A guide to upgrading to Ubuntu 24.10 Oracular Oriole
Writer :By: Admin
Ubuntu 24.10 'Oracular Oriole' is an interim release, offering newer package versions than the 24.04 LTS. An in-place distribution upgrade is a significant operation that replaces core system components. This guide provides a repeatable, command-line process for the upgrade, with a focus on mitigating risks and verifying the result.
This process is for systems running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. Upgrading from older versions requires a sequential upgrade path (e.g., 23.10 to 24.04 first).
Pre-upgrade checklist
### Perform a full system backup An in-place upgrade can fail, especially on heavily customised systems. Use a tool like `timeshift` for a full system snapshot or your standard backup procedure for critical data in `/home` and `/etc`. Do not proceed without a tested backup.
### Check hardware requirements The official minimums for 24.10 are 2 GB RAM and 25 GB of disk space. For development work involving containers, virtual machines or IDEs, we recommend at least 8 GB RAM and 50 GB free space to prevent performance issues.
### Review third-party software Third-party repositories (PPAs) are the most common cause of upgrade failures. List your current PPAs and decide which are essential. You will disable these before the upgrade and re-enable them carefully afterwards.
The upgrade process
### Update and clean your current system Ensure all packages are on their latest version for your current release. This resolves many potential dependency conflicts before the upgrade begins. The `full-upgrade` command is preferred over `upgrade` as it handles packages with new dependencies.
``` sudo apt update sudo apt full-upgrade sudo apt autoremove ```
### Disable all third-party repositories Use the 'Software & Updates' application or edit `/etc/apt/sources.list.d/` directly to comment out or remove all PPA entries. This prevents conflicts where a PPA package blocks a core system package from upgrading.
### Run the release upgrade tool The standard tool for this process is `do-release-upgrade`. If the new release has just launched, it may not be offered automatically. You can force the tool to check for the next development release with the `-d` flag.
``` sudo do-release-upgrade -d ```
The tool will modify your `sources.list`, calculate the changes, and show you a summary of packages to be added, removed and upgraded. It will then download several gigabytes of packages. Do not interrupt this process. It can take over an hour depending on your connection and system speed.
### Complete the upgrade and reboot During the installation, the process may ask for input regarding configuration files you have modified (like `sshd_config`). Review the differences and choose whether to keep your version or install the package maintainer's new version. When prompted, remove obsolete packages and restart the system to boot into the new kernel.
Post-upgrade actions
After rebooting, your first step is verification. Check that the system correctly reports the new version with `lsb_release -a`. Review system logs for errors that occurred during the boot process using `journalctl -p 3 -xb`.
Test your primary applications and services. If you run server software, check its status (e.g., `systemctl status nginx`).
Once you confirm the base system is stable, you can begin re-enabling your essential PPAs one by one. After enabling each one, run `sudo apt update` to check for errors or incompatibilities before proceeding to the next.
An interim release like 24.10 is a trade-off. You get earlier access to new toolchains and kernel features at the cost of a shorter, nine-month support window compared to an LTS release.
Technical changes in Ubuntu 24.10
### Kernel 6.11 Oracular Oriole is expected to ship with the Linux 6.11 kernel. This brings updated hardware drivers, particularly for newer CPUs and Wi-Fi chipsets, and improvements to file system performance for Btrfs and EXT4.
### GCC 14 toolchain This release updates the default C compiler and build toolchain to GCC 14. This provides access to newer C++23 features but may require code adjustments for projects that rely on older compiler behaviour.
### Python 3.12 Python 3.12 is the default interpreter. If you have Python projects, you will need to rebuild any virtual environments and check your dependencies for compatibility with this new version.
### GNOME 47 The desktop environment is updated to GNOME 47, which includes changes to the file manager, settings panel and core applications. Some extensions may require updates to be compatible.
