You Can Now Upgrade Ubuntu 23.10 to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Here’s How
Dubbed Noble Numbat, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS introduces several new features and improvements, such as the Linux kernel 6.8 for better hardware support, the latest GNOME 46 desktop environment, a new Mesa graphics stack for better gaming, as well as some of the most recent GNU/Linux technologies.
Ubuntu 23.10 “Mantic Minotaur” was released on October 12th, 2023, and it’s only supported for nine months, until July 11th, 2024. Since this isn’t an LTS (Long Term Support) release, users might want to consider upgrading to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS as soon as possible, especially because it will be supported for the next five years.
OMG Ubuntu:
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Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Upgrades Now Officially Enabled - OMG! Ubuntu
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS released on April 25 but the distro devs delayed direct upgrades to the new version due to bugs – one rather serious. Though those issues weren’t universal (lots of folks upgraded through the command-line without issue) the risk was there.
Now that the necessary bugs have been nixed the official upgrade channel to the Noble Numbat has opened.
Canonical has added Ubuntu 24.04 LTS to the meta-release file that older versions of the distro probe to see if a new release is available.
The Register:
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Ubuntu 24.04 upgrades available – to Mantic users
It comes a bit later than usual, but if you are running Ubuntu 23.10 Mantic Minotaur, you should start seeing prompts to upgrade to the new release.
This isn't the first delay to hit this release. Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat came out at the end of April, after a short beta-test period that itself started late. Release of the beta was delayed by the xz library backdoor which hit at the end of March.
Noble is a long-term support release, which won't hit its end of life until June 2029, and as Canonical announced in March, it will get 12 years of updates rather than 10 – if users opt into Ubuntu Pro, that is.
If you're running the previous LTS, 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish, then you won't get nagged until the release of 24.04.1 which is expected in August. So, for now, the upgrade notifications only apply to October's Mantic Minotaur release. Canonical itself estimates that 95 percent of Ubuntu users run LTS releases, so most won't get offered updates just yet.