Just upgraded my old netbook from 23.10 to 24.04

Thoughts & Feedback
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This is not possible ! or is it ?

Since 23.10 is no longer supported, the migration to 24.04 by "do-release-upgrade" is no longer possible.

Trying to do a fresh install on my ASUS Eee PC 1025/R052 ended in' Kernel panic: "initramfs unpacking failed"' on any image >= 20.04

So what to do ?

In the sourcefiles in /etc/apt, I replaced "mantic" with "noble" and hoped for the best.

it worked !

I have my 12 year old and highly underpowered (CPU:C60/RAM:1GB) netbook now running with 24.04 (highly stripped ofcourse).

Note that this is not the advisable way to do a release upgrade but if you have nothing to lose, why not ? :slight_smile:

$ free -h

               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           691Mi       275Mi       445Mi       8,0Ki        37Mi       416Mi
Swap:          2,2Gi       268Mi       2,0Gi

Desktop:

desktop
desktop1024×600 73.9 KB

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Thank you for adding that bit, but yeah the Debian method of release-upgrading can help fix some difficult problems.

If you’re not aware, it causes the upgrade of your packages, but does not run the scripts that normally get executed when you use Ubuntu Release Upgrader tools, so the effect maybe some of your system will still act like an older release, and not match what is expected for the release you’re now using…

As an example (and I forget which release-upgrade(s) made this change), but older systems had all sources in /etc/apt/sources.listand during a release-upgrade those sources were moved to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources etc; but if a system was upgraded as you describe; that change will never have occurred. This maybe a petty example, but its there as an easy example that hopefully illustrates a point of changes that won’t occur due to debian-style upgrades.

I also like non-destructive re-installs myself; alas my QA testing of it late in the noble cycle detected a problem which was mitigated by the forced format of /partition which stopped it from working on releases using ubuntu-desktop-provision and ubuntu-desktop-installer (for now its still possible with ISOs using calamaresthankfully).

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Ofcourse you are totally correct.

And thanks for accentuating this fact because it can never be said enough.

In my case I can just copy the ubuntu.sources from my main rig to this netbook.

For people who want it, here is that new ubuntu.sources file:

Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
Suites: noble noble-updates noble-backports
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
Suites: noble-security
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

Save it in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources

You will end up with something like this:

/etc/apt
├── auth.conf.d
├── keyrings
├── preferences.d
├── sources.list
├── sources.list.d
│   ├── brave-browser-release.list
│   ├── brave-browser-release.list.distUpgrade
│   ├── brave-browser-release.list.save
│   └── ubuntu.sources

And don't forget to remove the old /etc/apt/sources.list

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4

Your response did make me laugh, so thanks.

Personally I liked all the detail in a single file /etc/apt/sources.list, but I'm also someone who doesn't like change - why I much prefer GNOME 2 or the MATE Desktop, over GNOME 3.x or GNOME 4x etc.

I’d probably have left the older sources.list format and just smiled… but its those little things that can be very problematic for newbies, or people who don’t keep up with our every-changing GNU/Linux system.

( I’m waiting for 24.04.3 to officially release, we’re seconds away I believe )

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5

I, at first, also left the older sources.list file but updating turned out twice as slow because the old file is still processed so the update will be processed twice. After removing it it speeded up tremendously. :slight_smile:

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I’d have not added the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources to begin with is what I meant; ie. but when its our own systems (and we have no corporate policies to comply with), we’re free to do what makes us smile.

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