Upgrading to Feisty

OK, so you've read Why you shouldn't upgrade to Ubuntu Feisty and decided you still want to use Ubuntu Feisty.

No problem, let's go ahead and upgrade from Ubuntu LTS to Ubuntu Feisty.

This should only be undertaken on a new, or reinstalled, VPS with a starting base of Ubuntu LTS. If you have a working LTS server then I strongly suggest leaving it as an upgrade of this magnitude will almost undoubtedly break things.

First thing is to delete old entries for the VPS IP address in your known_hosts file as a reinstalled Slice/VPS will have an old RSA key:

nano ~/.ssh/known_hosts

If you are not using Linux on your LOCAL computer, the location of the known_hosts file will differ. Please refer to your own OS for details of where this file is kept.

Log in

Log into your minimal Ubuntu LTS server:

ssh root@123.45.67.890

Accept the RSA key and enter the root password supplied on the Slice/VPS reinstall.

Once logged in, change the root password to one of your choosing as we'll need it later on the reboot.

passwd

Let's see what we're using:

cat /etc/issue
#Ubuntu 6.06 LTS \n \l

First upgrade

Although it's possible to upgrade straight from LTS to Feisty it is not recommended. The Ubuntu documentation strongly suggests the slightly longer route I will show here.

So we need to upgrade LTS to Edgy and then Edgy to Feisty. The whole process takes around 5 minutes so it's not an arduous task.

First thing is to update the sources.list:

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Delete the default entries and add this list:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted universe

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-updates main restricted universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-updates main restricted universe

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted universe

Once done, we need to enter a series of update/upgrade commands. All are required so don't think I've repeated myself unnecessarily:

aptitude update
aptitude dist-upgrade <-- follow on-screen instructions
aptitude dist-upgrade <-- Courier = No

Then a few more:

aptitude update
aptitude dist-upgrade
aptitude -f install
dpkg --configure -a

Reboot

Once done, reboot the machine:

shutdown -r now

Log back in and have a look at what the VPS is running:

cat /etc/issue
#Ubuntu 6.10 \n \l

Second upgrade

Thankfully, the upgrade from Edgy to Feisty is much easier as they provide a simple tool that does the hard work for us:

aptitude install update-manager-core

Once installed run:

do-release-upgrade

There are a few question to answer. The first is to accept the SSH connection (it defaults to 'no').

Then follow the on-screen instructions such as removing obsolete packages (Y), to fully ugprade, please restart (Y) and so on.

Final log in

The last reboot was automatic so log into the VPS and have a look at what it's running:

cat /etc/issue
#Ubuntu 7.04 \n \l

And a final update/upgrade:

aptitude update
aptitude upgrade
aptitude dist-upgrade

Done

That's it. As said, this should only be performed on a new, or reinstalled, VPS. Now you have a minimal Ubuntu Feisty install to work with.

PickledOnion.

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