Posted by Vince Wadhwani on May 23, 2007

It took me a long while to figure it out, but I finally think I've got a good way to upgrade from Ubuntu Dapper Drake (or Ubuntu Edgy Eft) to Feisty Fawn. Previously I just changed a few lines in my apt/sources.list and did a dist-upgrade. It's not far off, but it still doesn't work as expected. Rather than give up on the 800 pound distro, I did a little research and found a good way to get to Feisty.

First off, no guarantees here so if you're on Dapper Drake and have a production machine that's working fine.. why touch it? Repeat after me, Dapper Drake is the LTS release Dapper Drake is the LTS release. Satisfied? Great, then go listen to some free music instead. If you're still here and want to proceed, then let's get to it.

Step 1: Uncomment all repositories and make sure you current release (dapper or edgy) is up to date:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Step 2: Modify your /etc/apt/sources.list file

On Dapper, run:
sed -e 's/\dapper/ edgy/g' -i /etc/apt/sources.list

On Edgy, run:
sed -e 's/\edgy/ feisty/g' -i /etc/apt/sources.list

Step 3:: Update to Edgy!

If you're currently on Dapper, you'll upgrade to Edgy first. Run these commands in order:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-get -f install
dpkg --configure -a
reboot

After the reboot,
apt-get dist-upgrade

The second apt-get dist-upgrade should have hopefully installed more packages. Reboot once more for good measure.. you're on Edgy!

If you were on Edgy previously, or just upgraded your Dapper install to Edgy in Step 3, you're ready to join us at Step 4:

Step 4: Upgrade to Feisty

This is going to be slightly different than the previous method, though I think you could use that too. Instead we'll use this handy write-up almost verbatim:

sed -e 's/\edgy/ feisty/g' -i /etc/apt/sources.list
The above command will move your sources.list file from edgy to feisty. If you previously did this in Step 2 then don't worry about it.

Step 4b: Update again like in Step 1
sudo apt-get update
But don't do a dist-upgrade!!!

Step 4c: Instead, install the Update Manager
sudo apt-get install update-manager-core

Step 4d:Upgrade!
sudo do-release-upgrade

Follow the on-screen instructions.. you'll be prompted to reboot after it's over. Do so. Then, for kicks, follow step 1 again and update your system:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you followed all the above steps correctly you won't have any packages to update. Let's check your work now:

lsb_release -a

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 7.04
Release: 7.04
Codename: feisty

Thanks to: Slicehost Forums and Ubuntu Geek