How to upgrade from a CD to 10.04

Please first test all functionality (wireless, sound, etc....) in the Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition LiveCD session before installing it. Please make sure to NOT delete (and do NOT format) the partition containing your /home directory. Also make a back up of your personal data before installing Ubuntu 10.04 (if you decide on doing that).

In the disk partitioning tool (at the beginning of the installation process on the LiveCD), you have the option to do "custom partitioning". Choose that. Then it will show the list of partitions on your harddisk. Make sure the "format" checkbox is NOT activated/checked for the partition containing your /home directory.

I will now give 2 examples of manual partitioning scenario's:

The first example is one where you only have one partition that contains both the /home and / (root) partition.

Using the mount command in a Terminal in Ubuntu, you can see which partitions are mapped to which mount points (=specific subdirectories in your filesystem):

In the example below, the partition /dev/sda5 is mapped to the root (/) directory. In the mount list below, there is no other partition defined that could be linked to /home. So /dev/sda5 is linked to the / directory which contains your /home partition. In this case, /home is a subdirectory of the root directory (/) which are both on the same partition.
So in this case, make sure the manual partitioner does NOT format the /dev/sda5 partition!

$ mount
/dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
/dev/sda1 on /media/sda1 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
/dev/sda2 on /media/sda2 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
/dev/sda3 on /media/sda3 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
$

In the next example, you have a separate partition for the / and /home directories:

As you can see, there is a separate partition called /dev/sda6 that is specifically linked to your /home directory. So in this case, make sure the manual partitioner does NOT format the /dev/sda6 partition!

$ mount
/dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda6 on /home type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
/dev/sda1 on /media/sda1 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
/dev/sda2 on /media/sda2 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
/dev/sda3 on /media/sda3 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
$

I hope this is clear enough..... Write down (on a piece of paper) the info that mount provides. Use that info when using the custom partitioning feature of the LiveCD (= Ubuntu desktop bootCD)

One thing I need to clarify: you should run the mount command in Ubuntu 9.10 and gather the mount information in Ubuntu 9.10 BEFORE booting the Ubuntu 10.04 LiveCD.

Thanks for that - I assume updating via the internet won't require any
user interaction?

On 27/05/2010 13:05, Mark Rijckenberg wrote:
> Your question #112448 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/112448
>
> Mark Rijckenberg proposed the following answer:
> One thing I need to clarify: you should run the mount command in Ubuntu
> 9.10 and gather the mount information in Ubuntu 9.10 BEFORE booting the
> Ubuntu 10.04 LiveCD.
>
>

If you want to upgrade using Upgrade Manager, use this procedure:

http://www.ubunturoot.com/2009/11/how-to-upgrade-ubuntu-910-karmic-koala.html

There is of course a minimum of user interaction required, but a lot less than the way I described above.

However, personally, I prefer installing from LiveCD (the way I described above) instead of upgrading. Installing from LiveCD usually gives better results on MY computer.... ;-)

It's identical. If you wish to upgrade offline you need the alternate CD or alternate ISO. There is a command on the CD you can launch (using gksudo) to get upgraded from Karmic to Lucid:

gksu "sh /path/to/cdrom/cdromupgrade"

replace /path/to/cdrom with where the CD is mounted, this will most likely be:

gksu "sh /media/cdrom0/cdromupgrade"

Tom does make a good point about testing in the live environment but it would involve you downloading that as well as the alternate ISO as the alternate ISO has no live environment.

The upgrade process in both cases will require a small amount of user interaction as files from the upgrade overwrite files which you may have editted by hand and the system will ask if you want to keep these or if the package maintainers is to be used (most times the package maintainers should be used, you can recustomise later) and you can look at the contents inline to see what changes will happen.

I would prefer a clean install of ubuntu 10.04....download the image file burn it on a cd and then do the clean install on the pc...all that old stuff can be deleted after you find your system is healthy and working fine then you always have a cd to turn to in case of any problem fixing whereas online upgrades misses this useful feature... so better go for offline upgrading with cd than online.
actionparsnip has given almost everything you had to know and since you are user of ubuntu 9.10 so you may not face any big problem.
Regards
Rajinder