After release of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) on April 26, 2018 , I have been waiting to upgrade my Desktop from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS Desktop Edition. I always prefer to go with LTS version because of Long Term Support and that’s it stands for too.

Since the 12.04 LTS time, I have been upgrading Ubuntu Desktop in my same personal laptop without any issue. Please note that, installing new distribution version is more safer and hassle free.

How am I doing upgrade of Ubuntu in my laptop, what practices I am following, I will share about all these details in this post.

Important things to do “BEFORE” upgrading to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Before you start upgrading your Ubuntu O.S Desktop you should check following items.

1. Internet bandwidth should be good and speedy. (Do not attempt with slow speed interne )
2. The electric power supply or power/battery backup should be good. Because upgrading will consume lot of time. Due to power cuttoff the upgrade process will be interrupted (Do not attempt with power supply cutoff risk).
3. Take the backup of your system data. It could be either external hard disk, cloud storage or non-root disk partition. Never keep backup in main root (/) or where operating system files are installed.
4. Save the output of df -Th command and take details as a backup. In case, after upgrade system is not mounting the partition then you have this helpful df command details through which later you can mount it manually/troubleshoot
5. Take backup of the credentials if you have saved anything in System,web browser,credential management application etc.
6. Empty the “Trash” and /tmp.

Important things to consider “DURING” upgrade

1. In initial phase of upgradation, you will get a window like “Do you want to start the upgrade ?” . It has a ‘Details’ down arrow.On click over it , will display the list of packages categorised into following section. You should read all these section and have to check if any package version may be missed/incompatible after upgradating to 18.04 LTS and you need it. In case, any package version is missing which may affect your work then do not upgrade the OS.
   (a) Install (The packages which will be installed)
   (b) No longer needed (The packages which are no longer required)
   (c) No longer supported by Canonical (The packages which will not be supported after upgrade)
   (d) Remove (The packages which will be removed during upgrade)
   (e) Upgrade (The packages which will be upgraded)
2. In some instances during upgradation, you will get some messages where it will ask to replace or keep the package. This is where you have to decide according to your work requirement.
3. You may also get some other dialog box like ‘Do you want to report this error’  etc.

Note:
During entire upgrading process, the Desktop screen lock will be disabled automatically.

Now start the upgrade process.

Steps to upgrade from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS Desktop Edition

1. Click on “Dash Home” or Press ALT+F2 .
2. Search and type “Software Updater” and click on it.
3. The package installed in your system should be updated already. If not, then it will show “update button”. After all packages are updated again you have to open the “Software Updater”
4. You will see “Upgrade” button, click on it to upgrade then give password of your login user
   
   
5. Then you will get Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release notes. Read the release notes and then click ‘Upgrade’ button. Then upgrading process will be started.
   
6. The third party source will be disabled during the upgrade. Because I use third party repo source for installing some package in system, I got this dialog box.
   
7. “Do you want to start upgrade ?” This is very important section.When you click on ‘Detail’ drop down you will get the section – ‘Install’,’No longer needed’, ‘No longer supported by Canonical’,’Remove’ and ‘Upgrade’.
   We will suggest you to click on each section and evaluate the package list.Any package which is not supported in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS should not hamper your work later.

   When all looks good,click to ‘Upgrade’ button.

   
   

8. During the upgrade process, you may also encounter with dialog box which ask about to keep the packages. While upgrading because I was comfortable with changes, I selected ‘Replace’ and ‘Remove’ button.




9. The installation and updating of package will take time. When all things work fine, you will get the message which you probably waiting for “Restart the system to complete the upgrade”.
   Obviously, you should click on ‘Restart’ Button.

   

10. The system will restart. When you login first time after upgrade, you will get welcome page. Click “Next” button and give answer which has been asked on the page