How to upgrade Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Desktop

Ubuntu 22.04 with the codename Jammy Jellyfish was officially released on 21.04.22 and is now ready for you to upgrade it. If you are still using Ubuntu 18.04, you should check out this guide on how to update Ubuntu 18.04 to Ubuntu 20.04 first, before proceeding with this guide.

This tutorial shows you how to upgrade from your Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop version via the Ubuntu desktop software manager.

If you wish to update your ubuntu server or prefer the command line you can check out our other guide how to update Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.04 using cli .

Whats new on Ubuntu 22.04 #

With the final release of Ubuntu 22.04, there comes a long term release with continued support for up to 5 years. Has lots of new features and a lot of differences compared to the last LTS release from Ubuntu. Some of the key features in short:

• better Wayland support
• GNOME 42
• PHP v.8.1, Ruby 3.0, Python3.10 and OpenJDK 18 out of the box
• nftables now the default firewall backend (replacing the iptables)
• RDP instead of VNC

and many more features.

Upgrading Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.04 using the Software Manager #

If you want to update your Ubuntu 20.04 before the release of Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (release date around August 2022), we need to update to 21.10 first before we can start the upgrade process for the newest LTS release.

Upgrading to Ubuntu 21.10 #

Step 1) Open Software Manager #

First of all, you need to open the software updater the best way to do this is through the application menu. Simply go into the search bar and type: software updater.

Step 2) Install all available updates  #

Next you should install all available updates by clicking on the install now button. You will be prompted for your password, after you have entered the password, the software manager will start installing the updates. Once updated you may need to restart your computer. If you are prompted to restart your computer do so.

Step 3) Change the Upgrade Notifications in update settings #

Open the Software & Updates Settings by pressing the Windows Key and searching for Software & Updates in the searchbar.

Click on the third tab “Updates” and change the last option “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” from Long-term support versions to for any new updates.

You will be prompted to type in your password. When finished close the window.

Step 4) Start the upgrade process #

In order to start upgrading your Ubuntu, you need to open the Software updater again. This time you will be able to upgrade your system. Click on Upgrade and follow the instructions.

Upgrading to Ubuntu 22.04 #

In order to upgrade from a fresh upgraded Ubuntu 21.10, we can just open the Software updater again install all latest updates and then upgrade to Ubuntu 22.04. The steps are similar to the steps we used to update to 21.10.

Step 1) Open Software Manager #

We open the software manager again, at this point the software should already be up to date. If not, make sure you install all available updates as we did in the upgrade process before.

Step 2) Start the upgrade process #

Again we can simply start the upgrading process by clicking on Upgrade to Ubuntu 22.04

Confirm Upgrade #

After the update is finished, we can confirm the upgraded Ubuntu version with the following command:

cat /etc/os-release

The ouput should now look like this:

NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="22.04 LTS (Jelly Fish)
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian

Conclusion #

Upgrading Ubuntu is a very easy and straighforward task. On the destkop we can luckily just use the GUI to do so. If you are planning to upgrade your Ubuntu servers, you can check out the guide here. If you have any questions, feel free to use the comment section down below.