I am on 24.04. Can I upgrade directly to 26.04 or do I have to upgrade to 24.10, 25.04, 25.10 first? I am asking this because we used to be able to upgrade LTS to LTS and I am wondering if this or which is true
If you have non-LTS upgrades enabled; you can release-upgrade from your current LTS release, to the next [supported] non-LTS release in the next two year development cycle... that was the option that allowed 24.04 to go to 24.10, switching to 25.04 (when 24.10 went EOL) and now 25.10 (given 25.04 is EOL). You can utilize that now, ie. go from 24.04 to 25.10 if you wish.
( Do note: whilst full CI or continuous integration testing occurs for those 'skip' upgrades; very little QA or Quality Assurance testing on actual user-installs occurs for the skipped upgrades; ie. 24.04 to 24.10 was QA tested, as was 24.10 to 25.04, but no formalized QA exists for 24.04 to 25.04; just something to consider)
Once on an non-LTS release, you MUST upgrade through every release, but you can jump from a LTS to the next supported release in the next two year development cycle; where 24.10, 25.04, 25.10 & 26.04 are all in the same two year development cycle.
If you only have LTS upgrades enabled, you can jump from 24.04 to the next LTS (final release in the two year LTS development cycle), meaning 26.04 directly (I expect this will work even if Ubuntu MATE 26.04 isn't a LTS, as your base 26.04/resolute system is LTS and that's what matters). This isn't supported yet, as you'll see if you check the meta files as it won't yet be listed, except in development where it has a "Supported: 0" too; but being in development will allow -d upgrades.
Ubuntu Release Upgrader tools work on your base Ubuntu system, and aren't aware of flavors. The files used to determine what is available are
- https://changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release
- https://changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release-development
- https://changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release-lts
If you were to enter do-release-upgrade now it'd look in the first of those files for what options are available, if you add a -d (ie. do-release-upgrade -d) the second file is used etc.
FYI: The upgrade to the next supported release in the next cycle wasn't always like that; 12.04 for example would only go to 12.10 and NEVER 13.04; but non-LTS releases had longer supported lives at that time, and some of the mechanics of what is supported/allowed has changed.
The 24.04 to 26.04 upgrade path will not be opened (ie. the meta files altered to say Supported: 1 etc) until after the release of Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS, which is a few of months after initial release in April 2026. The Ubuntu Release team decide when that is, but the first scheduled discussion doesn't take place until the Monday post 26.04.1 release, and they'll evaluate what bugs have been reported; known issues etc.. but they usually provide updates on a Status page on Ubuntu Discourse so everyone can monitor this somewhat easily.
You can of course use the -d or development option to upgrade before it's fully supported; it's how we test the path in QA testing, so the upgrade from 24.04 LTS (noble) to Ubuntu resolute (what will become 26.04 when stable and then release) is actually possible now; it's there for testing/QA purposes; just isn't stable yet; so if you decide to do it, don't forget it's unstable status.
If Ubuntu MATE 26.04 isn't an LTS release (expected!), I'd expect the same as occurred with Ubuntu Studio 18.04 during the bionic cycle... ie. expect no change; as I stated before, the upgrade tools work on your Ubuntu base system and everything else is really just packages. Of course that's just my opinion.
( Ubuntu Studio provided updates for bionic via PPA instead of SRU & normal updates; I'd not expect that (but hey it's possible); my comparison to Ubuntu Studio 18.04 was in terms of the upgrade tools provided by Ubuntu )
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thank you! Very informative
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