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Upgrading Ubuntu from version 6 to latest version - do i need to reformat/install?

Qianglong

Qianglong

Senior member
I am in the process of upgrading my trusty file server that has been running Ubuntu 6.1 since 2007. I havent touched that box till now. I am wondering to upgrade to the latest version of ubuntu, do i need to reformat or there is some way for me to update the kernel?

I am striving to learn about linux and everything is very new to me. I really do not want to reformat as that will nuke all my samba configs...can someone advise me?
 
Ubuntu allows you to upgrade to newer version without need for reinstall. However, you cannot skip releases that have been released in between. Eg, you can't upgrade from 7.10 to 8.10 without first upgrading to 8.04. However, if you stick with LTS releases you can upgrade from 6.06 LTS to 8.04 LTS and from 8.04 to whatever the next LTS release is. More information can be found from https://help.ubuntu.com/ and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/

In this case it would be better for you to reformat and reinstall from a CD. If you have a separate home partition, you won't lose user files and settings, but you would need to reconfigure your server services.
 
Originally posted by: The Keeper
Ubuntu allows you to upgrade to newer version without need for reinstall. However, you cannot skip releases that have been released in between. Eg, you can't upgrade from 7.10 to 8.10 without first upgrading to 8.04. However, if you stick with LTS releases you can upgrade from 6.06 LTS to 8.04 LTS and from 8.04 to whatever the next LTS release is. More information can be found from <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://help.ubuntu.com/">https://help.ubuntu.com/</a> and <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/">https://wiki.ubuntu.com/</a>

In this case it would be better for you to reformat and reinstall from a CD. If you have a separate home partition, you won't lose user files and settings, but you would need to reconfigure your server services.
Click to expand...

THanks for the info. Do you think an upgrade is worth it in terms of performance increase? All I am doing is running a samba server.
 
Unlikely you'd see any performance difference. But a standard non-LTS release is supported only up to 18 months, after that you won't get security updates. LTS releases are supported 36 months (desktop packages) and 60 months (server packages). I'd suggest you to use LTS releases which are released approximately once every two years. Then you don't need to worry about lacking security updates but don't have to keep upgrading Ubuntu every 18 months either.

And as Crusty mentioned, you can backup configuration files. I'd say chances for config files to work from previous versions (even if old) are pretty good.
 
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