MATE 20.04 LTS to 22.04 LTS Upgrade?

Support & Help Requests
#1

I just received some system updates. Several of them were of the "ubuntu-release-upgrader" type (core, gtk, qt). Up until now, I've avoided upgrading since the current release works well on my server, and long-term support won't expire for a couple more years, but I wonder if there is (now) a seamless way to upgrade?

My success with Linux upgrades is spotty. Sometimes (as with early CentOS releases) it was simply click a button and the rest was "magic." At other times (as with the later releases of CentOS) an upgrade required backing up, doing a complete, fresh install, and then restoring. This could take days to complete.

I don't wish to (nor do I have the time) spend days upgrading to 22.04 LTS. On the other hand, if it's click-a-button, then maybe I'm interested. But even though I saw updated modules installed, there is nothing I can find that would have me start the upgrade process.

(I'm probably spoiled by Apple, who make it a trivial operation to upgrade macOS).

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#2

I don’t understand why upgrading is not more standardized. I was on Pop!_OS 21.10 and upgraded in April to 22.04 LTS and the upgrade process went smoothly without any problems. System76 has taken Linux and the Ubuntu base to a much better level. Is it perfect? No, but it is constantly improving providing a better user experience rather than changes for the sake of changes. I like Ubuntu a lot and especially Ubuntu-Mate. However, there are various features in Pop!_OS that make it a better all around OS. I hope Ubuntu, Ubuntu-Mate, and Kubuntu keep improving for the better.

#3

I know what you mean, I have a Nextcloud server in Ubuntu MATE Focal and I have already been through the whole process of re-installing it once, not because of any problems with Nextcloud or Ubuntu MATE, but because I realized all the beginner mistakes I made the first time I installed it and I wanted to do it again better. It takes a lot of time getting a server set up the way you want.

According to Mr Murphy, if you're well prepared for anything that might go wrong, nothing will happen, but the minute we don't have an up to date backup, that's when the house of cards will all come tumbling down.

My two desktop operating systems are both updated okay, now it's time for my server. This time I think I'll take the belts and braces approach. I now have it installed it in LVM with the OS in one volume a separate volume for the data. This way I can use an LVM snapshot to restore the OS and settings if anything goes wrong with the upgrade. The data in the data volume and the NextCloud database are both backed up to another disk by a rsync command run by cron every midnight. But for the operating system, just to make double sure, I'm waiting till payday to buy another SSD the same size as the one I have and I'm going to make a copy of the entire disk. That way I can just swap disks any time I need to. Probably then nothing will go wrong and I'll feel a little silly for being so careful. Then on the other hand, just a little power blackout for a few minutes and a low UPS battery during a critical time and ... I might be glad of all the backup strategies.

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#4

FWIW I just upgraded my low-end Dell desktop w/no major problems. Seems a bit slicker and faster.

Inspired by that I upgraded this old MacBook and am now chasing demons, the worst of which is zombie sleep (doesn't really Suspend, and won't wake, requiring Power button hard boot). Another fun feature is when I click on the emoticon here in the Reply to your query, it's hard freeze in Summer and another hard boot. Many of my 20.04LTS tweaks and settings disappeared and several "New Improved" things showed up that needed to be found and disabled, so there's another time drain.

Only good news is this laptop's pretty much used for email only, so I can just power off/reboot (faster boot helps) rather than close/reopen to sleep/wake. Ah, progress. :expressionless:
(emoticon worked on this 3rd reboot) sigh...

System: MacBook7,2 ~
22.04.1 LTS ~ 5.15.0-47-generic x86_64 ~ MATE 1.26.0 ~
Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU P8600 @ 2.40GHz × 2 ~
NVAF (Nvidia GPU which some say is the root of all evil)

#5

I just read an interesting post by mdooley in the tips and tricks section of this forum and it's about having a operating system installed with a separate data partition and using links between the directories in /home/username/ to folders with the same name in the data partition. I have been hanging around here for a while but this is the first time I read that one. That seems like a great idea to me. We have 'make link' in our right'click menu in Ubuntu MATE, so this would be very simple and easy for anybody to set up. Install Ubuntu-MATE Using A Data Partition - by mdooley

Then when we have our operating system separated from our data we only need around 20 or 25G of disk space for the operating and all our installed software along with our bookmarks and settings and stuff.
There are quite a few ways to make a backup of the entire OS with all its installed software and settings. The LVM snapshot idea is probably the quickest and easiest in my opinion, but I had to invest in the time it took me to learn LVM and become confident with it. GParted is great nowadays, we hardly need LVM anyymore. It's not too difficult to copy and paste partitions around with GParted, but you might have to edit /etc/fstab if it gets given different file system UUID number and re-install GRUB to get the restored operating system booting again. There's also an application called partimage which I remember practicing with a long time ago and that should do the job too. Probably there are a few more solutions we could add to the list.

Whatever options a person might choose, remember a backup is not a backup unless you have practiced how to restore from your backup and you are confident you have the required skills and it's going to work.
It's a good idea to have a test installation on some separate disk or disks and practice backing up and restoring it, so if you ever have to do that to your real OS you'll now what to do, kind of like doing fire drills. One of the great things about free software is we can install as many copies of it as we want if we have the disk space.

My new 1TB SSDs are still coming in the mail and I'm looking forward to getting them. They only cost me about $140 each, (Australian), that's only a little over the cost of a tank of fuel for my car these days, or about the price of a new tire.

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