Is upgrade to 18.04 LTS recommended from 17.10?

[Abdujaparov]

Hi,
I have installed ubunut 17.10 is the upgrade to 18.04 LTS recommended?
Can I upgrade to 18.04 no LTS?
Thanks a lot.
Bye

[deadflowr]

You have 3 months to upgrade to 18.04.
Whether or not you do an in-place upgrade or a fresh install is up to you.

In 3 months is when 17.10 goes quiet and will no longer be supported.
So you'll have to go to 18.04 by then.

[Skaperen]

so what happens if the OP tries to upgrade to 18.04 LTS after then?

[monkeybrain20122]

Do a fresh install, much faster and safer. I would suggest you to wait at least a month for the wrinkles to get ironed out for 18.04. Never a good idea to trade in your working system with a new release so soon. (though I have updated on one of my machines and so far it works well, but that was because I accidentally killed 16.04 while messing around, won't recommend that for other people. :))

[Skaperen]

Hi,
I have installed ubunut 17.10 is the upgrade to 18.04 LTS recommended?
Can I upgrade to 18.04 no LTS?
Thanks a lot.
Bye

the LTS on version 18.04 just means that version will be supported for a longer period of time (5 years). you have no option for 18.04 without LTS, because the support will just be there for a longer period of time. it has no effect on what's in the system.

i always recommend upgrading to a newer version except once you are on an LTS. there will be minor version changes over time ... 18.04.1, 18.04.2 ... and so on. 16.04 LTS is up to 16.04.3 now. you should do a regular upgrade of your system whenever it is convenient for you, hopefully at least every week or so or whenever you read about an important security update that' ready.

[Skaperen]

Do a fresh install, much faster and safer. I would suggest you to wait at least a month for the wrinkles to get ironed out for 18.04. Never a good idea to trade in your working system with a new release so soon. (though I have updated on one of my machines and so far it works well, but that was because I accidentally killed 16.04 while messing around, won't recommend that for other people. :))

i would have just put 16.04 back on, or 16.04.3.

[Skaperen]

Do a fresh install, much faster and safer. I would suggest you to wait at least a month for the wrinkles to get ironed out for 18.04. Never a good idea to trade in your working system with a new release so soon. (though I have updated on one of my machines and so far it works well, but that was because I accidentally killed 16.04 while messing around, won't recommend that for other people. :))


i do fully fresh installs, too. been doing it that way for the last 25 years (mainframes back then). incremental upgrades are just not worth it.

[PaulW2U]

so what happens if the OP tries to upgrade to 18.04 LTS after then?
If the 17.10 repositories are still in place then although unsupported the upgrade process should still work but if the 17.10 repositories have been removed, which they will at some point shortly after the support period ends, then you have to follow the EOLUpgrades (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EOLUpgrades) process. This has additional steps which involve manually changing some system settings.

Best to deal with things while releases are still supported. :)

[Impavidus]

Fresh installs are more reliable, but if your system is reasonably clean, upgrades tend to work. If it doesn't work, fixing it takes some skill and you may end up doing a fresh install after all. My last upgrade (17.04→17.10, I've done many before) was the smoothest ever, as the computer worked on it for about an hour and everything worked right away – which was a first for me. No need to reconfigure anything. Although it must be said that some of the things that didn't work on other upgrades, would have required fixing after a fresh install too. I plan to upgrade my 17.10 to 18.04 at the end of this month.

But I take precautions. I've got backups of all important files, I make sure I've got a livedisk ready and I still have 16.04 installed on a different partition, so I know I can still use my computer if the upgrade fails. And once every four releases, I make a fresh install anyway.