In this article I will show you how to upgrade your Ubuntu 18.04 to 19.10 bypassing the minor upgrade to 18.10. As a bonus, we will also upgrade the kernel to version 5.5.4, which contains the following improvements:
- High-performance asynchronous I/O
- Use persistent memory as RAM
- Live patching: support cumulative patches
- Intel HDCP 2.2 support
- Better protection against Spectre vulnerability variations
And here is a short list of what's new added to Ubuntu 19.10:
- Better and faster GNOME 3.32 Desktop
- New Icons and Visual Tweaks
- Night Light Improvements
- Application Permission Controls
It's not possible to upgrade Ubuntu 16.x or older directly to 19.x, you have to upgrade it to the latest available lts release, which is 18.04. Perform the following steps to upgrade Ubuntu from one lts release to another, for example from 16.04 to 18.04:
# Update packages list
sudo apt-get update
# Upgrade packages
sudo apt-get upgrade
# Install update-manager-core package
sudo apt-get install update-manager-core
# Upgrade distro
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
# Update Ubuntu
sudo do-release-upgrade
To upgrade Ubuntu to non-lts release (like 19.10 or 19.10) some additional steps required:
# Update packages list
sudo apt-get update
# Upgrade packages
sudo apt-get upgrade
# Install update-manager-core package
sudo apt-get install update-manager-core
# Upgrade distro
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
# Change default branch from lts to normal
sudo sed -i 's/lts/normal/g' /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades
# Change default distro from your current
# 18.04 - bionic
# to
# 19.04 - disco
# 19.10 - eoan - latest
# in the example below we are upgraing from ubuntu 18.04 (bionic) to 19.10 (eoan)
sudo sed -i 's/bionic/eoan/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
# Update packages list
sudo apt-get update
# Upgrade packages
sudo apt-get upgrade
# Run full upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
# If any error re-run
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
# Run cleanup
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get clean
# Reboot the system
sudo shutdown -r now
To Upgrade Ubuntu kernel to the latest 5.5.4 build, follow the steps:
# Change current directory to /tmp
cd /tmp/
# Download new kernel
# if links below won't work, go to https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.5.4
# and get new ones for your system, typically amd64
wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.5.4/linux-headers-5.5.4-050504_5.5.4-050504.202002150446_all.deb
wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.5.4/linux-headers-5.5.4-050504-generic_5.5.4-050504.202002150446_amd64.deb
wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.5.4/linux-image-unsigned-5.5.4-050504-generic_5.5.4-050504.202002150446_amd64.deb
wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.5.4/linux-modules-5.5.4-050504-generic_5.5.4-050504.202002150446_amd64.deb
# Install new kernel
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
# Reboot the system
sudo shutdown -r now
# Update packages list
sudo apt-get update
# Upgrade packages
sudo apt-get upgrade
# Reboot the system if needed
sudo shutdown -r now
# Check the OS distro
lsb_release -a
# Check the kernel version
uname -r
That's it, now you should be running on the latest best-looking Ubuntu 19.10 and most secure 5.5.4 Linux Kernel.