Upgrade from 17.04 to 20.04- Is there an way way?

[SumBloke]

Hi folks!
I posted this question previously but the thred was deleted due to technical problems on the site I believe. I recovered from the cache a helpful reply from Greygeek, I think it was (Thanks Greygeek!) which I post below.

From memory, my original questions was along the lines of:

I have version 17.04 (not 19.04 as per Greygeeks reply, so I proably made a mistake on my orig post there, maybe that difference is important?) and want to upgrade. Is there a best practice, or easy way to do this while preserving the programs installed?

Greygeeks reply:

" ... just a dozen or so important apps..."
Did you get the apps from the repository or are they imported from PPA's or as *.deb packages from various sites?

Generally, those apps have config and data files in ~/home/youraccountname/.local/share or ~/.config or ~/.someappname or some similar hidden location.

Some apps will install part of their program in your home directory and other parts in root directories, like /opt. Google and Minecraft apps do that, and there are others.

IF the apps you are using have an option to EXPORT their data to some location then use it to export the data to a USB stick or another HD. After you install 20.04 you can install those apps and then use their IMPORT feature, if they have it, to restore your data. KMail and Thunderbird are apps that can do that.

You do NOT need to delete the "kubuntu directory", which isn't a thing. If you mean your account directory, /home/youracctname, then that is unnecessary.

After you download the ISO and verify its checksum using sha256sum you can then burn it to a 4GB or bigger USB stick. You can use the dd command, or the "Startup Disk Creator" option under the System menu. Note that the Startup Disk Creator no longer creates persistent LiveUSB sticks. You can choose to run the ISO from the USB stick or you can choose to install the ISO from the USB stick.

During the install you will be asked which partition you want to install on. Select the partition that 19.04 was installed on.

At that point you can either let the system default to using EXT4 and "/" as the mount point,, OR, you can select the manual partition, and on that screen choose the same partition but this time select BTRFS with "/" being the mount point. Why BTRFS? Check out the posts on the BTRFS subforum. Otherwise, after you've installed 20..04 make TimeShift one of your first installs and make a backup of the system before you begin making any additions or changes. Then, install those "20 or so apps" and after that copy of their config and data files from the backup you made of them before you installed 20.04.

So, I have progressed a little further! I have backed up /Home, but couldn't find any other folders that looked like they might be part of any of those programs. Should I also back up any of these folders?:

bin, boot, dev, etc, lib, lib64, proc, run, sbin, sys, tmp, usr, var

By "Do I need to delete the kubuntu directory>" I meant, do I need to delete everything? before I install? perhaps 'root' is the correct term? Should I delete the root folder? or /?
Or should the new version overwrite the old files and folders?

I have a dual boot system. I think it might be Grub but not sure - that allows selection of OS on boot. WIll this be updated or affected on install of 20.04?

Im not very confident about this as you can see. Some of those apps and prgrams are important. So for now at least it would be best to keep teh orignal file system and not upgrade that as well.

The ISO is downloaded, verified, burned to a bootable USB

Any advice appreciated before I take the plunge!

Thanks in advance for any tips or advice

sb

Edited to add: The various apps and programs were from various sources, repository and .deb files, etc. Some were compiled as well.

[Snowhog]

To be blunt, but not intending to be demeaning, your 'best' option is to just do a completely new install of 20.04. You may or may not be able to install ALL of your unique applications afterwards; depends on if they are in the repositories or have been updated for use with 20.04 (third-party PPA apps or 'downloaded/installed' apps). It's time for you to decide to "Bit the bullet" or not.

[jglen490]

Correct, 17.04 is End Of Life, so the 17.04 repos are dead. No way to upgrade from 17.04. The simplest way is to note any programs you have in 17.04, backup your data, and do a fresh install. If you 17.04 programs came from the repos, then more than likely updated version of those programs are available in the 20.04 repos. If any were from some other place, then either that some other place has updated versions, or your out of luck. But, there may be equivalent programs elsewhere.

Anyway, the 17.04 with dead repos is now a security liability, so it's time to move on up!

[jlittle]

I have version 17.04 ...
The various apps and programs were from various sources, repository and .deb files, etc. Some were compiled as well.

I am perplexed by this, the combination seems unlikely. Or maybe you used this install in 2017 and haven't since? One should keep Kubuntu updated, some of the security updates are important, as jglen490 says.

I have backed up /Home...

With the "let's be careful" hat on, it's (usually) "/home", not "/Home", case is significant.

Should I also back up any of these folders?:

bin, boot, dev, etc, lib, lib64, proc, run, sbin, sys, tmp, usr, var

You don't want bin, boot, lib, lib64, sbin, tmp, or usr . dev, proc, run, and sys are ephemeral, mostly, generated at run time.

/var may contain data. The default location for storing data for some applications, f.ex. MySQL and postgresql, is in /var. For apps like these that store stuff there it's best to use those applications' methods for backing up the data; for those examples that would be mysqldump --all-databases and pg_dumpall.

/etc might contain settings you don't want to forget. It should only be a few megabytes.

You certainly don't want to backup /etc and /var and restore them over your new install.

So for now at least it would be best to keep teh orignal file system and not upgrade that as well.

If you've got the space, which is likely these days, definitely a good idea, the system becomes triple boot. You may have to reduce the size of existing partitions in order to have space for new ones. If there's MS Windows there, and you want to resize it, that's best done in Windows.

Before installing I'd run the KDE partition manager or GParted to look at what you've got and understand where everything is now and is going to go, and to check that those places are big enough. One of the install screens determines where the install goes; I'd select a "manual" install tell it where to install stuff, These selections should be done carefully.

You should understand whether you want a BIOS/MBR install, or UEFI. If the other OS is using one of these, your install should stay with it.

I have a dual boot system. I think it might be Grub but not sure - that allows selection of OS on boot.

With grub the first line of text at the top of the screen should tell you.

WIll this be updated or affected on install of 20.04?

Yes, but it should be ok, grub should detect the other OSs and build a new menu. Don't let the grub on the old install update itself; that is, don't run update-grub in the old install. Since you can't update it, 17.04 being years past its support, I think it won't do so automatically.

Some of those apps and prgrams are important.
The various apps and programs were from various sources, repository and .deb files, etc. Some were compiled as well.

Ideally you have notes that say where everything came from. After years of winging it, and screwing up, and forgetting stuff, I followed advice given in this forum, and try to keep comprehensive notes for every package installed and setting changed.

I'd run dpkg-query -list > dpkg.list just to have it. For me that's about 3,500 lines, so going through them all isn't feasible, but it might be useful to search it to find which packages are involved for some app.

I think you should review each app to decide what to do for it. Just maybe you had a Windows mind-set and installed software by going to websites and downloading? (I apologize if this is a crass accusation, but just in case it's good to make the point.) A large benefit of using an Ubuntu-derived distro is that the repositories are really comprehensive and downloading .debs and using various repositories is usually unnecessary, so some of your apps might now be a simple install using a package manager. Even if you've compiled a package because the Ubuntu repository version is too old, it can be helpful to install the standard version so that you can run [console]sudo apt build-dep package[console], that can take the guesswork out of installing required library packages.

[jwrober]

Just change the repos in your /etc/apt/sources.list file to point to 18.04 (Bionic). Do an apt update and then apt full-upgrade. That will bring your base to current 18.04 LTS and then when 20.04 comes out you can upgrade to that.