot from a LiveCD/USB of Ubuntu

  2. Plug an External HardDrive in that has more FreeSpace than the size of your Ubuntu partition.

  3. Open "Disc Utility" and find your Ubuntu partition, take note of it's location (ex: /dev/sda2)

  4. Open a Terminal Window and perform the following command(Replace Brackets with needed info):

    sudo dd if=/dev/[UBUNTU PARTITION LOCATION] of=/media/[EXTERNAL DRIVE]/UbuntuBackup.dd bs=1M
    

    Now just wait for it to finish copying the partition. This will take awhile but you can check progress by opening Nautilus and checking on 'UbuntuBackup.dd's file size.

  5. Now that you've Backed up Everything, Boot into your Ubuntu and you can do the lengthy process of upgrading to 12.10 by changing Update Manager's Settings so it checks for any new version.

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  • dd isn't reliabe if executed from a running Ubuntu session. Files that are currently being accessed don't get copied correctly. A better method would be to either execute dd from a live session or to use Clonezilla, which offers more advanced disk imaging settings. Dec 2, 2012 at 16:54
  • You're right. I completely forgot, was in a rush at the time. Fixing it now.
    – japzone
    Dec 2, 2012 at 18:50

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