2 Ways to Upgrade Ubuntu 20.04 To Ubuntu 22.04 (Graphical & Terminal)

Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish will be released on April 21, 2022. This tutorial is going to show you 2 ways to upgrade from Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.04: using the graphical update manager and using the command line. Normally you use the graphical update manager to upgrade Ubuntu desktop and use the command line to upgrade Ubuntu server, but the command-line method works for desktops too.

Ubuntu 22.04 New Features

• Wayland becomes the default display server for most users.
• Linux Kernel 5.15
• GNOME 42
• PHP8.1, Ruby 3.0, Python 3.10, OpenJDK 18.
• nftables is now the default firewall backend, replacing iptables.
• Firefox is now only available as a Snap package.
• RDP replaces the legacy VNC as the default remote desktop protocol.
• The scp command line utility now supports the secure SFTP transfer mode.
• BIND 9.18: supports DNS over TLS and DNS over HTTPS, zone transfers over TLS.
• and many more.

Note: Before doing the upgrade, you can use the systemback program to create a bootable ISO image from your current OS. If the upgrade fails, you can easily restore your OS with the bootable ISO. Everything on your OS including software and files will be intact. If you are using a laptop, please connect your power source.

Upgrade Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.04 with the Graphical Update Manager

First of all, open software updater (aka update manager) from your application menu. It will update software package information. If there’s updates available, click the Install Now button and enter your password to install updates.

If a new version of Linux kernel is installed, then the update manager will tell you to restart your computer. Click Restart Now.

Then open Software & Updates from your application menu.

Select the Updates tab. At the bottom of the window, set notification to For long-term support versions.You will be asked to enter your password for the change to take effect.

Close the Software & Updates window. Then open up a terminal window and issue the following command.

update-manager -d

After checking for updates, the update manager will tell you that Ubuntu 22.04 is now available. Click the Upgrade button.

Next, enter your password. The release notes window appears. Click Upgrade.

The distribution upgrade window will open up. If you are notified that some third-party sources are disabled, accept it. You can re-enable them after the upgrade is finished.

In a few moments, you will be asked if you want to start the upgrade. Click the Start Upgrade button.

If you have made changes to some system configuration files before, then you might be asked if you want to replace the customized configuration file. I recommend choosing Keep to keep your customized configuration file. The updated version will be available at the same directory. You can check it out later.

Wait for the upgrade process to finish. The update manager may ask you if you want to restart services during packages upgrade without asking. Tick it on and click Next button.

After new versions of packages are installed, the update manager may ask you if you want to remove obsolete packages. I always select Remove.

Obsolete packages are software packages whose name can’t be found in the software repository of the new Ubuntu release. The cause of obsolete packages are the following:

• The upstream developer stops maintaining this package and there is no other person willing to take over. So the Ubuntu package maintainer decides to drop this package from the Ubuntu repository.
• The package becomes an orphan package, which means there’s no other package that depends on it and there are very few users of this package. So the Ubuntu package maintainer decides to drop this package from the Ubuntu repository.
• The package has a new name in the software repository of the new Ubuntu release.

After obsolete packages are removed from your system. Restart your computer and check your Ubuntu version with the following command.

lsb_release -a

Output:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu Jammy Jellyfish
Release:        22.04
Codename:       jammy

Upgrade Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.04 From Command Line

You can use the command line to upgrade Ubuntu desktop or a headless server. Speaking of servers, it is recommended that you upgrade Ubuntu on a test server before doing it on a production server. Some server software such as iRedMail (a mail server software suite) may not support Ubuntu 22.04 yet. In that case, it is advisable to wait some time for the software to support Ubuntu 22.04.

Keep Your SSH Session Alive

If you use SSH to log into your Ubuntu server, it’s a good idea to keep your OpenSSH session alive by using the screen utility. Install screen on the Ubuntu server:

sudo apt install screen

Then start screen:

screen

Upon the first launch, you will see an introduction text, simply press Enter to end. Then you will be able to run commands as usual.

It’s also recommended to add the following line at the bottom of the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file on your server to keep your SSH session alive.

