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According some sources,

"A device running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will only tell you there is a new Ubuntu update after the first point release goes live. In Xenial’s case that’s July."

How do I upgrade now, then? Is going to 15.10 the only solution?

EDIT: question and answer are still valid for 16.04 to 18.04, but note that at least in some versions the wait is not until the first point release goes live, but until some information files in ubuntu.org about current versions are updated, which happens usually some days after the point release but not always nor automatically.

arivero
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    I do not recommend attempting to upgrade at all. Many of the lowest level internals have been radically changed (i.e. upstart to systemd and various associated things). And major distribution upgrades of Debian and Ubuntu have never been particularly reliable anyway. – Michael Hampton Apr 22 '16 at 07:52
  • @MichaelHampton Ah I see that this stack keeps the tradition of answering "dont do it" as first reaction to any question :-) But yep, the upgrade process is usually poorly documented, and it could be advantageous to ask for answers from people having suffered -hopefully volunteered to it- the update. – arivero Apr 22 '16 at 08:00
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    We have a tradition of answering "Don't do it _wrong_!" – Michael Hampton Apr 22 '16 at 08:01

2 Answers2

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  1. The release notes state:

14.04 LTS to LTS upgrades will be enabled with the 16.04.1 LTS point release, in approximately 3 months time.

This is because Ubuntu wants things to settle down before the upgrade is made available to people who really would prefer to have a stable and successful upgrade. I ran into a few issues on a couple of upgrades on a couple of my servers from 15.10 to 16.04.

  1. If you really want the new shiney, then:
    • make sure your system is fully up-to-date
    • run the command sudo do-release-upgrade -d

I asked a similar question over at askubuntu.

Community
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David
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  • "No new release found", and that's for a 14.04.5 LTS system with 16.04 LTS released 16 days ago. – Urhixidur May 07 '18 at 14:20
  • Seems one must run just `sudo do-release-upgrade` (no `-d`). And the interface sucks big time: it asks "Do you want to start the upgrade?" _without indicating what the upgrade would be to!_ – Urhixidur May 07 '18 at 14:32
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Just update your packages:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Then reboot, and upgrade to the latest version:

sudo update-manager -d
Ballantin
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  • Hmm I did this morning, but I forget to reboot, and it kept insisting on upgrading to 15.10,. Will try again in the afternoon. – arivero Apr 22 '16 at 10:28
  • Fascinating! It offers 14.10 if the option to notify about any version is selected in the config and update-manager invoked with -d, and 15.10 if invoked plain, but **it offers 16.10 LTS if the config option is only LTS upgrades and the update manager is invoked with -d**. So your answer is in the good path but incomplete. And perhaps reboot is not necessary at all? – arivero Apr 22 '16 at 17:34
  • How do you set "the config option [to] only LTS upgrades"? The Software & Updates dialog has no such option. Under "Updates: Notify me of a new Ubuntu version", there is "For long-term support versions". Is that it? – Urhixidur May 07 '18 at 14:16
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    I've run into one system for which, after `sudo apt-get update`, `sudo apt-get dist-upgrade` does nothing. The solution is apparently to do instead `sudo do-release-upgrade`. – Urhixidur May 08 '18 at 14:34