Ubuntu is Linux operating system widely used for Desktop as well as Server edition. Ubuntu is providing two types of releases Standard release and Long Term Support (LTS) release.
Ubuntu supports standard releases for approx 1 year while Long Term Support is useful for approx 5 years.
Users can upgrade to any release but for Server editions it is recommended to use LTS release and always upgrade to LTS release only.
To upgrade from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS , please follow the steps given below:
1. Backup Important Data
At first we strongly recommended to backup all your important data from your Server or Desktop to a remote location. Also take a complete system snapshot (if possible).
2. Upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04
As we have taken complete backup of server. Let’s move to upgrade process. First use following commands to upgrade current system packages.
apt-get update apt-get upgrade
Now install the update-manager-core package on your system.
apt-get install update-manager-core
Now edit /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades file and make sure Prompt value is set to lts like below.
Prompt=lts
Finally execute below command to upgrade your Ubuntu 14.04 LTS system to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS system.
do-release-upgrade -d
By following the on-screen instructions your upgrade will be complete. This process can take some time according to your network speed.
3. Verify Upgrade
To verify your upgrade just check the current version of your Ubuntu system using below command. This will show you complete details about your Ubuntu operating system.
$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Release: 16.04 Codename: xenial