ClientAliveInterval 60

Save and close the file. Then restart SSH daemon.

sudo systemctl restart ssh

Upgrade to Ubuntu 22.04 From Command Line

To upgrade to Ubuntu 22.04, first run the following command to upgrade existing software. (Please note that if a new Linux kernel is installed while running the following command, you need to reboot system in order to continue the upgrade process.)

sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade

Then make sure you have the update-manager-core package installed.

sudo apt install update-manager-core

Open the /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades file with a command-line text editor like Nano.

sudo nano /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades

Make sure the value of prompt is set to lts.

Save and close the file. To save a file in Nano text editor, press Ctrl+O, then press Enter to confirm. To exit, press Ctrl+X.

After that, run the following command to begin the upgrade process.

do-release-upgrade -d

Then follow the on-screen instruction to upgrade to Ubuntu 22.04. Basically, you need to press y to answer the questions.

If you are upgrading a server, you will probably see messages like below. I recommend choosing N to keep your current version. The updated version will be available at the same directory. You can check it out later.

Once the upgrade is finished, reboot your Ubuntu desktop or server. To check your Ubuntu version, run:

lsb_release -a

Output:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:  Ubuntu
Description:     Ubuntu Jammy Jellyfish
Release:         22.04
Codename:        jammy

Please install all available updates for your release before upgrading

If you see the following message when trying to upgrade, then you need to update all packages (sudo apt update;sudo apt upgrade -y) then restart the OS and try to upgrade again.

Please install all available updates for your release before upgrading.

Sometimes your system may have some package kept on hold, which can be shown with:

sudo apt-mark showhold

You need to unhold the package.

sudo apt-mark unhold package-name

Then run

sudo apt upgrade

Sometimes, sudo apt update tells you that a package can be upgraded, but sudo apt upgrade won’t upgrade the package, then you can run the following command to list the package.

apt list --upgradable

Now you can upgrade the package.

sudo apt upgrade pacakge-name

If this is a broken package that can not be upgraded, then remove it.

sudo apt remove package-name

How to Re-Enable Third-Party Repositories

Third-party repositories are defined in the .list files under /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ directory. First, re-enable third-party repositories with the following command, which will remove the # character in lines that begin with deb.

sudo sed -i '/deb/s/^#//g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*.list

Then change all instances of focal to jammy.

sudo sed -i 's/focal/jammy/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*.list

Update package repository index.

sudo apt update

Some third-party repositories don’t have an entry for Ubuntu 22.04, so you will likely see errors like:

E: The repository 'http://linux.dropbox.com/ubuntu focal Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

You will need to edit these repository files one by one and disable them. For example, I edit the Dropbox repository file.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dropbox.list

Disable this repository by adding the # character at the beginning of the line.

# deb [arch=i386,amd64] http://linux.dropbox.com/ubuntu jammy main # disabled on upgrade to jammy

Save and close the file. You need to wait for those repositories to add support for Ubuntu 22.04.

Some software packages in third-party repositories might be included in 22.04. For example, Ubuntu 22.04 repository contains the nextcloud-desktop package, so I don’t need the Nextcloud PPA anymore. I can delete the Nextcloud PPA.

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nextcloud-client.list*

How to Install the Yaru Mixed Theme

Ubuntu 22.04 ships with an all-white or all-dark Yaru theme. If you want to get the mixed Yaru theme back, then remove the Ubuntu 22.04 version of yaru-theme-gtk.

sudo apt remove yaru-theme-gtk

Then download the Ubuntu 20.04 version of yaru-theme-gtk.

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/y/yaru-theme/yaru-theme-gtk_20.04.11.1_all.deb

Install this package.

sudo apt install ./yaru-theme-gtk_20.04.11.1_all.deb

Next, go to Settings -> Themes and choose the light theme.

To prevent Ubuntu from updating the yaru-theme-gtk package, run the following command.

sudo apt-mark hold yaru-theme-gtk

Installing Nvidia Driver

If your desktop environment becomes sluggish after the upgrade, then you might need to install the Nvidia graphics driver.

Wrapping Up

That’s it! I hope this tutorial helped you upgrade to Ubuntu 22.04 from Ubuntu 20.04. As always, if you found this post useful, then subscribe to our free newsletter to get new tutorials. You might also want to read:

• 2 Ways to Upgrade Ubuntu 21.10 To Ubuntu 22.04 (Graphical & Terminal)