Best method to upgrade Ubuntu

Replies

• 

  Abhishek Rawal

  Well, instability occurs when you upgrade the distro without purging the PPAs you've installed.For the safe & successful upgrade it is always preferred that all the applications which you've installed in the system are of the same version that is available in the Ubuntu's repository.
  
  Consider, In 12.04 the GIMP version of 2.6 is available in its repository but you added the PPA to enjoy the latest version of Gimp i.e. 2.8 ,So before the upgrade you have to Purge all the PPAs you have installed in the system & also uninstall all the applications that are not available in Ubuntu's repository.
  
  How to Purge PPAs ?
  
  Method 1 : Press "Ctrl+Alt+T" & Type
  

   sudo apt-get install ppa-purge 

  To remove the desired PPA, the syntax is something like this :
  

   sudo ppa-purge ppa:respository-name/subdirectory 

  For example If I wanna remove PPA for Gimp, it will look something like this :
  

   sudo ppa-purge ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp 

  This will Purge the PPA & will degrade the Application to the version equal to Ubuntu repository.
  
  This method is pain in butt when you've added 50's of PPAs !
  
  Alternate Method :
  Install application "Y-PPA-Manager". You've to add the PPA to install this application.
  Isn't it ironic that to purge the PPA you have to Add the PPA ?
  Anyways we have to do this for the ease !
  
  Open Terminal & Type :
  

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager 

  then,
  

   sudo apt-get update 

  Finally,
  

   sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager 

  This will install the application.
  
  Once Y-PPA-MANAGER is installed, Open it :
  
  
  Click on "Manage PPAs".In it there will be options like Remove,Update,Edit & Purge PPA. Click on PPA you wanna Purge & hit on "Purge PPA" :
  
  
  
  A terminal will pop & Purging process will begin !
  One by one purge all the PPAs, but still Y-PPA-MANAGER PPA won't be removed.
  So, to remove Y-PPA-MANAGER PPA, just use Method 1 to remove this PPA.
  
  Once done all this, run
  

   sudo apt-get update && upgrade 

  Let's Jump On Raring :
  Open Terminal & Type
  

   sudo do-release-upgrade -d 

  Your distro will be upgraded !
• 

  Kishan Gupta

  Thanks #-Link-Snipped-#. I will try this. I can understand now why it is best to install a fresh copy of Ubuntu then upgrading a old Ubuntu 😔..... It should be more easy to upgrade Ubuntu as in every 6 months they are releasing a new OS.
• 

  Abhishek Rawal

  #-Link-Snipped-# Adding PPAs means you're living in bleeding edge,you'll never know when something gets wrong & your distro gets crashed & pops bloody bug errors.PPA-Purge is life-saver in this time.
  
  Upgrading Ubuntu is extremely easy if you are not tweaking too much by customizing/modifying files,Adding custom files/scripts,running custom Kernel or whatever.
  Tweaking & customizing is fun in linux distros & thus a linux user should know how to revert the changes.
  
  BTW dealing with PPAs is very simple thing.
  Just learn the basics of How to Add,Remove,Edit & Purge PPAs using Terminal (& even manually).
  Sometimes Terminal fails to Purge but if you know how how to do it manually,it can be a big plus.
• 

  Kishan Gupta

  #-Link-Snipped-#, I have to learn lots of things yet. I will try this and let you know whether I successfully upgraded Ubuntu or not.
  
  One more thing here, I had removed Unity and currently using GNOME 3, should I need to install Unity again, for proper up-gradation?
• 

  Abhishek Rawal

  If you've installed GNOME using Gnome3 PPA in Ubuntu 12.10 then Yes you have to purge that Gnome3 PPA.