The Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS release arrived earlier this month but Ubuntu 18.04 LTS users are still waiting to be notified that the upgrade is available — so what gives?
Update: these issues holding back the upgrade have been resolved. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS users can now upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS directly.
If you check the “meta file” Ubuntu LTS releases use to ‘find’ new versions you’ll spot that it doesn’t (yet) include Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (though the recent 16.04.7 LTS and Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS releases are both present).
Is this omission a bug?
No; it turns out this is intentional.
Ubuntu’s Alan Pope says “…it’s common for us to hold back upgrades for a bit until we’re super confident people will get a good experience”.
And, in this instance, that’s exactly what they’re doing.
The specific reasons why 20.04.1 LTS isn’t yet considered to offer a “good experience”? It’s a GRUB related issue that “…which may lead to incompatible combination of [master boot record] and modules resulting in failure to boot.”
Since the bootloader is a critical area — it affects systems other than Ubuntu too — the wait is understandable.
Still, it is reassuring to know that the lack of update isn’t an error, oversight or an omission. Neither it rogue issue afflicting anyone’s system specifically. Still, for now fans of the Focal Fossa will need to wait before they can sample the release officially.
And if you don’t want to wait?
Well, you can still upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS from 18.04 LTS by running the do-release-upgrade -d command (the ‘d’ denoting ‘development’) from the command line and following the on-screen instructions but you SHOULD be aware that doing so may leave your system unable to boot.
Do you plan to patiently wait for an official upgrade? Or have you’ve already done it? Whatever your plans do share your thoughts down in the comments.
Thanks Tais & others