Ubuntu 25.10 ‘Questing Quokka’ released in October and if you’re running Ubuntu 25.04, you can — short delay now over — upgrade directly, no need to download an ISO and do a clean install.
As long as you’re up-to-date and connected to the internet, upgrading is straightforward.
Upgrading soon is a good idea because Ubuntu 25.04 only gets support until January 2026, at which point you will need to upgrade to 25.10 to continue receiving critical security patches and bug fixes.
Ubuntu 25.10 features GNOME 49, Linux kernel 6.17, new desktop apps and visual changes. But, rather importantly for anyone relying on it, no longer supports X11 desktop sessions (for GNOME). See our full feature overview for more details.
You’re here to find out how to upgrade to Ubuntu 25.10, so let’s get to it.
Before You Upgrade…
To upgrade to Ubuntu 25.10, you need to meet following requirements:
- Ubuntu 25.04 installed (not Ubuntu 24.10, 24.04, or earlier releases)
- All pending updates installed (run Software Updater to check)
- Active internet connection (upgrades download hundreds of packages)
- Enough free disk space (the upgrade process will check this)
You should back up any critical files, configs or settings before you begin. While upgrades are relatively uneventful, things can go wrong. If the upgrade fails and you’re unable to log in on your only machine, you’ll want those backups handy!
System requirements for Ubuntu 25.10 have not changed from 25.04, so as long as you have at least 4GB RAM, a 2 GHz dual-core processor (or better), a modern-ish GPU and enough disk space, you’re good to go.
Refer to the Ubuntu Help pages if you need more er, well, help.
Can I Upgrade from Ubuntu 24.04 LTS?
You cannot upgrade from Ubuntu 24.04 to 25.10 directly. You’d need to upgrade to 24.10 first, then to 25.04, and finally to 25.10.
It’d be less hassle to download an Ubuntu 25.10 ISO, flash it to a USB stick, and do a clean install (there’s a ‘replace’ option in the installer, but this will wipe and files and settings).
Some folks often ask which is better, to upgrade or do a clean install. It depends whether you prefer convenience (upgrading keeps your files, apps and settings) or having everything as Ubuntu intended (which a fresh install offers).
For most users on 25.04, upgrading is less hassle.
How to Upgrade Ubuntu 25.10
The easiest way to upgrade Ubuntu is to use the graphical (using a mouse to click buttons) interface, but you can use the command-line too (I’ll cover that in a moment).
For the GUI, you have two options:
- Wait for Ubuntu to notify you – a prompt will appear when the upgrade is available
- Manually check – open Software Updater and if will detect a new release
Both methods will use the same GUI upgrade assistant, with the same experience.
Start the upgrade
When you see the upgrade prompt appear (or Software Updater mentions it’s available), click the Upgrade button and follow the on-screen instructions.
A link the official release notes will be presented, which also documents any known issues. You’re encouraged to through those since they may highlight specific hardware issues or known software snags. If you’re happy to continue, proceed.
Next, the upgrade assistant compiles a list of packages that need to be installed, updated, or removed. You should review the list to see what’s being added or removed, then click Start Upgrade if you’re satisfied.
Note: If you have installed packages from PPAs or DEBs which are also in the Ubuntu repos, you may see a Foreign Packages Installed prompt. Either cancel the upgrade, remove the packages manually and try again, or agree to proceed.
Tip: Connect your laptop to its charger before starting if you’re upgrading because if your battery dies mid-upgrade, you could be left with an non-bootable system, which wouldn’t be fun!
The upgrade process is not wholly hands-off. You may need to confirm/deny replacing configuration files, restarting services or removing obsolete packages. Read those points carefully and action accordingly, as the upgrade won’t continue unless you do.
You can continue using Ubuntu during the upgrade process but will may experience crashes, graphical glitches and performance slowdowns as packages are unpacked and replaced. It is advisable to the upgrade do its thing.
How long does an Ubuntu upgrade take? It depends on the speed of your internet connection and, to a lesser degree, your system performance and disk speeds. It could be a speedy 10-15 minutes to more than an hour.
After everything is downloaded, unpacked, and installed you’ll be prompted to restart the system to complete the upgrade.
Do this immediately; don’t be tempted to keep working. Many of the new features, system services, and foundational changes in Ubuntu 25.10 won’t take effect until you reboot.
When your system boots back up, you’ll be running Ubuntu 25.10 ‘Questing Quokka’. You can log in with your existing account details and begin your own quest checking out the new apps, features and other improvements.
Upgrade Ubuntu from the command line
Prefer the terminal? You can upgrade Ubuntu from the command line too.
Open a terminal window and run:
sudo do-release-upgrade
This command checks the Ubuntu release server to see if a new release is officially available for upgrade. Now that 25.10 is ready for the masses, the terminal prints details about the release, and confirm that that you want to proceed.
If you do, type y and press enter.
Pay attention to everything shown on screen next as your current packages are checked, repos changed to point to the latest ones, an upgrade delta calculated, and a long, long list of packages to be added, upgraded and removed shown.
Only proceed if you’re happy with the proposed changes.
You could be asked to manually confirm overwriting or replacing certain packages or config files so watch the terminal output carefully to respond to any prompts as, until you do, the upgrade will be paused.
Once everything completes, you’ll be asked to reboot.
Once your system restarts, you can log in to the Questing Quokka using your existing user account and begin exploring the (many) changes it brings!
What Happens to Third-Party Repos?
Ubuntu disables third-party PPAs, APT repos and other software sources during the upgrade process. This prevents conflicts with non-standard packages that may not be compatible with the new release.
After upgrading, you will need to re-enable those sources yourself (but only if they support Ubuntu 25.10, of course). You can do this easily, using the Software & Updates utility.
Ubuntu 25.10 switches to a new terminal and image viewer, but updating will not uninstall the “old” ones, so you’ll find both installed (they use different icons and names, so you won’t be confused about which is which).
Foundational changes like Dracut, Chrony with NTS and the new Rust-based coreutils implemented in Rust will not apply on upgraded systems (swapping out critical elements has the potential for breaking workflows), but you will get the new Rust-based sudo.
And that’s it! Upgrading to Ubuntu 25.10 from Ubuntu 25.04 is a straightforward process that (mostly) handles everything itself. As long as you take your time and read any dialogs and action prompts carefully, it should all be good.
If the upgrade appears to hang or freeze you should be patient as some steps (especially “Preparing to unpack” phases) can take several minutes with no visible progress — especially if your disk isn’t the fastest or prone to slow-downs under heavy writes.
Don’t force quit the upgrade process unless it’s clear something has failed. If you do need to abort, reboot and run sudo dpkg --configure -a followed by sudo apt --fix-broken install to try and fix any broken packages, then attempt to upgrade again.