How to Upgrade Ubuntu 15.10 to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

This tutorial describes how to upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 from Ubuntu 15.10 LTS. Ubuntu is widely used Linux operating system used for Desktop as well as Server edition. Ubuntu Desktop uses can upgrade to any release but for Server editions we recommend to use LTS release and always upgrade to LTS release only. We strongly prescribed to backup all your important data from your Server or Desktop to a remote area. Additionally take a complete system snapshot (if possible).

Note: Please keep in mind, that all operations below ought to be finished under root permissions or sudo, as you are changing system settings. Before upgrading, backup all your important data to any external device.

Desktop Upgrade:

This is the most easiest way to upgrade Ubuntu from any version to latest Ubuntu version. Following this guide you can upgrade to newer version with just running few commands and rest of the process will be done by Ubuntu itself.

Before you upgrade, you need to install these upgrade helpers.

# sudo apt-get install update-manager update-manager-core

After that change the “Prompt=lts” to “Prompt=normal” value in “release-upgrades” file.

# sudo vim /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades

Note:
Normal: Check to see if a new release is available. If more than one new release is found, the release upgrader will attempt to upgrade to the release that immediately succeeds the currently-running release.

LTS: Check to see if a new LTS release is available. The upgrader will attempt to upgrade to the first LTS release available after the currently-running one. Note that this option should not be used if the currently-running release is not itself an LTS release, since in that case the upgrader won’t be able to determine if a newer release is available.

As you may know, Ubuntu 15.10 is not a LTS version. So, I entered normal.

Now, we need to update the system, use below command.

# sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Now, it is time to upgrade your system version 15.10 to 16.04 using the following command:

# sudo do-release-upgrade

To verify upgrade just check the current version of your Ubuntu system using following command. This will show details about your Ubuntu operating system.

# sudo lsb_release -a

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Release:        16.04
Codename:       xenial

Enjoy it!