This article provides details on upgrading to Ubuntu 11.10 (code name “Oneiric Ocelot”) at command line. To perform the upgrade as described in this article you are required to have an X11 server running Gnome or KDE.

1. General upgrade information

An upgrade is the process of going from an earlier version of Ubuntu to a newer one. Skipping versions is not advised as it may cause damage to your system.

If you are using an earlier version, and want to ‘skip’ a version, the safest way is to backup your data and do a fresh installation, or to progressively upgrade to each successive version.

The following table contains a list of supported upgrade paths:

1.1. Requirements

• X11 is running with Gnome or KDE
• You can only upgrade directly to Ubuntu 11.10 from Ubuntu 11.04.
• Be sure that you have all updates applied to your system before you upgrade.
• Read the release notes for Ubuntu 11.10.
• Perform a backup of your system! At least all data files, database contents, custom applications, application configurations and custom system configurations should be included. If there are a lot of additional applications installed via apt_get or aptitude, you should consider to dump a list of all software packages installed in your system.

2. Perform the Upgrade

2.1. What is your Unbuntu Version?

Use the following command to find out what version of Ubuntu you are running:

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# print release number of your Ubuntu installation
# this example shows the output from the 11.04 Release
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 11.04
Release:        11.04
Codename:       natty

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# update your installation of Ubuntu 11.04
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
 
# download iso by webbrowser, wget or other tools (e.g. the 32-bit release)
$ sudo apt-get install wget
$ wget http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/CDs/oneiric/ubuntu-11.10-alternate-i386.iso
# to download the 64-bit release use the following link
# http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/CDs/oneiric/ubuntu-11.10-alternate-amd64.iso
 
# mount the ISO image
$ sudo mount -o loop  ubuntu-11.10-alternate-i386.iso /cdrom
 
# Now a dialog will be displayed offering you the opportunity to 
# upgrade using that CD. Follow the on-screen instructions. 
# If the upgrade dialog is not displayed use one of the following commands:
 
# ...option no.1
$ gksu "sh /cdrom/cdromupgrade"
 
# ...or option no.2 in KDE
$ kdesudo "sh /cdrom/cdromupgrade"
 
# unmount the CD image
$ umount /cdrom