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I have just upgraded my Ubuntu 15.10 64 bit computer to 16.04. I was initially prompted to do this via a message under the Unity graphical front end but got the message Could not determine the upgrade. I looked though a few previous questions posted on this site and tried upgrading via these three commands:

sudo apt-get update –fix-missing
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo update-manager -d

However after doing all of this the 'About this computer' pull-down system window shows the operating system as still being 15.10 whereas the command (issued via a terminal):

lsb_release -a

shows that it is 16.04. Also, when I enter the command: 

unity --version

I get 7.3.3 and not 7.4 which, I understand, is supposed to be the updated version with Ubuntu 16.04. I ran Synaptic Package Manager but this says that that 7.3.3 is the most recent version. It appears that I can ask the Ubuntu Software Center to install Unity version 8 but I have not done this because I think that there may be an underlying problem.

In summary, it seems that I have a mix of 16.04 and 15.10 and if anyone can suggest how to resolve this I would be grateful.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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You can try:

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

sudo apt dist-upgrade

I think you should always try to avoid the '-d' argument as it refers to development releases and may bring instability

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  • Thanks - I tried the suggested commands. However, both sudo apt-get upgrade and sudo apt dist-upgrade produced the answer '0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 0 not to upgrade'. Clearly it thinks that the system is up-to date but 'about this computer' on the Unity interface still shows the operating system as 15.10 and up-to date whereas the command line shows it as 16.04
    – True_Grit
    Jun 5, 2016 at 20:15
  • Try sudo su, rm -rf /etc/grub.d, apt autoremove, apt autoclean, apt -f install, dpkg --configure -a, apt update, apt upgrade, apt dist-upgrade, apt autoremove, update-grub
    – rancho
    Jun 5, 2016 at 22:49
  • Thanks for then suggestion - I used the commands that suggested which all worked ok until the last: sudo update-grub
    – True_Grit
    Jun 9, 2016 at 18:41
  • Exactly what error are you getting
    – rancho
    Jun 9, 2016 at 18:46
  • Thanks - I used the commands suggested which all worked ok until the last: sudo update-grub which generated the error Script `/boot/grub/grub.cfg.new' contains no commands and will do nothing Syntax errors are detected in generated GRUB config file. I used the the boot-repair utility under Unity which generated the message Boot successfully repaired …. You may want to retry after creating a /boot partition (EXT4, >200MB, start of the disk). I rebooted the PC and this proceeded ok but the original error remained. Should I create a /boot partition (and a /home??)
    – True_Grit
    Jun 9, 2016 at 18:49
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While trying to recover from a failed upgrade from 16.04 to 16.10 using your method, the same thing happened here when I did upgrade-grub: I got the same error message : Script `/boot/grub/grub.cfg.new' contains no commands and will do nothing Syntax errors are detected in generated GRUB config file.

I discovered that the new grub.cfg file was still referencing the old kernel from 16.04, and my /etc/grub.d directory had been restored, but not populated! Fortunately, I had not shut down or restarted, and I had a backup of /etc. After replacing the contents of the directory, "update-grub" worked.

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