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YankeePride13 01-30-2013 10:11 AM

Ubuntu Release Upgrade Question
 
Hello,

Perhaps you guys can shed some light on this for me as it's a little confusing. So I have an Ubuntu 10.04 server that I would like to upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04. I see that there are a few ways I can do this:

1) apt-get dist-upgrade
2) do-release-upgrade
3) install the OS on a different machine and migrate the data over

The difference between options 1 and 2 are not clear to me. Some places say that dist-upgrade is for kernel updates, but I've run it once on a different box and it has actually upgraded my release (it was also 10.04->12.04). I just tried do-release-upgrade on a VM and it seems to do exactly what it says it will do. What are the differences?

My last question is to experienced sys admins out there. I was once told to never do a dist-upgrade or a do-release-upgrade as it is far more likely to break everything than to work. They always recommend installing the OS from scratch. What do you think?

snowday 01-30-2013 10:18 AM

You are mistaken about #1. 'apt-get dist-upgrade' is for upgrading your existing release, it does not upgrade you to a future release. (It can be used to do so, if you edit your sources.list first, but this is not the recommended Ubuntu method for some reason.)

Ubuntu is a somewhat buggy distro (including the upgrade mechanisms), and as a result many users experience failed upgrades. My experience on UbuntuForums is that the risk of failure is directly proportional to the amount of third-party software, PPA's, proprietary drivers/modules in use, etc. ("Vanilla" installs are most likely to successfully upgrade.) If it's a production machine, it's always prudent to test the upgrade on an identical spare machine.

YankeePride13 01-30-2013 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowpine (Post 4880763)
You are mistaken about #1. 'apt-get dist-upgrade' is for upgrading your existing release, it does not upgrade you to a future release. (It can be used to do so, if you edit your sources.list first, but this is not the recommended Ubuntu method for some reason.)

Ubuntu is a somewhat buggy distro (including the upgrade mechanisms), and as a result many users experience failed upgrades. My experience on UbuntuForums is that the risk of failure is directly proportional to the amount of third-party software, PPA's, proprietary drivers/modules in use, etc. ("Vanilla" installs are most likely to successfully upgrade.) If it's a production machine, it's always prudent to test the upgrade on an identical spare machine.

Ah, I see. I guess that the previous admin had updated the sources.list file on me on that server without mentioning it. I knew something was strange when it updated releases when I didn't expect it to (hence the confusion). Thanks!


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