Upgrade 22.04 to 24.04 using Live "CD"

[jbygden]

I have 22.04 LTS on a machine and I have 24.04 LTS on a USB-drive.
Can I somehow upgrade 22.04 to 24.04 using the USB-drive so I can do some initial tests before the scheduled August 24.04.1 release?

[MAFoElffen]

Are these "initial tests" on a VM or Physical (on your daily driver)? Please answer that question. That does matter in how I answer this.

Not recommended for the general public, but there "are" several ways, that are unofficial and have 'risks'.

But if for just "tests", which I would suggest doing those tests on a VM... I could share those with you.

[yancek]

Doesn't make much sense to upgrade 22.04 to 24.04 to do tests. What do you do if the tests you do are not positive and you decide to not upgrade to 24.04. Not a simple task to go back to 22.04. Use virtual software as suggested or test with the 'live' install version of24.04 on the usb or boot the 24.04 iso from the hard drive, the 22.04 filesystem from Grub and test that way. Just put an entry in the 22.04 grub.cfg file to boot the iso, save the change and reboot. When you have finished your tests, just delete the entry for 24.04 in grub.cfg.

[MAFoElffen]

Doesn't make much sense to upgrade 22.04 to 24.04 to do tests.

For production servers, you do test migrations in a test environment, to see what the challenges will be in your migrations.

So, in that respect, it does make sense... It would take time to make plans for that. But that purpose is not confirmed.

Though: If this is found to be for personal on physical, then there will be no explanation given that will put that at risk.

[jbygden]

We have some 50+ 22.04 laptops in production at the moment.
There are some applications, both proprietary and publicly available that I need to test before the August release. If you don't understand the need for this, then I can't help you. You clearly don't work in an enterprise environment then...
I could just wipe and re-install the machine I want to test in, but if there is a working upgrade I'd rather do that.

[jbygden]

Are these "initial tests" on a VM or Physical (on your daily driver)? Please answer that question. That does matter in how I answer this.

Not recommended for the general public, but there "are" several ways, that are unofficial and have 'risks'.

But if for just "tests", which I would suggest doing those tests on a VM... I could share those with you.

It's a physical machine, but not my daily driver.

[guiverc]

The Upgrades doc for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is available at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NobleUpgrades

The ISO is intended for new installs, and whilst non-destructive re-installs have been available for prior releases, some problems appeared with it with the `ubuntu-desktop-installer` for 24.04 during the QA, thus a FORMAT is forced in that circumstance preventing a non-destructive (or unclean) re-install and forcing a clean install. The forced format is visible during install, in that you cannot uncheck the format box (thus non-destructive install isn't possible).

The plan is the fix this install issue, though new install media won't be provided (outside of normal .1, .2 etc ISOs), but as the installer is a snap package, the installer can upgrade itself & thus have that feature appear when its available. No date on when that will appear has been provided.

Upgrades are not intended to be provided for via USB/FLASH media; but using the internet.

[jbygden]

The Upgrades doc for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is available at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NobleUpgrades

The ISO is intended for new installs, and whilst non-destructive re-installs have been available for prior releases, some problems appeared with it with the `ubuntu-desktop-installer` for 24.04 during the QA, thus a FORMAT is forced in that circumstance preventing a non-destructive (or unclean) re-install and forcing a clean install. The forced format is visible during install, in that you cannot uncheck the format box (thus non-destructive install isn't possible).

The plan is the fix this install issue, though new install media won't be provided (outside of normal .1, .2 etc ISOs), but as the installer is a snap package, the installer can upgrade itself & thus have that feature appear when its available. No date on when that will appear has been provided.

Upgrades are not intended to be provided for via USB/FLASH media; but using the internet.

Yeah, well, the recommended (and apparently only supported?) way won't be available for 3 months, and I'd like to be able to do some tests before GA of the upgrade procedure.

It would seem I'd have to do "nuke-and-pave"-style re-install to be able to test then...

[MAFoElffen]

Any method I suggested until that is worked out, would not be the 'do-release-upgrade' path that you would need to test the results of... So yes, for your tests, you would need to wait until that release upgrade (path) procedure is released.

Otherwise, you would be comparing apples to oranges. You would be doing tests on something that doesn't exist yet.

You can get there, to 24.04 from 22.04 a few ways, through a 'debian release upgrade method' suggested as an alternative in the Ubuntu Server Guide... But there are risks and problems with making the jump from those, as that technique uses modifications of the sources.list, which between those two releases, the format of those files and where they are located, changes. Not to say it doesn't still work, but there are further things you would need to do.

Also, you are talking about Desktop Edition, and not Server Edition, where there are more changes, than just to the Core system.

Again, even with those understandings, the results of your tests would be on evaluating 24.04 as a system, not on the release upgrade path, so your results would be off.

Sorry. We are just volunteers here who share our experience with other Users. We do not work for, nor represent Canonical, so we have no control over when then are released, nor written.

With Production Servers, "we" (IT Professionals) do things differently. We do NOT do release upgrades. We do Release Migrations- Where you install fresh, install the services it had, migrate the configurations and data (and adapt them to any changes) to the machine. Then test the results to verify the installation. Everything is in place to do that, and to test that process. That way, you do not carry over anything that is cruff and not needed. It is more like being on a new/fresh install, without any of the risks and problems of a release upgrade process.

When I was in a position similar to yours years ago, we standardized our configurations, and tweaked our configuration management. We did our release upgrades of our laptops and desktops by using our network to deploy new images to our machines. Personal and local data, was isolated from the OS, which made maintenance, disaster recovery, and upgrades easier.

[jbygden]

"Nuke-and-pave" it is then...
Hopefully I'll get to test the upgrade before my users...